Guilds and Ulduar. The realization of the year.

[Alienganja]

Ok, so I LITERALLY just thought of this.

With Ulduar coming out, we have 2 options when doing it. Hard mode bosses and easy mode. You can mix and match em, but you need to do the hard mode of every boss in one lockout to unlock Algalon. Ok good, now..for the guilds and people complaining that the game is too easy...are you going to be starting on the hard mode? Or are you gonna farm the easy face of Ulduar until you get the gear that would allow you to easily do the hard mode with a half a brain?

It's kind of ironic, because I'm 100% sure that most guilds will be going about it this way....like 99.9%....and you complain the game is too easy. If you want a challenge...you can either try it on hard mode...first day it comes out and not and try to farm the easy modes for a while.

Most people will rush to clear it though...so I don't know. Any thoughts?

See what I'm getting at? The hardcore raiding population complains about difficulty...but they seem to fail at realizing that if you try the hard mode from day one in your full Naxx 25/OS/Maly etc gear you might actually be challenged....

Anyone else thinking that if theres any QQ about dungeon diffuculty we now have a legitimate reason to knock them out?

[Advent]

GOod question. I think with the 2nd tier of raiding this might actually be a question everyone will be (should be) thinking about.

[Choda]

A few days ago someone gave a good explanation on why the difficulty is retarded now:

Old hard bosses: Wipe #187 - You still can't get past phase 2, but you're getting there. One more week and everyone will have mastered it.

New bosses on hard mode: Wipe #3 - Ah fuck it let's just do normal mode, we'll get back to this later.

See what I'm getting at? Usually it's not only one person deciding whether or not you'll just skip the hard modes, it's the general outcry of the people raiding. You can't force anyone to wipe when they could just do it the easy way and be done with it. These hard modes are something like: Here's a lolly but try to eat it with your left leg only then you'll see how hard it is.

[heerobya]

Good thread, well done Alienganja.

Hard modes have been, and always will be, the choice of your guild and/or raid... except for Algalon of course.

If you choose to do it "easy mode" because you keep wiping on Hard Mode, that is a choice. A choice YOU make, not Blizzard.

Those that want a challenge have the choice of skipping easy mode.

But you are right, they won't. 99.99% will farm the "easy mode" until they get the gear to do hard mode... and then complain it's not challenging.

[rodobson]

Well, my guild progressed through Sarth in a very linear fashion. We killed him 2 times with no drakes, killed him 1 time with 1 drake, killed him 10 times with 2 drakes, and 1 time so far with +3. Last week was our +3, this week surprise surprise several people didnt show up for raid. They have thier titles and view doing it again as a waste of time (though some guildies are missing titles that deserve them).

These people piss me off, because I like playing this game for the challenge and I want another shot at the gdam mount. But when the night is almost over it is best to just take the loot and run.

My guild hasnt solidified the plan yet, but it will most likely be a boss by boss basis that we go for Hard modes. For example, I think my guild could handle Hodir on hard mode as is, so I see no reason to do it the easy way first. However I doubt we will attempt yoggy on hard mode without doing it at least once the normal way.

[Koto_and_Juri]

These hard modes are something like: Here's a loli but try to enjoy her with your left leg only then you'll see how hard it is.

fix'd

[Healthkare]

I'm sure most will do easy mode for at least 2 or 3 weeks, just to make sure everyone knows the fight. I think it will be choice to go hard, not when they get the gear to make it easy, but when they are confident that they have learned the encounter, One thing that made Naxx SO easy is because alot of guilds had people who knew how to do naxx and you werent wiping for days just learning the encounter.

[Spankmeyer]

Well isnt gearing up the guild to be able to complete the harder encounters a quite solid part of what's raiding is all about?
We could try doing it naked and blindfolded if we wanted it be be even harder, but i aint seing anyone trying that.

[Ilfayt]

Good thread, well done Alienganja.

