Update #2 - Yes, Patch 4.0.6 is next week, stop asking.




Luck of the Draw Buff
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
In case you aren't already aware, Luck of the Draw is the name of the buff you get for grouping with random people using Dungeon Finder. It currently provides a 5% buff to damage, healing, and health if you have at least one random player in your group. With patch 4.0.6, we are increasing this buff to 5% damage, healing, and health per random player, up to a maximum of 15%.

In the process of working on this change we actually discovered that the Luck of the Draw buff has not been working in Cataclysm at all, save for a few specific dungeons. This means that the difficulty in almost all normal and Heroic dungeons for those using the Dungeon Finder tool was higher than expected. Still, with that issue corrected in 4.0.6, we feel the bump up to 15% for three or more random players found through the Dungeon Finder is a necessary change.

The intent of Luck of the Draw is to help make up for the lack of coordination, communication, and familiarity that pick up groups suffer relative to organized groups of guild members and friends. Cataclysm dungeons, especially on Heroic mode, are quite challenging and ask for more group organization than the Wrath of the Lich King dungeons did. Therefore, Luck of the Draw became relatively weaker in Cataclysm. I'm painting the picture with unfairly large brush strokes here, but in general, Heroic dungeons are of appropriate difficulty for organized groups, but just brutal on Dungeon Finder groups. Players wonder, and rightly so, why Dungeon Finder supports Cataclysm Heroic dungeons at all when the chance of success is so low.

We think buffing Luck of the Draw is a good way to go about correcting the difficulty differences because it makes things slightly easier on PUGs without depriving the organized groups of a fun challenge. We also think the bonus is modest enough that it won't encourage organized groups to split up and just PUG instead - - the success rate for PUGs relative to organized groups is just that far behind. We still think you'll have more fun and a greater chance of success running dungeons with friends, but when that isn’t possible, we hope this change will make Dungeon Finder a more pleasant experience. Also remember that patch 4.0.6 is adjusting the difficulty of some bosses that are particularly unforgiving, such as Ozruk in Heroic Stonecore, though to be fair, we are buffing some underperforming encounters as well. In addition, we are offering larger Justice Point rewards for players who just prefer the faster pace and greater success rate of normal dungeons, and by the time 4.1 comes out everyone will have access to more powerful gear, making the older content even easier. But then there'll be new challenges to face!

We'd like to thank everyone who has provided us with feedback. We do listen, even if we don't immediately deploy every design change suggested by the player community. Our intent is to make the game fun for a wide variety of players, which can be quite a challenge when you have a community this large and this varied. We hope you continue to enjoy the game, and look forward to sharing more changes (and a few surprises) in the months ahead.

-Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street is the lead systems designer for World of Warcraft and was attacked by a coati as a child. (True story.)

All Rated Battleground Weeks Now 10v10
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
We’re in the process of developing a hotfix to push before next Tuesday that will change all 15vs15 rated battleground weeks into 10vs10 weeks.

Looking at participation, the 10vs10 rated battleground weeks have been far and away more popular than the 15vs15 weeks. The difference in organizational requirements as well as battleground map popularity have been a couple big factors that have led to the 10vs10 weeks seeing a great deal more action. By making this change and supporting the popular option we hope to encourage even more players and teams to participate, as they won’t have to wait out every other week, or struggle to beef up to 15 players to match the requirement.

We also have plans to adapt additional battleground maps in the future to work in the 10 player bracket to increase the variety of maps available.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Luck of the Draw Buff started by Boubouille View original post
Comments 559 Comments
  1. Harith's Avatar
    this nerf on HC sucks but i see the reason to why they wanted it done that way sens, then ppl will want to go 2 ppl to get the full benefit of the buff meaning you can't just kick ppl sens they can need on the same loot.

    but i really think blizzard made a big misstake here and this is not the way to fix both the issues of 3 out 5 group kicking ppl sens they can need on items you need and casuals finding HCs to hard
  1. Miku's Avatar
    Why would they buff pugs and not guild groups, blizz. Sigh. Seriously? Sigh. You make an expansion where you talk about how everyones gonna need to be in guilds and guild groups and you make people work together to get guild bonuses and 2 months later penalize people who are in guild groups? Fail. Total Fail. D: There goes CCing as well, why CC when we have a 15% buff on? Actually, I'm starting to think this whole ICC buff thing is going to ruin wow =| First ICC was made a joke, now heroics(but only if you pug.), who wants to bet 2-3 months from now we will be seeing a 20ish% buff in BwD and BoT? =|
  1. Shamslam's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Bluenose View Post
    Highlighted the important part, You really have done very little heroics and can't really comment on the state of them.

