Are the first 2-3 bosses of SoO morchok levels of difficulty?

[heltvild]

Maybe he's raided normals for 7 years and now they are being tuned beyond him/his friends. As far as I can tell all he's asking is for some consistency in tuning over time rather than gradual, guild killing ramp up.

so what? just becuase he raided normals for 7 years they should nerf it so he can do it because he feel demanded to do it? hell why not just remove normal heroic and flex all togheter and just have LFR.

this is whats destroying wow, people crying at the game when they cant beat it, instead of just getting better, or accept it.

[Deleted]

so what? just becuase he raided normals for 7 years they should nerf it so he can do it because he feel demanded to do it? hell why not just remove normal heroic and flex all togheter and just have LFR.

If you pay or something and get it for the best part of a decade, i'd say you have the right to feel aggrieved when it doesn't show up all of a sudden.

this is whats destroying wow, people crying at the game when they cant beat it, instead of just getting better, or accept it.

No, what's destroying wow is the way the game is complete cented around and catering to hardcore raiding. They should go the TBC route and make levelling last weeks and most folks endgames be long assed 5 mans again and forget trying to make everyone a raider.

[heltvild]

honestly, i dont know what to say about people like you. You seriously want blizzard to nerf normal modes because you and your derp friends cant handle them?

They even gave you flex so you still can raid, and u still cry

what is so hard about just getting better at the game, or accept that normal raiding is not for you, and raid flex and be happy? if you are so casual you cant handle normal what does it matter if u raid normal or flex anyways?

[Nobleshield]

honestly, i dont know what to say about people like you. You seriously want blizzard to nerf normal modes because you and your derp friends cant handle them?

They even gave you flex so you still can raid, and u still cry

what is so hard about just getting better at the game, or accept that normal raiding is not for you, and raid flex and be happy? if you are so casual you cant handle normal what does it matter if u raid normal or flex anyways?

No, we don't want them to keep increasing normal mode and adding in an additional mode as a bone. That's what Injin, myself and others are saying and which you seem to not get. The normal modes of the earlier game weren't tuned half as much as normal mode since Cataclysm, so now people like us who USED to be able to normal modes are being edged out because the curve of normal keeps growing, and rather than balance it properly they added in Flex which is a great idea in theory but could very well be the death knell of many "used to be able to do Normal" mode guilds. There is a whole "class" of guilds that USED to be able to clear normal mode, and now they struggle in normal mode, because the Normal mode of today is closer to the Heroic mode before (something many of those guilds didn't care that much for and only dabbled in), seemingly to appease the very small minority of heroic players who clear content fast and then claim how easy everything is.

I can't speak to Injin but my guild has never thought of ourselves as the "beer and pretzels" or "family and friends" guild, we were always a fairly casual raid guld that could usually clear normal modes; we never really were progressed in heroic modes, but we could do normal at a good pace without too much trouble. This new trend of normal coupled with flex threatens to knock us, and guilds like us, OUT of normal mode raiding and drop us from a "semi-casual raid guild" to the "friends and family" type of guild that Flex is aimed at, which we didn't intend to be.

[Count Zero]

Well, I can see your point, and I think some folks are misrepresenting you -- but, Blizz has said that Flex mode is basically going to replace ICC-10 type difficulty, which disappeared after Wrath.

If Wrath 10-player raids were the best fit for your guild, then in t16 flex mode is the equivalent to those, from Blizz's perspective. I think for everyone involved there is going to need to be a re-evaluation of goals. I think what Blizz wanted is for guilds that might not ever do any heroics to be able to full clear flex and do most or all of normal.

For those guilds who progress in normal over a tier, I think Flex is going to be a good companion. When you do hit your brickwalls, you can turn to flex to get those lucrative set bonuses / weapons / trinkets, rather than either banging your head against the wall for the rest of the week or just doing nothing.

I think it will actually help keep guilds from getting knocked out of normals, in the long run. I've seen many guilds who just disbanded over hitting a progression brickwall. Being able to get gear from Flex without having to dip into LFR (which many even casual guilds don't like to spend official activity nights on) will mean they can get upgrades that will help normal-mode progress. The mechanics will be the same, just tuned lower -- meaning you can still practice those mechanics, and will need to learn them but will have more breathing room in a lower-pressure environment, which can translate to success in normal mode.

And in any event, Blizz is always re-evaluating things themselves. It's just one tier, and they will adjust things based on the feedback they receive. I do agree that initially they will probably tune normal modes a bit higher since Flex is there as a fallback, but I think, ultimately, having Flex as a fallback is going to help keep guilds together more than it tears them apart.

