I think I've seen the light

[Stefanish]

I'm a casual raider 9/12 N, and I really enjoyed this tier of raiding.
I started to play WoW on ICC +30% and never felt this good when I kill a new boss. Even if I didn't kill the end bosses, I think the difficulty of the encounters is really good. If you play any other game (from Tetris to WC3 or a different MMORPG) you won't win it playing bad (if you do then the game is shit), so is WoW now.

[MagicSN]

It's long, sorry. (twss)
I'm okay with having heroic modes being exclusive to the hardcore raiding scene, and the normal modes being absolutely easy for the casual players.

With this argumentation please remember there are also guilds who are not really "made" for the hardmodes, let's call them semi-casual guilds (often with a mixture of hardcore, semi-hardcore and casual players). Still, they are not like the casual players who fail at anything with a bit
of difficulty. These are usually guilds who are now having Cho'gall down, but not yet
Nef or something like that. Those guilds would not actually enjoy if everything in normal mode went
back to "30%-buff-boring" again. And Hardmodes are not really for them (at least except the
"easier" hardmodes maybe). So a "normal mode ultra-easy and hardmodes ultra-hard" would
not be appreciated by such a guild.

[suicuique]

Gota agree with this, Pretty stupid how middle or begining boss's are far more difficult than the endwing boss's. Pretty much a fail on ballancing and testing.

And which would that be?
Alakir > Conclave.
Nefarian > Omnitron/Magmaw (even prenerf).
And certainly Sinestra > IC.

That there were guilds killing Sinestra before IC (ours being one of them) had nothing to do with difficulty, but everything to do with points awarded.
If you really think that IC is more difficult than Sinestra, you are deluding yourself.

You would have a point with Chogall < IC though.
And to anyone mocking how easy Atramedes is, show me one "legit" kill video of prenerf Atramedes (the one with bouncing sonar pulses and higher HP). Just one.

[Saliz]

That there were guilds killing Sinestra before IC (ours being one of them) had nothing to do with difficulty, but everything to do with points awarded.
If you really think that IC is more difficult than Sinestra, you are deluding yourself.

Sinestra more difficult than Council? Hahahaha

[Yunru]

Hardmodes dont even look hard nowdays---its just hard (from my point of view) , because some of our good hardcore players quit wow because of icc. And telling the new ppl how to play hardcore nowdays is like telling to a wall.

[KaPe]

Hardmodes dont even look hard nowdays---its just hard (from my point of view) , because some of our good hardcore players quit wow because of icc. And telling the new ppl how to play hardcore nowdays is like telling to a wall.

They are far harder than anything before, except for 'one in a tier' bosses, like H LK, Firefighter and such. Average Heroic difficulty is much higher, even after multiple nerfs. No, it's not because "all the good players left", but because difficulty went up.

Sinestra more difficult than Council? Hahahaha

Well, they did fix double orbs screwing up flame strikes, so it's *a bit* easier than it used to be. Doesn't really change much, P2 is still hell and makes up for other phases being easier than Sinestra, so... yeah. Killing them first, it felt like everything after was such a joke, with much better rewards.

Other than that, I'm enjoying this tier. Granted, I'm enjoying it slightly less, now that all I have left is Al'akir 25 , but compared to ICC, it's heaven. No "easy easy medium, wtfisthisshit", though tuning could be better. There were no lootships, had to earn the kills - and farming most of them is pretty easy nowadays. People who were spoiled by 30% will learn eventually, plus there's bit more gear coming with 4.1 to make it easier, there are slight nerfs here and there. Besides, maybe with proper difficulty, the idea of "must be able to pug current content" will change as well, so people will be content pugging T11 once 4.2 hits, while doing Firelands with their guild - or simply later.

[Hammerpsycho]

we just strictly(not even a single extended raid) followed our normal progress raiding schedule of a bit over 4 hours/night 5 times per week - yet we still got a decent rank in the end as were the 20th guild in the world to clear 25man content.

So, are you trying to pass that off as a casual raid schedule?

[Grym]

I like the Cata raid way more than ICC, I love the challenge, love the new difficulty, even back in ICC era with the 30% buff even most of the HC are being pushed over, that isn't right IMO.

But in this sense, I rather have the % buff rather than easier normal mode straight off. The % buff, at least it comes slowly through time, so at the start some guild will do them fine, some will struggle and little, some will be hitting a brick wall, then as the % buff slowly increasing, the struggling guilds will slowly see more contents, by that time the better guilds would be already half way through HC. Also for the more casual people, many of them didn't care about HC, as long as they have seen normal mode, making to easier right from the start means they will finish it too soon and start requesting new content when the higher guild still battling the HC race, with the % system they can be controlled how fast the casual guilds progress.

