Did Blizzard ever say why they stopped heavily nerfing raids in the prepatch?

[Toybox]

I remember the good old days, where the prepatch would come & the raids would get absolutely pounded into the ground so people could have one last hurrah & enjoy the wackiness. TBC raids getting nerfed by 30/40% felt fantastically fun for people just clearing for a laugh, & the same is true for later expansions. I still remember laughing with the lads as we battered Manno & Archimonde in 7.0 as the nerf was something outrageous like 40/50%.

Fast forward to Argus, & there's no such nerf, just a little balancing act to try & offset the bits & bobs we were losing in the prepatch. There was no hype in our raid team for the prepatch shenanigans as there were no prepatch shenanigans - If anything, I seem to remember it taking us a few more pulls than usual to kill it the first night of the prepatch, which was a bit embarrassing for us.

And obviously the same again has happened in Nyalotha. A few oversights (like Paranoia damage) can be excused, but they really seem to be sticking to their guns & wanting to keep it similar. That 10% nerf that came in was just a quick balancing bandaid rather than any sort of meaningful nerf, which is a shame, as I'd really have liked to see them turn that up to 40% so we'd be able to go in & have a laugh blasting

Did they ever mention in a dev Q&A or something why they stopped doing this? Do you miss this, or do you think it's better as-is?

[ShaanuJaanu]

there has never been a 40% nerf to hardest difficulty, ever. 10% nerf to nzoth is HUGE, he literally flops over.

[Squigglyo]

Did they ever mention why they DID do it?

Seems more like just the result of the next expansions scaling/spells/changes coming into affect more than anything else.

As more expansions came along, they got better with scaling/changes/etc, making the need for a massive nerf to combat any bad changes unnecesary.

[ReVnX]

there has never been a 40% nerf to hardest difficulty, ever. 10% nerf to nzoth is HUGE, he literally flops over.

That on top of the 25% nerf to account for the loss of corruptions

[vagnar]

didn't they just nerf the raid?

[Toybox]

there has never been a 40% nerf to hardest difficulty, ever. 10% nerf to nzoth is HUGE, he literally flops over.

Am I totally misremembering? I swear MH/BT/SWP got hit by 30/40% in 3.0.2, Garrosh was squished to irrelevance, & mythic Manno/Archi went from something my guild lacked the players to keep doing in 6.2 to something we took some socials for & crushed it in 7.0.2...

I know 10% is a decent hit, but I swear they used to be hit a lot harder...

[CerealLord]

Am I totally misremembering? I swear MH/BT/SWP got hit by 30/40% in 3.0.2, Garrosh was squished to irrelevance, & mythic Manno/Archi went from something my guild lacked the players to keep doing in 6.2 to something we took some socials for & crushed it in 7.0.2...

I know 10% is a decent hit, but I swear they used to be hit a lot harder...

A quick look does say they were nerfed, but it did not say by how much with the exception of HFC during pre-patch

All raid dungeons from Karazhan to Sunwell Plateau as well as the outdoor encounters of Doom Lord Kazzak and Doomwalker have been adjusted and now all creatures and bosses have less health points and do less damage.

Hellfire Citadel: Enemies on Normal, Heroic, and Mythic difficulty now deal roughly 30% less damage.

[Toybox]

A quick look does say they were nerfed, but it did not say by how much with the exception of HFC

Yeah I went to have a peak myself, but even for the 7.0.2 patch notes I couldn't find anything more than "nerfed." I swear the TBC one was at the very least 30% though.

[Hypasonic]

Think its because of increasing player power which is basically the same as nerfing the raids, and just "felt" better than simply nerfing the raids by a flat amount, players woulld have some item that would increase their power of the course of the tier effectively "nerfing" the raid.

[Miyagie]

Think its because of increasing player power which is basically the same as nerfing the raids, and just "felt" better than simply nerfing the raids by a flat amount, players woulld have some item that would increase their power of the course of the tier effectively "nerfing" the raid.

This. In Legion our Weapon got over time more and more AP and in BFA your corruption resistence increased.

[Toybox]

This. In Legion our Weapon got over time more and more AP and in BFA your corruption resistence increased.

