Should Blizzard nerf raids?

[Deleted]

I want to talk about the recent Uldir nerfs but I've kept the title non-specific so the discussion can be more general.

I'm torn on the idea of blizzard continuing to nerf Uldir. Sure, nerfing raids has always happened, but I'm never happy when they do it. My main point is that it's doable without the nerf and we already have reorgination array and gearing which is an inbuilt nerf over time; why nerf it more?

As someone that's progressing on mythic G'huun it feels kick in the teeth to those who have been trying hard to get cutting edge. Now when we get the final kill in the raid we've put months of effort into (working to keep a newly established roster strong, despite people not always showing up. And all the other things guilds have to deal with), the reward and satifsation is lessened, through no choice of our own, because we know it's not the 'real' g'huun we killed.

I understand some will respond with, 'well if you're not good enough to kill it by now then it get better and maybe next time you can get CE before the nerf.' In some ways I understand that, but where's the cut off point? I certainly don't want Blizzard to hold my hand in Mythic. And for those that earned CE before I feel like an imposter of sorts. It seems very odd to me that one of the hardest achievements in a current patch, getting cutting edge, is made easier overtime, past out getting geared and having RA, so more people can get it. That's not how achievements should work... Don't hand me cutting edge if I'm not good enough to earn cutting edge. I don't want G'huun nerfed. It's totally against the idea of rising to a challenge.

There's another part to this discussion; some bosses actually need nerfs because Blizzard designed them badly in the first place. The initial nerf to Mythrax spawning orbs on melee was a welcome change (though not needed to kill the boss, clearly). On the other hand, the number of Bursting Boils on G'huun seems to me just a difficulty decrease and I can't agree with that.

What do you think about the recent Uldir nerfs?

[klaps_05]

Blizzards aim is to have about 5% of raiding population clear Mythic by the next encounter, heavy nerf usually come in after the first 500 or so guilds.

[Deleted]

Blizzards aim is to have about 5% of raiding population clear Mythic by the next encounter, heavy nerf usually come in after the first 500 or so guilds.

I'm interested to see your sources for the 5%. Regardless, your post doesn't really refute my points on why they shouldn't nerf it.

[Grindfactor]

If they nerf it so what? Killing mythic ghuun at any given point is something that not alot of people can say theyve done. A kill is a kill on a boss if hes at 10mil hp 1 day and 8 mil the next. They 'nerf' (adjust) fights based off where they see a playerbase struggling the most. So maybe somewhere in their data they noticed that the upcoming batch of Ghuun kills the players were dying a significant amount to the boils. So they toned it back a smidge. Whats honestly wrong with that? Theyre not reducing his overall hp or anything. The boss mechanically doesnt change. Slightly less or more of 1 mechanic doesnt mean the mechanic is now non existant unlike Mythrax orbs for melee. That was a flat out nerf. Was it bad? I dont think so. They know their players are taking breaks until 8.1 so why burn them out quicker when you can drip feed them to keep them playing longer in raids by tweaking this and that which pushes some to an ever closer kill. If youre not a world first raiding guild thats getting sponsored to play then why does it honestly matter...? Just have fun with the game at the end of the day.

[Deleted]

If they nerf it so what? Killing mythic ghuun at any given point is something that not alot of people can say theyve done. A kill is a kill on a boss if hes at 10mil hp 1 day and 8 mil the next. They 'nerf' (adjust) fights based off where they see a playerbase struggling the most. So maybe somewhere in their data they noticed that the upcoming batch of Ghuun kills the players were dying a significant amount to the boils. So they toned it back a smidge. Whats honestly wrong with that? Theyre not reducing his overall hp or anything. The boss mechanically doesnt change. Slightly less or more of 1 mechanic doesnt mean the mechanic is now non existant such as Mythrax orbs for melee. That was a flat out nerf. Was it bad? I dont think so. They know their players are taking breaks until 8.1 so why burn them out quicker when you can drip feed them to keep them playing longer in raids by tweaking this and that which pushes some to an ever closer kill. If youre not a world first raiding guild thats getting sponsored to play then why does it honestly matter...? Just have fun with the game at the end of the day.

I don't know where to start with this.

