Raid Balancing Concern

#1 - Feb. 27, 2013, 1:24 p.m.
Blizzard Post
After last night's raid... I really must question what the content designers were thinking, specifically in regards to balancing encounters.

Our raid group is currently 6/6 MSV, 4/6 HoF... and now 1/4 in Terrace. We might be further along, but we have a hard time fielding a consistent raid group. That's all find and dandy. We struggled on a few fights (Garalon and Elegon), but that's to okay and actually... its expected. I welcome some more challenging fights.

So last night after clearing MSV to try and gear up our new monk... we had 40 minutes left over. We were about to call it when our raid leader says "Screw this guys, let's hit up Terrace". Normally we couldn't even access it (we're only 4/6 HoF after all). But our raid leader HAS cleared HoF with other guilds on off nights, and apparently that gives us the key to the door. Woot!

So we go into Terrace and clear trash.... and the first boss. On "elite mode". In three attempts (two real attempts... our first one doesn't really count, IMO). Which leads me to my question:
Why is it that the easiest boss thus far in this entire tier of raids, even when it is completed on the 'elite' difficult, the 13th boss?

Why is this boss substantially easier than anything in MSV? I'm not talking about a little easier... I'm talking a massive leap from reasonably challenging encounters to raid finder-esque difficulty. We put almost zero effort at all, with our only wipes caused entirely by never seeing the mechanics before. On the next attempt, we had absolutely no issue dealing with them. This boss is entirely faceroll and it is almost insulting to find this type of loot sack encounter hidden away as the 13th boss of the tier.

Is this simply a reward for people who clear HoF? Is it Blizzard apologizing for the 'hard' content before hand and simple wanting to hand away free 503 loot to everyone just for being able to zone into this raid? Was the team responsible for balancing encounters simply drunk and/or high that day?

Or was it possible that we somehow had the raid finder difficulty scaled down to 10 man? That's what it felt like...

I don't get it.
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Community Manager
#22 - Feb. 27, 2013, 5:28 p.m.
Blizzard Post
I'm not sure if this will answer your question or not, but Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas did a blog not long ago about encounter tuning. It may provide some insight for you even if it may not answer your specific question. http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/8445111

Beyond encounter design, there is also a story involved and a progression of how we see players going through the various encounters.