Also if we do implement the % buff again, please make it normal mode only, HC doesn't need % buff, they need to stay as they are.

[Jenerena]

As a semi-casual 10 man raider on 1/13 hc, I totally get where you're coming from. In some ways I have enjoyed this tier, in others I haven't. We have been wiping on Chimaeron hc for weeks and weeks and weeks. It seems like when one problem is solved, we then have to battle with raid setup or another issue. We've been slapped in the face by heroic content; we didn't kill LK 10 heroic until the 30% buff, but even then there were only a few 10 man strict guilds that had killed him. It's like we've been given a reality check that we just aren't good enough all of a sudden, and it's a shame because none of our players are particularly 'bad' based on how we progressed during LK and from playing with each other for a long time. Cata has suddenly shoved 'bad' in our faces with the unforgiving nature of the content. I wouldn't be surprised if we down Sinestra during the next tier of raiding.

We have our own progression path. we enjoy learning fights together and we progress at our own pace. But this pace is horribly slow and a few times I have felt pretty hopeless because of how long it's taking and seeing how many other guilds are further ahead. It's quite self-defeating knowing that because we did so well in Wrath. We've had to abolish even server competition now because we just can't keep up, especially with 25 man raiders.

On a positive note, this tier has dug up some underlying issues - many times we have had to look closely at certain members and it has helped us to improve. I have had to use things in my spellbook I never needed back in Wrath and I am a much better player for it. But the amount of close coordination and perfection needed is just a little too much I feel.

Damn you Chimaeron!!

[Fraza]

Very good read, OP.

The problem I see with firelands is, you have the hardcores going for normal modes in full 372 gear, finding the content easy, while the casual guilds are seeing the content on it's intended level in 359. I just hope Blizzard sticks to the idea that the normal difficulty of a tier should be doable in gear looted from normal difficulty of the previous tier. But they already abandoned the "content should be accessible to everyone" idea, so I have my doubts..

[Deleted]

one of my bigest complaints is the lack of attunament requirements,
even later after they removed them in the prev expansions the quest chains themselves established good and lore based reasons to go there and kill them, how many people even knew that cho'gall fought for the horde in wc2?.
I understand blizz's ddesire to make it easier to take peopls alts to raids if they are needed for composition so i believe the best method would be a 'guild attunament' quest/achevement from the prev tier where by you attune your guild to go somewhere instead of an individual.
For example imagine if you required to have a guild kill on cho'gall before you could enter the firelands because lore wise with cho'gall still alive you would not be able to re-direct the armies of the alliance away from twilight highlands and any expedition into the firelands would fail.
Note: Not heroic to cater for casuals and gearing up an alt in a normal should be a quick 2-3 hours through bot in t12 gear making it quick. and due to the availability of the tier pieces you are stil probably going to want a few raids to obtain the heads/shoulders from t11 due to set bonus's and if it's head/shoulder again this will keep yout t11 2/4 piece a lot longer.

Gating is Good as it almost 'sets the bar' for what people should have had pre-raid/tier as forcing them to go to certain heroics in prv expansions meant you Had the gear to be useful instead of just being boosted through when you eventualy reached the raid level.

[Yzyz]

Now, I respect you in sense that you are 13/13 HM and do your best to understand casuals, not many elitists out there that think the game should be accessible to the casuals, so I applaud your understanding.

But,

I don't see anything wrong with pugs going 11/12 HM in ICC. Who cares, worry about yourself rather then other people.

People seem to forget that the 30% buff was optional. But did 98% of guilds actually man up and turn it off? No, of course not. If you are part of the population that turned it off, I shake your hand in admiration. I never saw it as a bad thing to WoW considering that the main antagonist of the game was LK. If you didnt get to at least see him, it would almost seem like a waste of money don't you think?

Its the first raid tier of the expac, they are trying things with the new "way of healing" combined with the demands of harder content from the Wrath Whiners. They probably could have done more testing with the encounters considering all the bugs and tuning issues but people wanted the game now rather then waiting for more testing.

I would also agree on the oddity of how difficult some bosses are to others. Both on reg and hardmodes. Omno and even magmaw being considerably more difficult then chim or atra post nerf. AC being more difficult then Cho'gall. A lot of the encounters also favor range with almost all of them requiring mandatory interrupts. Lots of the encounters are unforgiving to a single mistake which isn't right imo.

