Accordingly, while loot will be awarded more frequently, Raid Finder in Warlords will have different loot tables than the Normal, Heroic, or Mythic versions of the raids, along with different item art. The gear will fall in between dungeon loot and Normal mode raid loot in terms of power, as it does today, but without the set bonuses and specific trinkets that tend to make raiders feel like they need to run Raid Finder alongside their weekly guild raids today.Huzzah.
I'm still not happy about the first tier of WoD because we'll be having to clear Normal, Heroic, AND Mythic (and possibly even LFR depending on how it compares to Heroic Dungeon loot) but this is a step in the right direction, at least.
Blizzard's also claiming we'll be able to skip a lot of bosses with less linear layouts -- if this includes being able to skip to the final few bosses on Heroic that'll help (because we'll have Mythic gear from the beginning bosses) but I worry we'll still have the "have to kill all previous bosses for the final one" traditional layout.
If Normal gear manages to stay under Mythic gear from the previous tier that'll also be good but I'm not sure I see that happening. And, of course, set bonuses/trinkets may mean we'll have to run it anyway, at least initially.
I suppose the "good" news is that farming Heroic plus part of Mythic will hopefully leave people without needing to do Normal in month or two -- but that's till 4-8 extra weekly clears that we shouldn't have to be doing.
Would it be too much to ask to only need to do one lockout per week? Yes? How about two? Could we please limit it to two?
(stupid word limit... "get your own damned blog, ffs")
ReplyDeleteAs you may have picked up from my last comment about not really wanting to be a heroic raider (yet, being one), I believe Blizzard is trying to find a spot for a type of player that historically hasn't had a lot of options for their gameplay.
Me, basically.
Here's my perfect scenario in the new WoD reality based on their recent comments.
I run LFR NEVER and have zero reason to do so aside from some minor gear upgrades that won't actually help with progression.
Long-term I run Normal (Flex) when I want to and with various groups... a personal preference kind of thing, more content than progression. I'll likely bring alts a lot. In the first few weeks I could see running Normal on my main but mostly to learn the fight basics.
I'll likely try to hook on with one or two Heroic (Normal) runs a week that may or may not be my dedicated group (I may not even HAVE a dedicated raid group, I'm a bit of a nomad raid-group-wise). I won't take anyone's spot since it'll be flexible and if anything (since I defer loot to their usual raiders for main spec) they'll get more loot by bringing me along. I'll generally bring my main but I might bring a geared-enough alt.
I WON'T have a dedicated weekly Mythic raid group but I'll likely offer my services to the raids I run normals with if they come up short. I'm not really a fan of >10-man raids but I'll likely be willing to do 20s occasionally as necessary, especially if they've helped me gear up in Heroics.
That's how I'm imagining my raiding life to look in WoD... probably chaotic to someone who only raids in one group each week but that's been roughly what I've tried to do for the past couple of years, get runs here and there but mix it up, bring different toons and generally play when and how I want without obligations. That hasn't worked particularly well, though, partly due to the current lockout system and partly because the raids I've helped out have this unfortunate tendency of latching on and continuing to invite me (yeah, I know, tough life, but I'm serious).
WoD, I strongly believe, will be significantly better for my preferred playstyle and even though I don't imagine a ton of players play like I do today, I suspect a lot more may in WoD once those options open up. I actually created my personal guild back in late Wrath with the intention of accumulating competent raiders who weren't looking for a weekly raid but were interested in helping out runs (dungeons or raids) when necessary... but LFD/LFR kind of blew that concept out of the water, anyone wanting occasional play had a sub-optimal but good enough option. In WoD, maybe pugging becomes a lot more viable as an accepted, primary raiding playstyle...