    I've now geared 3 characters and 5 different specs through heroics and the amount of bad healers, bad dps or low hp tanks is quite astonishing.

    This buff should go a long way to making up for the extremely bad players.
    No, it won't. At all. The biggest failing point is people who get hit by Blitz, people who get tethered to the fire ele and just stand there, people who don't avoid the AoE's that will kill you...giving them 15% more damage won't save them from being stupid. At most it will make the competent ones 15% better, so you can just start 4 manning heroics and let the morons stay dead.

    And please for the love of god people...this is in no way a hardcore vs. casual debate. These are friggin 5 mans. There is nothing hardcore about them. Just because you are unfortunate enough to pug morons (or maybe are one yourself, /shrug) does not mean the rest of us are "hardcores." It doesn't make you a "casual" because you struggle with 5 mans. My guild raids 2 hours a week and still has killed bosses. *That's* casual.
  1. Pumps's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by fulfill_your_destiny View Post
    Agreed with coar. This really wasn't needed.
    Given that so few people were doing it that you get hour long LFG queues, it might very well be needed. Now people are going to give dungeons a try once more.
  1. Deathsenemy's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Kev111 View Post
    Really Blizz? Cater to the casuals again and ruin Cataclysm. Thanks bros.
    No offense, but im sure 12 of the 15 million subs are "casual". I ask you, as a business, who would you listen too? I dont like the nerf either, but its the "smart" thing to do for blizz to cater to the "casual".
  1. Khazzeron's Avatar
    Don't matter to me but my alts will appreciate it late late or early morning when not running guild groups. Heroics should take 30-40 min max...not 3 hours in random pugs.
  1. Miku's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Gahgoots View Post
    Good news. Finally cut down on the time it takes to run instances, since I work full time and can't play 8 hours a day like all the "hardcore" players.
    QQ? My GF works weekends, and goes to school full time and she still finds time to gear up and even do raids with me. And as it is now you only need about 1 hour of free time to do a heroic, if you don't have 1 hour of free time a week you shouldn't be playing wow.
  1. Nest's Avatar
    Blizzard really went the easy way on "fixing" this.
  1. vinnyboombat's Avatar
    As tank... regardless if the dungeon is easy or not, I still insist that the PuG's I tank for CC. At least at the start of a run. I tell them "We'll start using CC. Show me that you're capable and we'll step up the pace based on the groups healing, dps and knowledge".

    And I have gotten booted from a few PuG's because of it. Which is funny because I go into another instantly, and they'll wait for a tank.


    I've no problem with the change one way or another. I think it will help heroic PuGs a bunch.
  1. Bluenose's Avatar
    Most of the heroics are getting nerfed in one way or other with this patch.

    That combined with luck of the draw should make it close to faceroll.
  1. Charsi's Avatar
    Coming soon to your local 5 man pug:

    Strength of Wrynn / Hellscream's Warsong
  1. mmoc6025b804ec's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Flummox View Post

    "THEY BUFFT PUGS? I RUN ALL MY HEROIX WITH GUILDIEZ AND IM OUTRAGED! OUTRAGED!"
    I lol'd
  1. Firience's Avatar
    violence doesn't solve things , QQ does
  1. kduv889's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by adam86shadow View Post
    Who really cares? If the heroics were already too easy then shouldn't you all be raiding now? If so how will this affect you?
    quoted for truth.
  1. mmocb0c4723cc6's Avatar
    In the process of working on this change we actually discovered that the Luck of the Draw buff has not been working in Cataclysm at all, save for a few specific dungeons. This means that the difficulty in almost all normal and Heroic dungeons for those using the Dungeon Finder tool was higher than expected. Still, with that issue corrected in 4.0.6, we feel the bump up to 15% for three or more random players found through the Dungeon Finder is a necessary change.


