Targeted Siege of Orgrimmar Nerf Suggestions

[Karon]

My Suggestion:

Increase the ilvl of every raider by 8 levels.

Oh wait...

[Wilderness]

now the 1 mln dollar question is who decides what is encounter tuned for - is it cuting edge guilds who decide and say we kiled it with 550 itlv therefore its tuned for 550 itlv or is it blizzard who may percive the same boss tuned for 561 when only thing which brought cuting edge guilds kill while 550 itlv is flawless exectution and enourmous lv of skills - just cause top 500 guilds are super mega hiper skilled it doesnt mean the encounter is designed around them and not around guild in range 1000-2000.

That is always a good question, but really that's something we could only guess at. Personally, I think that if Blizzard came out and said "we tuned this heroic boss for a 553 ilvl" then they would probably mean that its tuned for someone doing 90-95% optimally with that level of gear. So top world first guilds are killing it at 540 ilvl because a) they are getting 99.9% out of their class and b) they think of strats that Blizzard didn't and/or that lesser skilled players can't execute. And a guild with a world rank of 1293 maybe needs closer to 560 ilvl. The numbers are made up guesses, but I do not think that if Blizzard says a fight is balanced around a certain ilvl they are referring to world first guilds, but rather to a level of play that's still high but obtainable. And the difficulty level of the tuning is based around factors like if its a boss fight deep into the raid or an end boss - as well as if they know nerfs are coming. I don't know if they always planned on nerfing H Rag or they did that based on seeing who was able to and not able to kill the boss, but with something like H LK they knew the zone wide buffs were coming, so they could tune it to basically require BiS and near perfect play while the buff was at 0% and then watch as the best guilds in the world tried to do it.

[Deleted]

now the 1 mln dollar question is who decides what is encounter tuned for - is it cuting edge guilds who decide and say we kiled it with 550 itlv therefore its tuned for 550 itlv or is it blizzard who may percive the same boss tuned for 561 when only thing which brought cuting edge guilds kill while 550 itlv is flawless exectution and enourmous lv of skills - just cause top 500 guilds are super mega hiper skilled it doesnt mean the encounter is designed around them and not around guild in range 1000-2000.

In my opinon the encounter is tuned at the item level or slightly above (as 1-2 item levels) the point when the encounter can be downed using the following criterias.

-Encounter completable without using bugs or glitches
-Encounter completable without big amounts of class stacking
-Encounter completable in a normal raid composition without role stacking, as in 2 tanks 2/3 heals in 10 man for example.
-Encounter completable without other unorthodox means.

If a majority of the guilds can not kill a boss at a certain item level that does not matter, it is still tuned for the item level where it is doable, but that majority requires higher then what it is tuned for. If a guild is wiping on Thok10H with 560 complaining that "This boss is tuned for 565+ item level" when it is clearly tuned for below 555 they are simply wrong. Just because they can not complete it at their item level does not mean it is tuned for higher than that.

You can not base the item level tuning of a boss basing it on people playing like shit and not knowing their classes.
Just because Willy Worthless have no clue how to move from stuff and play his class would need 700 item level to kill Garrosh Heroic does not mean that is tuned for anything above 565-570 area.

[Torvald]

Add blanket nerfs through a buff. Ahead of the curve cannot be obtained if you don't turn off the buff for all the bosses in the raid lock. Everyone happy except for people who have just decided to be unhappy in life and have picked WoW as the reason for that today.

Farm the content with 35% blanket nerf, clear it a few times, and then try the harder bosses without the nerf. Why is this boss so easy? Cause you're BiS. Doh!

Actually, by the final fight at Garrosh, the advantage from that would be so negligible it probably couldn't be measured. By which I mean that a guild fighting Garrosh (without the buff) would have the advantage of some players being equipped with his gear drops (from kills that came with the buff), which is not a higher ilevel than what guilds fighting H Garrosh have today. For a few classes, it would mean slightly better itemization for a few slots at the same ilevel as gear that drops from the previous bosses. That's probably a gear advantage worth far less than even a 5% nerf.

