Nerfs.

For everyone reading, this is in reference to: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/4326384/Dragon_Soul_Difficulty_Changes-1_18_2012#blog

Believe it or not there are actually guilds and raiding groups that are attempting to progress through Normal and Heroic raids, but are hitting a wall, and have been hitting a wall. We have actual statistical data we base our changes on, we know exactly how many people are clearing these raids each week, we know exactly how many people are able to down just a few bosses, and how many were only able to down a few bosses every week for weeks on end and then stopped raiding altogether.

The issue we're constantly trying to combat is the one where people feel like they're just out of options. One way this is an issue is the content is too easy, they blasted through it, have everything they could possibly want, and have nothing else to do. Ideally that's a small subset of very hardcore players. For everyone else it's a feeling of just being stuck with no possible way to progress. Very few players are willing to suit up, buff up, do all the necessary requirements to raid, jump in, and then do no better than they did last week for hours and hours, only to return next week and do the same.

If a guild doesn't want the help, they're free to opt out of the buff. For those that do it's an approximate 5% change, which is pretty minor, and we expect it to be about a month before we raise it another 5%. This first change will absolutely help the guilds that are just barely sc@%#!*# by, or just need a tiny bump to cross the next hurdle, but it's just not logical to exclaim that someone will roll into Raid Finder, grab a couple items, then be looting Heroic Deathwing's corpse the next night.

We feel the content has been out for quite a while now, that most people who have progressed and downed Deathwing on Heroic have done so, they've had sufficient time to celebrate in their accomplishments, and these very small progressive alterations will only help guilds that are already doing well in the raid get over some hurdles they may be facing.

01/18/2012 07:00 PMPosted by Zarynia

Believe it or not there are actually guilds and raiding groups that are attempting to progress through Normal and Heroic raids, but are hitting a wall, and have been hitting a wall.

Call the news! People are having the same thing that happened to every raiding guild before them. You burn through the wall by getting better.

All it takes is a moment to step back, assess the entire landscape of humanity, and realize that not everyone is like you, nor should they have to be.

All it takes is a moment to step back, assess the entire landscape of humanity, and realize that not everyone is like you, nor should they have to be.

If they don't have to be like us, why do they have to have nerfs to get to our position in HM Raiding?

I don't know, man. How is it good for the game to have 1% of players parading around for months and months and a 99% sitting around with nothing to do because they're sick and tired of wiping?

Your solution is "Well then they should get better or quit." and that's just not reasonable for a video game comprised of millions of people looking to just have some fun. It's still a computer game.

I don't think that saying 'they should get better or quit' is a reasonable solution at any point at all.

I am kind of confused though. We have LFR for DS, we have Normal, and we have Heroic. At what point do you look at a situation and say "Alright, this needs a nerf" when there's already a lower difficulty available?

If there's a easy, normal, and hard difficulty, why tweak normal until it becomes as easy as the easy mode?

Well the nerfs are going to be progressive enough, as I said, I don't see a 5% change being a big enough change for Raid Finder players to suddenly start clearing Normal. We also don't know where we'll end up. We plan to increase the spell by 5% about every month, but we're not sure if we'll need to. If we see a lot of people able to keep progressing and downing bosses, maybe 5% is all we need. It's going to be watching completion numbers and seeing where that gets us. We're not assuming we'll need to go as far as we did with ICC. It's not going to be automatic, our hand is on the dial.

01/18/2012 07:16 PMPosted by Deneb

So basically 5% starting off just like ICC and every month after that another 5% up till we hit 35% which according to wowhead appears to be the cap. So thats like what 7-8 more months at least of Cataclysm with no new content.

The increase is not automatic or set in its frequency. We will be manually controlling when it increases, if at all. It will be completely based on how many people we see able to complete the raid, and our decision to increase it or not.