Blizzard needs to no longer balance Mythic for Method.

[Myta]

Warlords of Draenor, despite it's numerous issues with daily content, had the best most well tuned raiding content that we've ever had. The difficulty curve inner-raid and inter-raid was perfect, where bosses in HFC like Velhari or Xul which were step ups from Socrethar or Zakuun were off on the sides. Gorefiend himself was on a differently level from the awful balancing jump from Trilliax to Aluriel in Nighthold.

Nowadays, raid balancing feels more slapdash, with difficulty jumps seemingly at random, and causing guilds to hit a wall grind for weeks to clear it, then breeze through bosses that were objectively easier, such as pre-nerf Aluriel being harder than the bosses after her. And while you could skip Aluriel, it made progress through a raid very awkward.

Not only that, there's the issue where instead of what we had in HFC which was in hindsight a damn near-perfectly tuned raid, so much of Legion raiding is meant to make bosses not get easier as you overgear them. Which was done to fight Titanforging, but ended up crushing guilds which relied on farm content and fast re-kills to keep guild morale up during progression. This has made raiding farm content in Legion a slog and this philosophy has culminated with Kil'jaeden to the point where many guilds won't even bother with Kil'jaeden for weeks even after getting their kill.

Simply put, raids should not be balanced around those who raid 16 hours a week. Say what you want about difficulty, but the raid balancing through out Legion both inner raid and inter raid has been the worst, potentially of any expansion so far.

Emerald Nightmare - only Cenarius and Ilgynoth could be considered Mythic bosses
TOV - Odin and Guarm were Mythic, with Helya being Mythic+
NH - After Trilliax the difficulty curve jumps, it does so again on Astronomancer, and many guilds often felt Elisandre to be more frustrating to progress on than Gul'dan which was actually a well designed fight.
ToS - Balancing is fine for the most part, and then you get to Avatar who is a Mythic+ fight, and KJ who is Mythic++

Compare this to HFC where outside of Gorefiend (which was a skill check not a dps or gear check, and wasnt' that difficult) there was a smooth progression from the easy Hellfire Assault to the hard Archimonde, there were no insane jumps where it felt like you were skipping a difficulty level.

In short, Legion has probably been one of the worst expansions for raiders, with Blizzard tuning the hardest content for one guild that raids 12-16 hours and having to overtune that content for Titanforging which should never be able to go higher than current tier mythic gear in ilevel.

[Kralljin]

In terms of PvE, Legion was rather mixed that is by no means a secret.

No Raid Instance in Legion didn't have some sort of serious design / difficulty flaw.

EM => Xavius a joke of a final boss, not that great ending for a established lore character and threat lingering since Vanilla.
ToV => they undershotted Xavius, then overshotted Helya, for a filler raid the boss was totally overtuned and lacked any rewards besides a transmog if you do the Chosen.

Nighthold => Serious Imbalance between Caster / Melee in terms of Encounter difficulty.

ToS => Massive difficulty jump on Mistress, drops down on Maiden and skyrockets on Avatar / KJ, require(d) a good amount of the "right" classes as well.

[Dangg]

The final 3 in NH are fine, some mid bosses could have been slightly easier
Fallen Avatar and Kil Jaeden were pretty much exclusively tuned for Method and Exorsus, like you've said in the title


WoD tuning was indeed the best. Blizzard always had massive problems balancing raid boss difficulty, BC and WotLK had extremely inconsistent tuning across tiers.

[Deleted]

In short, Legion has probably been one of the worst expansions for raiders, with Blizzard tuning the hardest content for one guild that raids 12-16 hours and having to overtune that content for Titanforging which should never be able to go higher than current tier mythic gear in ilevel.

Look, I completely agree with you on Legion. The difficutly of Legion raid bosses is all over the place.
But to actually write "curve inner-raid and inter-raid was perfect" for the WoD raids is just ridiculous. HFC was exactly the same as nighthold. After a few normal bosses ramping the difficulty up but not being special or really hard, you ran into a giant c**kblock in the form of gorefiend. The 3 bosses afterwards were not even worth mentioning, they died within hours after we were stuck on gorefiend for a month.
Afterwards the difficulty spiked up sharply again. Doing Velhari with shaman healers and the right tanks or doing the encounter withoout were also two completely different difficulties. Only the last 3 bosses were a decent difficulty curve fit again.

