Do you think Blizzard is taking the right approach with T15?

[Confirm Deny]

The only thing that I had some reserves about was (and its on the front page) when they admitted the raid is super linear - but it's because of the narrative aspect. I'll have to gauge general player reception of the story to see if I should worry, seeing as how it seems the story tidbits in this expansion (outside of concept) is being received quite well.

Otherwise, as a casual raider I liked normal modes being around T11 difficulty. However, if they can make mechanics that are interesting I feel that heroic raiders won't really end up caring. I mean, if you "want to prove yourself," you either can or can't do it at the highest difficulty, which would be heroic. Why prove yourself twice? Because you can't do the heroic yet and need more gear? Well, that says something. Hell, that even says something that should be very obvious if you can't do it on normal. I'll grudgingly concede that Blizzard can probably determine what it means should be done better than most.

[Deleted]

I ask because, a lot of you seemed to think T14 was overtuned, and felt that LFR was absolutely required for a Normal Raider to do.

That's because it's the first raid of the expansion, so everything's an upgrade from the dungeon blues you get as a fresh 90, including LFR.

I don't think T14 was overtuned at all, rather have a challenge than having another Naxxramas25 situation.

Precisely. It was tuned appropriately for the gear level that everyone had (ie. 458-463 blues), it's subsequent tiers that will be undertuned like FL/DS. (and hence normal mode will be facerolled in 1-2 weeks by any guild with T14 hc kills)

[Bahamutx]

In my testing, it is alot harder than T14 but we were being scaled down on the PTR. The mechanics are less forgiving in the new LFR for instance on the first boss, taking a lightening ball to the face will do alot of raid damage and standing in a storm puddle will kill you. On the second boss, if you dont handling the add properly, you will get overwhelmed and wipe. Le Shein is going to be as bad as pre-nerf garalon when it comes to wipes. Be prepared for 5-6 determination stacks for each boss

[Prokne]

I dont agree with releasing LFR in gated wings. It was ok when we had 3 raids that were released at different times but this is just one raid. If people feel required to run LFR too bad, find a guild that doesnt require you to do everything to max your character or just have some self control.

Otherwise big raid = good and I wish we could fly on the island.

[Solidsteel]

They aren't saying there won't be any gear checks in the upcoming raid they are just making the majority of the fights more mechanic based.

[RicardoZ]

Focusing on mechanics is the wrong way to go, in my opinion. I would rather have fights that don't require you to watch somebody else do it first, memorize it, and then attempt it yourself. If it were kind of puzzle-based like the boss in BWL along with being heavy dps check/mana check for healers, that would be better. But this business of "Ok guys at 3:49 he's going to do x ability so move over here, then at 7:22 he's going to this so move the other way and then kite the adds into the green stuff..." has run its course and raiding should evolve.

[Softbottom]

berserk timer/dps checks have always been a really lame mechanic. I've never been a fan of them. I'd rather have really complex boss mechanics than having to beat a berserk timer. I simply don't find them fun or engaging in any kind of way.

[Video Games]

No. Might as well just bring 4/10 healers and yawn your way through.

[Banzhe]

DPS checks are absolutely vital. If they didn't exist, then there would be no point to needing to understand how to play your class well.

Any fight that doesn't have a tight enrage timer, for a group doing it when it's contemporary in the gear that implies, then it's a boring and uninteresting fight. Especially if you're a healer; my god, fights without tight enrage timers are the most boring fights in the world for a healer. Yeah, let's just bring as many healers as we can get away with for this one because the enrage isn't a danger anyway, and then the hardest part of the fight is to not fall asleep... zzzzzzzzz.

Fights that don't push your DPS to their limit makes the healers bored, because if you can get away with bringing more healers, then you will bring more healers, which means that the healers don't need to be able to play well, since you have so many of them that even if all of them preform poorly, the sheer number of them will compensate for the incompetence. I hate those fights. Any fight that can be, say, 1/2 healed, but it's safer to 2/3 heal, and we can get away with 2/3 healing because of the lack of DPS checks, is an idiotically designed fight. It means I don't have to play well, which means that I will be bored, which makes me frustrated and irritable. If I wanted to heal a fight like that, I'd be doing LFR instead.

