kaytwo

It could also be +(14 + 2% intellect) dmg, would that be too game-breakingly powerful? The wording makes me think it's the weaker version though, unless the new spirit highly favors int and this is a noticeable bonus to longevity.

 

Metrosexuelf

Not too game-breaking. Buffed with Mark and AI (but not Kings), I have 546 int which is about +11 damage. The argument about the new spirit changes would make more sense if it were +heal rather than +spell.

 

Nantuko

Seems like every patch they make PVE easier and easier for the casuals and make all that hard work for nothing. Good thing to see my hunter gets a free title, but still.

Elitist jerks won't be elite anymore when any tom, dick, and harry can see Hyjal and the BT sewers.

 

◊ Kalman

There don't seem to be any in the datafiles yet.

It's definitely 2% +int, not 14+2%int damage - the intellect effect is called out seperately in the spell effects database.

 

Nadiar

They still won't be able to get past the first boss of SW25 until they farm the hell out of T6, and by the time they just start getting into SW25 they expansion is going to come out.

Don't you remember Naxx at all?

 

Axl_Stukov

Also while Naj'entus was easy for those of us who killed Kael, i'm pretty sure he'll keep Lurker/VR only guilds out of BT.
Hyjal i'm not sure about, hard to gauge how hard the trash would be for a guild of that level.

 

Nantuko

And the people that completed Naxx were pretty much gods, and will always be referred to that way. Hell man, remember this Worldofraids forums :: First Illidan Kill in China ?

Now imagine without having to clear so many bosses, and getting people keyed that miss the raid.

Edit: on a personal note: My guild killed Vashj 4 times before ending our SSC tour, not a single bow drop. Now, we had 3 hunters at the time and we were all pissed off (two had the sunfury bow, I had the steam-pistol). Now loot off of Vashj and Kael is much easier to get (compared to having to clear the instance before engaging), which I will agree is a good thing.

 

Sigh

Hyjal trash can be basically solo'd by a prot paladin. Plus those T5 guilds will have the T6 quality badge rewards, of course.

Still, I think for a mid-level T5 guild, no more then 2/5 hyjal, 3/9 BT would ever be possible, and they'd have to pretty good to pull that off.

 

• constantius

Assuming you have skill, but not gear, a random T5-level guild can handle Teron, especially with the Flash trainer available. His trash is simple, he's fairly simple -- he just hits hard. 4 T5-level healers can keep a tank up through that. Just throw a feral druid at it if you're having issues with the level of the hits -- a T5 druid can easily hit the AC cap if they're intelligent about it.

As far as HS goes, Anetheron would be tricky but doable (someone has to go farm up FR, since it's not needed for anything up to that point for warriors). The Kaz'rogal trash would probably rock their faces off, and that'd be where they realize they need more gear to be able to dps down full 14-mob waves of Aboms+stuff, while CCing necros. And that's fine. Handing away 6 bosses still doesn't give them T6.

As far as the inevitable "OH NOES GEMS FLOODING THE MARKET" -- that's a good thing. A very good thing. Open up rogue farming (pre-akama) to 8 billion people, and maybe, just maybe, we'll see spinels up for 300g apiece. And you know ... that'd be reasonable. I'd do dailies for 2.5 days to buy a spinel without being on a bloody waiting list. And our shadow priests would kill for *any* access to spinels for their pre-T6 gear, since the demand is so high.

 

Boneitis

Hyjal will still be hard for these guilds. Reward bosses are easy for people who earned the reward, they are challenging for people who haven't. My raid just downed Illidan this week and we can still screw up on Anetheron or Azgalor.

Honestly this change is good and bad with the attunements and badge gear. On one hand people will get into dungeons they are not prepared for; on the other hand they wont have the frustration of being Kael blocked. However they also wont know the amazing feeling of finally killing Kael and gaining Hyjal access. They'll go back and do it later like they do with Mag now. Mag is 32% and VR is 37% for the US according to Jutsu. But Kael / Vashj will be tourist bosses.

