Did GC really just say Cata Heroics were hard?

[Osmeric]

there was a loss of 600k subs

And then a loss of 300K subs, and then (in Q3) when Cata released in China, a loss of another ~500K subs there.

they nerfed them, make them accessible and subs kept on going down.

The nerfs were insufficient. But when the much easier last tier heroics came out, subs stabilized for six months.

[Deleted]

At the start of the expansion I really enjoyed tanking Heroics on my warrior, but only when in Guild group. With guild group they were somewhat challenging and sure we wiped few times but overall after running the dungeon once there were hardly no wipes next time, only when someone did something really stupid.

PuG groups on the other hand. Oh god it was horrible. Even after carefully explaining tactics before boss and clearly marking and telling who should CC what and what you should look out for there was always at least one guy who didn't listen and died or in worst case wiped the group. I remember this one mage who only spammed Blizzard on every pack ever, breaking CC and wiping the group three times in a row. I think in 10 PuG groups only two were able to complete the instance, even then we had to swap people in middle of the instance. Now this was of course in the beginning of the expansion, later on it was almost the same as WoTLK heroics.

Now that my realm is dead and there's only few active guys in my guild I much prefer MoP heroics. Now, if I had people to play with I'd prefer harder heroics but I don't think Blizzard will go that route again.

[syphil]

I was a priest at the start of Cata. I was constantly abused by randoms for being a "nub scrub healer who can't heal" because DPS weren't interrupting, or the tank was trying to chain pull.

Oh god, I just had those memories rush back to me. I dinged 85 on my priest in the wee hours of the morning. I was able to gear up rather quickly through quest rewards, Crucible group, and crafted items. I jumped into LFD and was absolute denigrated by the players during any wipe. Group wasn't using CC, wasn't interrupting, wasn't focusing down a mob ("everyone AoE lol!"); tank was getting stomped; mana running low... and this was just on trash packs.

I think I did less than 6 LFD dungeons. From there on out, I stuck with guild groups. Hell if I was going to go through that again.

Leveled to 90 during MoP, queued into an LFD 5-man, got Shado-Pan Monastery. Oh god, I had to relive it all again. The abuse started during the wipes on the Sha of Violence. Group got to Taran Zhu and the tank was constantly getting hit with Sha Blasts and knocked into the Malice Rings; the DPS never never swapped targets to the add spawns, and... every wipe was my fault. One of them finally suggested killing the adds, and I whispered to the tank to try to avoid getting knocked back into the bad stuff on the ground, and we were able to get through it. But that soured me to LFD again. I don't have the patience to carry people I don't know through mechanics and then being berated if I fall short.

Been spending the rest of MoP in guild groups.

[Ronduwil]

i did them in green/blues (329 ilvel was not full blues) as protection warrior. then again, group usually think twice before kicking a tank (the light of dawn title under my name helped too ). A couple of pack later, they clearly saw i could handle my warrior.

How many healers were kicked because you failed to properly tank Ozruk? That's the true measure of the heroics' actual difficulty. Then again, even if you had perfectly tanked him the ranged players would have been paralyzed through half the fight if they didn't apply their DoTs at the right time.

[El_Diabl0]

The nerfs were insufficient. But when the much easier last tier heroics came out, subs stabilized for six months.

Annual pass + LFR.

[Osmeric]

Annual pass + LFR.

Those certainly contributed (particularly LFR), but there wasn't a sudden mass exodus from the game due to easy five mans.

[lunchbox2042]

They weren't difficult so much as unforgiving for players who were used to running around aoeing everything like in Wrath. CC and focus single target are apparently difficult for the average player these days yet had these been the heroics that were around prior to lfd, they would have been fine.

[Ronduwil]

Oh god, I just had those memories rush back to me. I dinged 85 on my priest in the wee hours of the morning. I was able to gear up rather quickly through quest rewards, Crucible group, and crafted items. I jumped into LFD and was absolute denigrated by the players during any wipe. Group wasn't using CC, wasn't interrupting, wasn't focusing down a mob ("everyone AoE lol!"); tank was getting stomped; mana running low... and this was just on trash packs.

This was my experience as a shadow priest too. They eventually fixed the problem, but it was a little too late. A DPS caster class shouldn't be able to OOM a quarter through the fight, especially not when they are consciously keeping their mana-regen abilities on cool down. To prevent players from spamming OP skills then jack up their cool down, but the skills I was using weren't particularly OP to begin with. Combine that with the fact that the class's long-term CC only worked on undead and you had a recipe for being kicked all the time.

[Deleted]

How many healers were kicked because you failed to properly tank Ozruk? That's the true measure of the heroics' actual difficulty. Then again, even if you had perfectly tanked him the ranged players would have been paralyzed through half the fight if they didn't apply their DoTs at the right time.

