Lodekim

Good to know, in 2 kills and plenty of wipes it only happened once, and I think it was the first FA, and our OT got back before the next lash went off, but it'll be good to know that the OT's have something else they can do to make sure I don't eat a 14k lash.

edit: (If it only happened once it makes me wonder if they knew it and I had no idea)

 

Sh@ft

This is truly a fun dps race when it comes down to it. Racing Azzy's health bar with Thrall's is pretty fun. We of course learned this the hard way with our original stat, but we got our first kill on him yesterday with ease when we switched over to a dps zerging. I wish I had the honor of dying to Doom instead of Rain of Fire, but when your group healer gets silenced with cos and fire pot timers down, it's geegee.

Wow Web Stats

 

Digo

Is it just me or is Hyjal another one of those "hey, this would be cool and people will dig the nostalgia" ideas that is frustrating and unfun in practice? Gauntlets that lead up to a boss and have to be cleared every attempt are okay -- when the gauntlet takes no more than 5 minutes (Heigan). Gauntlets that require total focus and twenty five minutes to clear each attempt are not okay.

I think the vast majority of players would be a lot happier if the trash waves were moved to a two hour respawn timer (once you've cleared all 8 waves) and the boss difficulties were raised just a bit.

 

Wodahs

The current design of hyjal is a pain to learn, and perfect. However, once you have perfected your strategy for the instance, Hyjal will be a quick clear for some pretty nice loot. At least thats what I keep telling myself.

 

Digo

That's not really any different than previous instances. Naxxramas: pain to learn, quick, efficient loot spree once you've mastered it. (Oh, and hey, 20 minutes of trash doesn't respawn if you wipe!)

 

◊ Praetorian

It's best to just view the trash as part of the boss event. The "boss" itself isn't too hard once you get there. I actually don't mind it much. The 2.2 rep changes should help in that regard as well.

 

Jager

This is a bit of a de-rail, but did you regularly painlessly clear through all of the Naxx content that you had on farm week-in week-out? I know we didn't, but maybe we just sucked at the time.

Naxx was never a quick, efficient loot-spree. Maybe if you had the exact same 40 people every week that stayed focused the entire time, but for us at least it was never a guaranteed one-shot on fights like Patchwerk, Thaddius, Gluth, Gothik, or 4 horsemen. Don't have your 8 warriors online? Guess you're not doing 4h until tomorrow. Thaddius with 12 healers? Didn't think so.

Learning KT and Sapphiron was quite frustrating because it basically required that you showed true class on the 4-wings of clearing up to them. Our best ever performance in the zone was being clear up to KT by Thursday night, but with dodgy Friday and weekend attendance that didn't do us all that much good.

I think BT is a much better example so far; blowing through the first 5-6 bosses in a night and having the rest of the week to work on RoS or Shahraz isn't only possible but it's completely feasible and done by everyone that's in BT in the first place. Maybe that's because BT is just easier in general, but personally I think that's the model Blizzard needs to aim for. Interesting, quick trash, interesting but not overly tuned bosses (in my experience so far, no comments about Mother Sharaz).

 

berg

It is all perspective in a way. I am sure many people remember how much worse the AQ40 trash seemed once you hit exalted.

Hopefully the rep will make the trash waves seem less painful.

 

◊ Quigon

I pretty much remember things as Jager posted them - reclearing naxx had the potential to be a nightmare - you could one shot all the first night bosses, and take 2 days on the next few, reclearing Hyjal and BT for us has been incredibly easy, with basically 1 shots for everything - except archimonde... oh archimonde, how I love thee.

 

• Snowy

And then at least with Archimonde there's no trash, and it's the end boss of an instance with T6 loot. Okay, it's not perfect but at least the reward is definitely there.

By the by, for guilds learning the trash -- please do make sure the random people who die on waves run back on their own. That can be extremely helpful, you may not always get time to get out of combat for the next wave. Use your timers aggressively if you fall behind too.

