- Cataclysm Cinematic Intro
http://www.waranvil.com/cataclysm/cataclysm-cinematic-intro/ - New Cataclysm Tree of Life form
http://www.waranvil.com/world-of-warcraft-class-discussion/new-cataclysm-tree-of-life-form/ - Tier 11 Deathknight
http://www.waranvil.com/world-of-warcraft-class-discussion/tier-11-deathknight/ - The Cataclysm effect
http://www.waranvil.com/world-of-warcraft-class-discussion/the-cataclysm-effect/
Icecrown: the Final Frontier (Now with 15% easier faceroll!)
By
I kid, I kid. Icecrown is a challenging instance, or at least, it was. About a month or two ago, I stepped into the grand Light’s Hammer hall and gazed upon Tirion Fordring and the knights of the ashen verdict. The Damned clashed against their might just down the hall and a giant skeleton with the words “Lord Marrowgar” lied in wait at the end.
We quickly set forth in taking down the guards, making our way past Marrowgar and Deathwhisper, boarded the funship and spent a good hour learning how not to get hit by a blood beast before bringing the Deathbringer to his demise.
The next week, I went in again to notice King Wyrnn standing there and a nice fuzzy 5% boost to damage, health and healing taken. Honestly, that 5% felt right. For people in 10 man ToC gear and some 245 badge gear – it was enough to make it through. The 5% pushed us into some of the harder bosses, since the 5k/6.5+ required for festergut was no longer an issue.
Then came the 10%. We pushed through to the Blood Queen, Putricide and Sindragosa, and most pugs should now be able to clear festergut.
Yesterday, we welcome the 15% buff. This will almost certainly increase the chances of me seeing the Lich King (without being in a hardcore guild) and bring a lot of the people who are undergeared into the second wing.
My only concern now is – is it too much? I know the new blizzard philosophy is for everyone to be able to see the content, and I do agree with that. But a lot of the fun of raiding, at least to me, lies in its challenge. Its set to be at 30% by the end of this buff cycle, but at that point it would be pretty hard to NOT one shot the first 2 wings, even with a bad pug.
The sky is falling! But Ill be enjoying my 15% buff anyway, and I hope all you people who are struggling on a boss push through this week. Good Luck and let me in the comments how you do, what your thoughts are, etc…
3 Comments
April 29th, 2010 at 8:59 am
This is just a sign of the times unfortunately. I remember playing older games, eq1, eq2 etc… they had raids which took weeks to learn, hours to beat. The sense of achievement upon completing a raid was awesome, its what kept you coming back for more.
WoW is going down the route of making everything accessible to everyone. While that’s a good idea on paper, some people are simply better at the game and end up feeling shafted when any guild can turn up and beat what is supposed to be the hardest mob in the game!
I really doubt any MMO will ever go back to the old ‘hardcore’ raiding ways, not a main stream one anyways!
April 29th, 2010 at 6:49 pm
See, I’m torn.
I love the fact that you can gear up and get into the current raid content so quickly. I took my hunter from fresh 80 to ICC ready in about a month, before the first buff was applied.
Now I’m getting my pally tank geared up again in 10 + 25, pretty quickly.
Its great that I can raid and still maintain a life outside wow (Job, Wife, Kid), and I’m glad there’s a greater community that can see the content.
My annoyance is really aimed at the people in 251 and 264 gear who can only put out 3-4k dps WITH the 15% buff. Or the tank who seems to have no grasp on positioning (Face those casters away!) or aggro. Thats where my frustration comes from. Its not that I want people left out of seeing the content, I just think there should some level of requisite skill gained before stepping foot in.
But then again, as we know from the GS crowd – you can’t measure skill unless you’ve run with someone before and seen them in action.
April 29th, 2010 at 9:55 pm
to quote:
“My annoyance is really aimed at the people in 251 and 264 gear who can only put out 3-4k dps WITH the 15% buff. Or the tank who seems to have no grasp on positioning (Face those casters away!) or aggro. Thats where my frustration comes from. Its not that I want people left out of seeing the content, I just think there should some level of requisite skill gained before stepping foot in.”
Now that’s exactly the issue, due to buffs which enable people to power through content the overall quality of the player base is reduced! Players used to have to work for goals, become good at their chosen roll in the raid…..but now, its not that much of an issue once raid dps buffs are put in place.
However, I do think I’m torn like you. On the one hand its great to be able to gear alts up super fast. But now its impossible to work out if a certain player is good based off his/her gear, due to the fact its so easy to acquire the gear.
Fuck GS! Just fuck it, its a god damn awful thing and too much of the community depend on it, there is no other thing on this earth I hate more!!!!