Your preferred end of expasion final raid nerf

[Raone]

At the end of every expansion blizzard has created some kind of way to nerf the final raid of the expansion with buffs/debuffs/items in order to make the instance get progressively easier. Previous tiers usually don't get touched because the next tier nerfs it by offering better gear however the last tier doesn't have this option. This has been done many different ways and has been different every expansion. I am curious which one people prefer.

*Note*
Please don't post "I don't think they should nerf the final raid" just to sound cool, this topic isn't about if they should or shouldn't, this is about which of all the methods did you like the most (or disliked the least).

Vanilla - Pre Expansion Patch Nerf.
I don't fully recall this one as it was a long time ago and I was switching classes but I remember many classes being extremely overpowered and raid bosses which were hard were now a joke. The TBC patch changed many specs so they were useful and in tern made some classes/specs overpowered. Also difficult to get PVP gear with really high ilvl was made easy to get.

Burning Crusade - Flat Percentage Nerf
At the very end of the Burning Crusade blizzard was afraid with all the changes coming in the expansion that bosses would get harder so they nerfed literally everything by 20-35%

Wrath of the Lich King - Progressive Health/Damage/Healing buff
Sometime after the final raid was released a buff was activated increasing all health/damage/healing by 5% to everyone within the raid. This buff increased by 5% every month until it reached I think 35%ish

Cataclysm - Progressive Health/Damage nerf
Same thing as Wrath except this effected the raid and not the players, every mob in the raid had their health/damage reduced by 5% and this increased by 5% every 5-6 weeks until it reach 25%ish

Mists of Pandaria - ilvl Upgrading.
This was the first time blizzard didnt add something that they controlled, instead the players had to work at it to nerf the raid themselves. Every item that dropped could be upgraded 4 times increasing their ilvl 4/8/12/16. This worked similarly to the Wrath buff but it was only about a 8%ish buff to each player. Also players had to farm valor to upgrade their gear, the raid didnt nerf itself.

Warlords of Draenor - The Legendary Ring
Similar to panda but instead of every item being able to be upgraded you could u[grade your Legendary Ring. Killing Archimonde in Normal /Heroic /Mythic dropped an item that buffed your ring 3ilvl. This may not seem like a lot but it also increased the use effect by 1%~ and eventually it could reach 48% damage/healing + the after effect.

Personally I prefered the MoP or Cata model. I dont like the buff/debuff tied to 1 item and the requirement to kill a boss to upgrade it (and it doesn't even feel like your that much stronger), and I didn't like the high numbers from the Wrath model that made you feel weaker outside the instance.

[dixincide]

Usually the next expansions prepatch is the nerf you are describing.
New stats being added that weren't intended for the current expansion, new talents, new scaling. All of those changes being implemented on encounters that weren't built around them is usually enough.


I'm a fan of the "20% demoralized" health debuff that raids get when the next tier comes out though.

[Demsi]

dont like the ring passive nerfs tbh... its already getting out of hand and a guild has already done an archimonde zerg tactic...

on mythic?

[This Sesshomaru]

I definitely liked the WotLK approach best. Including that you chose to switch the buff / nerf off.

In Cata you could too, you spoke to an NPC and said something along the lines of "I dont need your help, GTFO" and the debuff dissapeared.

[Zka]

The mop and wod model are awful. The rest are better, but honestly, all such nerfs are pretty stupid.

[Wilderness]

I liked the progressive nerf every month or so much better than the ilvl upgrades or ring upgrades.

[nexellent]

the only good nerf to content is getting better gear.

[Vintersol]

MoP Style all the way.

[Deleted]

I liked the progressive nerf every month or so much better than the ilvl upgrades or ring upgrades.

I agree. The ilvl upgrades (wf/socket/tertiary stats) are more or less the same, but just add another random element to it - which is a bad thing in my opinion. E.g. we didn't have enough hc wf weapons to equip all our agi 1h melees during more than 1 year SoO.
Ring upgrades are ok, but still have some downsides: E.g. we usually kill Archimonde on Wednesday. I didn't have time on that day for a few weeks. So it was either: organize random raids, have the guild kill the boss again in the week with almost no loot or don't get any upgrades at all to the ring. And that just for not being able to raid on one specific day during the week. The progressive nerf to the bosses was better.

[e] Completely forgot about MoP upgrades: They're ok, but have one downside: The weekly cap. No time during a week to do your hc scenarios? Then no upgrades for the raid. I don't think these two should be connected. If we would have been able to cap the points with a few raid bosses, then it would not have been a problem.

[kamuimac]

cataclysm nerf over time was the best imo but thats just me.

[Deleted]

I'd change Mists final raid tier nerf from ilvl upgrade to "Retuned to Mythic."

Siegebreaker and Garrosh became piss afterwards.

[Notdev]

I'd change Mists final raid tier nerf from ilvl upgrade to "Retuned to Mythic."

Siegebreaker and Garrosh became piss afterwards.

Every one of these went through a pre-expansion patch that made them easier. (or even more of a joke).

H LK was a lot easier post 4.0. My server had multiple guilds get their first kill past 4.0, our server had zero kills pre 4.0.
H DW was already a joke pre and post 5.0.
H Garrosh to mythic changes you're talking about, though this was the most extreme case.

Anyway, not saying these are the best ways to "nerf" the long expansion end tier, but the ICC buff is superior in every way than the DS nerf. Healing was terribly boring as the nerf got higher and it was pretty much impossible to parse high (an important minigame for long farm content). Same with DPS on add fights. The adds just melted but your numbers weren't any higher.

[Rioo]

Think I preferred the Cataclysm nerf, even if I didn't get to experience it in Dragon Soul. It got easier without changing anything for raiders in maybe top 200. The WoD and MoP nerfs effects even top 30 guilds, and especially the WoD one had too much RNG for such competition. The WotLK system was kinda okay. It was fun doing over 20k DPS on bosses, but it felt kinda underwhelming DPSing in Ruby Sanctum or leveling in Cataclysm.

[Xequecal]

They're going to have to squish the stats again for Legion, so that's probably where the nerf will end up hitting.

[infernity]

The MoP version was the best in that it gave you a reason to do additional content, and gave a valid reason to interact with people. However, having some way to remove the buff/nerf was also good.

But i still think it relating to valor was the way to go, if you are gonna do it

Added ilvl also gave a boost for doing dailies and farming my island, which was nice.

[Kelathos]

I like big item levels and I ain't gonna lie.

+1 vote for MOP!

[Deleted]

I personally hate the WoD nerf because it doesn't apply to LFR raiders. If it did apply, I would probably still be actively playing, and people would still do Archimonde LFR enough for it to have a shorter queue than an hour.

[Overdispersion]

Hard to judge HFC nerfs yet since I believe Mannoroth and Archi will be hit by the nerfbat soon.

[Stayzy]

I liked in ICC how you could toggle the nerf on and off. Then it's up to your raid to decide if you wanted it to be difficult or not.

That being said, with all the difficulty modes raids have now, all you'd need to do is jump down a difficulty for the same effect.

[arr0gance]

I prefer the barely-noticeable-yet-incremental damage increase from the Legendary ring in WoD. It eliminates the "which item should I upgrade first" problem from MoP while still giving raids a creeping power spike which keeps the encounters from being completely strong armed after one or two key players in the raid finally upgrade their BiS trinket four times.

The DS/WotLK models were alright as well, with my preference leaning towards WotLK's model since everybody likes seeing bigger numbers.