Wow Dungeons are not hard.

[Deleted]

Cata Dungeons are not hard. There is a big difference in something being hard and something hard to do. Let me try and explain what I mean. Blizzard recently came out with a blog post entitled ‘Wow, Dungeons are Hard’ and then tried to explain how and why. This is clever marketing, distracting us from the truth, it’s the kind of thing u would not expect them to just come right out and say, u would expect them to say something neutral or non-committal. Instead they want to get it out there that there game is a challenge and admit there hard and then encourage players to take up the challenge and thus keep our subscriptions going. There are 3 things that make the game hard and very little has anything to do with how hard blizzard make the dungeon encounter mechanics.

The first is knowledge, knowledge of ur class and it’s abilities. Knowing that if A happens u respond to it with H, If D happens u respond to it with F. Then knowledge of the encounter ur trying to defeat, does the mob/boss have AoE, does it teleport somewhere, does it put stuff on the ground etc etc.

Second is gear, ever gone back to a lvl 70 raid encounter and found that all those mechanics and strategies u need to do get the boss down can be completely ignored or become trivial? Better gear means better stats, better stats mean more dmg, more healing, more threat and more health and mana. Naff gear means things will be harder to do.

Third is the cornerstone of MMO gaming, other ppl. Its what makes it great and what makes it terrible all at the same time. Have someone in the party that aint got a clue what there doing, have terrible gear, don’t know how to play there class yet? Have someone in ur party that thinks they can take on the world by themselves cus they do know what there doing and have great gear? It can go either way, but the end result can be the same, that player makes it harder for everyone else.

There is a forth and its called bad luck, this has nothing to do with gaming we have it with us all the time and anyone is prone to it so shall say no more about it.

What I am trying to get at is it don’t matter if the boss spins around, fly’s in the air and after 5 secs one shots everyone, it don’t matter if every 2 secs it puts something on the ground that u should not step in or if it needs u to pat ur head and rub ur stomach while reciting the alphabet backwards. There is a way to defeat it and it is always easy to do, it can be hard to achieve, but that’s not because of the encounters mechanics, that’s because of who else ur playing with and ur own lack of knowledge and gear.

The things that make current heroics and normal’s difficult is not that the mobs/bosses have harder mechanics to beat then in Wotlk, its simply that blizzard completely nerf’d all classes from wotlk coming into cata. If they had not increased everyone’s stamina so dramatically I would have been able to heal the normal 5 mans and heroics with my lvl 80 better then I can in HC gear at 85. Every lvl I gained while lvling, my performance got worse in 5 man normals. My flash heal took 1.13 secs to cast, cost 587 mana and did about 10k healing at lvl 80. With Best in Slot HC gear it now takes 1.36 to cast, costs 5765 mana and does 16k healing. This is where the hardness comes into the game at the moment. This is where the true battle is. Blizzard gave us really easy dungeons and boss fights and masked the easiness with screwing with our spells and instead of making us more powerful as we went from 80-85 they increased the numbers on gear but decreased dramatically the effectives/power of those numbers when calculated to our actual power and abilities. The end result was I went from 30k mana to 80k (80-85), while also increasing the cost of my flash heal spell by 10x. At lvl 80 I could cast 57 odd flash heals on the mana I had, now at lvl 85 with BiS HC gear I can now cast 13 odd flash heals, the same is true for every other spell I have with similar results the only spell that don’t make me go out of mana is my Heal spell and that constantly feels like ur trying to heal with one hand tied behind ur back. This is why cata is hard, and its not just my healing or class this has happened too, it happened across the board.

Ppl need to forget Wotlk, they need to figure out how to deal with being less powerful then they were in wotlk, realise that the encounters are not hard and learn to survive with stat numbers to actual power ratios being dramatically reduced and figure out how to perform better with this new found non-power. The game has changed many things that make the encounters harder, the encounters themselves though are not actually hard is my point, if anything they are easier then they were in Wotlk, we are the ones who have changed and that’s what makes it harder.

