I don't mind Wizard oil, arcane elixirs, the dozens of superior mana potions I use and the like. Hell, even Greater Frost/Fire/Nature Protection Potions are easy for me to stockpile, but Shadow is just downright stupid. If herb patches give more herbs (and for fucks sake, lessen Dreamfoil) and none of the standard raid pots are as dumb as GSPPs in BC then I won't mind too much.

My guild beat Loatheb for the first time without any world buffs as well. As Gurg said, world buffs make Loatheb a sure thing and allow you more flexibility with the class composition of your raid.

With regards to the amount of consumables required in Naxx -- Naxxramus is a homerun in my book. (That's the main reason I'm disappointed Blizz is going to 25 man in the expo -- they finally got it.) It's a VERY hard zone when compared to the difficulty of previously released raid content. It also requires much more precise execution from the bulk of your raid force and requires certain classes to perform tasks they haven't had to do in prior zones. Yes, Loatheb requires a ton of consumables and to reliably make him a one shot at this point world buffs sure do help. BUT, consumables for the raid force at large aren't really required for any other fight in the zone (I've missed our 4H attempts so I may be off here) and I don't really have an issue with them for Loatheb.

Think about it from the designers perspective -- if you made Loatheb doable with the standard buffs, where you flask the tank and everyone else kind of throws on whatever they feel like, how does that encounter play when people THEN go out and get the buffs? He's a trash mob. It's totally trivialized. Once you get it down, it costs you 3 shadow pots, some warlock grumbling and a few other consumables per week. It's really not that big a deal and the consumable requirements will fade on him over time just like they always do in raid zones.

I, for one, like the consumable requirement for him and Naxx in general. There's a certain level of satisfaction I get when I see all my guildmates come together and make sure we all have everything we need and then go in and beat the boss.

In terms of raid encounter design, I tend to dislike encounters that absolutely require certain consumables. It's my feeling that consumables should give you a slight edge, or a slightly larger margin for error, not make or break an encounter.

Also I'd really like to see more encounters that stress proper execution, whether the execution is simple or more complex, rather than encounters that are strict gear checks or have strict class matrix requirements. The 2 extremes could be Patchwerk and C'Thun. C'Thun is a more execution based encounter than most, but Patchwerk is kinda 90% gear/class and maybe 10% execution.

I guess what I'm saying is I enjoy encounters that require you to "move here when this happens and use this ability, then go here while avoiding this hazard (or you will die and wipe the raid)..ect ect" to "stand still and hit this button, if you have these consuambles and can crank out these numbers you will win".

I don't know, just my 2 cents I guess.

I hear what you are saying and I get it. Naxx is composed of all different types of fights. Gothik I guess is the hardest "execution" fight, but there are a number of other ones in there. Thaddius, Heigan, 4H and to a lesser extent Anub and Grobb. There are also a number of gear check fights like Patch, Maexx, Widow and Thaddius.

I think the gear check fights are fine. I would be kinda pissed if every fight was like Heigan where any guild that had a tank with a high defense could beat it as long as they executed.

I don't really know about that. While Naxx has certainly been taxing on guild and player pocketbooks alike, the grind is nearing an end. Judging by how fast Sapp went down and the progress on Kel, it would appear that once the horsemen are down you're effectively done with the consumable drain.

We're nearing the point where we should all start coming out of Naxx in the black, at least on the clear of the first three wings and hopefully we'll regain some of that money we sunk into it. Then we can sell all our frozen runes the guilds that suddenly need frost resist gear once blizz hits Naxx with the nerf stick.

Loatheb and Patch look like they will still need consumables to make sure they are taken down, looks the same for 4H.

The only nerf stick I see Naxx getting is people being able to level, and I think that those people would rather do the new dungeons (with the more ilevel efficient items) than 40 man content.

I could be wrong and people will still want to do 40 man stuff after the expansion, and then you have your frozen rune market.

Depending on the cost of other items to craft the FrR gear, people may want to buy the stuff now (it is decent gear, better than a lot of blues in some cases), and it has that shiny purple color ;).

If that's the only nerf Naxx gets between here and the expansion I think it would be a shame. I would wager there are tons of guilds out there that would really enjoy the content yet they lack either the skill / gear / organization to really tackle the zone past the first 5 or so bosses. Naxx is by far and away the most enjoyable zone IMO and I can't imagine Blizzard has any intention of only 100 or so guilds killing Kel by the time the expansion comes out. What a waste of time / effort that would be.

This is what I came up with.

Step 1) Reduce the material amounts to roughly 1 herb+cheap vial (20 coper per) for potions, 2 herbs + not so cheap vial (20 silver per) for elixers, 4 herbs + rare componant (ie: black lotus) + expensive vial (5 gold per) for flasks.

Step 2) Potions have 1 charge. Exlirs have 5. Flasks have 10 charges. If you're a roleplayer, just think of it as one drop from a flask is enough to cure Azerothian Cancer, etc...

Step 3) Increase Flask duration to 4 hours. Elixers last 2 and persist through two deaths.

Step 4) Only allow one flask and one elixer effect to be on at any given time.

As for world buffs, I felt that they should be stripped upon zoning into any raid instance. Just write it off as "Thrall's Power can no longer help you here" and whatnot.

However, what might be cool is if when you kill any major zone boss (Onyxia, Ragnaros, etc...etc..) everybody there gets a one time perma-buff of sorts. For example, killing Rag gets you a permanant 25 fire resist bonus. Killing Onyxia gives, I dunno, permanant +2% hit or something. Etc...etc...

You can eliminate the lameness of guilds having to go back and clear 20 raid end bosses for new recruits by every expansion having some mini-boss or quests here and there that replace the old world bonuses. For example in TBC a quest that requires you to dive into a pool of nether-lava or whatever and survive for 2 minutes will give you the 25 fire resist perma-bonus if you don't already have the ragnaros one.

I like this idea. They should do with world boss buff like they are doing with the EPL pvp buff that they would disappear after zoning into Naxxramas.

I would think if the cost of consumables were reduced to these suggested levels in addition to upping the charges and duration, you would just see people with all that stuff on 24/7. What's the point of that? The whole point of consumables in the game is that frivolous usage is cost prohibitive. You use consumables when you need them. Based on the tuning of current encounters, I think people would be a FOOL to not raid with a flask that cost 5g to make, had 10 charges, lasted 4 hours and persisted through death. Why not just give melee dps 1200 base hp and casters +150 damage?

I like. Add a whisper from the end boss saying "Your leaders cannot help you against my might, fool..."* and it'd be kinda neat flavor/ambience, too.


*Except better-written.