End of Season 4, WotLK Raid instances nerf

[Boubouille]

Early update today to post a few very important things on the homepage, we'll go more in depths into blue posts once we're done with the very important stuff.

End of Arena Season 4 Coming Soon / Patch 3.0.2 Release date
Season 4 will end on October 14, it wouldn't be surprising to see the Patch 3.0 deployed on live servers on the same day. (Not surprising = 95% chance to happen)

We’re currently planning to end the fourth Arena season on October 14, 2008, and as always -- this date could easily change. This Arena Season is only ending in respect to the ladder, meaning we'll be taking a snapshot of the season's ladder and then go through our normal process to determine who is eligible for the end-of-season rewards. This process should take approximately one week. It's very important for players who feel that they may be eligible for the arena-specific title and/or Armored Nether Drake to refrain from transferring their character to another realm between the date outlined above, and when the end-of-season rewards are physically awarded.

Upon the end of this Arena Season, teams and ratings will not be wiped, and will carry forward allowing players to earn points each week and purchase gear until the launch of the expansion (November 13, 2008).

WotLK - All TBC Raid instances massively nerfed
It seems that the latest build brought an interesting change to TBC instances : all monsters in TBC raid instances had their health points reduced by 30%, bosses included. We don't know yet if this change is final, but below are a few exemples of changes for some of these instances, more values will be added as we go through the instances. Feel free to contribute with your own lists in comments.

Note : The change isn't confirmed by Blizzard yet. We don't know if this change will be pushed live, and we don't know when it will happen but we might see this change shipped with Patch 3.0 before the release of the expansion

The Sunwell Plateau

<table width="550">
<tr>
	<td width="250">[b]Monster[/b]</td>
	<td width="100">[b]Health (TBC)[/b]</td>
	<td width="150">[b]Health (WotLK)[/b]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td width="250">Sunblade Protector</td>
	<td width="100">550,000</td>
	<td width="150">[b]387,000[/b]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td width="250">Sunblade Slayer</td>
	<td width="100">240,000</td>
	<td width="150">[b]171,000[/b]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td width="250">Sunblade Arch Mage</td>
	<td width="100">190,000</td>
	<td width="150">[b]136,000[/b]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td width="250">Sunblade Cabalist</td>
	<td width="100">190,000</td>
	<td width="150">[b]136,000[/b]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td width="250">Sunblade Dawn Priest</td>
	<td width="100">190,000</td>
	<td width="150">[b]136,000[/b]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td width="250">[b]Kalecgos[/b]</td>
	<td width="100">3,700,000</td>
	<td width="150">[b]2,180,000[/b]</td>
</tr>
</table>

The Black Temple

<table width="550">
<tr>
	<td width="250">[b]Monster[/b]</td>
	<td width="100">[b]Health (TBC)[/b]</td>
	<td width="150">[b]Health (WotLK)[/b]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td width="250">Coilskar Harpooner</td>
	<td width="100">170,000</td>
	<td width="150">[b]120,000[/b]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td width="250">Coilskar Soothsayer</td>
	<td width="100">170,000</td>
	<td width="150">[b]120,000[/b]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td width="250">Coilskar Sea-Caller</td>
	<td width="100">170,000</td>
	<td width="150">[b]120,000[/b]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td width="250">Dragon Turtle</td>
	<td width="100">100,000</td>
	<td width="150">[b]73,353[/b]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td width="250">Aqueous Spawn</td>
	<td width="100">66,000</td>
	<td width="150">[b]44,012[/b]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td width="250">Aqueous Lord</td>
	<td width="100">440,000</td>
	<td width="150">[b]309,000[/b]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td width="250">Leviathan</td>
	<td width="100">550,000</td>
	<td width="150">[b]387,000[/b]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td width="250">[b]High Warlord Naj'entus[/b]</td>
	<td width="100">3,800,000</td>
	<td width="150">[b]2,655,000[/b]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td width="250">Dragonmaw Wind Reaver</td>
	<td width="100">200,000</td>
	<td width="150">[b]140,000[/b]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td width="250">Dragonmaw Sky Stalker</td>
	<td width="100">200,000</td>
	<td width="150">[b]140,000[/b]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td width="250">Dragonmaw Wyrm Caller</td>
	<td width="100">200,000</td>
	<td width="150">[b]140,000[/b]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td width="250">Bonechewer Worker</td>
	<td width="100">60,000</td>
	<td width="150">[b]17605[/b]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td width="250">Bonechewer Taskmaster</td>
	<td width="100">170,000</td>
	<td width="150">[b]120,000[/b]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td width="250">Illidari Fearbringer</td>
	<td width="100">550,000</td>
	<td width="150">[b]387,000[/b]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td width="250">[b]Supremus[/b]</td>
	<td width="100">4,500,000</td>
	<td width="150">[b]3,186,000[/b]</td>
</tr>
</table>