(and as a heroic RL I suspect you're reading this with more than a small bit of horror, the idea of good players voluntarily taking themselves out of the weekly commitment game... but ultimately I think it'll be better, right now you probably have players like that in your raid who may not particularly want to be there (like me with mine) but who don't really have any other options right now than committing... that self-selection should make it easier to find a more cohesive group to begin with)
In the more global sense, what I hope will happen is that even the more humanely hardcore raiders (ie. the 95% of the 10%) will only feel the need to run the two highest tiers of content each week... Mythic and Heroic. Heroic and Normal. Normal and LFR (or just Normal, let's get serious... I'm hoping LFR has no appeal for anyone who raids premades). There'll always be a subset of the playerbase who feels obligated to run anything that has even a small chance of an incremental upgrade but that's a personality quirk that Blizzard can't (and shouldn't) design around... I've never felt that way, personally, even when I was a more serious raider than I am today. My job is to show up on time, prepared, and perform to the best of my ability. If all I'm doing is thinking about how this will be the 6th f'n time I've killed these bosses this week, I won't be at my best...
DeleteSo, to answer your last question, go right ahead, limit it to two... or one. If your gear isn't demonstrably holding your raid back (ie. a tank with half the health of the other tank and is being one-shot by boss melee attacks) then don't run anything other than your required runs each week. You have my blessing. Just don't ask Blizzard to do it for you... :)
(and I'm completely unclear on the 4-8 extra weekly clears that you're talking about...)
"(and as a heroic RL I suspect you're reading this with more than a small bit of horror, the idea of good players voluntarily taking themselves out of the weekly commitment game... but ultimately I think it'll be better, right now you probably have players like that in your raid who may not particularly want to be there (like me with mine) but who don't really have any other options right now than committing... that self-selection should make it easier to find a more cohesive group to begin with)"
DeleteARGH! NO! MAKE IT STOP!
In all seriousness, though, that still won't exist. Mythic raid leaders are going to be recruiting committed rosters and anyone wanting to clear Mythic will have to commit. If a Mythic raid leader PUGs a spot it'll be a last resort and viewed as a really terrible thing and a failure of leadership.
Or, in other words, anyone in my guild has no option other than committing no matter what regardless in either MoP or WoD. Keep in mind Mythic will NOT be cross-realm.
"There'll always be a subset of the playerbase who feels obligated to run anything that has even a small chance of an incremental upgrade but that's a personality quirk that Blizzard can't (and shouldn't) design around"
Anyone doing Mythic within the first month of it being available is also going to be doing Normal AND Heroic for a month or two at least, probably longer for Heroic.
Note that this subset of the playerbase is why the weekly lockout exists, why there was a valor cap, why there was a maximum of 3 charms per week, why LFR loot was changed, etc. Ever heard of the Kin Raiders syndrome?
"My job is to show up on time, prepared, and perform to the best of my ability."
The key is "prepared." Currently, that means...
1. Food
2. Flask
3. Potions
4. Valor capped as needed
5. Flex/LFR run for trinkets/tier as needed
6. Reputations done for gear if needed (aka the beginning of MoP)
"If your gear isn't demonstrably holding your raid back (ie. a tank with half the health of the other tank and is being one-shot by boss melee attacks) then don't run anything other than your required runs each week."
If you did that, then over the course of a month or two your raid's output would be like 5% less than another guild which is actually trying. It sounds like you haven't raided seriously in a while but there are TONS of situations that have tight DPS checks where you need to squeeze out 1-2% more DPS. So you can either farm gear for another week or two...or you could have been doing LFR/Flex the previous weeks and actually kill the boss.
Think of it this way if you'd like: Blizzard thought nerfing Heroic Garrosh's health by 5% on 10 man would be a massive nerf to bring it in line with 25 man. And that is entirely correct. A percent or two really matters.
"(and I'm completely unclear on the 4-8 extra weekly clears that you're talking about...)"
While we're raiding Mythic and clearing Heroic, we'll ALSO be having to clear Normal for a month or two. If we have to clear Normal for a month that's 4 extra weekly clears we shouldn't have to do. If we have to clear Normal for two months that's 8 extra weekly clears we shouldn't have to do. Hence the 4-8 number.
