How would you like to handle the "gap" between LFR and Normal raiding?

[Deleted]

So, if we ignore the difficult content, the game is easy? Brilliant observation sir!

There soon are no people to enjoy the difficult content, because they are dumbing down the content where you should be learning your class and basic mechanics. There's less and less motivation to get better. HC progress guilds are already complaining how difficult it is to find competent recruits. Not many new players or returning old players care to get into raiding because face the facts, LFR gear is not much worse than normal gear. The problem is the lack of motivation. Heck, you can complete the legendary quest chain in LFR. That's just wrong.

E: The gap is there, but nerfing normals or making LFR harder are not the answers. There should be more motivation to move from LFR to normal and then to HC. Firstly, LFR gear should never have higher ilvl than previous tier's normal gear. Top of that, maybe make an end boss or even wing end bosses not available in LFR. Currently new player's personal PvE progress is: Level to cap. Reach ilvl to 5 mans. Reach ilvl to LFR. Complete all LFR and see the content. Ask yourself if you want to get dedicated to see higher numbers. That's pretty much it.

[Osmeric]

There soon are no people to enjoy the difficult content, because they are dumbing down the content where you should be learning your class and basic mechanics. There's less and less motivation to get better. HC progress guilds are already complaining how difficult it is to find competent recruits. Not many new players or returning old players care to get into raiding because face the facts, LFR gear is not much worse than normal gear. The problem is the lack of motivation. Heck, you can complete the legendary quest chain in LFR. That's just wrong.

Alternately, people don't actually want difficult content, and are expressing that preference. Your panties are in a knot because people aren't being forced to play the game you personally would prefer.

Your notion, that any significant number of customers would be molded into the kind of hardcore player you want them to be, is not grounded in reality. Incentives can, to some extent, shape behaviors, but they do not shape preferences.

But this exchange shows what "a game has been dumbed down" really means -- it means a game that has any easy content at all. Those making that complaint want a game that is hardcore, and only hardcore. As such, we can recognize these complaints as so detached from any real possibility of action that they can be safely ignored.

[RickJamesLich]

There soon are no people to enjoy the difficult content, because they are dumbing down the content where you should be learning your class and basic mechanics. There's less and less motivation to get better. HC progress guilds are already complaining how difficult it is to find competent recruits. Not many new players or returning old players care to get into raiding because face the facts, LFR gear is not much worse than normal gear. The problem is the lack of motivation. Heck, you can complete the legendary quest chain in LFR. That's just wrong.

E: The gap is there, but nerfing normals or making LFR harder are not the answers. There should be more motivation to move from LFR to normal and then to HC. Firstly, LFR gear should never have higher ilvl than previous tier's normal gear. Top of that, maybe make an end boss or even wing end bosses not available in LFR. Currently new player's personal PvE progress is: Level to cap. Reach ilvl to 5 mans. Reach ilvl to LFR. Complete all LFR and see the content. Ask yourself if you want to get dedicated to see higher numbers. That's pretty much it.

Definitely agree, LFR has made it so you have to be really careful whom you invite to your guild. This problem has always existed, but LFR essentially makes people worse because it encourages you to do things like stand in the bad or leave your computer entirely during the middle of a boss. This is really a L2P issue, blizz pretty much set up the game so guys that have no business raiding expect to get a full set of epics, 4 piece tier, and a weapon without much difficulty, and now those same guys are bored, but they still don't want a real challenge.

[Spl4sh3r]

For the threads topic question I would say, I wouldn't do anything. The main reason there is a gap is that most of the time in LFR you just run in and pull the boss and follow the crowd and just learn by doing. While in Normal mode you actually read up on tactics before and watch videos and such to learn the fights. Or you have a good raid leader who explain the do's and don't of a fight

What I am saying that most people that try Normal mode and fail it is because they haven't learned enough for the fight, or they haven't learned enough of their class, or lastly they are just undergeared for it.

[RickJamesLich]

But this exchange shows what "a game has been dumbed down" really means -- it means a game that has any easy content at all. Those making that complaint want a game that is hardcore, and only hardcore. As such, we can recognize these complaints as so detached from any real possibility of action that they can be safely ignored.

There's a big difference between easy content, and content where you don't even have to be at your computer to complete it. WoW has always had some level of easy content, but now easy content has pretty much taken over every aspect of the game aside from certain aspects of raiding.

