Nighthold Balance might be a complete disaster

[Avalrand]

People that arn't in top guilds have no business with the last mythic bosses the first month anyway. If non-top guilds clear the mythic instance within a month the tuning is off, simple as that.

How many guilds do you consider "top"? I thought "top" is the first 3, may be 10. If only 10 guilds clear the raid in a month, this raid is horribly overtuned. 1 week for easier boss and 2 weeks for harder boss for top 1000 seems fine.

[BiggestNoob]

It depends on what they do with M+ and the TF cap before the raid releases. Legendaries still produce a huge variance in output capability. If we can go in with 930+ weapons and 900+ ilvl from M+ it's going to be too easy, just like EN was, for the exact same reasons.

[Krazzorx]

There's a lot of problems with declaring that an issue straight up. To determine if it is we need to know:

1. How long do they want their target mythic guild to take to clear it.

2. What is their end ilvl when clearing the raid in a normal situation? (E.g., do they have full mythic gear? 3/4?)

3. Possibly most importantly: how much does that target mythic guild actually use mythic+?

If they intend mythic Gul'dan and possibly Elisande and a 3rd boss to be killed when you are nearly decked out in mythic gear anyways, it's hard for me to say mythic+ is an issue. Unless you are grinding mythic+, it's very rare to get the equivelant of mythic raid WF'd. Certainly not enough to affect most guilds.

[Brickwalls]

There's a lot of character growth issues at the moment, won't be shocked if Nighthold results in this expansions perfect storm that cleaves the userbase down.

[Svisalith]

For the artifact level part of the equasion, if they balance Nighold considering everyone will have the 5% trait then whats the point of the trait ?

Mythic nighthold raiders will have it a month before mythic opens easily. We'll be AK25 (250k AP per mythic7) by the time nighthold opens

[Deleted]

Mythic nighthold raiders will have it a month before mythic opens easily. We'll be AK25 (250k AP per mythic7) by the time nighthold opens

Casual pet battle people will aswell.

You do realise AK level has nothing to do with how hardcore you raid right?

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

RNG by ilvl won't even compare to the RNG of guilds having people with strong legendary combinations that work with set bonuses...
MM Hunters can get their 3min CD to around 1min CD with the "proper" legendary items and set bonuses.
Fury Warriors will more or less have permanent Enrage.
Arms Warriors can get Battle Cry (100% crit) down to a 20 second CD.

just to mention a few...
there will be massive shitstorms coming with set bonuses... it's for sure going to test Blizzards capabilities to hotfix balancing changes! I can't help thinking it's going to be a massive melt down of subs, hope I'm wrong but the setups for disaster are too likely.

[Svisalith]

Casual pet battle people will aswell.

You do realise AK level has nothing to do with how hardcore you raid right?

Mythic raiders generally have more AP than lower level or nonraiders. They play more and they target power increases with their playtime methodically. It's also the main place that 5% damage actually matters

[Demeia]

Going to be honest i Fear the same. I am in a Casual raiding Guild. We are done with 4 Bosses on HC and pushing for the 5th. Can we even enter Nighthold? and how will the balance be. Considering they said they are expecting all people to have a legendary but that is just not the case with My Guild + those that do, may not have a Good legendary or a legendary for the spec they are useing for the raid.

Here's our thing: we have 10 Prydyz, maybe 11. I have the FoK cloak as does Tziva. I got a belt and that makes me one of hte three players in our group to have decent dps legendaries.

Is blizzard tuning around that kind of group or are they assuming we are doing an extra 250k+ dps?

So, yah, I think it's going to be a nightmare.

[Axelond]

They will tune the few bosses around 875 so everyone can get a few easy kills them majority of the instance will be tuned for 895. While the final boss will be tuned for 905-910

[Deleted]

If nighthold is going to be released, the most ppls in the game, esp the elites, will on the exact same gear level. Dont underestimate those "defensive" legendaries for progression, maybe it is even this fucking one shield of prydyz you are killing a boss on good world ranking because you survived a deadly mechanic. Furthermore we have 2-3 month until nighthold, it is enough time to get one additional and maybe strong dps legendary.

I hope we will get some bosses where a high dps doesnt matter, bosses which dont allow to skip hard phases. Bosses like il'gynoth with health gating on his weakness phase (like max 25% hp per phase).

[DakonBlackblade]

If nighthold is going to be released, the most ppls in the game, esp the elites, will on the exact same gear level. Dont underestimate those "defensive" legendaries for progression, maybe it is even this fucking one shield of prydyz you are killing a boss on good world ranking because you survived a deadly mechanic. Furthermore we have 2-3 month until nighthold, it is enough time to get one additional and maybe strong dps legendary.

I hope we will get some bosses where a high dps doesnt matter, bosses which dont allow to skip hard phases. Bosses like il'gynoth with health gating on his weakness phase (like max 25% hp per phase).

Will this gatting come after ppl zerg him with relative ease on week 1 or before that happens

[Deleted]

don't really understand this topic, you can do easyer difficulty, there is still normal, heroic versions, even LFR:
people are basically saying is that nighthold LFR is too hard for mythic nightmare geared players

[DakonBlackblade]

don't really understand this topic, you can do easyer difficulty, there is still normal, heroic versions, even LFR:
people are basically saying is that nighthold LFR is too hard for mythic nightmare geared players

What ? The topic is about how many variables are there now and the potential of those making balancing Nighthold mythic a nightmare cause it migh end up being like EN again (were ppl could zerg bosses day 1 and the last boss is a joke) or it might be way overtuned. What does LFR has got to do with anything ?

[aziras]

The top100 guilds' players play a lot. By January the laws of large numbers will have evened out the big spikes in RNG. There will still be some variation, but nothing they cannot compensate with loot distribution in NH-HC split runs during the first opening weeks. The guilds already with top-RNG gear at opening will simply gain less from the early item rush.

I would imagine that DDoS will be a far bigger factor in influencing the race than titanforged and legendary RNG. If some guilds have instances in a cluster that is unstable and they miss a day of effective attempts they can be set back enough to be out of the race.

One could also fairly safely assume that tuning will be very different.

EN was the first raid of the expansion. Players need to get started, and the hardcore players halfway already expect it to be an entry-raid. Guilds needs to be formed and firmed up so the first raid of an expansion has always been a little softer tuned.
When NH comes out, Blizzard need to keep the raiding scene interesting. And they do that most effectively by prolonging the race.

In the past they have partially done this by including RNG into the encounters. When an encounter is tightly tuned small things affected by RNG makes a difference. Like who is picked up by a valkyr or sent to a different room. In many cases the strategy and execution is so tight that it balances on the "wrong guy" not getting caught in the wrong end of a 50/50 RNG element. Often multiple of these conditions chained together. The reason why the top guilds have 100-200 attempts on a boss is not because they need to learn the strategy. It is because after they get all the ducks in a row, they still have to win the lottery of whatever random element is left in the strategy.

[Raiju]

There's a lot of character growth issues at the moment, won't be shocked if Nighthold results in this expansions perfect storm that cleaves the userbase down.

Mythic raids are never going to have that effect on the userbase by their nature