As Raised points out, Conquest gear doesn't deck you out. It fills neck, chest, head, legs, belt, and gloves. The legs and gloves are non-set, and likely to be less desired than T8, though I could certainly imagine a theoretical 10-man BiS list having one of the two and retaining the set bonus. If that's the case, that's 5 slots out of 17, and notably leaves out weapons and trinkets--particularly fun, exciting upgrades people really want, and which often make a much more dramatic difference in performance. That's 12 slots where even Ulduar10 normal mode loot is higher quality than anything else you can buy with Emblems. Add hard modes, especially hard mode weapons, to that, and you've still got very compelling reasons to venture into Ulduar. Pretty sure the sky still isn't falling.
People are focusing far too much on the "ffs it's only 5 bosses!!!" aspect.
Hyjal only had 5. TK only had 4. SSC only had 6. Even AQ40 only had 6 mandatory bosses, with 3 optionals. They were all successful raid instances. Sure, the fact that TK/Hyjal were paired with another raid at the same time made the content last longer, but considering that the normal and heroic difficulties of the coliseum are seperate instances now, I really do feel that they'll take full advantage of this and use the opportunity to design entirely unique encounters, rather than, "It's the same fight, just with more HP," or "Kill him in 3 minutes." Since the implications of hard-mode have no impact on the normal difficulty this time around, they're not bound by these mechanics, which is exciting. On top of that, as I said in my earlier post, the possibility of varying modes of difficulty per boss is blatantly obvious. They've been very successful with the various modes of difficulty in the Sartharion and Ulduar encounters, I'm sure they'll continue to advance this concept. One of the previous posters said, "I doubt they'll have hard modes for the normal difficulty, it'll just be normal -> heroic for the hard modes," but it's quite clear that the challenge of completing the encounters on Heroic difficulty is based around the number of attempts you're able to complete it on. Whether that's limited exclusively to the hardest difficulty, or if you have access to all difficulties on top of the limited attempts, we're yet to find out. But I'm very confident they'll stretch these 5 bosses as far as they can. They're aware of their past mistakes, they're not going to repeat them. We'll get a full Tier of raiding - people are just skeptical because they associate "Ring of Blood" with 5 quick, easy encounters with no trash.
People are focusing far too much on the "ffs it's only 5 bosses!!!" aspect.
Hyjal only had 5. TK only had 4. SSC only had 6. Even AQ40 only had 6 mandatory bosses, with 3 optionals. They were all successful raid instances. Sure, the fact that TK/Hyjal were paired with another raid at the same time made the content last longer, but considering that the normal and heroic difficulties of the coliseum are seperate instances now, I really do feel that they'll take full advantage of this and use the opportunity to design entirely unique encounters, rather than, "It's the same fight, just with more HP," or "Kill him in 3 minutes." Since the implications of hard-mode have no impact on the normal difficulty this time around, they're not bound by these mechanics, which is exciting. On top of that, as I said in my earlier post, the possibility of varying modes of difficulty per boss is blatantly obvious. They've been very successful with the various modes of difficulty in the Sartharion and Ulduar encounters, I'm sure they'll continue to advance this concept. One of the previous posters said, "I doubt they'll have hard modes for the normal difficulty, it'll just be normal -> heroic for the hard modes," but it's quite clear that the challenge of completing the encounters on Heroic difficulty is based around the number of attempts you're able to complete it on. Whether that's limited exclusively to the hardest difficulty, or if you have access to all difficulties on top of the limited attempts, we're yet to find out. But I'm very confident they'll stretch these 5 bosses as far as they can. They're aware of their past mistakes, they're not going to repeat them. We'll get a full Tier of raiding - people are just skeptical because they associate "Ring of Blood" with 5 quick, easy encounters with no trash.
Don't expect this to be the next VoA.
The thing is that it would be the first tier of raiding with so little bosses/content to chew on until the next tier.