1. 'A kill is a kill on a boss if he's at 10mil hp 1 day and 8 mil the next' No. It's an easier boss.
2. They 'nerf' (adjust) fights based off where they see a playerbase struggling the most.' Why remove the struggle? Where does achievement come from if not the struggle? (The fact that people think otherwise really blows my mind)
3. 'The boss mechanically doesnt change.' The boss has literally changed mechanically.
4. Fun in the game is increased a hundred fold when it's meaningful fun. It just astounds me that you're basically arguing for CE to be spoon-fed. It's pure entitlement to 'drip feed' players CE. 'But I want to be special tooooooooo'

[Deleted]

If they nerf it so what? Killing mythic ghuun at any given point is something that not alot of people can say theyve done. A kill is a kill on a boss if hes at 10mil hp 1 day and 8 mil the next. They 'nerf' (adjust) fights based off where they see a playerbase struggling the most. So maybe somewhere in their data they noticed that the upcoming batch of Ghuun kills the players were dying a significant amount to the boils. So they toned it back a smidge. Whats honestly wrong with that? Theyre not reducing his overall hp or anything. The boss mechanically doesnt change. Slightly less or more of 1 mechanic doesnt mean the mechanic is now non existant unlike Mythrax orbs for melee. That was a flat out nerf. Was it bad? I dont think so. They know their players are taking breaks until 8.1 so why burn them out quicker when you can drip feed them to keep them playing longer in raids by tweaking this and that which pushes some to an ever closer kill. If youre not a world first raiding guild thats getting sponsored to play then why does it honestly matter...? Just have fun with the game at the end of the day.

It doesn't sound like you've killed it. I'm in the top 50 guild you speak of, and if you researched the encounter, you'd know that a 33% reduction to the amount of boils, nerfs the encounter to the ground, basically. It reduces the amount of needed coordination by a fuck ton.

[Deleted]

It doesn't sound like you've killed it. I'm in the top 50 guild you speak of, and if you researched the encounter, you'd know that a 33% reduction to the amount of boils, nerfs the encounter to the ground, basically. It reduces the amount of needed coordination by a fuck ton.

To read that actually makes me really sad. I want to rise to the challenge, not have it handed to me. This nerf makes me want to unsub, to be totally honest, because why even bother putting effort into a raid when you want get to experience and achieve the real end goal.

[srathgar]

The thing is with the "rise to the challenge", that just as they learnt with mythic dungeon difficulty in cata, people would rather just stop if the challenge is too big for them. As such if they see a lot of people are stuck on fetid because of the dps requirement, mythraxx because they had too many melee, or g'huun because he got an extremely punishing mechanic that demands quite high lvls of coordination, then blizzard steps in to ensure that the wall is not insurmountable for theese people currently stuck on the fights.

[Todesbote]

I think it's ok to nerf some of the harder encounters months after the world first kill. Most changes are also in the spirit of helping guilds that can't adjust their setup and stack classes as much as world top 100 guilds. This is why most nerfs are directed at bosses where class stacking is a huge factor:
G'huun pre nerf: bring 4 Warlocks or quit.
Mythrax pre nerf: have more than 4 melees in your regular roster? Bench them as every melee after the 4th will make the fight increasingly more difficult.
Fetid Devourer pre nerf: bring optimal heal setup (discs, druids, paladin/monk - bench your shamans), bring as few melee as possible, bring as many burst dps classes as possible -> the boss becomes way easier.

If you can't do that, because you are in a ~world 200 guild and not every member can be expected to have an alt he can switch to in order to make bosses easier, you will have a way harder time progressing. In this tier this has been even more true than before.

The nerfs are targeting exactly that. You can now kill G'huun with 2 or even less Warlocks. You can bring more than 5 melee to Devourer and still 4 heal it to deal with the additional stacks. You can now bring more than 5 melee to Mythrax without making the fight harder for yourself.

I like the changes and if anything they should have made them sooner.

That said I don't agree with the Bursting Boils change. This change does have nothing to do with your class lineup and this mechanics is basically the only coordination required besides handling the orbs that makes this encounter tough. I can see why they want to tune it down though. The coordination required is a real hassle especially if your roster changes weekly on the boss. It also adds a lot of RNG to the fight. 3 Boils spawning right next to each other on the very end of the room? Good luck! This is why many guilds don't even bother to farm G'huun due to the abysmal loot table for some classes there and the lack of anything special that an end boss of this caliber usually brings (pet, mount, toy, special trinket).

I still agree with OP that the Bursting Boil nerf hurts. It takes away from the guilds currently progressing on this. The closer you are to killing it the more annoying.

[Deleted]

The thing is with the "rise to the challenge", that just as they learnt with mythic dungeon difficulty in cata, people would rather just stop if the challenge is too big for them. As such if they see a lot of people are stuck on fetid because of the dps requirement, mythraxx because they had too many melee, or g'huun because he got an extremely punishing mechanic that demands quite high lvls of coordination, then blizzard steps in to ensure that the wall is not insurmountable for theese people currently stuck on the fights.

