WOTLK raid progression.

[Ironwood]

What are we talking about ?

[Ratman_tf]

What are we talking about ?

Mechs. They're unrealistic.

[Merusk]

Maybe it was mentioned earlier in the thread and I'm too lazy to find it, but "The Safety Dance" is another test for your computer/lag performance.  We wiped twice last night before we figured out to tell everyone to stop following other people and just look at where the twinkling ground is at.  When looking at other characters in your raid, everything was screwed up.

Even then I still got hit once on our successful run at it.  I didn't die, but when it happened I couldn't help thinking this kind of mechanic in raids is just not a good idea for MMOs.  I was doing it right and ran for the ground that was just finishing having the green lava stuff come up.  The problem was my graphics said the lava fell down when obviously I actually ran right into it just at the end.  Frustrating.

Yeah that can be frustrating, particularly since so many people DO just follow others.  I've told my raid about a simple way to find the 4 safe spots on the ground in front of his platform. The fissures along the front form 5 little "y"s. Stand on the first fissure at the corner near the door, move to the next one, then the next, etc.   You never have to guess if you're in or out of the right zone, and since you're right at the platform it's a much shorter run than farther out. (Yay geometry.)  We still wind up having to down him with 4 people after the first run across the room.

   I'm beginning to suspect everyone who dies is a keyboard turner, since it's the 4-to-3 transition that kills them.  It's like they walk into zone 4 and then stop for 5 seconds, waiting for the lava to eat them.

[Morfiend]

I made all my guys watch this. It helped.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-msjvccLB8

[Khaldun]

One of the things we've been talking about in our guild is that by design or by accident, Blizz seems to have just given up on tuning some instances so that pulls have to be managed with CC. I'm not saying that cc doesn't help reduce the chances of getting killed, but in heroics especially but even raids, unless you're very very undergeared, you're generally fine with just going in and blasting the living shit out of the entire pull. A part of this is also that unless the tank is extremely incompetent and/or massively undergeared, it's also a lot easier to hold aggro in Wrath than it was in TBC or pre-TBC. So ranged and melee dps can go off on a large trash pull with abandon and it is exceptionally rare for them to overtop the tank by such a margin that the tank loses aggro and cannot get it back.

In one sense, I applaud this: you don't have to spend hours and hours working your way through trash o-so-carefully and it means that pugging content is not painful usually because you're not hostage to a minimum necessary level of actual skill. It also means you don't have to compose a group with an eye to the particular kind of cc that you need. ("Oh, humanoids, ok, get a sheep or a sap" etc.)  But I'd almost rather, if the goal is to make instances relatively fast, that there be fewer trash pulls but that each trash pull involve a bit more skill or puzzle-solving. CC is such a deep part of the game mechanics that if they're going to make it fairly unnecessary, they should go all out along those lines and get rid of it entirely. There's nothing I hate more in a MMOG than having a bunch of skills that there is no meaningful use for.

[Morfiend]

This is addressed by a Blizzard poster here.

[Fordel]

Don't expect CC to play a major role in 5 mans ever again.

It'll crop up in 10's and especially 25's, but for 5 mans, there was just way to much of "oh, you don't have <blah>, have fun wiping for the next half dozen pulls" in previous dungeons.

[Gobbeldygook]

Don't expect CC to play a major role in 5 mans ever again.

CC wasn't a role in BC if you ran with a protadin tank.  Blizz simply gave this perk to all tanks.

[K9]

My impression was that they actually wanted to put CC back in. Fun as it is to AoE trash, having every pull anywhere be a more or less mindless zerg isn't actually all that entertaining. Even if all tanks can put out AoE threat reliably now, if the pulls contained multiple hard-hitting mobs (like in the original BC heroics) then AoE isn't really an option. The problem isn't so much that AoE threat is over powered, so much that the trash mobs are too plentiful yet hit like concussed ducklings.

Hell I'm a priest and I'm not scared of aggro from pretty much any mobs other than those titanium vanguards in HoL, and only then because I can't remove their poison. In TBC about half the mobs in heroic instances could 1 or 2-shot me, which gave instances more of an edge.

[Paelos]

When is Blizzard going to wise up and realize that if you put poison effects in practically every dungeon that you have to give all healing classes the ability to cleanse it? Seriously, how annoying is it to take a good priest healer into places and get fucked over and over by poisons you can't do a damn thing about?