Tier 1 (mc + ony) had 11 bosses (2 optional)
Tier 2 (bwl) had 9 bosses
Tier 2.5 (aq40) had 9 bosses (3 optional)
Tier 3 (naxx40) had 15 bosses
and there were zg and aq20 which was a total of 16 bosses with 7 (correct me if I'm wrong) optional bosses
Tier 4 (kara + gruul + mag) had 15 bosses (5 optional)
Tier 5 (ssc + tk) had 10 bosses
Tier 6 (Bt + hyjal) had 14 bosses
Tier 6.5 (Sunwell) had 6 bosses
And there were Zul'aman 6 bosses
Tier 7 (Naxx + eye + os) had 17 bosses
Tier 8 (ulduar) has 14 bosses (5 being optional)
and now Tier 9 would have 5 bosses would be the tier of raiding with, by far, the less bosse to go through each week. I'm not counting the hard modes because to me it's a new factor to add in and if the other tier of raiding had had hard modes they would probably have had a ton more bosses too. To me this screams either two things, A) we need a filler before icecrown because it's not ready or B) there is something more than just this small instance that will ship in 3.2 and, in all honesty, I'm hoping it's the later.
Not that I'm aware, and the simple fact that they haven't said as much suggests to me that they won't be. As Jagiya said in his post, by separating the bosses into a separate instance with a different lockout, Blizzard have given themselves freedom to change up the encounters a great deal between normal and heroic. For all we know they might be totally unique encounters with no resemblance to normal mode at all.
Either way, people need to quite crying based on speculative conclusions drawn from vague patch notes and at least wait until they've seen it on the PTR to judge.
As Jagiya said in his post, by separating the bosses into a separate instance with a different lockout, Blizzard have given themselves freedom to change up the encounters a great deal between normal and heroic. For all we know they might be totally unique encounters with no resemblance to normal mode at all.
Yes, thank you. This is what I was trying to say, amongst my muddled words.
Essentially the coliseum has the potential to house 10 unique encounters. Yes, each difficulty will have 5 bosses, but they didn't specifically say, "The same 5 bosses, but the Heroic ones hit harder." I mean, why else would they put them in seperate lockouts? (Aside from the obvious FL/Deconstructor positions discouraging you from spending time on their hard modes at risk of leaving unfinished content for the rest of the week.) I truly think this is all about giving them the freedom to design truly hard encounters without screwing up the mechanics of the normal difficulty.
The lack of word from Blizzard that the heroic/normal *won't* be the same convinces me they will be. I suspect that they want people to be able to work on hardmodes without screwing up their normal modes, want to avoid any silly bits like having to wipe if you fail to kill XT's heart, or losing Hodir-hard attempts on a 3:01 kill. I also suspect they realized that they couldn't hot-tune hardmodes or normal modes without having splashover: for example, XT a week after release was very beatable, but it's been nerfed several times to make the hardmode beatable.
I like that they put them in separate lockouts, but if it's the same five bosses in four iterations, it'll get lame awfully fast. Children's Week isn't scheduled until next April, so the fact that they're adding content for that in 3.2 suggests they expect it to last a long, long while as well.
Also I think people are assuming that the patch will have the same life cycle as Ulduar. I think it will be cut considerably shorter.
But look at Ulduar. Love the instance but there are a lot of trash encounters in there. What if the Colliseum 25 normal has encounters on the difficulty of Mimiron, Yogg, Freya+1/2, Vezax and Hodir/Thorim hard? Strip out all the trash bosses like Kologarn and Auriaya from Ulduar and you're only left with a handful of encounters that seem to stop casual guilds. It would be nice if the difficulty level actually started there and ramped up so the normal 25 took a few weeks to clear. I do miss the days of BWL where we spent 3-4 weeks per boss (drakes/Broodlord aside). Now we're never going to reach that again for normal mode but I don't think it unreasonable that a boss is killed in normal in 3-4 raid nights by a less than optimal casual/medium guild.
Then hopefully hard mode starts at around Freya+3 difficulty and ramps up. I actually like the Tribute system in some ways as it encourages efficient play and tries rather than zerging and eliminates the advantage all day guilds have as they can't throw themselves at it forever till it is down.
E: @Cranberry: I suspect they also got fed up of putting in red buttons to push as it were to activate hard modes, as well as the horrible Hodir style timed one. With a seperate instance everything is hard mode and whilst it may be the same boss in name and looks they are free to go to town with the mechanics and be nothing like the original fight.
Given that the art assets are what they claim take up the most time, and how quickly they must have been able to knock out the arena, I'm expecting 3.2 as a mini patch that will be turned over quite quickly. If this is how the expansion cycle goes, assuming it is shorter, 1 big dungeon, 1 small, 1 big I'm okay with that to be honest.
Last edited by Vaccine : 06/19/09 at 4:06 AM.