[Pua]

From Ghostcrawler himself:

"Back during Molten Core there wasn't much going on in raids, making fights simpler and character optimization wasn't as big as it is now. Now fights have more mechanics to go with the new tools and more sophisticated players."

Seems like we can put the argument that "the game's no harder than before" safely to bed, and not before time.

It was asinine.

[Osmeric]

WoW has always had some level of easy content, but now easy content has pretty much taken over every aspect of the game aside from certain aspects of raiding.

Given the tiny fraction of the player population doing normal (and even more so, heroic) raids, why should it be otherwise? Be thankful you're getting what you're getting; you probably are getting more than your share of the developer effort still.

[Pua]

There's a big difference between easy content, and content where you don't even have to be at your computer to complete it. WoW has always had some level of easy content, but now easy content has pretty much taken over every aspect of the game aside from certain aspects of raiding.

I've disagreed with most of your commentary, but you're right here and it's contributing to the problem; everything in the game is easy until you hit normal raids.

[Deleted]

From Ghostcrawler himself:

"Back during Molten Core there wasn't much going on in raids, making fights simpler and character optimization wasn't as big as it is now. Now fights have more mechanics to go with the new tools and more sophisticated players."

Seems like we can put the argument that "the game's no harder than before" safely to bed, and not before time.

It was asinine.

and you know what's funny? I improved over the time. When I started playing in TBC guess what did I run? - Karazhan, thats my biggest achievement there.
Was I crying for nefrs? hell not me or anyone I know did it, it was obvious for people back in a day - something is too hard for me, either I learn to play or find something else to do in a game (yeah I did a lot of pvp then, there wasnt not a lot other options, like we have now).
You are saying raids are harder then ever but here I am clearing normals quite easily and I'm able to kill few bosses on hc before the next tier hits.

Why do people can't follow this road? why they want easy way of nerfing, dumbing down everything to their level? thats fucking beyond me, I don't get it, these people play video games but aren't gamers at all.

[Pua]

and you know what's funny? I improved over the time. When I started playing in TBC guess what did I run? - Karazhan, thats my biggest achievement there.
Was I crying for nefrs? hell not me or anyone I know did it, it was obvious for people back in a day - something is too hard for me, either I learn to play or find something else to do in a game (yeah I did a lot of pvp then, there wasnt not a lot other options, like we have now).
You are saying raids are harder then ever but here I am clearing normals quite easily and I'm able to kill few bosses on hc before the next tier hits.

Why do people can't follow this road? why they want easy way of nerfing, dumbing down everything to their level? thats fucking beyond me, I don't get it, these people play video games but aren't gamers at all.

You're ignoring what this whole post was about.

The gap.

Raiding has never been harder than it is now, while the rest of the game has (arguably) never been easier. That's why the raiding jump is wiping people out, because the gap is too big.

46 pages and you still don't get this?

That's absolutely staggering.

[NRL1515]

and you know what's funny? I improved over the time. When I started playing in TBC guess what did I run? - Karazhan, thats my biggest achievement there.
Was I crying for nefrs? hell not me or anyone I know did it, it was obvious for people back in a day - something is too hard for me, either I learn to play or find something else to do in a game (yeah I did a lot of pvp then, there wasnt not a lot other options, like we have now).
You are saying raids are harder then ever but here I am clearing normals quite easily and I'm able to kill few bosses on hc before the next tier hits.

Why do people can't follow this road? why they want easy way of nerfing, dumbing down everything to their level? thats fucking beyond me, I don't get it, these people play video games but aren't gamers at all.

Good for you!

As has been repeatedly said in this forum many times, the broad spectrum of people playing this game are NOT doing what you claim they should be doing. They aren't improving.

It's funny you bring up Karazhan; I think it was one of the best raids Blizzard has made. You know why? It wasn't too easy, it wasn't too hard. 'Baddie' guilds could BS their way around in there and still feel some sense of accomplishment when they ended their raid week after downing Opera. Hardcore guilds were running clears in under 2 hours with 2 groups (maybe 3) before they gathered for Magtheridon/Gruul's for the rest of the evening. Attumen was a joke, Moroes was cake, Maiden was slightly harder and required a positioning strategy - but still pretty easy. After that, things got just a bit harder with depending on how your group was set up with the Opera event and which fight you would be doing.

Once you got past Opera, you had CHOICES in which way to proceed. Granted, you needed to have someone who had completed the questline in your group, but you could tackle Nightbane before you went to Curator. After Curator, you could work on either Shade (which was a difficult fight the first few weeks you were on him), you could work on Netherspite, you could work on Illhoof, or you could go straight to Chess.