Again, the current add-on is much worse than HFC, but HFC was not in any way well blanced either.

The worst is however something else you briefly mentioned. Legion bosses are designed to not get (much) easier on farm. Singular mistakes wipe the whole raid. Of course, if you overgear them by a really large amount this does not hold true, but many bosses in ToS have this problem.

[Myta]

Look, I completely agree with you on Legion. The difficutly of Legion raid bosses is all over the place.
But to actually write "curve inner-raid and inter-raid was perfect" for the WoD raids is just ridiculous. HFC was exactly the same as nighthold. After a few normal bosses ramping the difficulty up but not being special or really hard, you ran into a giant c**kblock in the form of gorefiend. The 3 bosses afterwards were not even worth mentioning, they died within hours after we were stuck on gorefiend for a month.
Afterwards the difficulty spiked up sharply again. Doing Velhari with shaman healers and the right tanks or doing the encounter withoout were also two completely different difficulties. Only the last 3 bosses were a decent difficulty curve fit again.

Again, the current add-on is much worse than HFC, but HFC was not in any way well blanced either.

The worst is however something else you briefly mentioned. Legion bosses are designed to not get (much) easier on farm. Singular mistakes wipe the whole raid. Of course, if you overgear them by a really large amount this does not hold true, but many bosses in ToS have this problem.

We had the most suboptimal healers for Velhari and only 1 main DK for all of HFC. I feel that Xul and Manno were sometimes too grip dependent, but for the average raid HFC was fairly balanced.

Gorefiend wasn't really about having a gear check, or having the right class, or having 2 immunities for Xul to cheese black holes. I feel Gorefiend was way more down to the guild's strengths (are you great at dps checks but bad at skill checks), in our case we plowed through Gorefiend but got stuck on Xul for weeks because we didn't optimal classes, and ended up using janky cauterize mages and purgatory DKs to deal with black holes.

[Deleted]

They don't balance Mythic for Method. Avatar and KJ now aren't even the same boss they killed originally( remember mechanic nerfs like less daggers, less meteors, nerfed darkmarks, nerfed eruptions, etc besides the hp nerfs and the crucible) . Blizzard balance Mythic for the gear players are expected to have when doing Mythic. Due to legendaries+ titanforging and artifact relics, the average power gain per week by farming the raid up to the last boss is far far lower than it used to be in the past, which means you arn't outgearing stuff.

You gave HFC tuning as an example of how it should be done, but in HFC Method killed Archimonde at 720ilvl with no legendary rings. The average mythic guild that went against Archimonde had the advantage of +10ilvls and legendary rings(+ the ability to upgrade the legendary ring by 3ilvl each week and the gear for Valor points).

I posted this in another thread already but for most players going into Antorus Mythic, this is a given so its going to be tuned around.
- you are using 2 ilvl 1000 BIS legendary items
- you are using 4 set items
- you are using a weapon with 3 relics of at least 945ilvl each. Going from Heroic Antorus/Mythic Titanforged ToS to Mythic Antorus gives 4 weapon ilvl per relic (not necessarily an upgrade due to crucible)
-you are going to use a trinket from Argus the Unmaker(start at 945ilvl)

When you take into account that half of your gear cannot even be upgraded in a meaningful way and that on average bosses drop 4 items each week==> there is really little power gain per week. I would say that if it wasn't for Blizzard nerfing Kil'jaeden 3 times already, less than 10 guilds would of killed him. Why? Because you'd lose players to fatigue faster than you would RNG titanforge upgrades enough to outgear the boss to allow you to kill him.

[RoKPaNda]

Speak for yourself.