Ultimately I don't think this changes much in the long run. These guilds wont be in Sunwell. They'll have clown-suit-skittles badge epics and they'll still be bottlenecked on raid encounters due to lack of communication / organization / teamwork that they would have learned following the planned progression. Maybe they'll brute force their way through the early T6 content, but skill and not gear is whats needed for most of T6. And skill can't be bought with KZ badges.

 

Edgewalker

The real question is, why is this conversation still getting re-hashed over and over and over.
This isn't exactly the first time this has come up, and every other time in the past nothing overtly negative happened when casuals obtained tier old gear.

 

• Wodin

You realize the guild name was ironic, don't you?

 

Liebestod

I believe it was mentioned somewhere that that would be part of the Kalecgos encounter.

Anyways, I don't suppose anyone has the download client uploaded anywhere? The wow.com site is overloaded...

 

Tojara

To me it seems that these guilds entering BT/Hyjal are simply going to run into problems with Naj'entus, and to some extent the trash in Hyjal until they get the hang of it. But even the trash in Hyjal can be simple if you change your raid composition some (AoE and Protection Paladins will speed up even undergeared or low DPS raids). Once Naj'entus is slain and Hyjal trash is taken care of there is no doubt in my mind that a guild previously struggling with Vashj/Kael won't be getting straight armed by Gurtogg, Reliquary of Souls and Azgalor. This is obviously until their raid group is better equipped to better handle these bosses.

Also. I find it quite hilarious that they are nerfing Magtheridons Lair once again. Im am going to take a guess here to think that Blizzard sees that nobody is doing Magtheridon and is trying to make the dungeon a little bit more appealing. However, to me it seems the reason that nobody is doing the encounter is becuase it is simply not worth it when you take into consideration Zul'Aman, Badge Loot (even more soon), SSC/TK and hell even Gruuls Lair. There is hardly anything in there that would be worth the hassle of forming a group for in my opinion with all of the above instances offering items that are better. Simply put there is no Dragonspine Trophy of loots that can be acquired from Magtheridons Lair and everything in the instance is quickily replaced (iirc).

Personally im all for removing the attunements so that those who choose to do so can experience said raid dungeons. The people who bothered to do the attunements will still be rewarded with an amulet, ring and a nifty title I guess. Guilds who are stuck on Vashj/Kael will see sucess in the early encounters and will later find themselves once again at a hump. Finally the guilds who don't deserve to be there in any shape or form will quickily find the trash and Naj'entus far too hard.

What really irks me is once again improvements to the badge loot. It is getting rather silly that heroic dungeons and the entry level raiding instance are getting so much use in gearing up the general population. As it stands with attunements lifted (and if they do indeed add the amount of items they did with the last patch) you can pretty much completely skip Tier 5 by doing Zul'Aman, Karazhan and Heroic Dungeons, which to me is rather silly.

I would much rather see this new badge loot require new badges that drop in Tier 5 instances to atleast give some sort of reason to be running Tier 5 instances. But, I will reserve judgement until the all of the badge loot is verified. A few key items that were missing for particular classes? Thats fine. An extensive addition like in 2.3 that act as sidegrades or must haves for people in that Tier of raiding? Come on!

 

Nantuko

There's some nice rings...

But even Gruul's lair was nerfed to crap. I think blizzard is bad at doing "quick" raids.

 

Liebestod

No, the fundamental problem here is that either Blizzard creates raiding bottlenecks like Kael/Vashj/Mag, or it creates encounters which end up being skipped for a long time because they're "too hard". Kinda like Viscidus, only these are bosses which aren't even considered optional.

I suppose it's not infeasible that boss difficulty could scale up proportionately with the ilvl of their gear, but this would pretty much necessitate a ton of gear checks, as the only way to make bosses like Rage tougher than Kael'Thas would be to make the encounter much less forgiving. Alternatively, loot could overlap more between instances... maybe Kael should drop ilvl 141 loot and Rage to Kaz'Rogal should drop ilvl 138.