For the time though, Prince and Nightbane were very difficult fights. Kara had something for everyone, which is in contrast to ToT. Nowadays, people are downing Jin'rokh and then when they get to Horridon they're like "NOPE!" and they quit. In Kara, hell you could even do the dungeon boss (which no one really did) and maybe get lucky with some gear that was actually helpful to people. It provided a relatively smooth difficulty curve for the population.

You are a heroic raider, and like 99% of you guys on these forums you fail to see past your stuck-up noses and consider what is good for this game. Do people need to get better? Maybe. But they aren't, so what are you stuck with? I hope you hardcores realize that every time you say 'Get better or stick to LFR/Quit', people are doing the latter, and the pool of players from which you draw recruits is shrinking. The WoW community is shit, and most of it stems from the elitist, toxic attitude of players like you who aren't happy unless they can flaunt in someone else's face just how superior they are. If anything, you should want normals to be more accessible, so that people can feel a sense of accomplishment and get a small sense of satisfaction in what is clearly one of the only ways you derive what little happiness you can from this game.

You should be advocating something that could help grow the game; not be against it. Look at any profession sports organization. They all have programs set up around the world designed to teach kids about their sport and make it accessible to them. I suppose you could argue LFR fills that purpose, but as of right now going from LFR into Normal modes is like saying 'Ok, good, you have T-Ball mastered, you're ready for the AAA farm system!'.

[RickJamesLich]

Given the tiny fraction of the player population doing normal (and even more so, heroic) raids, why should it be otherwise? Be thankful you're getting what you're getting; you probably are getting more than your share of the developer effort still.

Yeah, but I think the easy mode stuff ends up boring anyone that can't do normal mode raids on a regular basis, which is more than a small minority I believe, I guess we'll never know for sure though.. Wotlk pretty much set the extremely easy pace and while some folks did enjoy it, it appears now that even those guys are bored. The answer doesn't lie in making more really easy content though - that's the catch lol.

LFR would be much much better if it only had 3 or 4 bosses, and they actually presented challenges (where you could wipe if you failed on mechanics) and are more likely to drop gear based off of that. Doing 12 mind numbingly boring bosses is over kill even for guys that want to see the place but couldn't normally, after the first week - adding in a 10 man version of top of that would just make it worse. Just my opinion, feel free to disagree.

---------- Post added 2013-05-28 at 11:51 PM ----------

You're ignoring what this whole post was about.

The gap.

Raiding has never been harder than it is now, while the rest of the game has (arguably) never been easier. That's why the raiding jump is wiping people out, because the gap is too big.

46 pages and you still don't get this?

That's absolutely staggering.

Not quite sure if this gap really exists though - I mean on any boss if you fail to mechanics, you'd normal die - now LFR gives players a way around that. I think in reality, LFR just sets up players to fail on these bosses since it generally encourages people to ignore those same mechanics. With VP gear, LFR drops, and now heroic scenario drops, I know a lot of guys will hate hearing this, but it does boil down to a L2P issue.

[Deleted]

As part of a 10 man very casual group, I would not support a nerfed or a 4th tier.

We fail continously on current content, due to peeps subjecting themselves to basic damaging mechanics. I wouldn't want these mechanics dumbing down on my behalf, I can still play my part (heals) to the best of my ability, which I would unable to do if the content was nerfed. I don't have any right to claim beyond 1/12 n tot, if I wanted that right so badly I'd join a slightly more serious raiding guild

To bridge content and gear gap I want rescaled old 5mans, no LFD, but hard, not something you can rush through.

[HeedmySpeed]

As part of a 10 man very casual group, I would not support a nerfed or a 4th tier.

We fail continously on current content, due to peeps subjecting themselves to basic damaging mechanics. I wouldn't want these mechanics dumbing down on my behalf, I can still play my part (heals) to the best of my ability, which I would unable to do if the content was nerfed. I don't have any right to claim beyond 1/12 n tot, if I wanted that right so badly I'd join a slightly more serious raiding guild

To bridge content and gear gap I want rescaled old 5mans, no LFD, but hard, not something you can rush through.

Internet fistbump

Healers have a great perspective on who's failing on damage mechanics but it's useless unless you let them know!
Taking a minute or two between wipes to discuss where you can improve will make a world of difference.