If you can't cut it in Mythic, go raid heroic. Only 3% of the WoW population, give or take a %, actually raids Mythic, changing the difficulty wouldn't change that number much, it would just make the top end have less to do, and make a few more heroic raid guilds think they're mythic guilds. Legion has been pretty fantastic for PvE, just not so much for Mythic raiding. Again though, we're such a small percentage of the population why would they ever cater to us? I'm amazed we get the things that we do.

[Wilfire]

Speak for yourself.

If you can't cut it in Mythic, go raid heroic. Only 3% of the WoW population, give or take a %, actually raids Mythic, changing the difficulty wouldn't change that number much, it would just make the top end have less to do, and make a few more heroic raid guilds think they're mythic guilds. Legion has been pretty fantastic for PvE, just not so much for Mythic raiding. Again though, we're such a small percentage of the population why would they ever cater to us? I'm amazed we get the things that we do.

- Said by someone who has never set foot inside mythic. There's a world of difference between challenging content and content designed to be frustrating.

[Myta]

They don't balance Mythic for Method. Avatar and KJ now aren't even the same boss they killed originally( remember mechanic nerfs like less daggers, less meteors, nerfed darkmarks, nerfed eruptions, etc besides the hp nerfs and the crucible) . Blizzard balance Mythic for the gear players are expected to have when doing Mythic. Due to legendaries+ titanforging and artifact relics, the average power gain per week by farming the raid up to the last boss is far far lower than it used to be in the past, which means you arn't outgearing stuff.

You gave HFC tuning as an example of how it should be done, but in HFC Method killed Archimonde at 720ilvl with no legendary rings. The average mythic guild that went against Archimonde had the advantage of +10ilvls and legendary rings(+ the ability to upgrade the legendary ring by 3ilvl each week and the gear for Valor points).

I posted this in another thread already but for most players going into Antorus Mythic, this is a given so its going to be tuned around.
- you are using 2 ilvl 1000 BIS legendary items
- you are using 4 set items
- you are using a weapon with 3 relics of at least 945ilvl each. Going from Heroic Antorus/Mythic Titanforged ToS to Mythic Antorus gives 4 weapon ilvl per relic (not necessarily an upgrade due to crucible)
-you are going to use a trinket from Argus the Unmaker(start at 945ilvl)

When you take into account that half of your gear cannot even be upgraded in a meaningful way and that on average bosses drop 4 items each week==> there is really little power gain per week. I would say that if it wasn't for Blizzard nerfing Kil'jaeden 3 times already, less than 10 guilds would of killed him. Why? Because you'd lose players to fatigue faster than you would RNG titanforge upgrades enough to outgear the boss to allow you to kill him.

I agree with you, but the fact that by the time hundreds of guilds downed Gul'dan, less than 30 killed KJ. It's a huge problem to me. And I do not like the idea of making a raid hard for Method, than nerfing it for everyone else.

We have a system now, where there isn't one Mythic raid, but several with several stages of nerfing along the way. Blizzard has always nerfed bosses but not to this level. It is getting to the point where a guild may be progressing on a boss, have it at <10% then next week it's nerfed massively, becomes a joke and you feel cheated out of a win. Compare this to WotLK where the raid was nerfed by 1% only, and a guild had the option to fight a 0% nerfed Lich King or a No Lights Yogg'saron. Even still both LK and Yogg had minor nerfs, but nothing compared to what's happening now where bosses are absurdly tuned, then dismantled every 2 weeks.

So what if it's easier for Method? Blizzard should not be balancing a raid around 20-30 people, they should be balancing it around mythic raiders. The problem is Method raids 12 hours, beats the boss in 200 wipes then complains it's 'so easy' and then their fans parrot their words through the forums of how easy the encounter is. So instead Blizzard absolutely crushes and burns out thousands of smaller guilds who were raiding and killing Archimonde just last expansion.

[TOM_RUS]

Agree, mythic should be tuned much easier, they should not take Method or world first race into account. They also should not tune around passive nerfs like artifact level, crudible and similar things. Tuning should be done like they doesn't exist. Initial ToS tuning was completely fucked up across the board. And even after numerous nerfs it's still tuned way to high compared to any previous raid.