[Nobleshield]

The more I read this it seems like Blizzard intends for non-hardcore 10-man guilds to be doing Flex (that is, the 10-mans of the Wrath era that would have a core 10 and PUG a 25 for usually the first 4-6 bosses for bonus loot), hardcore 10-mans to be doing Normal (and Heroic) and 25-man to be doing Normal (and Heroic). That still doesn't sound like a good prospect while I would prefer 25-mans, nobody in my guild wants that and prefers a 10-man, but it seems unless we want to go more hardcore and serious then normal mode "isn't for us" come 5.4.

I really really really don't see why they can't just drop the iLevel of 10 down a bit but keep the drops the same pieces of gear as opposed to different like in Wrath (Can't be bothered to dig it out but I had a list with all the proposed item levels for this scenario) and make 10s easier like they used to be, but keep the shared lock in place. That would have been an infinitely better idea IMO than to keep the iLevels the same and make 10s harder to compensate.

[Deleted]

I hope they do not the same mistake they did with hof and ToT

First boss easy, second and third boss a wall for most casual guilds..

That's what flex is for though.

[Nobleshield]

That's what flex is for though.

And like myself and others have stated, that's not exactly good prospects for guilds that USED to be able to do normal in the past. Like I said in the above post it seems like their intent is for normal to be only for 10 "hardcore" and 25-man guilds, with 10 "casual" guilds dabbling in Normal but using Flex as the main outlet.

[Deleted]

You could give it a try at least.

[laplacedemon]

I really really really don't see why they can't just drop the iLevel of 10 down a bit but keep the drops the same pieces of gear as opposed to different like in Wrath (Can't be bothered to dig it out but I had a list with all the proposed item levels for this scenario) and make 10s easier like they used to be, but keep the shared lock in place. That would have been an infinitely better idea IMO than to keep the iLevels the same and make 10s harder to compensate.

They can't do it because there's something called 10hc. 10n and 25n are supposed to have roughly the same difficulty and drop the same ilvl of loot so 10hc and 25hc can be roughly the same too. You can't have easier/different normals.

I don't understand the difference between your idea and doing pretty much what you said but calling it flex instead of normal. What's so bad about doing 'flex' instead of/in complementary to 'normal'?

[Nobleshield]

They can't do it because there's something called 10hc. 10n and 25n are supposed to have roughly the same difficulty and drop the same ilvl of loot so 10hc and 25hc can be roughly the same too. You can't have easier/different normals.

I don't understand the difference between your idea and doing pretty much what you said but calling it flex instead of normal. What's so bad about doing 'flex' instead of/in complementary to 'normal'?

There could be a difference of a few iLevels between 10/25 (on either mode) and I think they could stay roughly the same in difficulty without requiring an additional mode of raids. Something like:

LFR: 528
Flex: 541
10N: 554
10H: 567
25N: 560 (6 higher than 10N)
25H: 573 (6 higher than 10H)

My issue with Flex, great idea as it is, stems from the fact that it isn't "normal" and has the stigma associated with it of being "LFR+", pretty much. As I said I'm in a guild that USED to be able to do normal modes reasonably, maybe dabbling in heroics, and now it seems like we might be pushed into Flex because we aren't hardcore/good enough/whatever for the "new" Normal mode, and the answer to that is "Well do Flex" which isn't exactly a substitute.

Don't get me wrong we are certainly going to try and see how Normal is this time around, but I'm just getting increasingly worried that "Normal" and "Heroic" are both now the domain of the hardcore and the "Super hardcore" respectively, with everyone else being saddled with Flex. As a 10-man guild that's worrisome because it seems like we wouldn't be having the issue if we were 25-man. So in Cata they all but killed 25-man guilds by sharing the lockout, and now they could very well kill the majority of 10-man guilds by pushing them into Flex instead of Normal.

I'd almost go so far as to say with Flex, we don't need HEROIC anymore.

It's very possible that I'm worried over nothing, as I haven't been able to test 10N on the PTR since they test when I'm at work. I'm just getting quite afraid that either I have to tell the other officers that we need to step up and become more hardcore, with all the pros and cons of doing that, or be content with clearing flex and dabbling in normal instead of clearing normal and maybe dabbling in some heroics like we used to, or else I need to maybe re-evaluate if I can get what I want in the guild anymore.

[Dukenukem]

Don't get me wrong we are certainly going to try and see how Normal is this time around, but I'm just getting increasingly worried that "Normal" and "Heroic" are both now the domain of the hardcore and the "Super hardcore" respectively, with everyone else being saddled with Flex. As a 10-man guild that's worrisome because it seems like we wouldn't be having the issue if we were 25-man. So in Cata they all but killed 25-man guilds by sharing the lockout, and now they could very well kill the majority of 10-man guilds by pushing them into Flex instead of Normal.

I'd almost go so far as to say with Flex, we don't need HEROIC anymore.

You would be having different issues as 25. Mainly how to keep up with the competition ever wanting your raiders to be better (and you wanting to poach theirs).