Serpentshrine Cavern

<table width="550">
<tr>
	<td width="250">[b]Monster[/b]</td>
	<td width="100">[b]Health (TBC)[/b]</td>
	<td width="150">[b]Health (WotLK)[/b]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td width="250">[b]Hydross The Unstable[/b]</td>
	<td width="100">3,400,000</td>
	<td width="150">[b]2,390,000[/b]</td>
</tr>
</table>

Arena rating changes in WotLK
Since we're talking about arena, it might be worth mentioning the change to the rating system now.
[blizzquote="Zarhym;http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/10532269034-need-blue-response-to-arena-in-wotlk.html]There will be a new, persistent rating system that should keep top-rated players facing other top-rated players, regardless of the bracket in which their current team sits. We'll have more information to come on this soon. [/blizzquote"]

Warrior - Berserker Rage now usable in all Stance
And a small thing to make all warriors very happy, and all other classes very unhappy in PvP.
[blizzquote="Verimonde;http://blue.mmo-champion.com/10/10638057199-another-warrior-change.html]Ghost is out for the rest of the evening so I thought I would make a quick post regarding a new warrior change. Berserker Rage will now be usable in all stances. [/blizzquote"]

[EvilHomer15]

seems good!

[bigamie]

i wonder if the nerf is applied with 3.02 or if it really is just a change when the addon launches...

[Sarevokcz]

seems not so good, considering they have 2 weeks to properly fix classes for 3.0.2 patch, which few of them are extremely unbalanced (yes, even more that curent restodroids in arenas ;D)

[Rathyl]

I'm liking that arena change I'm seeing there. Might get me to actually bother with it again.

[Sartecho]

I ran Kara on the PTR last night. The only boss whose health I actually made note of was Nightbane's. He only had 960,000 hp. Throughout the run though everyone remarked at how incredibly fast everything was dying. We only had seven people and did a full clear in under two hours without rushing in any way. Stuff just fell over with almost no effort.

[Elementium]

I don't see the point of lowering the bosses health.. possibly to get people geared for the expansion faster?

I'm also kinda happy about the arena change, I mean i'm not a Arena fanatic (being a shaman) so it might make it a tiny bit more fun considering I won't have to deal with brutal warrior and druid teams anymore.

[Marvdatboi]

in before the spam.

[Cookiecutter]

Oh good, they didn't nerf level 60 raidbosses..
Was looking forward to soloing Onyxia as she is :3

[moderation]

A bit late if they want us to see the content..

Though the guilds starting SWP can probably see KJ.

[vitalic]

I'm suprised and happy to hear about the arena ratings change. Maybe the number one thing that burned me out on arena was facing full s4 rogues in the 1700-1800 bracket over and over and over. I had thought that this was the worst current problem in arena but really didnt expect to see it addressed so soon.

[Teetuss]

I guess such a HP nerf is only to help testing. Fights will still last long enough to have possible bugs appear and will take less time. I dont belive this is permanent or will see 3.0 live.

[Freyros]

They probably did it so the fights won't last as long as they do now. For example shadowpriests won't be able to get all the required DPS talents and all of the mana regen ones. So they won't hold mana long enough to DPS continuously on a 10 min fight.

[Nodja]

IMO it's just Blizzard fanservicing us. Making the bosses easy from the beginning = people get bored. Making them easy on the last month they are relevant = happy fun time. Although i can already see the "hardcore" are going to complain with this change.

[Deleted]

why did they nerf the easiest bosses? ;<

Because people only did the first bosses before reporting this change, ie they haven't been up to the other bosses and couldn't report their health level. It's difficult to report on the health value of a boss nobody has seen yet after the last patch.

It would make sense to have it up only on the PTR (testing of the current encounters with new talents, ie finding out if there's any boss ability that can't be beaten with the changes) or to have it go over on live (allow people to finish all instances they are currently working on).
We'll see what happens.

[Amgyn]

zomg.. these raids are so easy on PTR already.. we did BT with 50% pug in like 3 hours with 1 wipe on akama because somebody talked to him too soon...

[Mystiq]

zomg.. these raids are so easy on PTR already.. we did BT with 50% pug in like 3 hours with 1 wipe on akama because somebody talked to him too soon...

Too soon, Executus! You have awoken me too soon!

[stupid11]

Hmmmm, 2 weeks. So I have a 5/9 chance to get a Bear with my group. :P gogogoo

Hydross = Easiest??? Probably one of the harder fights in SSC mostly due to the resistance gear needed, and having 25 people stop DPS:ing when Hydross changes between phases.

Rofl @ calling Hydross hard. I killed him before he was nerfed and neutered to shit. Now THAT was hard.

[LavaDuck]

Beserker rage in all stance.

Rejoice warriors?

[Amgyn]

Too soon, Executus! You have awoken me too soon!

by fire be purged!!! 8)