Hard modes have been, and always will be, the choice of your guild and/or raid... except for Algalon of course.

If you choose to do it "easy mode" because you keep wiping on Hard Mode, that is a choice. A choice YOU make, not Blizzard.

Those that want a challenge have the choice of skipping easy mode.

But you are right, they won't. 99.99% will farm the "easy mode" until they get the gear to do hard mode... and then complain it's not challenging.

That's not the type of challenge we mean. The guilds that complain its to easy mean, "when in best gear". We're not stupid enough to go killing raid bosses in 25 mans with blues, if we wanted challenges, we'd never upgrade our gear.

[Splatter]

A few days ago someone gave a good explanation on why the difficulty is retarded now:

Old hard bosses: Wipe #187 - You still can't get past phase 2, but you're getting there. One more week and everyone will have mastered it.

New bosses on hard mode: Wipe #3 - Ah fuck it let's just do normal mode, we'll get back to this later.

Thats the problem, while i really like the idea of hard modes, i do think that the current Easy modes are a little bit too easy as well. There needs to be some fights which are hard and are going to hold people up for a week or two atleast, other wise it gets boring and raiders run out of things to do. Having guilds clear ulduar the week it is released is going to be dissapointing

[Chula]

What most of you are failing to realize is that on the ptr, blizz isn't worried about tuning the fights. They're only testing the mechanics of the fights. Be assured, when Ulduar hits, the amount of damage the bosses hit for and most likely their health will increase to make the fight somewhat challenging to most guilds.

I say again: The fights on the ptr are NOT tuned to be challenging; they are only there to test the mechanics of the fight.

[AStoryToScream]

If they let us keep the 'Shirt of Uber' I'm sure every guild could down each boss in Ulduar on Hard Mode!

[Gron]

"Or are you gonna farm the easy face of Ulduar until you get the gear that would allow you to easily do the hard mode with a half a brain?"

Well... ofcourse every guild (except Ensidia) will likely clear Ulduar a few times, because the fights will be tuned on hardmode that they will expect you to be in full Ulduar gear otherwise you dont have a chance (Blizzard said that).

However... if in full Ulduar gear the hardmode fights are easy, than its tuned badly. In full Ulduar gear the hardmodes should remain hard. The reason why guilds were given "Shirt of Uber" was that they want to simulate you are in Full Ulduar gear (while Blizzard was still slacking and didnt have items when they started testing, so you were given Naxx + Ubershirt item).

I really hope Blizzard does show they can do challenging encounters. Because for now its only Sarth 3D and Malygos 6 mins - rest is gravy.

[Kalregan]

See what I'm getting at? The hardcore raiding population complains about difficulty...but they seem to fail at realizing that if you try the hard mode from day one in your full Naxx 25/OS/Maly etc gear you might actually be challenged....

Dumbest argument ever! The first day will be challenging (I hope anyway) on hard mode with just Naxx gear but its not about the "first" day. It's about the weeks to come that hard core guilds are frustrated about. I consider myself a somewhat hardcore player and because the content is so easy I have 3 80s with full naxx 25 epics. My guild has gone down from a 3 day raid week during TBC to a day and a half raid week in Wrath. The current content is a joke. Naxx is becoming so familiar that I could walk through it with my monitor off! I really truely hope that Ulduar provides the challenges that many of the raiders I know and read from on these and similar forums want.

[anyaka21]

I'm pretty sure that 99.999% of all guilds that head into Ulduar the first week will just run throught it on easy mode. Get people some experience on the bosses because not everyone will have been on the PTR and seen them. This will allow for some gear, and I'd imagine by week 2, there will be guilds that will do half the fights on hard mode, and by week 4, Ensidia will probably have comepletely cleared all hard modes including Alagon.