So it's really as simple as drip feed CE because that gets Blizz more money and fuck rising to the challenging and achieving something on an even playing field.

People really need to reassess what matters.

[crusadernero]

Why? People have cleared Mythic Uldir, so it is possible.

Also we got lfr, normal & HC and mythic. We all get to see the raids.

Personally my skillset probably gets me a few mythic raid kills, but beyond that im probably dead weight. Thats just how it is. I get to see the content on easier settings. I miss out on achivs, best gear and mounts, but im fine with that. Keeps it exclusive.

[krl]

To read that actually makes me really sad. I want to rise to the challenge, not have it handed to me. This nerf makes me want to unsub, to be totally honest, because why even bother putting effort into a raid when you want get to experience and achieve the real end goal.

As a side remark to your question, aiming at CE for the end of the tier is too slow. We are in the same situation as you. Maybe getting CE, maybe not. This is too slow. This is draining for average people, because they reclean each week and hit their head on the wall of bosses that are too difficult for them.

Blizzard sees guilds getting destroyed on Fetid or Ghuun or whatever, all the while there is no reward anymore for it (TF yay). They cannot stand and do nothing, this is bad for the game. So what do they do ?

When the end of the raid is near, they nerf the hell out of it so that weaker MM players get the thrill of killing new bosses again, that they couldn't have for months. And rekindle their interest for the following raid.

You want a challenge and so do I. They want to maintain their raiding population and that asks for rekindling weaker raiders passion and allow them to kill bosses.

[Kerathul]

I am with you 100%.

Last bosses of any given raid on mythic should never be nerfed. Cutting Edge should mean something, hell maybe they should even throw a transmog for completing the last encounter of the raid.

I am in a 2 day raiding guild and on monday we killed G'huun mythic, as a 2 day raidguild we even added sunday last week to a raidday because we all wanted to kill him before the nerf.

Do keep in mind though that after Method killed G'huun they nerfed G'huun as well, the orb nerf, that if you hold the orb you can now cast stuff, when Method killed it you couldn't cast stuff, hence the 4 warlock gate tactic was very relevant when they killed it.

So no, they shouldn't nerf anything, the passive nerfs from gear should be enough.

While we are at it, make heroic raiding more difficult as well. Instead of steamrolling through heroic, make that a bit harder so that the majority of the population is satisfied with that.

And keep mythic intended. MYTHIC!

[Chonar]

Risin' up, back in the raid
Ran my sims, took my potions
Went the distance, got my head on straight
Just a Tank and his will to survive

So many times, it happens too fast
You trade your HP for damage
Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive

It's the eye of the tiger, it's the thrill of the fight
Risin' up to the challenge of our rivals
And the last known survivor farms his gear in the night
And he's watchin' us all with the eye of the tiger

Face to face, out in the heat
Hangin' tough, stayin' hungry
They stack the odds 'till we take to the street
For the kill with the skill to survive

It's the eye of the tiger, it's the dream of the fight
Risin' up to the challenge of our rivals
And the last known survivor farms his gear in the night
And he's watchin' us all with the eye of the tiger

Risin' up, straight to the top
Had the drops, got Cutting Edge
Went the distance, now I'm not gonna stop
Just a Tank and his will to survive

It's the eye of the tiger, it's the dream of the fight
Risin' up to the challenge of our rivals
And the last known survivor farms his gear in the night
And he's watchin' us all with the eye of the tiger

[Deleted]

I think it's ok to nerf some of the harder encounters months after the world first kill. Most changes are also in the spirit of helping guilds that can't adjust their setup and stack classes as much as world top 100 guilds. This is why most nerfs are directed at bosses where class stacking is a huge factor:
G'huun pre nerf: bring 4 Warlocks or quit.
Mythrax pre nerf: have more than 4 melees in your regular roster? Bench them as every melee after the 4th will make the fight increasingly more difficult.
Fetid Devourer pre nerf: bring optimal heal setup (discs, druids, paladin/monk - bench your shamans), bring as few melee as possible, bring as many burst dps classes as possible -> the boss becomes way easier.

If you can't do that, because you are in a ~world 200 guild and not every member can be expected to have an alt he can switch to in order to make bosses easier, you will have a way harder time progressing. In this tier this has been even more true than before.

The nerfs are targeting exactly that. You can now kill G'huun with 2 or even less Warlocks. You can bring more than 5 melee to Devourer and still 4 heal it to deal with the additional stacks. You can now bring more than 5 melee to Mythrax without making the fight harder for yourself.

I like the changes and if anything they should have made them sooner.