Yep, for a guild that maintains a bench, has attendance requirements, uses DKP or equivalent loot policies, has leaders with specific responsibilities, etc, what I'm mentioning will have zero impact.
DeleteOn my server, Alliance side at least, we have one guild that fits that description... and I still ran with them half a dozen times in a tier on various different toons.
We have, at my last count, at least 10 other guilds raiding heroics, I'm currently running with #2 and have been for a few months, I raided last tier with #4, I've occasionally raided with 2 or 3 others. I'm never looking for a full-time raid, I just use an "if you're ever looking for a useful fill-in let me know" approach. The raid I'm running with right now has been pulling 1-3 players from oQueue or similar every single raid for the past couple of months. That absolutely isn't doing our progression any good but that's because we're primarily ONLY doing progression... we're locking out most weeks and as a result can't really do a quick normal clear to help gear folks up and even if we wanted to, we'd have to sub in replacements because normal isn't flexible. Right now, they have no way to groom replacements (well, that isn't true, but there isn't any way to do it painlessly enough to make it worthwhile, THEY'D RATHER PUG PEOPLE). Since this seems to be tailor-made for the new paradigm to fix, I believe this is something that Blizzard is absolutely aiming to help out with here.
So... maybe it won't work for you but I absolutely, 100% guarantee that there are a significant number of raids who it WOULD benefit.
You're entitled to your definition of prepared but I don't agree with it. I'd agree more if it's something that's done on a guild schedule for minimal time/hassle but otherwise, I disagree. It's perfectly fine if you use that list yourself for personal use and even if you hold your own raid team up to that standard but no raid I've ever run with (including #1 on our server, who got 14H a few months ago) require that standard.
As I've argued with Grumpy before, unless you're consistently hitting an enrage timer with the boss sub-5%, gear won't help. In the past few months I've had exactly 3 sub-10% (not even 5%) wipes on any heroic bosses, period... one was a 4% wipe on our progression boss (and we had 5 dead with the boss at 20%, that wasn't a gear issue) and the two others were heroic DS and, again, were people dying during the last 10%, not a "we don't have enough dps" thing. Gear is almost never the problem and slightly better gear is almost never a solution, it's an excuse and a crutch and I wouldn't run with a raid that expected me to do that. Again, different if someone's holding the run back due to gear but running LFR for a 528 trinket because you're stuck with a 522 trinket? Pfft. Trivial.
Yes, 5% matters, to world first and cutting edge raiders who are going in UNDERGEARED for the content (and I'd say it's fair to include anyone who's expecting to get a Normal clear within a month of content release, Heroic content isn't tuned for them to be successful, it's supposed to be hard for the early folks and they will probably require extra attention, if your guild fits that category then I'd say you're a fair exception)... but once half your gear is of the calibre of what drops off the content you're running, 5% ceases to have any appreciable impact. Next time a new tier of content comes in I have some homework for you... check out the WoL top 10 healing numbers for the fight of your choice and compare how long the fights lasted. In the first week or two they're all going to be close... by week 3 you'll see more spread, by week 6 you'll see a more significant spread, by the time you get into mid-tier you get this:
Deletehttp://www.worldoflogs.com/zones/Siege_of_Orgrimmar/Malkorok/#tabs-10H-Normal
(I'd have done Garrosh but they don't have enough data so I went with Malk, the first of the "back 6" heroic bosses)
Check out the kill fight duration chart... the duration spread for the peak is A FULL MINUTE and that's just the peak, you're just as likely to get a kill that takes 250 seconds as 195 seconds. Honestly, there's MORE of a spread than I expected to see and I was expecting enough to validate my point.
Seriously. Anyone who thinks running LFR is helping their progression (first monthers aside!... perhaps) is putting the focus on the wrong place. I'd rather start 15 minutes earlier and get 2 extra pulls in, that'll offer significantly more benefit than anything you can do in LFR even if gear does drop.