The cata change killed all Guilds builded on the premise of better loot in 25. The guilds builded on hard work and some inter-guild bonds or prestiege of the Guildname survived or grown bigger, mainly eating crumbled 10 wannabepro raiders who dumped their 25guild and got stucked. Shared lockout did a ton of damage to 25 raid scene but showed the really good leaders who could keep their guild at all times.

To the Flex stigma - as long it will have personal loot it will be only LFR+, I can see that. but blizz sayd that they are looking into making the bosses drop loot normally so guild can have loot distribution and excelent players can get some sort of recognition (and loot so they can quit to the better norm or HC group... never changing cycle). and simmilarly like the Hardcores had to swallow "welfare epic" the casual raiders must swallow the "not good enough to do Norm" position.

[NeverStop]

It's very possible that I'm worried over nothing, as I haven't been able to test 10N on the PTR since they test when I'm at work. I'm just getting quite afraid that either I have to tell the other officers that we need to step up and become more hardcore, with all the pros and cons of doing that, or be content with clearing flex and dabbling in normal instead of clearing normal and maybe dabbling in some heroics like we used to, or else I need to maybe re-evaluate if I can get what I want in the guild anymore.

I've tested quite a few Normal modes on the PTR and aside from the ones with bugged abilities, they're about the same difficulty as ToT. Guilds that killed Normal Lei Shen before 5.4 should be able to kill Normal Garrosh before the next expansion.

[Deleted]

I'd almost go so far as to say with Flex, we don't need HEROIC anymore.

We got oranges, we dont need apples anymore.

Flex is basically what 10 mans was in WotLK, we stilled needed heroics then. Everyone is complaining so much about raiding in MoP, how it was better before etc. The only thing that is "new" in MoP is LFR, just saying. Well, it was introduced in DS yes, but that was a test run.

What I find confusing is that so many people on forums think normals are significantly harder than before. Normals are not harder then they were in BC/Cata. Normals are a bit harder than WotLK 10's, but for sure not harder than WotLK 25s. I have not been able to find a single person in-game that thinks MoP normals are a lot harder than before, yet on forums you seem to be quite a few.

What I find very common though is that whenever it is for discussion, the people thinking it is harder usually brings ICC and DS up in the discussion, which makes me think, are you all remember the 30% buff / 35% nerfs? Ofc ICC and DS was easy with 30% buffs etc, but with 0%, they were not easier than current normals. Morchok in release still caused a lot of wipes for people. Morchok was not easier (or harder) than Stone Guards or Jin'Rokh. The same peopel struggled with the same bosses.

The only thing I understand is the people the exclusively raided WotLK 10 mans, since their difficulty kinda got removed in Cata. Flex is bringing that difficulty back now.

To the OP, I think that the first bosses will be "Morchok difficulty", just as stone guards and jin'rokh was. The only difference I expect from ToT is a bit better boss progression in terms of difficulty, i.e. not having twins second last and horridon second.

- - - Updated - - -

I've tested quite a few Normal modes on the PTR and aside from the ones with bugged abilities, they're about the same difficulty as ToT. Guilds that killed Normal Lei Shen before 5.4 should be able to kill Normal Garrosh before the next expansion.

We are very likely to see nerfs/buffs similar to DS and ICC, I think it is safe to assume that anyone that wants to kill Garrosh will be able to do so before the next expansion.

[thegempolice]

I'm curious about why you feel Normal isn't working for you any more. Looking at your armory, you killed Lei Shen for the first time 4 days ago (congrats), snagging the FoS for doing it before 5.4. Was this with your normal raid, and the more casual raiders playing?

It seems like Normal worked for your guild almost exactly as intended, you had a consistent challenge for almost the entire length of the patch, you always had a reason to log on and play, and item upgrades and loot played their intended role in buffing your players to the point where you cleared the raid before the next tier was released.

If we set aside the ridiculousness of some of the early bosses in the first few weeks, which were fixed in reasonable time, and Blizzard acknowledged as a mistake that they would avoid in future, it seems like Normal is pitched pretty perfectly for your guild. Are you unhappy with the difficulty because you had to replace people who couldn't play at the required level? Because you couldn't clear it quickly enough? Did you have to wipe so much that it felt like a frustrating grind?

[Deleted]

It seems like Normal worked for your guild almost exactly as intended, you had a consistent challenge for almost the entire length of the patch, you always had a reason to log on and play, and item upgrades and loot played their intended role in buffing your players to the point where you cleared the raid before the next tier was released.

This guy also has it, raids are not designed to be downed in 2 weeks, they are designed to last an entire patch and give continued challenge.