Originally Posted by Shadowed
The best part is, not only were you late in linking it, that's an April fools topic from 6 months ago.
Resilience: No longer reduces the amount of damage done by damage over time spells, but instead reduces the amount of all damage done by players by the same proportion. The other effects of resilience (reducing critical chance, critical damage and mana drain effects) have not changed.
So Dots do more damage on targets with resilence now, right? And how much?
Resilience: No longer reduces the amount of damage done by damage over time spells, but instead reduces the amount of all damage done by players by the same proportion. The other effects of resilience (reducing critical chance, critical damage and mana drain effects) have not changed.
So Dots do more damage on targets with resilence now, right? And how much?
DoT damage should be unchanged, although it will increase relative to other damage.
originally posted by Vaccine
It would be nice if the difficulty level actually started there and ramped up so the normal 25 took a few weeks to clear. I do miss the days of BWL where we spent 3-4 weeks per boss (drakes/Broodlord aside). Now we're never going to reach that again for normal mode but I don't think it unreasonable that a boss is killed in normal in 3-4 raid nights by a less than optimal casual/medium guild.
I think that blizzard cannot make fights like these any more, what made BWL hard is that most players still weren't very good and mods that we now take for granted such as threat meters didn't exist at all. The average player skill has already increased more than I thought it could with the current encounters but the gap between the good and the average is even larger than it was before. These days the only way to make a fight challenging to the very best is to make it so tightly tuned and unforgiving of mistakes that it is impossible for lesser skilled guilds to kill the boss at all before they nurf the fights. We have already seen the bitching and casual/hardcore drama the nurfs to the ulduar fights caused. I doubt Blizzard wants to have to do that again.
The other thing from the patch notes that I think will have a large bearing on Gameplay is the very ruthless solution to the over-popularity of 2v2 arena. Making the best gear only available via 3v3 and 5v5 rating seems to be playing with fire. The upside is that it may take some of the gear disparity out of 2v2 and make it into a sort of training arena mode where people learn basic skills before progressing to the "real" arena.
I think Blizzard has simply run out of mechanics to design fights like this anymore. Back in BWL and ZG people were new to raiding and had to figure out the dynamics of the encounters. Today, someone will recognize what's going on on the first pull, write it all over the internet and then it's just a matter of some practice to kill a boss.
Hardmodes, as they are, mostly consist of "the boss now hits really hard" (Thorim), "you need to do a ton of damage" (Vezax, XT, Yogg) or both (Iron Council). I'm not sure that having your tank gibbed in the span of 2 seconds is either a very fun or a very good mechanic and it's getting quite old to have a good attempt ruined by a tank 1-shot or 2-shot at 20%.
Those encounters that aren't "just more health and more damage" are significantly overtuned (Freya and Mimi) or incredibly RNG dependant (Hodir). I like Hodir because it actually is a strategical fight instead of the stupid number games on Steelbreaker and Thorim and if Freya +3 wouldn't have the ridiculous DPS requirements on top of all the shit you need to deal with it would be perfect. But as is, I'm not too happy with the current implementation of hardmodes.
By making an extra lockout they're not opening the way for more interesting hardmodes and/or bosses. They're just making sure that 'middle of the road' guilds like mine or 'we raid 2 days a week' guilds spend time on the hardmodes because it won't lock them out of the rest of the instance anymore. Until last week, if you were a 3-day raid guild, spending significant time on Flame +4 would basically mean no Yogg kill for the week. Ergo, guilds were not spending time on hardmodes.
By having a normal mode lockout these guilds can clear the normal modes first and then spend the rest of the week on hardmodes or heroic modes, as you wish. This would also allow Blizz to make instances more linear again; a design that I have always preferred since it seems to be easier to motivate a raid to do something when there is no choice to do something else. In my opinion a big downside of hardmodes is that there's always the easy way out option to collect the loot and move on. If you could choose to do Kael'Thas with only 2 adds and without pyroblast, how many guilds would have killed him the way he was? I doubt it would even be 10% of the number that eventually did it.
As an added bonus, with using seprate instances, you also get rid of the stupid 3:01 kills on Hodir because you can just tack on a proper enrage timer.