[Gobbeldygook]

When is Blizzard going to wise up and realize that if you put poison effects in practically every dungeon that you have to give all healing classes the ability to cleanse it?

When we first started doing the heroic dungeons and achievements, my little group usually ran with an ele shaman and a priest healer.  We hadn't realized how important the ele shaman was until we tried to do the azjol-nerub achievements with a different tank and just got sodomized by the poisons that we'd forgotten he'd been dealing with.

Now we bring a boomkin and I'm leveling a shaman.

Even if all tanks can put out AoE threat reliably now, if the pulls contained multiple hard-hitting mobs (like in the original BC heroics) then AoE isn't really an option. The problem isn't so much that AoE threat is over powered, so much that the trash mobs are too plentiful yet hit like concussed ducklings.

This argument would have merit except people also AOE'd raid trash.  By far the fastest way to do bear runs was to use a protadin main tank and just AOE all the trash down with SOC etc.  For Hyjal, a protadin was the superior option for trash waves; the only time you had to worry about his health was from aboms, so you'd sent the paladin in first, then have the other tanks pick aboms off him.  Then you made the paladin sit in the corner and pretend his heals were relevant on bosses.

If blizzard brought in heroic trash that hit so hard you couldn't AOE it, it would mean tanks that didn't have the gear to AOE the instance would be forced to off-tank naxx until they had the gear to run heroics they no longer wanted to run.  You know, like in BC.

[Sheepherder]

If blizzard brought in heroic trash that hit so hard you couldn't AOE it, it would mean tanks that didn't have the gear to AOE the instance would be forced to off-tank naxx until they had the gear to run heroics they no longer wanted to run.  You know, like in BC.

- Stacking Mortal Strikes.
- Shared and/or stacking auras/buffs/totems between the mobs.
- Scripted enrage/frenzy effects.
- Non-self buffs used by the mobs.

[Vash]

If blizzard brought in heroic trash that hit so hard you couldn't AOE it, it would mean tanks that didn't have the gear to AOE the instance would be forced to off-tank naxx until they had the gear to run heroics they no longer wanted to run.  You know, like in BC.

I think it's pretty comical that most players have become so used to Blizzard's wildly inconsistent difficulty curves (gear/skill/or both) that now when they release brand new content that is reasonably tuned and has an appropriate difficulty curve right from the start (Wrath) there seems to be widespread shock and disbelief, as cries of "omg Blizz ruined the game by making everything EZ-mode" begin to ring out across the interwebs. 

I personally enjoy the lack of CC for 5 man content.  I played my warrior as dps spec for a good portion of TBC and even though I had very respectable gear it was a royal pain to try and get a heroic MGT group.  In the ideal group all 3 dps would have solid CC (mage, warlock, rogue, hunter, even a shadow priest could MC) and if you were a dps with limited or no CC you were basically a detriment to the group.  If you were really well geared or had a really skilled group you could get by with 2 CC.  That basically left all dps warriors, paladins, druids, and shamans competing for 1 slot and even then most groups (even guild groups) would opt for a 3rd CC unless there was no other option, and I don't blame them.  I don't want 5 mans to end up in that situation again and I doubt Blizzard does either with their "bring the player not the class" mantra for Wrath. 

[Rasix]

Why do we want harder trash?  If I'm gonna die, I'd rather it be on the bosses.

[Hindenburg]

Same reason some people want the return of weekly honor calculations from wow classic. If you don't have to stick your dick in a meatgrinder, you're not having fun.

[Ingmar]

Why do we want harder trash?  If I'm gonna die, I'd rather it be on the bosses.

This. While some trash mobs are actually fun/interesting to fight, they're mostly there as a pacing mechanism between boss fights. As such I don't think increasing the difficulty or complexity of those pulls will do anything other than annoy people for the most part.

That and there already exist trash mobs that require more than just 'lawl AE them down'. Slimes and gargoyles in the Naxx plague wing come to mind.

[Paelos]

Why do we want harder trash?  If I'm gonna die, I'd rather it be on the bosses.

Personally, I'd prefer trash to be slightly more challenging, fewer in number, and have better loot tables. Essentially, I want 2 trash pulls per boss, have them require some sort of CC and higher health in the mass, and have a decent chance at dropping boss items randomly. Why do the bosses have to have all the loot?