 

Shroomism

The removal of attunements is fine in my opinion. Honestly it really irked me at first, but I can live with it. It just means two things:
1) Guilds struggling with a light raid roster, missing those one or two key spots.. will now be able to recruit more easily without having to go back and clear to Kael or Vashj, wasting a raid night.
2) Now there will be 5,000 kara-gruul-alar guilds, going straight into Hyjal and BT and having a wipefest on the first couple bosses. Then they will go on the forums and complain. Then 2 weeks later blizzard will nerf every single trash pack and boss encounter in Hyjal and BT so all the casuals can kill them with ease.
It would be entirely fine if they lifted the attunements, and then kept the bosses at the same difficulty level they are at now. But who are we kidding? We know they won't.
Also.. does anyone else find it completely hilarious.. that in the same patch they are making it so you can go straight to Vashj/Kael.. and lifting the Hyjal/BT attunement. A little bit redundant dontcha think?

The biggest problem I am having with this patch (like many others), is the "T6 quality loot from badge rewards". Great. Not only do 25 man bosses not drop badges, but now every kara/ZA farming guild will be walking around in T6 equivalent gear which it took other months of progression to obtain? I'll reserve full judgement until after I see the new badge rewards.. a few key pieces, fine. A full set of gear and weapons? Not cool.

 

◊ Kyth

This is a very disappointing return to the pre-tbc buffs where casters just got mana regen (which doesn't affect dps, or even aggregate kill speed if you're in a normal group) and melee got haste and AP boosts.


Regarding most of the last page of posts: can we *please please please* not turn this thread into a back and forth about which level of "dirty casuals" will be able to kill which bosses with what raid stacking?

Make another thread if the spirit really compels you to argue about it.

Officer of <Fusion>
http://www.stratfu.com/ - StratFu: Strategies, Guides, Movies, and Tips for Wrath Raiding

 

Metrosexuelf

To be honest that doesn't bother me in the slightest. I know I'm not alone in having a bank full of consumables ready to go and wasn't expecting freebies to be handed to me... and certainly not weapon oils. Farming consumables is still a part of raiding. They ameliorated it somewhat with Illidari marks but let's not start looking gift horses in the mouth because they don't go full tilt in handing out a full slate of consumables.

 

Draele

Yeah, I'll continue to use the same ole Wizard oil, but it's more disconcerting that they keep "getting it wrong" than it is any practical concern of using the oils or not.

Rantings of the Afflicted, a Warlock blog: http://draele.blogspot.com/

 

◊ Kyth

I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.

I'm commenting on a return to a previous design which was a poor one, and characterized a good portion of early WoW: casters got longevity, melee got dps increases.

To see it pop up again is disappointing, especially when the previous round of zone-consumables were in the new style of adding dps to everyone.


We all have figured out a long time ago that you have a lot of consumables, don't mind farming, and will go after anyone who sounds like they might be fussing about having to farm consumables. Please don't start again, and don't start with me (I probably have at least as much banked as you do, and my guild gives me free consumables I could use instead if I wanted.)

This has nothing to do with that, it's the underlying design philosophy.

Officer of <Fusion>
http://www.stratfu.com/ - StratFu: Strategies, Guides, Movies, and Tips for Wrath Raiding

 

◊ Kalman

Shut. Up. About. Casuals. And. Hardcore. And. Attunements.

Jesus. Like it hasn't been argued out a dozen times in other threads on this forum. Let's talk about patch 2.4 rather than bitching.

(All of the following information is based on datamining the patch, and may be entirely wrong. Enjoy!)

There look to be 4 necks available at exalted SSO, all with the text "Your X have a chance to call on the power of the Arcane if you're exalted with the Scryers, or the Light if you're exalted with the Aldor." X being spells or heals or melee and ranged attacks.

