M: Queen Azshara 14 (0.08%)

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

What does number of kills have to do with participation?
Have you done this raid?

Its ironic you compare it to TOS.

The thing in common there?
Both raids are very difficult.

Might wanna look at Mythic 3/8.

[ryklin]

Okay.

They’re still going to play Classic, as I’ve said. They’ll go back to retail for the 1 or 2 weeks it takes to clear MYTHIC (usually less than 2 weeks). And play Classic. Sorry?

People that clear mythic in a week to a month usually have to spend at least a month no-lifing beforehand (not so sure if you saw the streams beforehand of them doing islands and dailies for 10+ hours at a time and crafting 30million types of shit for alts to trade gear), but yeah, it's pretty sustainable to play both. Max level pve in classic is basically raidlogging for really shitty raids and occasionally going out to get mats for enchants (at least crusader orbs and strat are fun) and consumables and world buffs, and it's a really lackluster part of the game and hopefully not why anyone decides to play it.

[Laqweeta]

People that clear mythic in a week to a month usually have to spend at least a month no-lifing beforehand (not so sure if you saw the streams beforehand of them doing islands and dailies for 10+ hours at a time and crafting 30million types of shit for alts to trade gear), but yeah, it's pretty sustainable to play both. Max level pve in classic is basically raidlogging for really shitty raids and occasionally going out to get mats for enchants (at least crusader orbs and strat are fun) and consumables and world buffs, and it's a really lackluster part of the game and hopefully not why anyone decides to play it.

So Classic has really shitty raids, and retail has a really shitty progression system leading up to the raids.

Ya’ just can’t win

[Raugnaut]

Personally, I have to wonder why Blizz moved away from the "Gradual, 5% stacking debuff nerfs" that you could remove.

It would be simple even - Just make the AotC/CE achievement require that you beat the last boss with NO debuff. People can progress pretty easy once it hits 15% or so, and then when they are all outfitted with full 450+ ilvl across the board AND know the fight, turn off the debuff to get the achieve and see it at full power.

[Osmeric]

Personally, I have to wonder why Blizz moved away from the "Gradual, 5% stacking debuff nerfs" that you could remove.

Because that encourages players to unsub until the nerfs stack.

[KaPe]

Because that encourages players to unsub until the nerfs stack.

Except they already solved that issue back in Uldir - bonus stats from Azerite trait needed actual boss kills to stack. This does have the issue of punishing people who join late, but could also be tweaked a bit with some pseudo AK solutions to allow for easier catchup.

'Course, they immediately dropped this after Uldir, with zero reasoning or improvements.

[jiih]

IN my opinion best way to promote mythic:

1.)other raid difficulties same size as mythic. Right now people blast with any size of people through heroic and suddenly they need 6more to enter mythic
2.) Make heroic harder and remove normal mode. Theres literally no reason for normal mode to exist except that it waters down heroic even more with the gear flood. If people just want to see the raid they can go LFR.
And heroic is way too easy currently especially because of the gear flood from normal version and m+.

People dont get used to "progress"/wipe anymore. BEcause even for average player heroic is a zergfiesta and the amount of pugs who do 7/8 with every boss first try speaks for itself.

Now guilds not only need to change the amount of players but also have the mindset to be able to wipe hours on a boss and now on top of that with weekly m+ chest stuff its even less motivating because the gear is not a motivaiton enough. (oh and benthic says hello)

[Gorsameth]

Personally, I have to wonder why Blizz moved away from the "Gradual, 5% stacking debuff nerfs" that you could remove.

It would be simple even - Just make the AotC/CE achievement require that you beat the last boss with NO debuff. People can progress pretty easy once it hits 15% or so, and then when they are all outfitted with full 450+ ilvl across the board AND know the fight, turn off the debuff to get the achieve and see it at full power.

I believe they talked about this once.
Its a matter of feelings (as so many things are).
It 'feels' bad to kill a boss because it has a -5% stuff debuff compared to killing it because you do 5% more stuff from extra gear. Even if the relative power between the 2 situations is the same.

To me a lot of the issues with current Mythic raids are caused by Titanforging. The more random ilvl becomes to more varied ilvl between players and raid teams becomes the harder it is to balance fights.
Once you could simply assume that a team entering Mythic was decked out in (mostly) Heroic gear, and then you ramp the expected ilvl from there to full Mythic by the final boss.
You can't do that anymore because thanks to titanforging a raid groups starting ilvl can be along that track. So Blizzard ends up balancing on the high end for hardcore guilds that farm lots and have lots of titanforges while the more 'casual' Mythic guilds run into trouble and drop out. Which causes Mythic raid participation to plummet.

- - - Updated - - -

IN my opinion best way to promote mythic:

1.)other raid difficulties same size as mythic. Right now people blast with any size of people through heroic and suddenly they need 6more to enter mythic
2.) Make heroic harder and remove normal mode. Theres literally no reason for normal mode to exist except that it waters down heroic even more with the gear flood. If people just want to see the raid they can go LFR.
And heroic is way too easy currently especially because of the gear flood from normal version and m+.