Just c/p'ing as it's spot on tbh, then again.., ptr is ptr, and this is mmo champion where everyone is a divine player in their own respectively opinion

[Sinndra]

Any fight that doesn't have a tight enrage timer, for a group doing it when it's contemporary in the gear that implies, then it's a boring and uninteresting fight. Especially if you're a healer; my god, fights without tight enrage timers are the most boring fights in the world for a healer. Yeah, let's just bring as many healers as we can get away with for this one because the enrage isn't a danger anyway, and then the hardest part of the fight is to not fall asleep... zzzzzzzzz.

yah i gotta disagree. but, if mechanics were more interesting you wouldnt be so asleep at the wheel. im not saying remove enrage timers completely, im saying every single fight doesnt need to be that tight in normal. heroic.. possibly, you are supposed to be cutting edge after all. following a rotation while not having to move is boring also.

obviously there needs to be a... middle ground here. you should feel *some* pressure from timers on fights, but we dont need total gear blocks every 3rd or 4th boss. thats just bad design. make fights interesting, and the healers cant sleep through it. avoid this damage or die. cant avoid it if you are asleep. im not even talking about LFR here... that stuff totally doesnt count and yes you can easily sleep thru that.

[Deleted]

DPS checks have their place in the game. Its basically asking you "Can you handle this boss fights mechanic while keeping your dps up?". Although some of the t14 set bonus were really insane. Warlock t14 4pc was more or less a 10-15k dps increase, basically because it reduced the cooldown of dark soul by 1/3 and therefor increasing it's uptime. The t15 warlock set bonus do however seem abit dull, but atleast its not overexaggerated in terms of dps increase.

[JoeShmo]

oh yah i can totally see your point. and thats fine. but if mechanics are introduced to specifically be for melee so that they are useful, then everybody feels they contribute their share to the kill. and thats the feeling i hope to see in t15.

its not fun to say dang, sorry guys, my dps coulda been better but i had to run across the room every 3 secs to deal with an add. or whatever.. im sure you know what i mean.

The two different lines you say rather contradict themselves dont they? On one point, you state that its good when everyone feels they contributed to the kill, yet in the second line you state that by not doing the absolute best dps on the boss target...you are contributing as much as you should.

This has been a problem with raid and group thinking ever since TBC when dps meter mods became much more commonly used.

Doing the best possible dps on a boss is not an indication that you are doing the best for your raid. Dealing with the boss mechanics and downing the boss as a group in the best of your ability is how you tell a good raider from a bad one. People get so caught up in a single part of dps meter mods that its mind numbing. There are other things like dmg taken, deaths, dispels, overhealing, etc. that you never see people look at. Damage and healing meters are used to gauge your ability to do just those two things, and have no indication on if you are doing a good job or not as a whole.

For your example, if you were so concerned about the dps part of the fight, why not worry about how much dps you are doing to the adds that come every 3 sec? Would that not be a better indication of who is doing a good job in the raid? You see the adds as a hindrance of your dps on the boss, yet the adds ARE part of the boss as a whole, like every other mechanic in an encounter.

There is much more to a raid fight than topping the dps charts, and this is what blizzard has been saying over and over again for years, yet players are only concerned with with being within a few % of each other in dps at all times. This means that when there is an encounter that requires you to move out of fire...or to stop attacking a boss, almost all dps/healers cringe at the idea of dealing with the fight mechanic, because they think that losing some "potential" dps/hps on a boss makes them a bad raider.

Someone has to man up and chase down those adds, kite the orbs, click the buttons....and yet we stigmatize those players because they arnt doing as much dps as the players that refused do leave the warming embrace of the boss's bosom.

"Too many chiefs, not enough Indians" , as the saying goes.