Paladin: Pyla
Mage: Pylah

 

Bokchoy

We cleared Naxx pretty late (Mid November), but from my past experiences, once we've killed KT, everything prior to Sapphion was automatic, even with a few new players in the raid. We'd have the occasional wipe or two, due to a freak accident. After refining Sapphiron and Kel'thuzad strategy on the following few kills, Naxxramas was at most a 10 hour clear.

As for now, Hyjal is hardly automatic for my guild. Azgalor gives us a few problems and Archimonde takes a few tries as well. Once guilds master the instance, I'm sure it'll be a two hour clear. The effort/time vs reward ratio for Hyjal is DEFINITELY worth having to focus hard on trash, and if you look at it that way, the trash really isn't that bad, especially after they add loot/rep. TBH, hardcore guilds should be giving 110% on trash anyway, since trash-clearing takes up the majority of farm nights.

 

Lodekim

Ehh, even viewing trash as part of the "boss event" I still think Hyjal is a terribly designed shithole. I think many of the posters on this board have seen a "trash as part of the boss event" that was done right. Kel'thuzad was the perfect example, it set the tone, gave a dps check, and took a total of maybe 5 minutes, not 25. It wasn't fun if someone screwed up and you wiped, but you didn't have to reclear 25 minutes of the same bullshit for one try.

Rep is only a good tool if you constantly want more rep. In Hyjal, I'd like to get the exalted ring, so that's okay, but what about after that, maybe some people will be sitting at exalted but still want the t6 helm, and it'll still blow to do all that trash. For an example, so many people liked BT trash because they wanted the end result of the rep. For someone who had 0 interest in any of the rep rewards, it still wasn't fun, and everytime we decided "let's pull that extra pack for rep" I sure wasn't interested.

For what Jager commented, yeah, I'm sure a lot of guilds didn't painlessly clear Naxx, I know we definitely wiped on Gothik more than was necessary. But really, the real difference I see is with the fact that TBC lets you have multiple smaller dungeons instead of one huge one, so you can decide to not do Hyjal on a week you want learning time in BT, or not do TK, whereas Naxx was like having to clear Hyjal and Tempest Keep each week before going to BT. It just takes time and sometimes you'd get annoyed because you couldn't work on something new.

 

Digo

Exactly.

But that's really just a problem with WoW's reputation system in general, not the rewards given for killing trash. The current incarnation of raid trash giving rep (oh wait, except SSC/TK/Hyjal don't give rep), epics, and Marks of the Illidari is about as good as it will get. Even then, rep still isn't a satisfactory system because you can't use it as currency.

 

Sinuous

I personally enjoy Hyjal. Maybe it's cause I feel like I have to work harder for loot than the first few bosses of BT.

Yeah it does kinda suck to have to spend 20-25 minutes per attempt but it's not like it took us longer to learn hyjal bosses than some ssc/tk bosses

 

Digo

Think about what you're saying -- "The bosses are really easy but the trash is really hard so it's okay." That's completely ass-backwards design.

 

Sinuous

So, Rajaxx's trash was harder than rajaxx himself. It's 4 bosses that are tuned differently than the dozens of bosses that came before them. Is it that big of a deal?

Except for winterchill, I don't think any of the hyjal bosses are that easy.

Do I want blizzard to use this design frequently in the future? not necessarily, but they shook things up and went with something different. I enjoy it and it's a nice change of pace. You aren't gonna please everyone.

The suppression room to Broodlord is harder than broodlord so it's not like this type of design is unprecedented. Blizzard just took it to the extreme in Hyjal and has tuned it pretty well to make it fun. But it's my opinion and I'm just throwing it out there. A lot of people in my guild enjoy the intensity of the trash followed by a reasonably challenging boss.

 

Dragooner

I kind of agree, the trash is decently balanced right now, maybe 1-2 less add each pack or something to make it a little easier on the raid but its fun.

My favorite part of hyjal is actually falling behind a wave, not getting to drink and still pulling through, once we were on one of the later waves of the second boss in the orc camp (wish I could remember his name) and we fell behind and we kept going, eventually got overwhelmed at the end, but it was definately the most fun I have had in WoW in ages.