If you made it so that you had to turn the blanket buff/nerf off (let's say for the whole instance) to get the feats of strength, the main advantage of such a buff in overcoming the final fight would mostly be in the fact that the group would just have more experience in all phases of the fight.

- - - Updated - - -

Wanted to add in that while some people have told the OP that what he suggests are not "targeted" nerfs, but are instead "blanket nerfs," because he named every boss, I think he is correct in calling them targeted nerfs. As the term has been used, it's only been meant to mean "nerfs that are specific to a boss," while "blanket nerfs" have meant more of a one-size-fits-all style nerf that applies to everything broadly.

What the OP did was give a comprehensive set of suggested targeted nerfs. A blanket nerf would just be something like, "Everything will now have 5% less health and do 5% less damage."



In terms of suggestions for heroics, I think the harsher break points are the more obvious choice for where targeted nerfs should land. Most people seem to treat the first 8 bosses as providing a fairly smooth curve, and seem to view the last six as being a series of spikes. Not that that's necessarily entirely true. I think many would agree that Spoils is a fairly smooth step up from Malkorok. But Malkorok seems like a harsh step up from Nazgrim (or Dark Shaman, who are often done AFTER Nazgrim). And Thok is seen by many as being a significant spike up from Malkorok / Spoils. Siegecrafter is STILL talked about as being the biggest spike by many.

I haven't done H Siegecrafter or beyond yet, so I can't say what I think would be the best targeted nerf on those later fights. I'll leave those specific suggestions to people who know those fights better. I would make the following changes to Malkorok, Spoils, and Thok though:

1. Malkorok - I like the suggestion about reducing the frequency of orb spawns, it was a good idea in this thread. If possible, I would also actually have the fight dynamically change the damage of seismic slam and absorbing of puddle explosions too depending on how many melee a group has. Not anything drastic, just something to off-set the disadvantage slightly of being light on ranged. Personally speaking, doing this fight on 10-man heroic with only four people eligible to spawn orbs sucks and be hit by seismic slams sucks. Coverage becomes a worse issue, the orbs saturate the sectors where your few ranged players are even more, and seismic slam has fewer potential targets (again, concentrating damage on people who are already at a higher risk of losing their shields). You have to rely on melee rushing out (such as a warrior doing heroic leap) to get some puddles, which also means keeping those areas more clear of orbs so that the rushing melee, who will have less time to navigate, don't hit the orbs before soaking the explosion (i.e. your ranged can't just rotate around the area). We've beaten it, but damn is this fight a pain every time with a heavy melee group.

2. Spoils - I think this fight is actually kind of a smooth step up from Malkorok (for a melee heavy group, it's arguably more of a side-step, but for a more balanced melee/range comp it's probably a smooth, not spikey, step up). I might knock 5% health off the biggest-crate adds. The one thing I would definitely change on this fight is more a change to the RNG-potential difficulty rather than something that would make the fight flat out easier every time (because often this situation happens anyway). This RNG change I'm talking about is simply making it guaranteed that each room would have one healer-panda box, with the other box still having RNG between being DPS or Tank buffs. The reason I say this is because each room is flat out easier with the healer, tidal-wave buff than without it. Often people get the buff anyway. And, as a healer, I think it just makes the encounter more FUN each time. It adds an aspect to the fight that's interesting and engaging for healers (making you care about the direction you face while healing), in a way that the DPS and Tank buffs don't for their respective roles. For a guild working on the fight, that consistency is nice for healers to practice utilizing the buff each time too.

3. Thok - For Thok, I'd make two changes. One, I'd reduce the damage of the poison by some amount. Hard to say how much. Two, I'd reduce Thok's health by a bit, probably by 5% (but 5% based on his TRUE total health, i.e. what his max life is plus the health he gets from healing up when he eats the Saurok, Jinyu, and Yaungol NPCs). With Thok the interesting thing is that guilds can more fluidly shift what becomes easier about the fight BASED on the health than they normally can when health gets knocked off a typical raid encounter. A guild on Thok can choose to cut each phase a little shorter, or choose to only reduce the time they remain in one phase, maybe changing their needs for cooldowns and shifting cooldown usage. Now, 5% is still just 5%. I have zero doubts that guilds would still find Thok -5% and with a bit less poison damage still much harder than Spoils. But I think the spike would seem less dramatic.