I really enjoyed the challenge of lvling and 85 HC’s, it was much more interesting then the snooze fest wotlk had become. I just wish they decreased our power over time not in a couple of lvls, I also wish they had actually made the encounters harder and come up with some new mechanics, not cobble together 3 or 4 of the old ones and call it a new boss.

Now I have got HC gear and a few epics the HC’s are starting to become more like the old Wotlk dungeons either a snooze fest or the healers propping up the rest of the group which I feel is a shame.

[SoulPoetry]

a) this isn't really new knowledge

b) " I also wish they had actually made the encounters harder and come up with some new mechanics, not cobble together 3 or 4 of the old ones and call it a new boss."

yeah, how many bosses have they made now? in raids AND instances, i don't even want to count that, easily in the several 100s so gl coming up with new and exciting mechanics for 6 years.

[Deleted]

Now I have got HC gear and a few epics the HC’s are starting to become more like the old Wotlk dungeons either a snooze fest or the healers propping up the rest of the group which I feel is a shame.

And how was this for you when you were barely ilvl 333?
If you faceroll hc's, start doing hc raids.
If you faceroll those and feel the same about them as you do about hc's now, quit WoW and make your own game which stays challenging after a month of playtime.

Like the bluepost today stated: that post by GC was a reply to all the whiners in the official forum who DO think hc's are too hard.

[Deleted]

Cata Dungeons are not hard. There is a big difference in something being hard and something hard to do.

I agree 100%, something being hard to do means it's something which is difficult to complete, something being hard means it's the opposite of soft. Dungeons aren't hard, they aren't even a tangible object!!

[Deleted]

1) I got my knowledge of heroics by trial and error, you wipe on a boss and you use that wipe to do better next time.

2) How do you think I got my gear in the first place? Sure gear makes heroics alot easier but I did all the heroics in ilvl 329 gear just like the rest of my group for the first few days till we started getting some gear.

3) If you are a good player you will eventually meet other good players, and like in any team game/sport/activity, it will get easier as a whole.



Edit:

I agree 100%, something being hard to do means it's something which is difficult to complete, something being hard means it's the opposite of soft. Dungeons aren't hard, they aren't even a tangible object!!

!

[thundercles]

They are hard.

But only when you have shitty gear and no idea how the boss mechanics work.

If people would bother to ready themselves for certain content rather than dive head first into it and expect an easy ride then we'd never have to have this conversation.

Too many scrubs get just to the ilvl requirement then jump into heroic dungeons without even trying to learn what bosses do.
Then they complain that anything not spoon fed to them is "too hard."

There was a blue post on it toady as a matter of fact.
Some asshole posting that he "really really tried healing" but it was too hard so he quit.
This was of course after beginning the thread by stating that he had not only just reached the min ilvl req TODAY, but that he gave up after doing his first and only heroic as a healer.

Then he made a post about how the game is too hard.

This is generally the circumstance that people who complain about dungeon difficulty are in.

I prefer the devs not cater to cry baby morons.

[Deleted]

And how was this for you when you were barely ilvl 333?
If you faceroll hc's, start doing hc raids.

I found it to be a fun challenge, learning how to not go out of mana while keeping everyone alive.

Anyway, my point was it is not the encounters that are hard. It was not going out of mana that was. The encounter mechanics are a non-factor in what makes them hard to do.

Ask someone to chop down a 200 year old oak tree with a steak knife and it could take them years to do it. Give someone a chainsaw and it will take a lot less. The encounters objective are the same, the tools used to do it are different.

Blizzard has given us 150 year old oak trees for encounters and then removed our chainsaws and replaced them with steak knifes. Our tools have been nerf’d and the encounter made easier, not harder.

I would love to be doing HC raids, sadly tho I tend to find elite jerks in most guilds that do them. Along with strict rules on attendance and performance which removes all the fun.

yeah, how many bosses have they made now? in raids AND instances, i don't even want to count that, easily in the several 100s so gl coming up with new and exciting mechanics for 6 years.

That’s what we pay them for? I remember my delight at seeing the chessboard in Karazan and thinking ‘yey, one where we have to use our brains, a puzzle to solve’. What a letdown that was.