And I dunno, we've locked out on our progression boss 4 out of the past 5 weeks... at what point is raiding considered to be "serious"? The raids I've always run with, including very successful ones, have been "casual" with minimal outside-raid-time requirements. We did just fine because our raiders know what was actually required (performance, not frills) and generally had enough pride not to show up underprepared. I've never run with a raid that expect to clear in the first few weeks, though, and I'm sure the vast majority of raiders haven't either.
Oh - 4-8 total clears, I read it as 4-8 per week. That makes more sense. :) Yeah, I have no problem with that... I don't even have an issue with doing all 3 raids weekly for a month, although I'd probably scale back on the time commitment to the higher-calibre raids (maybe do 2 nights of Mythic during that period rather than 3, etc) or knock off a single Normal (Flex) wing prior to each scheduled raid or something, anyone who's interested shows up an hour early and in you go.
Will reply to this tomorrow, sorry, been busy. Technically only going to reply to part of it and make the other part an entirely new post since it's sort of devolving into two different discussions here, might as well split them.
Delete"So... maybe it won't work for you but I absolutely, 100% guarantee that there are a significant number of raids who it WOULD benefit."
DeleteI'm having trouble following your argument.
Good players will have an easier time PUGing into raids by leaving their current raids to avoid commitment and this will help their current raids?
I think I'm missing something here.
"You're entitled to your definition of prepared but I don't agree with it."
Let's break it down.
Food/Flasks/Potions is a no-brainer. Presuming you aren't objecting to this.
4. Valor capped -- are you claiming that while needing valor people in that guild weren't getting valor capped each week?
5. Flex/LFR -- are you claiming that 14/14H guild on your server didn't have people running LFR/Flex earlier in the tier for the people who needed game-changing trinkets? Or LFR for stuff like Lei Shen's trinket for Warlocks, Windwalker Monks, and Feral Druids?
6. Reputations -- are you claiming that guild didn't expect players to have the valor gear unlocked from dailies so they could buy what they needed?
"As I've argued with Grumpy before, unless you're consistently hitting an enrage timer with the boss sub-5%, gear won't help"
I mean no offense, but this is completely and utterly wrong. Three easy examples? Siegecrafter (have to kill belt items in time, have to kill mines on platform in time, have to kill shredders in time), Paragons (have to kill Skeer before second Bloodletting, have kill burst down Korven, etc), and Garrosh (whole fight is a series of tight DPS checks that each have to be met -- Blizzard officially commented on this fact).
This section and the next section are getting a full-fledged post to go into more details on how your understanding is skewed, though I'm going to make one more point and address two other sections here.
The point is that I don't think you're thinking in pull counts accurately enough. The 50th time we saw H Garrosh p2 we weren't going to improve on our DPS very much. If I had a choice of 5 pulls with a 5% nerf versus 10 pulls with no nerf, 10 pulls is better. But 100 pulls with a 5% nerf versus 200 pulls? 100 pulls with nerf is better.
"Again, different if someone's holding the run back due to gear but running LFR for a 528 trinket because you're stuck with a 522 trinket? Pfft. Trivial."
I don't think you understand how some of the trinkets work. Some of those SoO LFR 528 trinkets were better than SoO Heroic 566 trinkets -- they're literally only beaten by a higher ilvl version of itself. You're assuming ilvl is an accurate indication of power -- there's a reason Blizzard is stripping those types of trinkets from LFR.
"I'd rather start 15 minutes earlier and get 2 extra pulls in, that'll offer significantly more benefit than anything you can do in LFR even if gear does drop."
There is no starting 15 minutes earlier -- you're doing LFR on your own time when the raid isn't raiding. Doing LFR has no impact on your actual guild raids.
And I'm working on a post to go into a lot more detail on this subject before it's a common misperception which leave a lot of people thinking Heroic raiders are crazy (which we probably are but that's not the point right now).