 

LiteSabre

Hyjal trash will actually be pretty fun once they add rep and loot to it. I already enjoy it the first time around (any more than that and it becomes tedious) and once they add rep so I can get that much closer to the revered jewels, it'll be a breeze.

 

Yaltus

A couple of comments on the trash design for Hyjal:

First, as several people have said, it's a refreshing change. Second, once they add rep to the trash, it will help ease the most painful part, which is wiping and having to reclear. Once you've got the bosses on farm and people have gotten their upgraded rings and everything, you won't need the rep, but you also shouldn't be clearing the trash more than once per boss. And the bosses are quick once you have them down, way faster than any traditional instance. Lastly, I'm pretty sure they are going to rebuff Jaina and Thrall in a content patch, since the HP/damage nerf was just a temporary fix to prevent them from being too strong on the bosses, so once they are stronger, the trash will be relatively easier.

Mon centre cède, ma droite recule, situation excellente, j'attaque.

 

Sinuous

The first thing I thought of when they announced trash drops in hyjal is that it will be difficult to do loot when you have to worry about the next trash wave. If you do loot council, that's gonna be very hard to decide loot during the trash. you pretty much have to predetermine who it's gonna go to if it drops.

Also, there could be range issues, especially in the horde camp. For example, a warlock is in the gargoyle are in the back but a caster neck item drops from one of the ghouls in the melee camp. Will they be too far away to receive the item? Also, usually the melee aren't in combat with the gargoyles normally.

The orc camp is bigger than solarian's room and I know people have been out of range to get credit for loot when they are afk on the other side of the room

 

Lodekim

I still disagree that Hyjal will be any more fun just from adding loot and rep to trash. Right now the only reason I care about rep is the ring because I haven't found 2 rings that are better than it. If I had 2 rings that were better than that, I wouldn't want rep. Trash drops usually are okay, but given now at the point that they'll be getting drops in, most of my gear will be solid, why am I going to be interested in loot. It's like when the off hand mace drops in BT, nobody cares cause everyone has it or better, it will just be the same thing, but at the end of the day, add on the fact that if your tank disconnects you now have to reclear it for 25 minutes.

That's the big thing, is that it takes so long to do. Suppression room took a few minutes, it's not that broodlord was such a great fight and the trash was a joke that made that better than Hyjal, it's that it didn't take a minimum of 25 minutes to clear it each attempt. (And for those who remembered, people HATED the suppression room)

The trash itself isn't a problem, trash being a challenge and requiring you to pay attention isn't a problem. Having one key person disconnect, or having a new member screw something up leading to a full 25 minute reclear is the problem, and rep/drops isn't going to change that.

 

kaib

I'm kinda a bit worried about this 'trash can drop loot' stuff. Especially if they will also drop grey. I am having this nightmare of a thousand blinking, non despawning corpses. Also master loot is probably mandatory so people do not start looting mid fight and get all excited about shiny purples popping up.

The trash waves are fine with me. It's kinda the same sort of time sink the Heigan gauntlet and the two hulks at Thaddius represented. If people are awake and don't fuck around, it's not a problem at all. Cutting two more of the waves would be good though, it does take a bit too long. Removing 2-3 of the easy waves would make things smoother.

 

Sh@ft

I have to admit, trash would be a little more fun per boss if it wasn't the same mobs over and over again with mixed wave flavors of the same trash you had waves before. Maybe even add in some objectives, like defending a tower or something a little more interactive with the environment other than clearing 8 waves of grab bag trash. Don't get me wrong though, I really do enjoy the zone, even though some might consider the trash clear itself sadistic.

 

Digo

I remarked the other night that these NPCs were retards. When I defended Hyjal in WCIII, I abused the hell out of towers and siege weapons.

Oh, wait. No siege weapons in WoW.

Zing.

 

Edgewalker

I think we've pretty much mastered keeping all of the NPC's alive at this point, and even in the worst case staff in the death and decay and melee infernal scenarios they always seem to pull 1 million+ damage. Our last Anetheron kill was with every NPC up and I believe he was on the 4th Infernal Spawn when he died, with NPC's doing close to 2,000,000 solely on him.


And Akama.
We've never 1 shot Akama...