[nightfalls]

If possible, I would also actually have the fight dynamically change the damage of seismic slam and absorbing of puddle explosions too depending on how many melee a group has.

If anything I would also reduce the unavoidable Seismic Slam damage a little bit, to make damage overall more forgiving, while still leaving enough there that hitting too many orbs is as unforgiving as always. I didn't mention that in my initial post (where I suggested lowering frequency of orb spawns rather than reducing the effects of hitting them) mainly because I forgot about the slams.

I think this fight is actually kind of a smooth step up from Malkorok... I might knock 5% health off the biggest-crate adds. The one thing I would definitely change on this fight is more a change to the RNG-potential difficulty rather than something that would make the fight flat out easier every time (because often this situation happens anyway). This RNG change I'm talking about is simply making it guaranteed that each room would have one healer-panda box, with the other box still having RNG between being DPS or Tank buffs. The reason I say this is because each room is flat out easier with the healer, tidal-wave buff than without it.

I'd definitely take your suggestion of making the healer buff happen each time regardless of anything else, I agree it makes a bigger difference than the other two buffs. I also agree Spoils doesn't really need a big nerf, the thing I find most unforgiving about it quite honestly is the berserk timer, but even making sure a healer buff is up alone (with nothing else) will help a lot while not really nerfing anything (just less RNG-dependent).

3. Thok - For Thok, I'd make two changes. One, I'd reduce the damage of the poison by some amount.

The 5% healing is just because Blizzard ran out of integers. I wouldn't reduce damage of the poison unless it's the initial hit and again I opted for frequency. The damage should be there to encourage dispelling the buffs, while lowering the frequency would make it less easy to fall behind on it, especially if your group lacks Mass Dispel. A blanket nerf to the damage will eventually result in groups trivializing the fight by ignoring the poison altogether.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

The only change I would make to the instance is making the add packs in Garrosh's first transition only have two mobs on ten man heroic instead of three.

[chairmanmao]

10% blanket nerf on everything h garrosh related would eliminate a lot of potential failure points and save a lot of time.

[Bullettime]

The only change I would make to the instance is making the add packs in Garrosh's first transition only have two mobs on ten man heroic instead of three.

I can agree with this. Watching guildmates on 10H doing Garrosh was terrible and that transition was where probably 75% of their wipes happened.

[MetroStratics]

Suggestions for the video game should go on the main WoW forums, not third party fan sites.
You can always tweet at them to help raise awareness.

Regardless, Thok through Garrosh nerfs would be really nice. Some very small nerfs earlier wouldn't suck either but if you haven't killed those by now these nerfs likely wont help.

[Deleted]

I'd rather they implement a stacking buff like in ICC that increases every month, but they remove the FoS and make the Garrosh HC mount a low % drop. Everyone that deserved those things has them, it's clear players that are stuck are just not good enough to go any further without some help.

[nightfalls]

I'd rather they implement a stacking buff like in ICC that increases every month, but they remove the FoS and make the Garrosh HC mount a low % drop. Everyone that deserved those things has them, it's clear players that are stuck are just not good enough to go any further without some help.

For what it's worth, I know of several guilds that are progressing on H-Garrosh now. Whether it's "been too long" for them to "deserve" the FoS and mount at this point is one matter of debate (which I won't give my opinion of), but people are still progressing and are not all "stuck unable to move" like some here would have us believe.

[Bullettime]

For what it's worth, I know of several guilds that are progressing on H-Garrosh now. Whether it's "been too long" for them to "deserve" the FoS and mount at this point is one matter of debate (which I won't give my opinion of), but people are still progressing and are not all "stuck unable to move" like some here would have us believe.