You just have to be a little sensitive when addressing issues is all which is the HARDEST part of a casual raiding guild.

[Deleted]

The best way to solve the gap, that sadly will never happen, is to bring back Heroic 5 mans and Karazhan. I've never seen the average skill level of LFD people rise as fast as when Zandalari 5mans were introduced in Cata. Sadly, that was more likely because baddies quit queuing them than player base actually improving that much. Dedicated, easier 10 man raid would definitely help, but given that Blizz nowadays seems to always draw the "we're poor and out of resources"-card that's not very likely to happen ever again.

[Pua]

Not quite sure if this gap really exists though - I mean on any boss if you fail to mechanics, you'd normal die - now LFR gives players a way around that. I think in reality, LFR just sets up players to fail on these bosses since it generally encourages people to ignore those same mechanics. With VP gear, LFR drops, and now heroic scenario drops, I know a lot of guys will hate hearing this, but it does boil down to a L2P issue.

Come on, we've got to stop this argument that there's no gap; it's patent nonsense, and everyone knows it.

Nothing teaches you raid skills prior to normal mode raid bosses, and the developers are being pretty clear about the fact they think normal raiding is now harder than it's ever been (it was self-evident before, anyway). Levelling, questing, five-man dungeons and scenarios are all utterly trivial and teach new players very, very little about how organised group content is supposed to go. I've noted Firefly's argument about the gap being bigger in heroics and found it interesting, but it's deeply flawed - the biggest gap, very clearly, is between normal mode raiding and everything else.

It'll remain arguable, but normal raids are the toughest they've ever been, even accounting for the initial iteration of heroics in 3.2.

Nobody will argue that the rest of the game has never been simpler and less educative.

This is the gap we need to address for the sake of the community and the game.

Arguing it doesn't exist helps nobody.

---------- Post added 2013-05-29 at 09:17 AM ----------

The best way to solve the gap, that sadly will never happen, is to bring back Heroic 5 mans and Karazhan. I've never seen the average skill level of LFD people rise as fast as when Zandalari 5mans were introduced in Cata. Sadly, that was more likely because baddies quit queuing them than player base actually improving that much. Dedicated, easier 10 man raid would definitely help, but given that Blizz nowadays seems to always draw the "we're poor and out of resources"-card that's not very likely to happen ever again.

I think the current development team have learned something about the game with challenge modes, actually (something the previous team learned in The Burning Crusade, but hey ho), and that a lack of dungeons just isn't a good model to be moving on with. WoW is also getting a number of staff back into the pot from the Titan reset, so the workload may not be quite so daunting.

We can only hope some of those staff are artists.

[Piloufa]

I'm also thinking, that what is missing is just real dungeons. Not like instantiate daily quest with 4 other random people we have now.
LFR are sightseeing tour of raids which is not bad at all because it make raid content "available" to lot of people. But they are realy too far from normal raid in term of difficulty.
Back in Vanilla, lvl 60 dungeons where like mini-raid in term of time needed or size (10mans LBRS or UBRS). They also had their own tier set. I didn't play a lot in BC, but i have also this sensation for the difficulty of its heroic dungeons.

Maybe the solution could be to remove tier items from lfr, putting them in real dungeons (no random queue like current heroic scenario). Perhaps even lower the ilvl from LFR items and make those catch up items ilvl for normal raid only available in those dungeons.

[Deleted]

I've noted Firefly's argument about the gap being bigger in heroics and found it interesting, but it's deeply flawed - the biggest gap, very clearly, is between normal mode raiding and everything else.

Yes, it is deeply flawed because it goes against your opinion and has all statistics backing it up.

I have been asking around a lot of the subject with people that raided since BC and WotLK. And the general consensus seems to be that normals are easier/as easy as ever. Never heard anyone say that they are hard and most people have agreed that they were a lot harder in t11,t10,t8

Now this is of course no evidence of anything, just a small census poll with small sample size. However, neither do you have any evidence that normals are harder than ever. The fact that normals are getting cleared faster and faster and faster each tier by the HC guilds should incline the opposite.

The question also is, how do you balance a boss to be a perfect entry level boss? Stone Guards required about 5 people knowing what they are doing to be able to 5 man on release in 463 gear. Jin'Rokh can probably be 6-7 manned with a team knowing what they are doing in 489 gear.