What does this mean?

Well, there are 4 necks (caster/healer/DPS/tank), and each one appears to have a pair of associated spells, depending on faction.

Aldor get short duration buff procs: +dmg, +heal, +AP, +dodge. Scryer spells are harder to identify - one is an expertise buff, but it's unclear whether it's DPS or tank oriented, and the others are completely unknown, or possibly direct damage procs.

The Eredar Twin fight appears to be centered around the idea of the Dark Flame.

There are lots of spelldata references to Black Holes - no idea what fight this relates to.

There are references to both Wild Magic with varying effects and Blue Dragon Flight/Breath effects. I'm *assuming* these relate to Kalecgos, perhaps a "magic gone wild" type of encounter?

There are also a number of Corruption/Corrosion named effects. Unclear where these associate.

In the 5 man, one of the bosses appears to be named Ahune. Based on some of the spell data, it seems like it may incorporate some elements of a C'thun type encounter - phase transitions with submerge/rebirths, tentacles, and chaining lasers. This is personal speculation, but I think he/it might be related to C'thun in some way, or perhaps to the old god in Northrend/the summoning in SMV.

S4 prefix appears to be Brutal. Sunwell loot is, unsurprisingly, Sun named - Sunblessed, Sun-drenched, Sun and Shadow, Sunfire, Eternal Light, Sun, Phoenix, etc. There appear to be new/upgraded engineering helms and a new mining/blacksmithing material called Hard Khorium (as well as some JC items using it).

Since generally items only show up in the spell effects list if they're vendored or crafted, I'm guessing that the armor in Sunwell might actually be tokenized in some fashion - if not, I'm misreading a whole ton of new crafted gear as if it were the dropped armor. Actually, re-reading the names, they may well be crafted - look for new crafted items across the board, probably T5/T6 style items with recipes and components dropped in the zone, potentially via rep outside the zone.

Bashir Landing seems to have been touched up, possible as part of the new dailies.

There's a buff labeled "K'ire's Song of Victory", yielding 10% stat increase. Another head quest?

Finally, and best of all, there is a spell effect called "Flames of Failure." There is no tooltip for it, but I think I'm going to keep imagining the extended data to say "If you stood in this fire, you failed."

 

Metrosexuelf

Because they don't want to take away from the farming aspect of raiding by providing equally powerful oils.

You don't have to be so overly sensitive. My point is I'd feel like an idiot having all of that stuff just to have them turn around and provide a sizeable amount of it for free. That is the 'underlying design philosophy' -- provide something somewhat useful for people that don't want to or have the the time to farm but still reward people for going that extra step to get the most powerful consumables through alchemy, etc. They aren't 'getting it wrong' like another poster suggested, it is intentionally weaker. It is the same design concept as the Blade's Edge flasks you can use in Gruul's Lair.

 

BrTarolg

I have absolutely no problem with MH/BT attunement lifted (im MH attuned myself) - as I doubt there will be very many 5/6 SSC, 3/4 TK, 3/5 MH 3/9 BT guilds around, but even if there are, that just shows that the problem was with Kael, and *not* with the guild.

T6 badge quality loot sounds a bit odd - basically I just don't want to have to hunt for upgrades via badges as opposed to raiding. Perhaps it's only weapons? It would definately make more sense since blue specifically mentioned weapons, and that there is a big quirk atm about getting your amazing s1/s2/s3 weapon and just forgoeing anything else.

 

JuhnorX

I would assume that's why the damage is so high on the bow, to take into account the loss of damage from equipped ammunition. Subtracting ~53 dps (Timeless Arrows) seems to still make the bow about the same level damage as BT bows are currently, just with more bag space and nice stats.

I have faith in Blizzard to not nerf HS and BT for the Karasual, Naxx didn't have much of an attunement and you didn't get ZG and MC geared people going for T3.