Lets all remember WoW is a subscription game, Blizzard wants you to keep playing, if you would have cleared everything in 2 weeks, then you would likely have stopped playing, just as a lot of people is gonna unsub after they kill Garrosh LFR, because they "seen the entire expansion" and just wait for the next expansion. It is in blizzards best interests for normals to so "hard" that the normal raiders can do them, but that it takes them enough time so they have time to create new content. If you killed LS normal before 5.4, congrats, normals worked exactly how they should for you and were tuned perfectly (or a bit to easy if you killed it a long time ago). It kept you playing the game, it kept you subbed to WoW and kept earning blizzard money.

[Nobleshield]

I'm curious about why you feel Normal isn't working for you any more. Looking at your armory, you killed Lei Shen for the first time 4 days ago (congrats), snagging the FoS for doing it before 5.4. Was this with your normal raid, and the more casual raiders playing?

It seems like Normal worked for your guild almost exactly as intended, you had a consistent challenge for almost the entire length of the patch, you always had a reason to log on and play, and item upgrades and loot played their intended role in buffing your players to the point where you cleared the raid before the next tier was released.

If we set aside the ridiculousness of some of the early bosses in the first few weeks, which were fixed in reasonable time, and Blizzard acknowledged as a mistake that they would avoid in future, it seems like Normal is pitched pretty perfectly for your guild. Are you unhappy with the difficulty because you had to replace people who couldn't play at the required level? Because you couldn't clear it quickly enough? Did you have to wipe so much that it felt like a frustrating grind?

It was with the normal team, barring replacing a lackluster Frost DK with a good Enh Shaman (and taking like 2 weeks of attempts getting the transitions right). Pretty much it stems from a slew of issues on various bosses, steadily progressing up. I came back to the game a bit after 5.2 (not sure of exact date, sorry) after taking a 6 month break at the launch of MoP. When I rejoined my guild, they were struggling for weeks on Horridon, when I came back to tanking we downed Horridon and steadily began to clear, and as my armory shows we JUST got Lei Shen down last week (doubtful it will happen again as we are having issues again on earlier bosses). That's not TERRIBLE, don't get me wrong I do NOT want a repeat of Dragon Soul where it was cleared in a week or two by almost everyone (on my Warrior, I cleared DS the second week it was available and got Heroic Morchok to boot, this was with a different guild though not the one I am in now), but just barely scraping by a kill at the end of the patch seems like a bit much as well to me. Of course, since the guild was stuck on Horridon for a long time before I rejoined to tank, the arrogant SOB in me wants to attribute some of that new found success to coming back and tanking

I'm mostly concerned that we'll encounter bosses that put up HUGE walls that we can just barely get down, because it hurts our morale and in particular makes ME begin to have doubts about everything and start to wonder "I could do better than this". The problem isn't so much the guild it's that I'm afraid that I'm going to want to look elsewhere because I feel that I'm being held back and nothing is done because we can't really gut our entire raid team. We had to replace a couple of people here and there because they weren't performing up to snuff (a MW monk springs to mind, was decent up until we were progressing on Megaera and then just could not put out the AE healing, so had to go)

Like I said I might be worried about nothing at all. I want a challenge, but ToT's challenge seemed like it was "Okay this week we're still wiping on boss X" and next week get him down by the skin of our teeth and wipe on the boss following, rinse and repeat with some exceptions (Primordius and Twins, usually). Of course being a tank I only ever know one perspective of a fight so it's easy for me to just sit and point at DPS not dealing with mechanics, or healers sucking, or whatever.

[Khorm]

My issue with Flex, great idea as it is, stems from the fact that it isn't "normal" and has the stigma associated with it of being "LFR+", pretty much. As I said I'm in a guild that USED to be able to do normal modes reasonably, maybe dabbling in heroics, and now it seems like we might be pushed into Flex because we aren't hardcore/good enough/whatever for the "new" Normal mode, and the answer to that is "Well do Flex" which isn't exactly a substitute.

The stigma is from the difficulty level. It sounds like you might be scared of the truth on how bad you and your friends are.

[Deleted]

I'm mostly concerned that we'll encounter bosses that put up HUGE walls that we can just barely get down, because it hurts our morale and in particular makes ME begin to have doubts about everything and start to wonder "I could do better than this". The problem isn't so much the guild it's that I'm afraid that I'm going to want to look elsewhere because I feel that I'm being held back and nothing is done because we can't really gut our entire raid team. We had to replace a couple of people here and there because they weren't performing up to snuff (a MW monk springs to mind, was decent up until we were progressing on Megaera and then just could not put out the AE healing, so had to go)

I am quite sure that the difficulty will not be easier in SoO, however you are not likely to have another horridon as boss 2, probably a more linear increase in difficulty.

[heltvild]

if you even put like 20% of the effort you spend here crying on the forums on actually learning the game, normal wouldnt be a problem for you.