I'm talking specifically about the prepatch once those systems were removed. Antorus/Nyalotha weren't really nerfed when 8.0/9.0 were released; they were balanced around these power systems no longer existing.

In 3.0.2 as an example, once WotLK was just a month or so away, the raids received a BIG nerf just so people could have one last hurrah before the new expansion landed. Same happened up until HFC if memory serves, but others here aren't so sure. We didn't lose power in any of these situations apart from maybe the 6.0 stat squish - it was just a straight up nerf to content.

[Soon-TM]

Yeah I went to have a peak myself, but even for the 7.0.2 patch notes I couldn't find anything more than "nerfed." I swear the TBC one was at the very least 30% though.

I remember that the guild I was in during BC/early WotLK was struggling a lot with M'uru in SWP, even with all the goodies that came in 2.4. But once the WotLK prepatch hit, we just VAPORISED him. Boy, now THAT was a nerfbat

[Twdft]

Yeah I went to have a peak myself, but even for the 7.0.2 patch notes I couldn't find anything more than "nerfed." I swear the TBC one was at the very least 30% though.

It was a flat 30% less health on top of all the class changes prepatch brought with it. I haven't found a direct statement from Blizzard, just acknowledging health reduction was intentional. Your and my memory and post #6 in this says it was 30%:

https://web.archive.org/web/20081218...32281654&sid=1

[thesmall001]

They shifted away from reducing boss power into increasing player power as a "soft-nerf". Starting in MoP with Valor upgrades, then introducing M+ and increasing the amount ilvl WF/TFs could cover combined with introducing Mythic dungeons in late WoD, this lead to the RNG party of Legion and M+ and, ultimately, Corruption in BfA. Yes, that's right, everything almost everyone hates and loves about the modern state of WoW can be directly traced back to a few whiny players saying they didn't like it when Blizzard would wholesale nerf raids late in a patch. They tried to bake in the player "power treadmill" to the game's systems.

[Video Games]

Well last week nzoth was like 7% lower than what we usually got him to. It was a huge joke AND they just did another 10%. We might just skip the secret phase now

[Toybox]

It was a flat 30% less health on top of all the class changes prepatch brought with it. I haven't found a direct statement from Blizzard, just acknowledging health reduction was intentional. Your and my memory and post #6 in this says it was 30%:

https://web.archive.org/web/20081218...32281654&sid=1

Man, I forgot how good the old forums looked. That & the PC designed spacing of the topic lists compared to the phone friendly ugliness we have now At least we still have MMO Champ.

Well last week nzoth was like 7% lower than what we usually got him to. It was a huge joke AND they just did another 10%. We might just skip the secret phase now

Interesting. At least it's something.

[epigramx]

there has never been a 40% nerf to hardest difficulty, ever. 10% nerf to nzoth is HUGE, he literally flops over.

They don't have to nerf the raid usually. The new classes may be OP. I think I saw something like that at the end of MoP because I had a Disc priest that had a bubble that could last for days and it was spammable.

- - - Updated - - -

I remember that the guild I was in during BC/early WotLK was struggling a lot with M'uru in SWP, even with all the goodies that came in 2.4. But once the WotLK prepatch hit, we just VAPORISED him. Boy, now THAT was a nerfbat

Don't forget that prepatches may not only nerf raids, but also buff classes. Not sure what's going on in 9.x but I've definitely seen massive buffs in the past (at least MoP and perhaps WoD and Cata).

[Stardrift]

They've been making a buttload off of people who buy ilvl and aotc boosts.

[thunderdragon2]

Did they ever mention why they DID do it?

Seems more like just the result of the next expansions scaling/spells/changes coming into affect more than anything else.

As more expansions came along, they got better with scaling/changes/etc, making the need for a massive nerf to combat any bad changes unnecesary.

it was mentioned in mop and wod, see those debuff on the mobs and bosses in those raids?

[epigramx]

The game would be better if there were never nerfs and never buffs unless they are clearly considered bug fixes.
If you did not do it when it was current then: too bad: you failed that's how reality works.
A game should be fun but not bend reality because then it feels fake and a lie.