[Fordel]

When is Blizzard going to wise up and realize that if you put poison effects in practically every dungeon that you have to give all healing classes the ability to cleanse it? Seriously, how annoying is it to take a good priest healer into places and get fucked over and over by poisons you can't do a damn thing about?

Probably as annoying as it is when a Druid healer is screwed by diseases, or a Paladin healer is fucked by curses etc.

[Nevermore]

It's especially annoying with diseases since those tend to last a very long time.

[Paelos]

I might be wrong, but I think the proportions are off in that department. I seem to see a lot more horrible poison effects in 5 mans than diseases or curses. Everywhere we went it was more poisons. Ajol - poisons, Temple - poisons, Skadi - poison, Halls of Lightning guys - poisons, Snake boss - poisons, etc. Healers would be better equipped to see if that's their experience, but yall tell me.

[Ingmar]

I might be wrong, but I think the proportions are off in that department. I seem to see a lot more horrible poison effects in 5 mans than diseases or curses. Everywhere we went it was more poisons. Ajol - poisons, Temple - poisons, Skadi - poison, Halls of Lightning guys - poisons, Snake boss - poisons, etc. Healers would be better equipped to see if that's their experience, but yall tell me.

In 5 mans in Wrath it leans towards poisons; the situation has been different at times in the past.

Examples of curses/diseases screwing things up exist in Naxx, too: Noth for curses (one time we fought him, 80% of his damage output - well over 500,000 damage to the raid over the course of the fight - was curses, because Fordel couldn't be assed to decurse his curse bombs) and Heigan for diseases.

[Fordel]

That's what Chain Heal is for. 

[Sjofn]

It's especially annoying with diseases since those tend to last a very long time.

If it makes you feel better, I haven't noticed a long, annoying disease from Outlands on. So that's something I guess!

[K9]

It's especially annoying with diseases since those tend to last a very long time.

The only annoying long-lasting disease is Cadaver Worms, and that's only for people soloing outdated content for a mount. The only significant disease is Heigan's.

Poisons did see an over proliferation in WoTLK. Who knows though, maybe Ulduar will be all about magical debuffs and curses (which priests and paladins can't do much about either, why did mages get decurse....).

As far as Noth goes, I'll need to look at the damage taken from one of our parses, but 500K seems like a lot. Then again, we don't always have a decurser in our raid and we rind it easier just to spread out the ranged (Noth's room is HUGE) and have anyone with the curse run hug a wall and let it expire. Occasionally we get two tanks with it, but it's healable. I guess we might stop bothering to even run out and just heal through it, and DPS him faster. I wouldn't say Noth's curse is particularly dangerous though, unlike Heigan's disease which he loves to drop on your entire raid just after the dance...

[Ingmar]

It's especially annoying with diseases since those tend to last a very long time.

The only annoying long-lasting disease is Cadaver Worms, and that's only for people soloing outdated content for a mount. The only significant disease is Heigan's.

Poisons did see an over proliferation in WoTLK. Who knows though, maybe Ulduar will be all about magical debuffs and curses (which priests and paladins can't do much about either, why did mages get decurse....).

As far as Noth goes, I'll need to look at the damage taken from one of our parses, but 500K seems like a lot. Then again, we don't always have a decurser in our raid and we rind it easier just to spread out the ranged (Noth's room is HUGE) and have anyone with the curse run hug a wall and let it expire. Occasionally we get two tanks with it, but it's healable. I guess we might stop bothering to even run out and just heal through it, and DPS him faster. I wouldn't say Noth's curse is particularly dangerous though, unlike Heigan's disease which he loves to drop on your entire raid just after the dance...

I think on that run someone before the pull said 'there's no reason to not just stack up the ranged rite'...

[Sheepherder]

Personally, I'd prefer trash to be slightly more challenging, fewer in number, and have better loot tables. Essentially, I want 2 trash pulls per boss, have them require some sort of CC and higher health in the mass, and have a decent chance at dropping boss items randomly. Why do the bosses have to have all the loot?

Gauntlets appeal to me, just not the way Blizzard does them.  Ideally you would have infinite amounts of trash thrown at the raid in waves which would fight to gain checkpoints, at which point a small NPC army would move up and create a safe zone where the entire raid would get ressurected at once with full health, mana, and buffs (re-use the battleground buffing mechanic) if the raid wiped.

Of course, just removing trash altogether would be nice, as it is it's just a cockpunch to seperate the casual from the hardcore, as it causes casual guild more trouble than hardcore ones.