People dont get used to "progress"/wipe anymore. BEcause even for average player heroic is a zergfiesta and the amount of pugs who do 7/8 with every boss first try speaks for itself.

Now guilds not only need to change the amount of players but also have the mindset to be able to wipe hours on a boss and now on top of that with weekly m+ chest stuff its even less motivating because the gear is not a motivaiton enough. (oh and benthic says hello)

You ignore the casual people for who normal is actually somewhat of a challenge.
You might think this group does not exist because your not part of it but I bet they are there and in bigger numbers then you realise.
The #1 rule to remember is people are terrible, no matter how 'casual' you might think the game has become.
Think of how bad the average player you run into is, and then realise of the player base is worse then that.

[Osmeric]

IN my opinion best way to promote mythic:

1.)other raid difficulties same size as mythic. Right now people blast with any size of people through heroic and suddenly they need 6more to enter mythic
2.) Make heroic harder and remove normal mode.

Flex (now normal) was introduced for a reason -- there's a large segment of the player population for which it is the appropriate difficulty.

High end raiding is done only by a tiny fraction of players. It's the tail that wags the dog. Your suggestion would send the game into maintenance mode in short order.

[jiih]

I believe they talked about this once.
Its a matter of feelings (as so many things are).
It 'feels' bad to kill a boss because it has a -5% stuff debuff compared to killing it because you do 5% more stuff from extra gear. Even if the relative power between the 2 situations is the same.

To me a lot of the issues with current Mythic raids are caused by Titanforging. The more random ilvl becomes to more varied ilvl between players and raid teams becomes the harder it is to balance fights.
Once you could simply assume that a team entering Mythic was decked out in (mostly) Heroic gear, and then you ramp the expected ilvl from there to full Mythic by the final boss.
You can't do that anymore because thanks to titanforging a raid groups starting ilvl can be along that track. So Blizzard ends up balancing on the high end for hardcore guilds that farm lots and have lots of titanforges while the more 'casual' Mythic guilds run into trouble and drop out. Which causes Mythic raid participation to plummet.

- - - Updated - - -

You ignore the casual people for who normal is actually somewhat of a challenge.
You might think this group does not exist because your not part of it but I bet they are there and in bigger numbers then you realise.
The #1 rule to remember is people are terrible, no matter how 'casual' you might think the game has become.
Think of how bad the average player you run into is, and then realise of the player base is worse then that.

But people also could do normal mode of ICC or Moghushan Palace(=heroic nowadays). For the Casual there were 10Mans so they dont have the organisation struggle.

And i doubt anyone considers normal hard because its literally LFR just with a premade Group.

Casual doesnt equal bad players and thats the point why there should only be heroic and mythic. Casuals then can Progress heroic and clear it 1-2Months into the Content if they are bad.

Thats the thing. Everyone has something to progress then.

Im a Casual myself (= not a lot of time) and i just pug some heroic now(90+parse usually) and then and its just boring to rush through through it but on the other hand i cant afford to raid mythic because it needs 2-3 raid evenings with atleast a decent attendance + my realm is almost empty.

Heroic definitely needs to be tuned up to conditionate people and prepare them for mythic because the difference from zerging to mythic is just too big

[Lurker1]

1 month into Mythic. This is close to M ToS levels of participation and it could be a repeat of the ToS fiasco. The big guilds like Exorsus have only just defeated the encounter. It looks like we'll be in the palace till 2020 at least, especially with people making the switch to Classic.

Do you anticipate severe nerfs to this raid to stop the hemorrhaging of participation?

People really need to stop assumeing that every single retail wow player is going to classic because im not and many others as well aren't.

[Gorsameth]

But people also could do normal mode of ICC or Moghushan Palace(=heroic nowadays). For the Casual there were 10Mans so they dont have the organisation struggle.

And i doubt anyone considers normal hard because its literally LFR just with a premade Group.

Casual doesnt equal bad players and thats the point why there should only be heroic and mythic. Casuals then can Progress heroic and clear it 1-2Months into the Content if they are bad.

Thats the thing. Everyone has something to progress then.

Im a Casual myself (= not a lot of time) and i just pug some heroic now(90+parse usually) and then and its just boring to rush through through it but on the other hand i cant afford to raid mythic because it needs 2-3 raid evenings with atleast a decent attendance + my realm is almost empty.

Heroic definitely needs to be tuned up to conditionate people and prepare them for mythic because the difference from zerging to mythic is just too big

Yes, the use of casual for normal players was wrong, but the point is still the same. There is most certainly an audience for Normal.
Yes, people really are that bad.