It's not fun to wipe 600 times on the boss only because blizzard fucked up with numbers or overload encounter with one shot mechanics. Nether it's healthy for raiders.

[shaunika123]

i like how you bring up HFC when gorefiend was harder than anything up to mannoroth basically

EN for sure wasnt tuned around method
ToV helya might have been tuned around method, but she was also promptly nerfed.

NH was rather well balanced after star augur's ridiculous requirements were nerfed after like a week(in fact it was probably one of my favourite instances in years both in terms of balance and encounter design)

so the only problem is ToS, which is basically only an issue because nerfs came too late.

there is nothing wrong with designing bosses around method, in fact they should BUT they should also nerf them consistently once method kills them.

It's not fun to wipe 600 times on the boss only because blizzard fucked up with numbers or overload encounter with one shot mechanics. Nether it's healthy for raiders.

most guilds down KJ in 300-400 tries now, which is completely fine for a final boss

[Myta]

i like how you bring up HFC when gorefiend was harder than anything up to mannoroth basically

EN for sure wasnt tuned around method
ToV helya might have been tuned around method, but she was also promptly nerfed.

NH was rather well balanced after star augur's ridiculous requirements were nerfed after like a week

so the only problem is ToS, which is basically only an issue because nerfs came too late.

there is nothing wrong with designing bosses around method, in fact they should BUT they should also nerf them consistently once method kills them.



most guilds down KJ in 300-400 tries now, which is completely fine for a final boss

How about not screwing hundreds of thousands of players that do mythic content because 20 players who raid 2x-3x more than any other top 10 guild in the world want to the content to cater specifically to their guild. And instead release a well balanced raid in the first place which they have done in the past, and if a guild that raids 12 hours finds it 'too easy' than they can deal with it.

People need to realize this is not natural, ruining the experience of hundreds of thousands of players who all pay subs too and don't want their time wasted on encounters badly designed on purpose to suit 20-30 people who raid unnaturally long hours on purpose to prevent competing with any other guild for world first.

It is not fair for top10 guilds in the world.
This is not natural.
This should not be encouraged.

[Moshots]

If your not a top 10 guild why do you care if they leave the last 2 bosses hard then nerfs them once the world first race is over if your not a top 10 guild your still on boss 4-5 anyways at that point...

All these people crying about avatar/KJ probably never pulled the boss prenerf or even Pre 2nd nerf. The bigger issue is middle of tier bosses being changed mid tier... for Example Mistress going from complete Joke to 3rd hardest boss in the instance once the stack 5 tank strat was nerfed after 30 guilds had killed it.

[Tharkkun]

If your not a top 10 guild why do you care if they leave the last 2 bosses hard then nerfs them once the world first race is over if your not a top 10 guild your still on boss 4-5 anyways at that point...

All these people crying about avatar/KJ probably never pulled the boss prenerf or even Pre 2nd nerf.

The point is the difficulty curve scales much higher per boss then previous expansions. It's great to have hard content but you don't keep tuning it to the moon each tier. Especially when earning gear from the next tier won't lessen the difficulty much. That means it's ridiculous.

We already see guilds burning out from difficulty being over the top. Maybe that means Mythic guilds need a culture change but it doesn't solve the problem right now.

[Moshots]

The point is the difficulty curve scales much higher per boss then previous expansions. It's great to have hard content but you don't keep tuning it to the moon each tier. Especially when earning gear from the next tier won't lessen the difficulty much. That means it's ridiculous.

We already see guilds burning out from difficulty being over the top. Maybe that means Mythic guilds need a culture change but it doesn't solve the problem right now.

yeah lets become destiny 2 where teh prestige raid came out and guilds cleared it in 2 hours and are now carrying viewers through it day 2 on twitch... Only reason to raid mythic is if progression lasts atleast 5-8 weeks for non shit a 16 hour guilds if it takes less then no reason to even raid mythic with what it takes to get ready for prog..

[Chaelexi]

I agree with you, but the fact that by the time hundreds of guilds downed Gul'dan, less than 30 killed KJ. It's a huge problem to me. And I do not like the idea of making a raid hard for Method, than nerfing it for everyone else.