[korruna]

Considering no hard mode was killed without Shirts of Uber, it's doubtful any guild will kill the bosses on hard mode the first week. I don't get what your deal is. Are you saying the game isn't too easy? You didn't do pre-nerf M'uru or Kil'Jaeden so your opinion on what's hard doesn't even grasp what the most difficult encounters of the game even are. After doing Sunwell, we waited 6 months for WotLK to come out to do Naxxramas again in an easier form, rewarding gear better than Sunwell equivalency, and only doing two new bosses - one of which was a complete joke, the other killed on its hard mode the next reset with half level 70 gear. And we farmed this garbage for another four months. That's TEN MONTHS and the only new raiding content was TWO NEW BOSSES, NEITHER of which were even CLOSE to the difficulty of Sunwell or even Black Temple.

I'm glad you're proud that you "Literally just thought of this" since this has been something hardcore raiders have been mulling over in their heads for months the instant hard-modes were announced for Ulduar. Many of us were worried that Ulduar non-hard Mode would be a joke like Naxx, and hard-mode would be the only remote challenge that is later trivialized by Ulduar-quality gear. After doing PTR it became apparent that hard modes aren't meant to be "easy" with Ulduar gear, but simply do-able. There's no rush to clear Ulduar quickly as well because the server-first award is for Hard Mode Yogg Saron (4 Keepers not helping) which is likely very similar to 3 Drake having 4 modes (No drake, 1 Drake, 2 Drake, 3 Drake).

[Mynak]

Considering no hard mode was killed without Shirts of Uber, it's doubtful any guild will kill the bosses on hard mode the first week.

Except that Ensidia has killed Thorim and a few other bosses on hard mode without Shirts of Uber.

[thoukaia]

Seeing as hard-mode content is designed to be manageable by people in gear whose ilvl is 13 lower than the drops (for example sarth +3 drops 226, but is totally manageable with people in naxx 25 non-KT gear), i believe that guilds who have sarth +3, KT, and Malygos on farm will be able to clear all Ulduar hard-modes within the first two weeks. I dont even think they'll go for easy modes the first week since the Celestial Defender title is so damn awesome that its enough of a motive ^^

[Mystician]

Hmmm... Just posting an opinion here, haven't read ALL of the posts, but here's my take on why the new content in WotLK seems so easy.

1. Vanilla. Most people were leveling up there characters and learning how to play their class, then getting attuned to the raids, then getting into raiding with 40 people.... No mean feat in my opinion, then learning the fights while not having anywhere near as many online tools for boss fights and notifications from addons, makes these raids initially Hard, also having so much content initially and the length of these instances made seeing it all take a fair amount of time.

2. TBC. Similar deal to vanilla but the leveling decreased due to a large proportion only needing 10 levels to start raiding, attunements were not quite as long and arduous a task, dungeons had a new heroic mode, Raid length was reduced significantly in some instances to reduce the time restrictions players have, Boss fights were just as challenging if not then moreso in some cases than vanilla, moving your character during a Boss fight became a higher priority than in vanilla. attunements were still there but to a lesser degree than vanilla.

3. WotLK. Well personally I haven't raided much at all yet so I can't comment on the newest content but you can see where I am heading in any case. The tools are readily available and the Trailblazing Guilds have done alot of the work before the rest of the community gets to the content.

I do believe that if you head into new content and try it on Hard modes first you will get a similar feel to the challenges faced in vanilla and the more challenging content in TBC. Also if you do start on 'easy mode' then try not researching the fights before hand and try to figure out the encounters yourself... These options in my opinion will challenge a large proportion of the WoW community.

I certainly will be trying my best not to dig too deep into boss fight strategies but enough to not upset the groups I join.

[sd78]

What it comes down to is this:

Hard Modes are only worthwhile if the basic raid isn't ridiculously easy to begin with. Sarth is a classic example of this.

A random PUG stacked with retards gets:

4 Badges
4 Epics

A genuine Casual guild doing one Drake gets:

4 Badges
4 Epics + 1 extra Epic (yay!)


The Drakes are a great idea, but the whole concept is flawed because of how ridiculously easy the basic encounter is.