Dragon Soul Difficulty Change - Power of the Aspects to 10%

[Boubouille]

Diablo 3 - Beta Contests, Portrait of a Champion Art Contest, Blue Posts, Wiki Tooltips, Curse Weekly Update

Update: Added tonight's Blue Posts, which address some questions about the difficulty change.

Dragon Soul Difficulty Change - Power of the Aspects to 10%

During the scheduled server maintenance on the week of February 28, the “Power of the Aspects” spell will grow more powerful, reducing the health and damage dealt of all enemies in the Dragon Soul raid by 10%. This spell will grow progressively stronger over time to reduce the difficulty and make the encounters more accessible. The spell will affect both normal and Heroic difficulties, but it will not affect the Raid Finder difficulty.

Don’t need the help of the Dragon Aspects? The spell can be disabled by talking to Lord Afrasastrasz at the beginning of Dragon Soul.

We hope you continue to enjoy Dragon Soul, and that these changes encourage you to attempt a higher difficulty, or just keep pushing to down that next boss.

Blue Posts

Dragon Soul Difficulty Reduction
MMO Champ JUST published a blog about how effective the 5% nerf was. As the graph indicates, progress is continuing at a healthy, linear rate. It hasn't leveled off. Why are you nerfing heroic mode, again? You explicitly told us that you would not continue with blind nerfs on auto pilot.
We're not "nerfing blindly." Keep in mind that, the debuff can be disabled. So if you and your Raid choose to do so, you can take on the encounter without it. We also explained our thought processes in the original announcement blog about the debuff here.

Despite arguments to the contrary, there is a choice involved here. You can choose to leave the debuff on or turn it off. If you're looking for the challenge that doing the raid gives you without the debuff and your raid group isn't interested in turning off the debuff, that is still a choice that is being made. No one is forcing that on anyone. If you personally feel forced, then it may be an option to find another group that is interested in the challenge of doing it without the debuff.

Meanwhile, the debuff affords those that want to progress a bit, who have experienced difficulty, more of a leg-up.

It's fine to disagree with us on this, but please make sure that you continue to do so in a constructive manner and refrain from starting flame wars or posting harassing/defamatory language toward posters in the thread. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Dragon Soul Difficulty Reduction
And yes, maybe I'm a special snowflake who likes recognition. But I argue that the game is now somewhat built around recognition since achievements were added to the game.
We understand that there are players out there who do what they do for recognition and--dare I say it?--glory. Since we'll likely continue to use a model where we introduce a raid, then slowly remove roadblocks over time, there's a possibility that we could do something akin to adding a feat of strength for players who defeat an encounter in a non-debuffed incarnation, or possibly time-stamps on the armory raid progression section. At the very least, there are options on the table for the future. These aren't things we'll be able to do for Dragon Soul though.

Nobody is getting held up by 5% or 10% damage and health on bosses, they're getting held up by mechanics.
When a group is really close to taking down a boss, but just can't seem to manage it, a bump like this is sometimes enough to see them on to the next challenge. (Official Forums)

PTR Scheduled Maintenance 2/23/12
In addition to the maintenance going on today (2/22/12) the PTR realms will also be down tomorrow morning (2/23/12) from 5:00am-7:00am PST. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

War College - Strand of the Ancients

The battlefields of World of Warcraft are littered with the bones of those who have become casualties in the ongoing conflict between the Horde and the Alliance. You do not need to become one of them. One of the keys to victory is knowledge, and that is where the World of Warcraft War College enters the picture. In these discussions between players, you can learn and share strategies with other players to improve your tactics and improve your odds of emerging victorious from the field of battle.

Are you a veteran Gladiator with countless victories tallied? Are you new to World of Warcraft and striving to improve your PvP skills? In this weekly feature, we invite players of all skill levels to ask questions, share tips and tactics, and join a conversation dedicated to surviving and thriving in World of Warcraft PvP.

Don’t forget to up-vote forum posts that are on-topic and helpful!

This week, the topic of discussion is: Strand of the Ancients - Which strategies are most effective in Strand of the Ancients on offense and defense? What tips, tricks and tactics have you discovered? What common mistakes have you witnessed?

Join the War College forum thread here.

[Dead_MAX]

Again? So fast?

[Kisho]

Nerftacular. Well, more people seeing the content can't hurt!

[Deleted]

So 5% didn't seem enough of a nerf :/ everything will get even eazier now :/

[Varil]

Too Soon!, you have nerfed me too soon blizzard!

[Poppeh]

Meh... Should have given it a few more weeks.

[Tokurei]

yeah, we're not seeing enough heroic madness kills, need more savior of azeroths.

[Posseidon]

Nerfs again.... too fast... way too fast

[Stede]

It's been a month.... just like they said. Why is anyone surprised?

[Ikkarus]

Nerftacular. Well, more people seeing the content can't hurt!

Yeah, cause they didn't see it in the LFR tool...Ohh wait!

[Tihr]

Not surprised, but still disappointed.

[Pharmacy]

more nerfs for the bads who cant slay dragons.

[Sevenxd]

They said they were nerfing it every month. So why are people surprised?

[Tokurei]

It's been a month.... just like they said. Why is anyone surprised?

Well they did pretend like they could alter the rate at which the buff would be handed out based on "how many guilds had progressed through DS." But yeah as you said, no one should be surprised, really..

[mistuhbull]

It's been a month.... just like they said. Why is anyone surprised?

because intelligent thought is rare among the complainers.

Question for people who do computer programming. How unfeasible would it be for Blizzard to make the levels of the buff togglable?

By that I mean, as it is now it is all or nothing, but whatif a guild was wiping on 5% the week before the 10% buff dropped. How difficult would it be to code in so that they could chose to keep it at 5%, instead of going for 10% or 0%

[devinedragoon]

Again? So fast?

YOu are aware that would be a 1 month wait right.

[Deleted]

Hmm that was pretty fast, didn't seem to be at 5% for long

[pepe2c]

So who cares ... the achievment have the date on it ...

[PriestAlisha]

Hmm, maybe I can solo heal Hagara on 25 man normal next week... fun times!

[Deleted]

5% every month just like in ICC. Proves how far off MoP is.