    Wow, didnt staff say that they would NOT be nerfing anything in cataclysm???
    This is ridiculous......

    this is gonna be exactly like wotlk, people complaining that everything is to hard... START USING YOUR FUCKING BRAIN AND DONT WHINE AT FORUM THAT IT'S TO HARD! ITS NOT!.

    atleast ppl with a brain think not.............
  1. Duster505's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by greyghost View Post
    Because you have access to so many subscription numbers, right?

    Any people that actually 'left' due to 'dungeons being hard' are the same groups of people who would come running back right at a content patch because the old teir of gear got moved to the dungeon level badge vendor.

    Shit like that does not change after 5 years.
    Ppl dont leave because things are hard or easy ... they leave because the GAME isn't fun. Most ppl dont even bother to say goodbye. There was a big group of old players counting on LFD to be able to give them more casual friendly enviroment. Instead they got a 5 man version of hell with 30 mins waiting time. 5 years of game - ppl taking a second look ... finding out the truth - and then dont bother. This is something that Blizzard doesn't need stats to show... Everyone knows this by now.
  1. terrih91's Avatar
    to those saying free loot for everyone. please quit your bitching its fucking blues. the most they can get out of it is 70 valor pts a day u figure a peice of tier is 2200 thats almost a month of heroics for legs or a chest... and u all are complaining becuase joe shmo is gonna have one peice of epic gear a month? lets be real here guys ur not complaining about other people getting loot ur more worried that they can get stuff done and u wont look like a badass cuz u did content (heroics mind you ooooooooooooo so hard) before they did because you play the game more than they do. please for the sake of argument think for a second guys.
  1. kduv889's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nest View Post
    Blizzard really went the easy way on "fixing" this.
    this is a temp fix and by all means they can remove the buff once they find a fix for the DFT so that groups are more appropriately formed. this is NOT an End All change.
  1. Xenryusho's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Kev111 View Post
    Really Blizz? Cater to the casuals again and ruin Cataclysm. Thanks bros.
    Oh yes because having to carry three dps pull under 3k and a healer who moves to stand in every fire and walks into explosions is TOTALLY what heroics are supposed to be like...

    Every time I tried to pug it would be the same thing. They don't know what CC is. Sometimes they'd pull under 1k dps ("JUST /kick THEM " unfortunately it doesn't work when three of them are from the same server). They stand in fire, and fml, that boss in grim batol. Possibly one of the easier bosses in all heroics, they'd die every single attempt, taking two...three..four firebombs to the face. No matter how far I got the boss from the fire bombs spawn before it came out. Despite whether or not I'd charge away and stun it before intercepting back. No matter how hard I pushed the perfect rotation I can not carry that many idiots.


    The "casuals" make up like 95% of the players. They pay 95% of the subscriptions. Should they not be allowed to play endgame?
    No.. Casuals DO see endgame. They played hard modes and beat them eventually. They just do it after the hardcores because they don't play 7 hour raids 5 times a week to clear new content the moment it's released. Casuals do not need a buff.
    Casuals do make up 95% of the subs. Hardcores 3%. But the ones who get carried hardcore through everything, need that 30% buff to deal 5k dps a frost DK in AoE, and stand in fires are only 2% of the subs.
  1. Eace's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Adeleina View Post
    So now, folks, we learned that making things hard and nerfing them right after by 15% is a great idea.

    Also, punishing people for playing with people they know and like to play with is great idea. 15% less for them, I say! Stupid socializers...

    Anyway, back to thoughtless grind of heroics... 15% faster thoughtless grind inc...

    Grinding easy stuff is fun!

    ^ That was all sarcasm, in case someone didn't notice.
    I doubt that their intent was to punish playing with friends/guildies, but to encourage players to use the dungeon finder tool more to reduce the time in the queues.

    And honestly, I don't understand what difference does it make if heroics get "nerfed". First of all, raids won't get nerfed (which are the main PvE content imo). And you already complain that they are too easy, so does it really matter if they make them even more easy? It's not that big a "nerf" (or a buff, whichever floats your boat) after all. Secondly, I personally tend to meet a lot of 5k dps people, so for me the "nerf" is more than welcome. In addition, there are already people that do the heroics for valor points only, so in the end this "huge nerf to PvE" is pretty meaningless.

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