The other thing from the patch notes that I think will have a large bearing on Gameplay is the very ruthless solution to the over-popularity of 2v2 arena. Making the best gear only available via 3v3 and 5v5 rating seems to be playing with fire. The upside is that it may take some of the gear disparity out of 2v2 and make it into a sort of training arena mode where people learn basic skills before progressing to the "real" arena.
I don't really see the downside. 2v2 has been the bracket where it has been easier to aquire high ratings due to the sheer number of teams, though I believe they're well on their way to tweaking the rating distributions to fix that. It's logistically easier to get a team, and to get playtime out of disparate schedules. Perhaps most importantly, and hardest to address; It's the bracket where it's absolutely easiest to game class imbalances to aquire higher ratings than your "skill" would warrant. 2v2 has, for the above reasons, been a thorn in Blizzard's side for years in terms of balancing. They can't, with some semblance of credibility, say that they don't balance after it while giving the same rewards as the larger brackets. With some classes varying wildly in "power" across multiple brackets (resto druids, rogues etc) the scene is set to create a significant amount of malcontent without any tangiable benefit.
There'll probably be a backlash, but I suspect it'll be quickly burried in comments along the line of "of course resto druids want 2v2 to give epics". This is an excellent change to the arena system, and a significant relief for Blizzard who now will be able to say they don't balance after 2v2. The fact that they also managed to do it in a way that lets people gear up in 2v2 still, lets it be the starting point, is just a huge bonus.
It's also with some glee that I note that the new honour-increase-near-strategic-objectives they're introducing with IoC is definitely part what I was thinking about when I said "(almost!) nothing they can do" to avoid the AB-road-fighting problem. It won't solve all problems, certainly, but it's a very welcome step in the right direction.
I'm not that fond of the reduced match lenght of AB/WSG though, especially the WSG time limit. In essence, rather than impleneting a solution that encourages people to go for the flag - because games do not last that much over 20 minutes if there's at least two people on the same team who actually go for the flag, almost completely irrespective of their gear/classes - they're making it so that you need less flags to win. My initial reaction was dismay, but having thought about it... You score once and then you join the HK farm. Should the need arise, score again. It's not the ideal solution, in fact it's probably not what I'd call a solution - you're basically circumvening teaching people to play proper by rewarding them even though they're playing like a sack of nuts - but it'll be an improvement from getting shit honour despite being the only guy playing the actual battleground.
Reducing the time it takes to cap flags is another concern. In particular, I'm thinking about rogues or other classes with 10 second duration full CCs that do not share DRs. I suspect the purpose here might be to provide an additional incentative to not leave one alone defender, but I think the way in which it's being done is too subtle for the average BG player and that it'll just be an additional nuisance for people trying to play proper.
All in all, I see iterative design - who cares if it's not perfect at the first PTR hit, it's a start - in areas of PvP where we've spent quite literally years just hearing talk about what they'd like to change. (And yes, that's counting rated battlegrounds as words not action)
Have they explicitly stated that the 5 "Heroic" bosses are the same "upgraded" encounters from the normal versions?
The encounter mechanics themselves could be dramatically different, but the characters you fight can't be really. Blizz's stated objective is that everyone gets to fight Arthas (so much as 'everyone' can be applied to raiding). If Arthas is the end boss of heroic Icecrown this isn't true. And if he's the boss of normal Icecrown then how could the end boss of heroic Icecrown be anything other than a harder version of him?
What I'm wondering is that if 10 man and 25 man coloseum drop the same badges, do they drop the same ilvl of loot and are 10 mans then no longer the poor man's alternative loot-wise?
The encounter mechanics themselves could be dramatically different, but the characters you fight can't be really. Blizz's stated objective is that everyone gets to fight Arthas (so much as 'everyone' can be applied to raiding). If Arthas is the end boss of heroic Icecrown this isn't true. And if he's the boss of normal Icecrown then how could the end boss of heroic Icecrown be anything other than a harder version of him?
well if the encounter mechanics are dramatically different, what else matters?
well if the encounter mechanics are dramatically different, what else matters?
I seriously fail to see the problem here...
My problem is boredom. I have a hard time running Ulduar 25 and 10 in one week. My guild hasn't killed Yogg in either instance, but the lure of "new bosses" is ruthlessly suppressed by the soul-crushing boredom of looking at the same stupid instance 6 days out of 7. I'm tired of the scenery. I don't think it matters how "different" the fights are between 5 man, 10 man, 25 man, and 25 heroic. that's 4 instances, all the same scenery, same models, same whatever. How much more lazy on instance design can you get?