Unless I'm mistaken mythic g'huun has had 2 nerfs? One that allows you use abilities with the orb, which I assume is why you 'needed' 4 warlocks and post nerf you can use 2 or fewer. (we have 2 locks). That seems like an okay nerf. I do agree with some.

But the Bursting Boils doesn't seem to me to be adressing a fix to class stacking or bad boss design. It's a pure nerf to difficulty, and a pretty big one at that. G'huun has been killed many times with 3 bursting boils; it should remain as 3.

- - - Updated - - -

I am with you 100%.

Last bosses of any given raid on mythic should never be nerfed. Cutting Edge should mean something, hell maybe they should even throw a transmog for completing the last encounter of the raid.

I am in a 2 day raiding guild and on monday we killed G'huun mythic, as a 2 day raidguild we even added sunday last week to a raidday because we all wanted to kill him before the nerf.

Do keep in mind though that after Method killed G'huun they nerfed G'huun as well, the orb nerf, that if you hold the orb you can now cast stuff, when Method killed it you couldn't cast stuff, hence the 4 warlock gate tactic was very relevant when they killed it.

So no, they shouldn't nerf anything, the passive nerfs from gear should be enough.

While we are at it, make heroic raiding more difficult as well. Instead of steamrolling through heroic, make that a bit harder so that the majority of the population is satisfied with that.

And keep mythic intended. MYTHIC!

And I agree with you. I think it should sting you a little that you got CE pre nerf and I get the same achievement even though we'll kill it post nerf. I know that would sting me. Nerfs change CE from being a clean cut thing and transform it into a tiered thing. 'Yeah, I got CE pre nerf 2' 'Well I got CE pre nerf 1!'

Keep a level playing field. You don't slope it down so people that wouldn't have gotten it can get it.

[srathgar]

TBH, cutting edge in the grand scheme matters very little. If you really wanna meassure your e-peen size you do it through guild rankings and through warcraftlogs which will always reflect how fast you killed a boss compared to other guilds and how much dmg you do compared to the rest of your spec.

The nerfs help to maintain a healthy raid scene as it curbs burnout, the whole "but mah cutting edge" is kinda asinine since you got better tools at evaluating how you performed in a given tier such as wowprogress.

[Todesbote]

But the Bursting Boils doesn't seem to me to be adressing a fix to class stacking or bad boss design. It's a pure nerf to difficulty, and a pretty big one at that. G'huun has been killed many times with 3 bursting boils; it should remain as 3.

I agree.

I understand why Blizzard did this though.

[Deleted]

TBH, cutting edge in the grand scheme matters very little. If you really wanna meassure your e-peen size you do it through guild rankings and through warcraftlogs which will always reflect how fast you killed a boss compared to other guilds and how much dmg you do compared to the rest of your spec.

The nerfs help to maintain a healthy raid scene as it curbs burnout, the whole "but mah cutting edge" is kinda asinine since you got better tools at evaluating how you performed in a given tier such as wowprogress.

I see your point. But CE aside, I want to kill the same boss that everyone that killed it before me killed. And if I can't, I can't. Just because a guild has struggled to get to g'huun because they've been recruiting new people during the tier doesn't mean they should arrive to find the end goal a lesser version of the one they hoped to one day kill.

[Ishayu]

I entirely agree that Blizzard should avoid nerfing bosses to the extent that that is possible.

However, we are in a situation where the game has far more melee specs than ranged specs. It's not unusual to have 60% of your DPS roster be melee simply because that's how the game works. That's around 8-9 melee. Let's assume 9.

It's no good having a raid instance where you get brutally punished for having more than 4 melee in a game that encourages 8-9 of them to be melee, and where the only way to avoid that is to make everyone roll 2-3 characters.

I can understand class stacking being a part of the game for the literal server first guilds, but for competent players who like to play WoW how it was intended - i.e. you enter a world as a singular character and build it up through great effort - it should be possible for them to take their characters and have a reasonable chance of defeating the hardest content in the game without having to bend over backwards to reroll repeatedly. Now, don't mistake that for me saying that composition and class should not be important. It should be. However, the game shouldn't be going out of its way to force you to stack certain classes for certain encounters, or, even worse, to force you to stack different classes for different encounters, with a particular deemphasis on melee to the point where not even one of half of the melee classes in the game can be brought to a raid.

[xcess]

Once any nerf comes in, its already a different boss. Why is it the same if you killed it with tons more gear and 10 stacks buff than method? maybe theh should give CE out depending on ilvl. CE and aotc eligibility is too long anyway especially last tier where you get one year to kill it instead of half that. I believe mop had the option to let you do the non nerfed raid, dont think many bothered turning it on