[Ynna]

This topic is both new and interesting.

[Deleted]

I found it to be a fun challenge, learning how to not go out of mana while keeping everyone alive.

Anyway, my point was it is not the encounters that are hard. It was not going out of mana that was. The encounter mechanics are a non-factor in what makes them hard to do.

Ask someone to chop down a 200 year old oak tree with a steak knife and it could take them years to do it. Give someone a chainsaw and it will take a lot less. The encounters objective are the same, the tools used to do it are different.

Blizzard has given us 150 year old oak trees for encounters and then removed our chainsaws and replaced them with steak knifes. Our tools have been nerf’d and the encounter made easier, not harder.

I would love to be doing HC raids, sadly tho I tend to find elite jerks in most guilds that do them. Along with strict rules on attendance and performance which removes all the fun.



That’s what we pay them for? I remember my delight at seeing the chessboard in Karazan and thinking ‘yey, one where we have to use our brains, a puzzle to solve’. What a letdown that was.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say to be honest.

You say the encounters are not hard, yet not going out of mana was. Yet that is one of the key challenges a healer has in an encounter.

This is like saying, the encounter is not hard, yet as a dps, not standing in the fire, keeping up good dps and having good raid awareness is hard. What you're basically saying, is the encounter is hard.

You then go on to say "The encounter mechanics are a non-factor in what makes them hard to do." yet, I'm pretty sure as a healer, all encounter mechanics are precisely what makes an encounter hard for a healer.

If it was a tank and spank boss, all you would do is heal the tank, which is utterly trivial. Yet in cata the mechanics in the fights make for much more challenging fights, take the first boss in HoO, you have to keep everyone alive while they may break into groups, stand on top ready to interrupt the pulse etc. The mechanics are what makes the encounter hard, as the bosses melee attack is pathetic.

I originally made a post in this thread about there being 3 types of post like this, one being from people who are overgeared or in guild groups, one being in groups carried by a healer and one about people just trolling. But it got deleted, probably as it came across as dismissive.

I now think there needed to be a 4th group, one that didn't actually know what they thought, as this is pretty much what I'm getting from you.

Can you explain a little clearer perhaps?

[Deleted]

The mechanics are what makes the encounter hard, as the bosses melee attack is pathetic.

Hmm, ok. I think I can best explain by taking this part of what u said and using it as my starting point.

And what I am trying to say is that those mechanics are no more harder to do once u know what they are then any other mechanic given to a boss before in wow, some are pathetically easy. All that makes them hard is along with these sets of new bosses all our spells and stats got totally screwed so instead of the challenge being splitting the group up and staying on top trying to heal them all, it was staying on top healing them with out running of mana. Its easy to stay on top and heal them. The mechanic did nothing. They might as well made it a tank and spank and have the boss hit hard, for all the good the mechanics did. All that made it hard was no mana. The old tank and spank fights still had ppl going out of mana, its what made it hard.

If we have a boss that lets say has 3 mechanics.

Puts nasty stuff on floor.
Does anavoidable AoE for 5 secs to whole group every 30 secs.
Hits the tank for 80% of its health every 45 secs.

And it hits the tank for decent amount as a normal attack.

If I have all green gear then all those mechanics will over whelm that gear and ppl will die. The way u get round dieing is learning the encounter, applying some skill and clicking all the right buttons at the right time, learning how to conserve ur mana as best as possible etc.

If I have Heroic Epics then all those mechanics are irrelevant as they wont overwhelm the gear. Ppl can stand in the fire for a while and keep there dps up and nuke the boss down quicker before they need to move or the healer can heal them through it with out going of mana. The AoE healing mana cost to heal the group back up is pittance compared to how much of ur mana bar it would have taken up in greens.

The mechanics in the HC epics example are irrelevant. We should still have to learn the encounter, apply some skill, click all the right buttons at the right time and conserve our mana, that’s what would make the encounters harder. That’s the clearest picture I can think of to explain part of what I’m trying to say. If the fight was harder, then there should always be difficulty in splitting the group up and healing it from up top, not only if u have not got much mana and ur spells cost 1/13 of ur mana bar.