Once the tank knew when to move to dodge the cone attack and the quake thingy, it wasn't really an issue. As long as you had one competent (as in not taking damage) dps you could from the start 3 man it.

Did I wipe on this boss? Hell ye on all 3 specs and also to my own faults. But that's not a measurement of hard. If you never wipe (wotlk), then it's a measurement of too easy.

[El_Diabl0]

Those certainly contributed (particularly LFR), but there wasn't a sudden mass exodus from the game due to easy five mans.

I don't know about everyone else, but I hated the 4.3 heroic dungeons. They were way too easy and I found them really boring. The only reason I didn't cancel my subscription after 4.3 was the annual pass and because I was looking forward to Diablo III.

I tanked them a number of times -- as blood DK -- in DPS gear and got kicked only once, and not because I was taking too much damage or because I was making the healer's life harder, but because one of the DPS said it was inappropriate for me to be tanking in DPS gear (my tanking gear was gathering dust in the bank). And he only noticed I was in DPS gear because of my DPS. Before I was kicked I asked the healer if I was taking too much damage he said no and that he didn't even notice I was in DPS gear.

[HeedmySpeed]

Those certainly contributed (particularly LFR), but there wasn't a sudden mass exodus from the game due to easy five mans.

300K subs vs 1.3M subs???? How's that not a max exodus?

[Vankrys]

I dinged 85 on my priest ... I jumped into LFD .... mana running low...

i see what happened. There are times i think blizz had the right idea in BC with reputation and attunement.

[Ronduwil]

Once the tank knew when to move to dodge the cone attack and the quake thingy, it wasn't really an issue. As long as you had one competent (as in not taking damage) dps you could from the start 3 man it.

Did I wipe on this boss? Hell ye on all 3 specs and also to my own faults. But that's not a measurement of hard. If you never wipe (wotlk), then it's a measurement of too easy.

But when night after night you see group after group fall apart because one player (the tank) fails to grasp the fight's mechanics, it's a measurement of too hard. I understand that if three people derp the group should wipe (and that's where MoP fails), but the entire group shouldn't be repeatedly punished because of one person's failure either. That's what made those fights (and heroic raids) so frustrating.

[Toothy]

I switched to resto on my Shaman main just before cataclysm. I rather enjoyed them as they weren't that taxing if you had a group that was geared, through normals, and specced correctly.

The issue was too many were stuck in the mentally of the previous ICC hcs which were easily steam rolled. The only fight we found difficulty was Commander Springvale. I remember our first kill and it felt awesome having that cape as it gave me a small sense of achievement. The heroics were hard but they were meant to be exactly like that. Once you had raid gear, the heroics weren't any issue even with pugs.

[K i s u]

At the very start they were very hard but like everything else they got nerfed and scaled horribly with the rising gear levels plus remember the awful regen problems my priest had.

[Osmeric]

300K subs vs 1.3M subs???? How's that not a max exodus?

I'm talking about the last three heroics in Cataclysm.

[HeedmySpeed]

I'm talking about the last three heroics in Cataclysm.

But didn't LFR come out with those too?

[Vankrys]

How many healers were kicked because you failed to properly tank Ozruk? That's the true measure of the heroics' actual difficulty. Then again, even if you had perfectly tanked him the ranged players would have been paralyzed through half the fight if they didn't apply their DoTs at the right time.

ozruk was my favorite boss, very demanding on the tank, fun fun fun
i did failed a few times obviously, then learn from my mistake and neve failed again.
and i never ever kicked anyone in my groups for their gameplay, even some incredibly bad. i have a lot of patience, wipes is an entire part of the game, i have accepted it.

i had one group kick me once on my hunter, accusing me on pulling instead of the tank. Apparently they never heard of misdirection.

[The Penguin]

I think iam kind of at a loss here. I find it hard to believe that he actually thinks they were 'hard'.

By the middle/end of the expansion I remember steamrolling them like any other heroic dungeon. At the beginning of the expansion they were a little difficult, required some CC but thats about it.

By the middle of the expansion people were so geared that you could just pull 3-4 groups like a normal dungeon.

I fail to ever see this point that he claims where heroics dungeons were really THAT hard to accomplish. Maybe its just me though.....

A lot of the flack Ghostcrawler gets, and the perception that Cataclysm was the worst expansion; was justifiably earned during 4.0-4.1. Dungeons were hard because CC was necessary, few understood it, and Healer Mana had been gutted horrifically. Healer's had a legitimate gripe because they could not heal through stupid, and on wipes people always would go. "Wtf heals"?


3 dps + 1 Tank Vote Kick for a new healer, because the old one "sucked" and the cycle continued.

[Chrysia]

But didn't LFR come out with those too?

It doesn't matter. The 1.3m sub loss didn't come in the patch with LFR either, it came after 2 quarters of nothing but DS.