[Deleted]

Some T14 normal fights were overtuned and some were undertuned. If you look at the kill counts (wow-progress), there's a large drop at Elegon, Garalon, and Amber-Shaper. Yes, there are still thousands of guilds struggling on those bosses for one reason or another. There's a 7000 thousand guild drop-off for Elegon, 5000 for Garalon and 3000 for Amber-Shaper.

Progression should be more gradual for guilds that are only able to kill normal modes. It's not good to wipe for a month on one boss, and then kill the next 3 in one night. E.g. HoF clear being required for Terrace unless you had an outsider unlock it for you. If you were doing the encounters in a difficulty order, you'd probably jump to Terrace after 2/6 HoF. Some HoF and MV fights should have been tuned easier, and most Terrace fights should have been tuned harder.

LFR at the start of an expansion is hard to avoid, since everyone is poorly geared. There should be less need for LFR with T15, except maybe for select pieces like trinkets, tier tokens, and bad luck slots.

[Otimus]

I dont agree with releasing LFR in gated wings. It was ok when we had 3 raids that were released at different times but this is just one raid. If people feel required to run LFR too bad, find a guild that doesnt require you to do everything to max your character or just have some self control.

Otherwise big raid = good and I wish we could fly on the island.

I very much agree with this. Punishing the majority to make the minority happy is bullshit.

[Mawnix]

I very much agree with this. Punishing the majority to make the minority happy is bullshit.

Punishing the Majority? It's also a way of gating content for people who just run LFR, so they don't feel overwhelmed and have to run all 4 wings right off the bat.

[Airwaves]

Well I stopped raiding because this teir was so boring. I raided for 7 years and last thing I wanted to do was boring dps check fights (which I know I can beat easy) and stale mechanics. I know I am not the only raider who felt like this. So hopefully they have new mechanics and not reused old ones next teir and I might just start raiding agian.

5.2 is the breaker for me. They either have new boss fight mechanics that haven't been used before and not stale dps check fights and I start raiding again or I stay causal and never plan to raid again.

[wariofan1]

I like the fact that they're discarding gear check bosses for this tier, and I absolutely love that we're getting another big raid. What I don't like is that they're gating the LFR counterpart at the start, that's just stupid.

[Mawnix]

I like the fact that they're discarding gear check bosses for this tier, and I absolutely love that we're getting another big raid. What I don't like is that they're gating the LFR counterpart at the start, that's just stupid.

There are still gear check bosses.

Iron Qon and Twin Consorts are pretty big ones.

Same with Dark Animus, imo, along with Primordius.

[shokter]

I thought t14 normals were very, very well tuned. I enjoyed the tight enrages and also enjoyed reacting to mechanics. I was hoping normals would continue at this level. I hate the way blizz always yo-yos between design paradigms as micro reactions to playerbase complaints/sub fluctuations. I wish they had the temerity to stick with their choices and trust that an audience will solidify behind their decision. Always swinging the dial to the far opposite ends makes me a little crazy.

[Prokne]

Focusing on mechanics is the wrong way to go, in my opinion. I would rather have fights that don't require you to watch somebody else do it first, memorize it, and then attempt it yourself. If it were kind of puzzle-based like the boss in BWL along with being heavy dps check/mana check for healers, that would be better. But this business of "Ok guys at 3:49 he's going to do x ability so move over here, then at 7:22 he's going to this so move the other way and then kite the adds into the green stuff..." has run its course and raiding should evolve.

Gear heavy encounters arent really an evolution though since that was what most bosses were before sometime in Wrath. If you want less predicatble encounters that still rely on mechanics for difficulty the thing to do is to make it more random. Each ability has a probability that it will happen and every pull would be different. People wouldnt like that because "OMG rng" but you would just have to be better at adapting. It could be much harder.

Or they could give mobs AI and have them adapt to the raid and the raid tactics. That would be fun.

And at the same time you can require more gear to meet the required DPS/heals to defeat the encounter.