We have a system now, where there isn't one Mythic raid, but several with several stages of nerfing along the way. Blizzard has always nerfed bosses but not to this level. It is getting to the point where a guild may be progressing on a boss, have it at <10% then next week it's nerfed massively, becomes a joke and you feel cheated out of a win. Compare this to WotLK where the raid was nerfed by 1% only, and a guild had the option to fight a 0% nerfed Lich King or a No Lights Yogg'saron. Even still both LK and Yogg had minor nerfs, but nothing compared to what's happening now where bosses are absurdly tuned, then dismantled every 2 weeks.

So what if it's easier for Method? Blizzard should not be balancing a raid around 20-30 people, they should be balancing it around mythic raiders. The problem is Method raids 12 hours, beats the boss in 200 wipes then complains it's 'so easy' and then their fans parrot their words through the forums of how easy the encounter is. So instead Blizzard absolutely crushes and burns out thousands of smaller guilds who were raiding and killing Archimonde just last expansion.

We could go to Vanilla days where Naxx was only seen by a couple % of the population and fewer had killed past 5 or 6 bosses. I am quite happy they make the initial race hard as possible so these guild have to become creative in strat design and then as the tier goes on they nerf certian aspects that are overtuned so that it opens the door for more guilds. Mythic raiding is meant to be the best of the best can finish it, the rest can bow out to run heroic. That is why there is multiple tiers and tuning.

[Gaidax]

I think in general the recipe is fine, you have kills and it's fine that initial iteration is extremely challenging, that makes the race interesting and for most guild like mine it's totally out of our scope anyway, so it is just an amusing watch how they bang head against the wall until it breaks.

I'd take much more issue when final boss or raid are undertuned like Xavius, which was disappointing.

Overall for me it does not matter, because by the time I with a guild get to do the later bosses they usually already receive a nerf or two anyway,

I think as a whole it's frustrating to these world 100 to 200 guilds which do end up banging their head vs tough stuff, but do not really participate in the race, but still that's what they signed up for after all.

[Chaelexi]

How about not screwing hundreds of thousands of players that do mythic content because 20 players who raid 2x-3x more than any other top 10 guild in the world want to the content to cater specifically to their guild. And instead release a well balanced raid in the first place which they have done in the past, and if a guild that raids 12 hours finds it 'too easy' than they can deal with it.

People need to realize this is not natural, ruining the experience of hundreds of thousands of players who all pay subs too and don't want their time wasted on encounters badly designed on purpose to suit 20-30 people who raid unnaturally long hours on purpose to prevent competing with any other guild for world first.

It is not fair for top10 guilds in the world.
This is not natural.
This should not be encouraged.

Please explain how it being difficult for the first few weeks is ruining your experience. And then after the race is done move the bar back to a reasonable level that the good players can complete. I enjoy watching these guy run at fights full steam especially now that some guilds are streaming progression early on. They make it so it is difficult for them and then they set it so it is similarly difficult for us.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Legion suffered to to many cooks in the kitchen. Like 4 teams that design 3 or 4 bosses each. They didn't really communicate much between each other for the sake of content release windows being met. Personally I am happier with a slightly less tuned raid with a few flaws then pounding a perfect raid for a year board out of my mind. No doubt they could clean it up a bit. But it's like the first time they did this. Not to mention I get a feeling mythic plus is going to end up king.

[Gaidax]

How about not screwing hundreds of thousands of players that do mythic content because 20 players who raid 2x-3x more than any other top 10 guild in the world want to the content to cater specifically to their guild. And instead release a well balanced raid in the first place which they have done in the past, and if a guild that raids 12 hours finds it 'too easy' than they can deal with it.

Hundreds of thousands? How so? Realistically the ones "screwed up" are that sliver of players in guilds with very good progression, but not best - think up to top 150 world, like a notch worse than Method and co. That is not hundreds of thousands at all, more like couple of thousands at most.

For everyone else things get nerfed before they get there.