Or is this just one of those rumors making the rounds? Has Blizzard really nerfed the hardcore raiding philosophy into the ground, or is there significantly more challenging content coming down the pipe?
Before I try to answer that, here is a quick update on my in game progress. I have officially started leveling my Druid again for use as a healer at 80. Though I toyed with a Warrior for a bit, and got him to 77, in my heart I always knew I’d find a reason to buckle down and level the Druid. As it turns out, my guild is hurting a bit for level 80 healers, and I’m glad to help out. I hastily respecced my Druid out of Moonkin (you may now consider me "anti-Moonkin") into a feral leveling build, and I’ve been having a blast. I’m taking the same "completionist" path as I was with the Warrior. He has cleared (meaning finished all the necessary quests for the achievement) Borean Tundra, Howling Fjord and Dragonblight, in that order. He is roughly halfway through Grizzly Hills as we speak. Berserk is nearly as much fun as Bladestorm, though not QUITE. My grand scheme is to get both the Druid and Warrior to 80, and once dual specs arrive the Druid will be Feral/Resto and the Warrior Prot/Fury. I’ll cover a lot of bases there!
Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.
I’ve heard on a couple of different podcasts and read on a couple of different blogs that some people consider raiding in Wrath to be too easy. I’ve heard claims of many guilds clearing Naxx 10 within a couple of tries, and then moving on to Naxx 25 and having similar levels of success. That most vocal of the WoW population, the hardcore raiders, are crying foul.
In particular, Syncaine over at Hardcore Casual said something that I had to comment on in his post on Wrath raiding. (In defense of Syncaine, he is plainly "anti-WoW" right now, and is more interested in Warhammer Online. Props to him for not being afraid to give an opinion.)
I’m guessing very little of that happens now, with how much more ‘accessible’ raiding is in WotLK. When you down a boss the first night, with fresh 80s, I can’t help but wonder if that’s even considered a raid.
Yes, we all know about 25th of whatever, the uber guild that cleared Naxx before I was even out of Borean Tundra. I’m also sure there are other strong guilds that have done almost as well, and I’m also sure there has been early success in Naxx thus far overall.
Guess what, Naxx doesn’t count. It’s a bad example. Naxx has been around a LONG, LONG time. It’s been retooled a bit, but there are strats out there that have been out there before even BC. A lot of those Uber guilds also spent the beta time practicing that raid over and over, just so they could say how cool they were when they cleared it.
Beyond that, though, my guild hasn’t cleared Naxx yet. Not even the 10 man version. Yes, we’ve cleared our share of bosses in there, but other bosses are right now kicking our teeth in and showing us that we are not ready. It’s not like every guild out there is already "done" with Wrath, right? Hell, I personally NEVER cleared anything beyond Magtheridon in BC. I saw Lady V, and I saw a lot of the Black Temple and Mount Hyjal, but I never was a part of a "clear" of any of that T5 or T6 content.
I also want to point out the fact that there are more raids coming, and that Blizzard recently gave the hardcore a raid to their liking in Sunwell Plateau. Do the hardcore really think they will be abandoned forever? Maybe there isn’t a BT or a Sunwell in Wrath as of right now, but I’m sure that Blizzard has some more difficult content to come. We already know that Ulduar is on the way, and I’m sure it will be much more difficult just because it’s completely new content. Not old, rehashed content. A NEW raid that nobody has ever seen.
In the end, though, I can’t say I’ll care all that much if the ultimate "bleeding edge" players decide that WoW isn’t the game for them. I’m a little tired of the 1-5% of players, the hardcore, dictating too much about how WoW should shape up for the masses. I don’t know about you, but I’m having a fricking blast with this expansion, and I can’t wait to see what else Blizzard has in store for us.
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My little hiatus will soon come to an end and I must say I am really looking forward to seeing everything I have been reading about.
Razorbax’s last blog post..Guest Post
You make some great points on how much more info people had on Naxx before getting there that have sped along progression through it in the hardcore raid guilds.
People also seem to forget that Naxx is just the opening raid – like Kara in BC. You can’t tell me that the hardcore raiders from original WOW took months and months to clear Kara.
What might have taken them months is clearing all the way up to Black Temple, Sun Well etc. Well, the Wrath equivalents to Black Temple and Sunwell are not even in the game yet.
I’ve heard all the boohooing too, but I’m reserving judgement til some of that harder content hits the screen. And in the meanwhile, my guild, which had just progressed from Kara into ZA when Wrath hit, is also just hitting Naxx now. And, since we never did this content before, and none of us were in beta, we are not finding it a cakewalk or a brick wall, but a decently challenging instance, and look forward to learning it.
K
Yeah i agree I think its a lot of fuss over nothing. The raids are easy by design. There’s a big bold sign on the game box saying “raids are easy. please try them. and they’re fun” Why do ppl like the guy you quoted act so indignant?
so I dont get it – except to say, as we all know in wow, ppl love to complain. When ppl do quit wow, its mostly for reasons much more prosaic and RL-related than content or mechanic changes.