To go further in what I’m trying to say:
Its in relation to Blizzard coming out and saying that the encounters are harder from ppl moaning about how hard they are. I just wanted to try pointing out something I believed, which is that SOMETHING is making them hard, but its not the encounter themselves. We have been sidestepping nasty stuff on the floor, running to the safe spot, splitting up into groups and healing up tanks for years, what changed was NOT that blizzard then came along in cata and increased the difficulty or complexity of the encounters mechanics. What they did was decrease our performance. The difficulty / complexability / hardness of the encounters are no worse then they have been before. In my opinion TBC heroics were lots harder in of themselves then cata ones currently are. Going out of mana was not what killed the group in TBC (least nothing like the start of cata is), there was actual difficulty in patting ur head and rubbing ur stomach.

Are they hard to achieve? Yes. Have the instances themselves got particularly harder mechanics or intricacies, no.

Running out of mana faster is something that has happened since forever, it is not a mechanic of a fight and should not be what makes an encounter harder. The encounter should be harder because it is…

[BoomChickn]

By nerfing the player's abilities, they achieved the same affect, higher difficulty. The reason we completely facerolled wrath heroics, was that we had so much power we destroyed them. Rather than keeping the enemies power high, and keep the whack a mole style healing, they rather nerfed us, while ramping up stamina by a huge amount. So it is no longer whack a mole, where if you don't get a heal off in 2 seconds the player goes splat, rather it is a resource management game. Each ability has its strengths and weaknesses, you have to utilize their strengths while not putting them in a situation where their weaknesses have an effect. Back in wrath, you could be a one trick pony and still win. Now, you have to utilize most, if not all of your abilities to ensure the survival of a group.

For encounter mechanics, you are correct, it is the same basic stuff. But there are more mechanics per fight than wrath. Let's look at... say... anub'arak in AN. He had a pound, and a negligible add summon and aoe. When he burrowed, he spawned adds that you had to kill, while staying out of stuff on the ground, if you spiked, you take around 75% of your health total (in wrath ilevel 200 stuff). Compare this to Corborus, a similar fight.
Dampening wave does damage, and absorbs 7500 healing dealt. You should wait for the debuff to time out before healing, as dispelling such a debuff is a waste, and so is healing through it due to duration. He also uses his crystal barrage. The barrage does damage while you stand in it, and then spawns many low health adds, that can deal massive damage if they hit. When he burrows, the adds he summons are much harder to manage, as there are many more, and they do quite a bit of damage, while only the caster mobs on anub'arak dealt great damage. If you stand in the charge, you get instagibbed, nothing else happens.
The difference, is that each mechanic requires more attention and a more difficult execution method. The charge is simply having the penalty ramped up to death, while only being able to run 2 ways to get out quickly. Anub'arak has most likely the most mechanics of any boss in a single heroic in wrath. Compared to a starting boss in one heroic, which has just as many mechanics, with a larger penalty to each one should it be failed, besides pound, which reappears in orzuk.

And my typical response to threads complaining about heroics being too easy: In wrath, you could faceroll it, ignoring all mechanics and still downing the boss. In cata, you have to pay attention and not fail a mechanic. If all mechanics are executed properly, heroics are easy. That is intended, because if a fight was still very difficult even after it was executed properly, there would be no wiggle room for failure, and it would be on the level of a heroic raid, which I doubt blizzard wants.

[Deleted]

If u take a pint of water and drink it or 2 half pints of water and drink them, ur still drinking 1 pint of water. Just because there are more mechanics don’t make the encounters harder, maybe take longer, not necessarily hard tho.

A boss with 2 difficult mechanics and average mana efficiency. Hard. (TBC)

A boss with 4 easy mechanics and no mana efficiency. Hard. (Cata at the very start)

A boss with 4 easy mechanics and average mana efficiency. Easy. (Cata, starting to be more like this)

All they changed for cata was the mana efficiency.

[chipsky]

This topic is both new and interesting.

I picture you with a Clooney haircut. Seriously.

[Ynna]

I picture you with a Clooney haircut. Seriously.

I like that, actually.