Sucks that casuals are having a harder time in this content. I think they should see all of it just like we should (at least normal mode). They pay $15 a month just like we do. Just because we play more, doesn't mean that blizz is getting any more money from us. Idk, I guess im a little more lienent then most.

[Duskmourne]

The other issue with this tier was the excessive amount of interrupts and how the content was heavily ranged favored.

Yeah, looking back, it really is crazy how important ranged was.

It was not a case of "bring the player, not the class" it truly was "Hope your dps is ranged!"

[Paskgotsheal]

From a 10 man perspective:

They obviously didn't test them on the PTR. Every single heroic mode boss on 10 man has been nerfed at LEAST 2 times. Most 4-5. The difficulty that 10 mans are at now compared to early January is completely different. I don't think this content is to brutal, even when it was completely overtuned, if you have good people you'll be near the top, at least in your respective bracket (10vs25). I'd say currently, all but 1 boss has been tuned correctly to make it on par with 25, the last one will be fixed in 4.1 with the sinestra orb fixes & wrack fixes.

it's been fun, I can't wait for firelands!

[Keoren]

People seem to forget that the 30% buff was optional. But did 98% of guilds actually man up and turn it off? No, of course not. If you are part of the population that turned it off, I shake your hand in admiration.

It's all about competition and in case you're still progressing there are few reasons to turn it off if you're after rankings. You get nothing in return and will end up losing to many other guilds. I'd say the only competitive reasons to turn it off were the LK25 heroic 0% "race" and after having 12/12 heroic on farm to do the instance without the buff to keep the raiders more aware.

One comparison that comes into mind is having an old model of a racing car which is slower than the newer ones. Will you rather race against the others with a new model, just like everyone else does, or use the old one for bragging rights even if you end up last? Some people will answer yes, but majority feel "forced" into using the the best method available.

[Shuya82]

Great thread, it's refreshing to see a mature opinion on this matter. I really like the idea of normals being easier and the heroics being considerably more difficult, so that the hard core players feel they have accomplished something greater. Will it happen? Here's hoping...

[Lanthanum]

Coming from a very casual point of view, this tier of raiding has certainly been a reality check.

During Wrath our guild had a lot of fun. We managed to down LK10 normal before the 30% buff and advanced pretty far with the heroic modes. We weren't the best group of players ever assembled, but we enjoyed ourselves.

Then Cata comes. We go through the gearing up process and then start raiding. This is where the problems start. The different encounters were OK. We would wipe for a few sessions, see what mistakes we were making and then go back and down the boss. The progress wasn't as quick as it was in Wrath and this caused a lot of fellow guildies to not bother logging in for raid nights. It got so bad that in the end the guild disbanded and ultimately made me quit the game.

I am annoyed? Not really.

[SonsofDisaster]

I did not raid until Wrath (except maybe making it into Kara a couple times in the middle of BC) and I am currently in a fairly casual guild (currently 9/12 10N and working on Cho'Gall).

Coming from Wrath, this tier was a huge reality check. It took us two weeks before we finally downed our first boss (Halfus), but the resulting exclamations of joy totally made up for that. Vent was filled with so much cheering that you would have thought we had just downed an end-wing boss. Yes, the content is difficult, but it is so, so much more rewarding. In my opinion, Wrath felt good for the casual player at the end of the day... when you sat back and looked at your progress or your gear level. In comparison, the difficult nature of Cataclysm raiding makes every little accomplishment or boss death feel good... hell, sometimes even great.

In ICC, I remember thinking "Is the boss going to drop my <insert gear here> this week or will we get some other bogus loot?," but nowadays, it's more common for me to be thinking "Man, I really hope everyone performs well this week so we have a chance of downing <insert boss here>, just in case he drops <insert gear here>." Even when that boss is one that we've downed before! Downing a boss once doesn't instantly put them on "farm status" like it did at the end of Wrath. There's not this element of certainty that existed (for me) in Wrath. Which, personally, I think is great. We've had to work and struggle to get where we are and, honestly, we have to continue to fight and struggle to not entire a backslide.

If anything, I think the entry bosses in this tier (Halfus, Magmaw, and Omnomtron) could be nerfed a little more to make the content a little more accessible. Currently, I feel like one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) plateaus in this tier's content is the entry plateau; the jump from Heroic dungeons to Normal raids is pretty intense. If the entry bosses were a little easier, I think it would help provide some entertainment and satisfaction for those players who just can not seem to make any raid progress whatsoever (though, admittedly, by now, it's not uncommon to see pugs clearing 3/12 or 4/12, even on my low-population server).

TL;DR. I'm a casual, and I love this raiding tier.