I’m having a blast too. We have yet to clear heroic naxx – 2 bosses to go. We’re gonna start hard mode in obsidium next week. Malagos in 10 man too. Meanwhile plenty of alts to mess around with.
I don’t really care, how hard or easy Naxx is (heck, I’m only 79 yet and not playing alts).
Where I do think that Blizz nerfed a bit too much, is the normal instances. These days, there is absolutely no more crowd control and everything is just a big massacre. I think being able to do some proper crowd control was, what made much of a difference between good and bad groups. And now it’s gone completly.
I don’t mind, that Blizz improved mass tanking abilities. But why did they also nerf the damage, so that a tank can easily take 3-5 times the damage that we used to. That’s where I say, that Wrath is too easy. (Still a lot of fun and great quests though)
I actually do feel that raiding is too easy in Wrath. I agree that most of the population is not the hardcore groups that we hear complaining so much, but things are not really challenging for a lot of casual groups as well.
In BC heroics used to at least require some type of crowd control most of the time. There was a challenge associated with pulling mobs in an order to facilitate success. In Wrath heroics everything is basically AoE tank, AoE burn, and if you have a solid enough one AoE heal. This is the valid complaint that I hear often, and see firsthand.
If your tank and healer are decently geared, nothing is really a challenge.
I’ll admit, I’m more hardcore (as of late) than casual, but when I can heal through a borked pull in a heroic, where we end up with an entire room on us instead of the 2-3 mob pull, I have to side on the argument that things are too easy.
Naturally, this also depends a lot on gear. I can understand how people are encountering tough times if everyone in the group is relatively equally geared in quest gear and regular drops from Northrend. I had an advantage of starting at 70 with very good gear. But even our newest people who swapped mains and leveled to 80 aren’t struggling.
Byaghro’s last blog post..?GOOD!? What do you mean ?good?!??
I keep saying it every time. These instances were meant to be an introduction to raiding. If the truly hardcore players want to be hardcore, they should go after the achievements to help keep their skills sharp. Blizzard recognized early on that they made a mistake. A lot of players take it for granted, but Karazhan was super hard. Those Ushers from Maiden’s room to Opera? Non-Shackleable and non-tauntable. Those Arcane Protectors? Used to be twice as many of them in the room leading to Curator. That place got nerfed 4 months later because they realized it didn’t make a good entry level raid for newer players who had no idea what raiding was about.
Blizz didn’t want to make the same mistake this time around so they made it new guy friendly. I wouldn’t be surprised if the difficulty curve from Naxx to Ulduar is in the same area as Black Temple to Sunwell.
I agree with Matticus, and I’ll add some more.
What a lot of the “hardcore” raiders fail to recognize is that the playerbase for WoW is STILL continuing to expand. There are probably people that are making their first level 1 character as I write this. Assuming these people level all the way to 80, and do not get distracted to playing alts, it would likely take between 1 and 3 months, pending the amount of time they devote to gameplay, and how much of a learning curve they have for the game.
In that intervening time, what experiences will they garner that will suddenly prepare them for raiding? Heroics? Rep grinding? Dungeon grinding? None of these are necessary or particularly rewarding until level 80 (well, I really do love grinding the old dungeons as I level alts, I still feel that some of those encounters are among the most exciting/entertaining in the game, but maybe that’s nostalgic on my part).
There is no transition prior to Naxxramas. Blizzard can no longer safely assume that someone new to the game has set foot in even 1 instance along the way to level cap. Hardcore gamers are no longer the dominant culture in WoW, and they haven’t been for quite a while. New gamers will likely not know or understand why dungeons/instances are important, the rewatrds and fun they provide, if they’re even aware they exist.
Do they cater solely to the desires of the smallest percentage of players for challenge, or provide content that a larger audience can participate in and have a chance of success and the enjoyment that comes with it?
Of course, I think the Achievement system was a fantastic leverage for this. I can’t count the number of times I did something in the game that I thought was really cool/impressive/difficult, that no one outside of those present would likely believe I had done. Now there is a system in place that recognizes many of these things. If you are raiding for bragging rights, and many raiders do, then the Achievement system is perfect. It offers incentives not only for doing things, but for doing them the hard way and still succeeding.
I suspect that the next raids will actually not be a huge step up in terms of difficulty, but a more incremental 1. In my opinion, if Blizzard is smart, they will likely make it so that people can safely start doing the 10 or 25 man version if they have completed either version of Naxx.
I will also point out that I agree with Byaghro on 1 thing. As obnoxious as I found its seeming necessity through most of TBC for almost all content, I do lament the currently almost complete irrelevance of CC in 5 man content.
those 1-5% hardcore players, are what built Blizzard in the place. Im tired of casual nubs like you waltszing in like you @#$#@ own the place. Without the hard core players there would be no Blizzard to begin with. Giving the shaft to the base that BUILT YOUR COMPANY is never a smart idea. WoW is going the way of Star Wars Galaxies, plain and simple.