The tweaking of the fights isn't going to be enough to get casual raiders that raid 3 nights a week and progress slowly interested enough in running the exact same dungeon over and over. I think it's a very poor design decision.
My problem is boredom. I have a hard time running Ulduar 25 and 10 in one week. My guild hasn't killed Yogg in either instance, but the lure of "new bosses" is ruthlessly suppressed by the soul-crushing boredom of looking at the same stupid instance 6 days out of 7. I'm tired of the scenery. I don't think it matters how "different" the fights are between 5 man, 10 man, 25 man, and 25 heroic. that's 4 instances, all the same scenery, same models, same whatever. How much more lazy on instance design can you get?
The tweaking of the fights isn't going to be enough to get casual raiders that raid 3 nights a week and progress slowly interested enough in running the exact same dungeon over and over. I think it's a very poor design decision.
You've just said that the art in Ulduar, probably the most visually stunning dungeon ever created, bores you and makes you not want to go. From the sounds of it Blizzard would have to go back in time, retrieve Michelangelo, teach him model design and then have him work 22 hour days for 3 years to craft an instance that wouldn't bore you.
I'm pretty sure if that is your opinion of Ulduar than nothing would have pleased you. Also you could maybe raid less/not at all if it bores you. It sounds like boss fights don't interest you and the art work certainly doesn't.
Originally Posted by Shadowed
The best part is, not only were you late in linking it, that's an April fools topic from 6 months ago.
My problem is boredom. I have a hard time running Ulduar 25 and 10 in one week. My guild hasn't killed Yogg in either instance ...
If you haven't killled Y-S yet in either instance, I can see your guild is a raiding guild, but not a very hardcore progression guild. Therefore, you are probably not the limiting factor and it's not absolutely essential to have the extra 10 man loot. Stop raiding 10 man. Seriously, it's there for those who want it, not there to burn you out. Raid what is fun, enjoy your 25 or 10, but don't complain doing the same instance twice in one week is boring, because yes, it is, it's the same damn instance. Ulduar has the most stunning visuals of all time, 14 truly unique bosses and associated hard modes for variety once you master the basics. If you are bored, that's because you're forcing yourself to run redundant content for a marginal gain.
Apologies for letting my hyperbole run away with me . Ulduar is spectacular as far as visuals go, no doubt, the scenery is stunning, especially when compared to say Molten Core. However, to put in perspective what I mean, I have family that lives in a house over looking some grand scenery. Whenever we go to visit, we admire the view and tell them how lovely it must be to see that every day. They agree, but often say it is seeing US appreciate it that makes them happy. They see it every day and are used to it.
Ulduar is what it is, I am simply hoping that the new instances will have more variety between them than simply being the same zone with minor tweaks between the same fights.
Ulduar is what it is, I am simply hoping that the new instances will have more variety between them than simply being the same zone with minor tweaks between the same fights.
Blizzard has stated time and time again that their goal in WotLK is to allow "casual" raiding guilds to see the content. While they may change their minds (they have certainly changed them before), to make the content of the different versions of the same raid different would go directly against that policy. Not to mention the additional development time required to diversify the content. On top of that, Blizzard has said they don't want people to feel like they are forced to do every version of the same instance (the reason there are multiple versions is so people can choose the progress in the one they prefer). Obviously, as long as it is possible to do multiple versions and receive some sort of reward for each one, serious raiders will feel compelled to do both, but to the "I just want to see content" semi-casual, making different flavors of the same zone have significantly different flavor will also make them feel compelled to run the zone multiple times.
A lot of people are expressing hope that the heroic mode encounters in the new raid zone will be significantly different from their normal mode counterparts; attacks may change, but I'd bet real money that the heroic bosses use the same models, and generally have the same themes as the normal bosses.
Finally, if you find it a chore to do the same zone twice a week, I pose a semi-rhetorical question: If it isn't really fun , why do you choose to do it?
Ulduar is what it is, I am simply hoping that the new instances will have more variety between them than simply being the same zone with minor tweaks between the same fights.
Speaking for myself, I'm usually too busy watching for hodir icicles / eonar's gifts / yogg clouds / tentacles / void zones / etc etc to be enjoying the scenery. Even if there were variety between the textures in the different instances, it wouldn't take more than a clear or two for them to lose the "ooh aah" factor.