The main issue through the whole instance is the sudden spike of difficulty. You go through an entire instance of easy to middle of the road level encounters then hit 3 Ragnaros/Lei Shen level bosses in a row. It wasn't so bad in Firelands or Throne of Thunder as you had that one big challenge to overcome and then it's done and you can relax. Siege throws you 3 of them in a row after providing moderately "easy" encounters up to that point.

[Deja Thoris]

I'd rather they implement a stacking buff like in ICC that increases every month, but they remove the FoS and make the Garrosh HC mount a low % drop. Everyone that deserved those things has them, it's clear players that are stuck are just not good enough to go any further without some help.

Uh we're progressing on HC Garrosh and we got to p3 for the first time last night. We're definitely not stuck. Sure we're slower than the more dedicated / skilled groups but I'm happy with where we are at the moment.

Who "deserves" it is up for debate but less than 1,000 guilds have killed him so far. Blizz have made the "who deserves it" cutoff 6.0, I think thats about right.

[arcaneshot]

Regardless, Thok through Garrosh nerfs would be really nice. Some very small nerfs earlier wouldn't suck either but if you haven't killed those by now these nerfs likely wont help.

If anything, they should raise Thok's max HP by 5% and get rid of the silly HP recovery mechanic when he eats the NPCs. Everyone Widow Venom'd that anyway.

[Khorm]

Who "deserves" it is up for debate but less than 1,000 guilds have killed him so far. Blizz have made the "who deserves it" cutoff 6.0, I think thats about right.

As long as the same ilvl of gear is available then the kill is still credible., whether you do it 2 weeks after or 1 year after.

[Demeia]

I don't want to be perceived as an elitist asshole, but the bosses you've listed are already easy enough. Some of the nerfs you're asking for would make them an absolute joke.

Remember, we've got Warforged & +8 iLevels from Upgrades that make the content a lot easier as it goes along. Those two things combined alone add to around a 10% Nerf on all content, plus you learning the encounter and making it easier.

10M are less likely to have warforged. Making them drop at 25M raid rate (at this point) might be something they could consider. It would have a very small effect though.

H Immersius is strangely a problem for us but we aren't especially great (we've done H Protectors, Galakras, Nourosen, and Immersius and are working on Sha [12% wipe best so far]). I guess I would appreciate a nerf on that fight.

Anything they could do to Galakras would be appreciated; it's a really, really bad (as in painful to do) fight. I want to punch the devs who think a fight that's tedious for 10m and way too frantic at the end is a good design.

You'd probably want to target the "don't stand in!" crap/watching debuffs if you wanted to do a targeted nerf since the less skilled players are stunningly bad at that kind of thing rather than a blanket nerf. They really have all the data on this subject so they can apply nerfs as needed. I wouldn't say no but I don't feel like we "need" nerfs. We'll probably go do ToT hard modes and have fun with those for a bit and save Garrosh farming for 6.0 when we can't do mythic content.

[Nirty999]

Yep and while you are at it add a .kill command , just in case the nerfs aren't enough.

[Txiv]

I would like to see the uber enrage at 30 stacks on thok be removed. It's ridiculous but our healers stop healing on 24-25 but because it's a resto shaman with crazy smart heals and disc priest with crazy bubbles we wipe to it.

[Deleted]

They could fix Kaz'tik the Manipulator on klaxxi hc, since i have to allways ask for shield before using ks. When you use it without shield and feint, you will constantly die. otherwise i quess content is allready too easy.

[Jellog]

10M are less likely to have warforged. Making them drop at 25M raid rate (at this point) might be something they could consider. It would have a very small effect though.

Anything they could do to Galakras would be appreciated; it's a really, really bad (as in painful to do) fight. I want to punch the devs who think a fight that's tedious for 10m and way too frantic at the end is a good design.

I've always liked the idea of very slowly scaling Warforged droprates up - even if it's something like 2% per week.

They should add a gong to Galakras that you can click to make the fight go faster.