So, how loosely should a boss be tuned to make it 'acceptable' as an entry boss? Current entry bosses require people to play at 50-70% of their class. Even less if they are LFR geared, which everyone and their mother is. So how easily tuned do a boss need to be?

[Nobleshield]

Yes, it is deeply flawed because it goes against your opinion and has all statistics backing it up.

I have been asking around a lot of the subject with people that raided since BC and WotLK. And the general consensus seems to be that normals are easier/as easy as ever. Never heard anyone say that they are hard and most people have agreed that they were a lot harder in t11,t10,t8

Now this is of course no evidence of anything, just a small census poll with small sample size. However, neither do you have any evidence that normals are harder than ever. The fact that normals are getting cleared faster and faster and faster each tier by the HC guilds should incline the opposite.

The question also is, how do you balance a boss to be a perfect entry level boss? Stone Guards required about 5 people knowing what they are doing to be able to 5 man on release in 463 gear. Jin'Rokh can probably be 6-7 manned with a team knowing what they are doing in 489 gear.

So, how loosely should a boss be tuned to make it 'acceptable' as an entry boss? Current entry bosses require people to play at 50-70% of their class. Even less if they are LFR geared, which everyone and their mother is. So how easily tuned do a boss need to be?

The HC guilds aren't who we are even remotely talking about, and I really don't know why this keeps getting brought up. The HC guilds shouldn't factor into difficulty because they're above the average, and no offense but nobody should care if the very tiny fraction of uber-leet heroic guilds clear everything in a couple of weeks and then get bored.

Also I highly doubt that any average guild could 5-man Stone Guard in 463 gear, or 6-7 man Jin'rokh in 489 gear. Your typical heroic raider, probably, but not the kind of player and guild we have been discussing for god knows how many pages.

There almost certainly isn't a gap at all for the average HC raider, which seems to be a lot more common here than elsewhere, but there certainly is a gap for the average, friends+family, "beer n' pretzels", call them what you will guilds, of which I have already given a profile for (and shall now repeat):

1) Runs with a mix of good/average/below-average players; is almost certainly a 10-man team.
2) Can't be picky about who they bring to a raid; there may be a few "core" raiders but it's usually not a set group
3) Plays with friends/family and doesn't want to kick them to the curb
4) Wants something more organized/challenging than LFR, but right now is getting smashed to bits on early bosses in ToT, and before that got smashed on Stone Guard/Elegon/Garalon in T14.

Now, I'm no longer a dedicated raider but I fill a spot in a guild that pretty much meets this criteria because they are longtime friends, and we had fun in Firelands (after the nerfs, anyway) and Dragon Soul (ending up 5/8H before things kind of slowed down). By the standards here, these people "had no business raiding" because we were only 3/7 normal in T12 before the nerfs, and Dragon Soul was a joke all around so shouldn't count.

Anyways, we 2-shot Horridon last night (I had not done Horridon on normal before; I had done it on LFR only; truth be told it played out roughly the same way for me, so I don't get what the big issue is/was with the fight), the first time the guild has gotten him down as well. I mentioned that for all the horror stories I've heard about the fight, it didn't really seem that bad (we only wiped once because a tank didn't get Hand of Protection to clear stacks and died). The guild had previously wiped some 30+ times (and probably more than that) and had some people leave the guild, get burned out, etc. because they weren't able to kill him. Not being on those runs I have no idea what they were doing wrong, so keep this in mind that as far as I personally am concerned (and I'm on a scrubbish secondary character I haven't done much beyond the minimum with, because I don't play much anymore, not even LFR - I've only done the first wing of ToT and haven't been bothered to do the others yet: Destro Lock, 491 iLevel; I did around 110k DPS, so by no means above average right now) the fight is pretty easy since all it involves is burning adds, and because I'm Destro I can get extra DPS on Horridon via Havoc without attacking him directly.

The fact remains that guilds like mine are/were stuck there, and if you ask me it's NOT acceptable to be stuck on the second boss of an instance, especially not a large instance. We all like big, Ulduar-style instances, and that's fine, BUT when there's a large instance there needs to be a difficulty curve so the first handful of bosses are undertuned to be deliberately easy and straightforward, so they're basically intended to be quickly farmable for just about everyone; nobody here has stated that I've seen that any run of the mill average guild should be able to go in and clear ToT in a week, or even a month. However, when you hit a wall on early bosses, people give up and don't want to try because it feels like nothing is being accomplished. If that wall was later on in the dungeon, it feels far less devastating and defeating to wipe constantly because you at least know you'll get X many bosses down each week consistently.