[Marrilaife]

Heroic definitely needs to be tuned up to conditionate people and prepare them for mythic because the difference from zerging to mythic is just too big

Heroic is fine for the intended gear levels. Only pugs that "zerg" it are the overgeared ones, and the reason they're overgeared is all the free gear floating around especially from m+. How do you solve it though without gutting m+? If you have 430 equipped from m+ you are overgeared for a heroic raid that also drops 430 baseline. Raids are tuned around people who are 10-15 ilvls below so they're going there for upgrades.

Some guildies of mine joined a hc pug that wasn't one of these overgear and zerg because they wanted to gear up alts, and that pug never passed ashvane. Heck, I've seen pugs wipe on normal Ashara. I really don't think this raid is undertuned on normal / hc, until you step with mythic geared buddies into lower difficulties, then duh, ofc it's easy.

[jiih]

Heroic is fine for the intended gear levels. Only pugs that "zerg" it are the overgeared ones, and the reason they're overgeared is all the free gear floating around especially from m+. How do you solve it though without gutting m+? If you have 430 equipped from m+ you are overgeared for a heroic raid that also drops 430 baseline. Raids are tuned around people who are 10-15 ilvls below so they're going there for upgrades.

Some guildies of mine joined a hc pug that wasn't one of these overgear and zerg because they wanted to gear up alts, and that pug never passed ashvane. Heck, I've seen pugs wipe on normal Ashara. I really don't think this raid is undertuned on normal / hc, until you step with mythic geared buddies into lower difficulties, then duh, ofc it's easy.

You are right maybe its because of the gear flood. for me it makes heroic raid just boring how it is now and mythic is another thing because i cant attend to a proper guild which raids 2-3times a week especiallly now with all the benthic stuff.

[Marrilaife]

You are right maybe its because of the gear flood. for me it makes heroic raid just boring how it is now and mythic is another thing because i cant attend to a proper guild which raids 2-3times a week especiallly now with all the benthic stuff.

Benthic is another culprit, wearing 425 benthic with correct proc and socket is like wearing 455+ items for dps specs so yeah ofc it's overkill for heroic, yet it's so simple to get this gear. Even non socketed or non max upgraded one will be more powerful than hc piece.

[KaPe]

Benthic is like having ~4 perfect BiS items, far beyond what heroic drops. Even "suboptimal" slots can be superior to standard heroic gear, with just a single socket- so that's up to 6 items which are dealt with... more, if someone is crazy enough to grind 400+ pearls per azerite slot. There hasn't been a tier so far which offered so many powerful items outside of raid.

[Baleful]

What does number of kills have to do with participation?
Have you done this raid?

Its ironic you compare it to TOS.

The thing in common there?
Both raids are very difficult.

Might wanna look at Mythic 3/8.

ToS was way harder than TEP is. The harder boss i defeated so far (Za'qul) only took us around 120 pulls playing very badly compared to 220 pulls on Sass'zine or 100 on Maiden (or 400+ on Avatar!). Same guild, most of the core is the same. I consider this a easy raid, we are sitting at P4 Azshara. If we kill her next week, which seem very possible, we will be 8 full weeks ahead of what we did on ToS (15th week KJ)

[Otrew]

Benthic is too powefull for a tier that overgear can solve al problems so easy. You can just zerg the first 5 bosses in heroic and 7 in normal with overgear. In heroic Zaqul the only hard part is phase 3 but again is easier with overgear and you can just ignore phase 3 adds of azhara, killl spear add and finish the boss. We had more overgear in the previus raid and we had a lot more problems killing conclave, mekathorke and jaina because mechanics.

[ryklin]

you can zerg every boss on heroic
it's fucking heroic

[shyguybman]

Holy shit, I usually agree with you, but this is just stupid. How can you defend "mythic" bosses like Taloc and Champions of the Light that were not only easier than heroic end bosses, but than heroic mid-bosses? Pugs made of people who couldn't pass heroic Zul could kill mythic Taloc, pugs that couldn't pass heroic Conclave of Loa would steamroll Champions of the Light.

Sorry, 1st boss on mythic shouldn't be a loot pinata, that's what world bosses are for. "Mythic" raiding participation shouldn't be boosted by free weapon dispensers like these 2 bosses. 1st boss on mythic should be a small step up after finishing heroic, not a big chasm of difficulty (look: Crucible of Storms), but also a gauge whether your guild is ready for mythic.

I feel bosses like Nythendra and Garothi Worldbreaker were a good example of an entry mythic boss, not overcomplicated, but neither steamrollable by pugs from week 1.

Making mythic raiding "accessible" by making it easier than heroic seriously defeats the purpose. The gradation of difficulty levels is there for a reason.

I hate to say this because I enjoyed it on my alts but they really shouldn't put weapons on the 1st boss of a raid, especially if the Mythic version is a complete joke.

Okay.

They’re still going to play Classic, as I’ve said. They’ll go back to retail for the 1 or 2 weeks it takes to clear MYTHIC (usually less than 2 weeks). And play Classic. Sorry?

So the 20-40 players that clear mythic in 2 weeks will go back to classic.