It's not that I don't appreciate the work that has gone in to designing the instances. It's the thrill of completing difficult encounters that keep me coming back - not the art. In that respect, I think Blizzard is on the right track. Hard modes were a step in the right direction, but separate instances make it possible for even more radically different fight mechanics.
Personally I think Ulduar has been the best instance in Blizzard's history. The encounters are all pretty basic and aren't too complex, but as soon as you activate the hardmodes for them, they really are completely different encounters. If Blizzard does only create 5 bosses and give each boss a hardmode, I don't think it would be the end of the world.
Let's not forget, either, that many of the hardmodes are incomplete. There are only what? 100 guilds in the U.S. still that have downed Freya+3? Even fewer have downed Yogg-Hard, Mimiron-hard, or Algalon, The fact that Blizzard can implement fairly easy fights and then transform them into Sunwell difficulty fights is pretty outstanding. The achievement system (and Algalon questline) definitely reward the hardcore who want that Sunwell hard.
So speaking purely off of track-record, I don't think Blizzard will disappoint with the Colosseum. I'm personally incredibly curious as to how they're going to manage trash. The instance could be Caverns of Time-esque in that waves of combatants come against you before you fight the final boss, and you have a certain "life percentage" to hold at (Thrall's health, shields on the black portal, etc).
I think that blizzard cannot make fights like these any more, what made BWL hard is that most players still weren't very good and mods that we now take for granted such as threat meters didn't exist at all.
Information is just so much better. Back in WoW 1.0, people were extremely secretive about encounters, guides didn't exist, videos mostly didn't exist, gear optimization sites did not exist a lot of mods didn't exist. People also were still learning what classes work. I remember when people first discovered what the original weapon skill actually did versus a raid boss.
You still have a fair number of idiots, but for people who actually want to beat encounters, the tools are all available and the hive mind of WoW players has gotten a lot smarter.
It appears that the 3.2 raid is already getting backlash from a problem blizzard created with Ulduar. They basically raised the bar so high in Ulduar that it's simply hard to beat in future (or even equal). Incredible amounts of art and design resources went into the instance - so much so that it's laughable for anyone to deny it. Not only did it have lots of innovative unique fights, but it also had... lots of fights!
Pick your 3-5 favourite encounters in Ulduar. Lets say Mimiron, Yogg, Vezax, Freya, Thorim (just a few personal choices). They all have impressive depth, when factoring in hardmodes. The various modes change the feel and theme of the fight. It could very well be that the collesum will focus solely on these style fights and not bother with any of tacked on extras (Razorscale, Auriaya, Deconstructor, Ignis etc).
I would still have been satisfied with Ulduar, if the instance just had 4 watchers and Yogg. Everyone else beyond that raised the bar. I wouldn't expect they can deliver this sort of quantity of content every patch (especially if their model calls for smaller mid expansion patches).
I would expect, however, that future 'smaller raids' will focus on delivering more Yogg-Saron style quality fights, and less Razorscale-type fights. Theres nothing wrong with Razorscale in itself, its a fun fight, but it's not the sort of fight that makes Ulduar the thoroughly satisfying, memorable experience it is.
Many posters here will echo this sentiment: When you wade deeper into Ulduar and begin hardmodes, its Freya/Mimiron/Yogg/Council style fights, that will make you appreciate the depth Blizzard put into the instance. They present the real challenges you'll be proud to overcome. And yet those same fights are still accessible (in normal mode) to many others.
An instance that aims to focus on creating fights like this, which provide everyone with an enjoyable and memorable experience, would certainly be very welcomed. We don't need Razorscale and Auriaya tacked onto Colleseum to boost its boss count number to 'a higher level' simply because a few people think that 5 bosses means it must be an inferior instance.
As a previous poster said, look at Blizzards track record for Sunwell until now. People said they could never make an instance like Sunwell again. That Blizzard had lost their touch. Some said Sunwell was the peak, because Blizzards attempt to make 'raids more accessible' would result in raiders never seeing fights of Kil'jaeden/Muru quality or complexity ever again. Then Ulduar came out.. and delivered.
Why exactly do people assume the sky will be falling with the 3.2 raid all of a sudden? You've just been given an instance like Ulduar, and if that didn't reaffirm your confidence in Blizzard's ability to create content, what on earth would it take exactly?