[Pua]

Yes, it is deeply flawed because it goes against your opinion and has all statistics backing it up.

It was a piece of work that I enjoyed, but it was deeply flawed because it doesn't take any outliers into consideration.

At all.

It presents the numbers in a vacuum, tailored to what looks beneficial to your argument, and tosses aside all of the other considerations that need to be made in order to make any of your numbers meaningful.

In short, they're just numbers. They're not evidence of anything without the proper context.

If we're talking about the gap between normal mode raids and everything else, we have to look at the trends over a longer period of time and try to find where the peaks and troughs appear. This is basic analysis. When we chart normal-raid participation from tier 1 to tier 15, we see a generally growing curve in participation until a peak in WotLK, then tier 11 (the first of Cataclysm) sees this participation rate drop.

Dramatically.

This is where the analysis begins; any large deviation from accepted norms needs to have a reason. Every other reason presented for this drop is either something that's been present throughout the entire time and is therefore basically a control, or is self-contradictory. The only thing that can't be logically dismissed as the biggest contributing factor to this drop is the difficulty of raiding since Cataclysm and, funnily enough, even the Lead Systems Designer has outright stated that this is the case.

You've spent a lot of time arguing for your piece of work, but all you've done is present a series of numbers and shoved your argument on top.

That's why it's hopelessly flawed.

I have been asking around a lot of the subject with people that raided since BC and WotLK. And the general consensus seems to be that normals are easier/as easy as ever. Never heard anyone say that they are hard and most people have agreed that they were a lot harder in t11,t10,t8

I think we've all done that, and my anecdotal evidence is to the contrary. The vast majority of people I've spoken to conclude that normal mode raiding is now much harder and much more punitive than ever before.

Now this is of course no evidence of anything, just a small census poll with small sample size. However, neither do you have any evidence that normals are harder than ever. The fact that normals are getting cleared faster and faster and faster each tier by the HC guilds should incline the opposite.

Like I said, you're not analysing the data - you're just bringing up numbers and drawing an illogical conclusion from them.

If you were to, say, look at the number of pulls it took Kil'jaeden to fall, and then look at the number of pulls it took to kill Lei Shen, you'd start to see a more meaningful comparison. We'd then have to compare a group of people playing for approximately the same amount of time when they approached this content, and with roughly the same level of commitment. We'd then have to toss in the added complexity of class mechanics to this mix, and provide similar competitive environments. This is excruciatingly difficult to do, of course.

Anyway, in order for your premise to be logically valid, it cannot be invalidated by even a single contradiction; but it is. Heroic guilds are now spending significantly more time per day during the progression race than they ever have, which means your conclusion is dropped to meaninglessness because it doesn't factor this notion in at all.

I'm sorry, I appreciated what you were trying to do and tried to imply that, but you've effectively forced me to point out how bad your piece of work really is with your little "goes against your argument" quip.

The question also is, how do you balance a boss to be a perfect entry level boss? Stone Guards required about 5 people knowing what they are doing to be able to 5 man on release in 463 gear. Jin'Rokh can probably be 6-7 manned with a team knowing what they are doing in 489 gear.

So, how loosely should a boss be tuned to make it 'acceptable' as an entry boss? Current entry bosses require people to play at 50-70% of their class. Even less if they are LFR geared, which everyone and their mother is. So how easily tuned do a boss need to be?

See, this is a great question. It's difficult to properly answer, and depends largely on what you think an opening boss should be.

For me, there are a few things to start with:

1) No more than one mechanic for each raider to expect to handle.
2) No berserk, either hard or soft.
3) No random targeted mechanics.
4) No mechanics that wipe a raid for one person making a mistake.

All of these points are arguable, of course, but even Jin'rokh manages to break three of them with his soft berserk, randomly targeted spells and the conductive puddles. Horridon... Well, as we know, it breaks all four and that's not even considering tuning.

As for tuning, do you honestly think expecting new players to be playing their class at 70% is reasonable? I say there's two chances of that; slim and none, and slim just walked off. Given that 100% is the top hundred, and the difference between them and the rest of us is (in some cases) more than double, do you honestly think a new player that's gotten to 90 is going to be over 40% efficiency? I just don't see it. It'd require lots of outside study, mods, more study of boss mechanics, a decent connection/rig and a bucket load of practice.

Newly dinged 90's just ain't gonna bring that.