[Gobbeldygook]

Of course, just removing trash altogether would be nice, as it is it's just a cockpunch to seperate the casual from the hardcore, as it causes casual guild more trouble than hardcore ones.

You're completely misunderstanding the purpose of equally-interesting non-epic dropping mobs.  It's used as a pacing mechanism, no different from the two hour duration on flasks, or the way a movie director has the hero beat up a couple mooks before the big bad guy.  If blizzard ever 'removes trash', they simply roll it into the fight itself.  Skadi, azjol-nerub's first and second boss, Brann's event and the final boss of HoS, etc.

Edit: And if you think 'clearing up to checkpoints' is a fine mechanic, I am going to guess you never had to reclear fucking hyjal trash waves. ARRRRRRRRRGH.

[Paelos]

I hate gauntlets. I'm usually not alone in that fact. The reason is that respawning shit is never fun. I killed it, and there's no reason for it to keep coming back faster and faster until it wipes out the group. Halls of Stone is especially annoying on this principle. Two fights in the place involve add rushes, and as such very few people like to run it.

[K9]

HoS has that annoying robot that keeps its +dmg buff even out of combat, so if you wipe on him once it's kinda GG for second attempts and then pointless after that.

Gauntlets are pretty annoying, I hate Skadi in UP, and I hated the Akil'zon trash back in BC (pre-nerf). The gauntlet before Loatheb isn't too bad once you have it down I guess.

[Fordel]

I think on that run someone before the pull said 'there's no reason to not just stack up the ranged rite'...

We were all stacked up because we had a few issues with adds, as in "Oh God, an add is on me, I shall do everything conceivable BUT run to the add tank so she can get it off me"

[Sheepherder]

You're completely misunderstanding the purpose of equally-interesting non-epic dropping mobs.  It's used as a pacing mechanism, no different from the two hour duration on flasks, or the way a movie director has the hero beat up a couple mooks before the big bad guy.  If blizzard ever 'removes trash', they simply roll it into the fight itself.  Skadi, azjol-nerub's first and second boss, Brann's event and the final boss of HoS, etc.

Edit: And if you think 'clearing up to checkpoints' is a fine mechanic, I am going to guess you never had to reclear fucking hyjal trash waves. ARRRRRRRRRGH.

No, I'm really not misunderstanding the purpose of trash.  It's there to cause you to take more time, it's "trash".  Fuck it.  The hardcore guilds will power their way through it and the casuals will slowly work their way.  It's only purpose is to delay people who don't catass their way through it with balls to the wall chain-pulling and batshit crazy DPS.  I've watched a brother get pugged into a raid guild's runs and saw them complete two Naxx-25 wings along with Saph and Kel'Thuzad, Sarth-25, and Maly-25 in less time it took my current guild to do two wings.

If the objective is pacing it's doing a terrible job, because all it's doing is delivering a swift punch to the cock for casual guilds.  If the objective is to set up the scene for a boss fight the optimal solution is to have something that looks like a tactical strike into the heart of your enemies citadel (read: tightly scripted, many checkpoints, a "safe zone" behind a phalanx of advancing friendly NPC's which cease forward movement if your raid retreats behind them, instant raid wipe recovery through battleground-like mechanics).

And if you think 'clearing up to checkpoints' is a fine mechanic, I am going to guess you never had to reclear fucking hyjal trash waves. ARRRRRRRRRGH.

Gauntlets appeal to me, just not the way Blizzard does them.

I can see your point, having to do the Rage trash again and again must have been hard on you.

[Sjofn]

I think on that run someone before the pull said 'there's no reason to not just stack up the ranged rite'...

We were all stacked up because we had a few issues with adds, as in "Oh God, an add is on me, I shall do everything conceivable BUT run to the add tank so she can get it off me"

I believe I was in blood stance for that first try and only lost one add. I'm the best offtank ever!

[Gobbeldygook]

Fuck it.  The hardcore guilds will power their way through it and the casuals will slowly work their way.  It's only purpose is to delay people who don't catass their way through it with balls to the wall chain-pulling and batshit crazy DPS.

...what.  Since when is clearing trash fast 'hardcore' or 'catass'?  It's doing it in the way that takes the least amount of time!  It is the ANTI-CATASS.  You keep track of mana, pull the next pack/position so it'll pat into you/ and voila, you've dramatically cut down the amount of time you spend on trash.  If there are some DPS not AOEing the trash, you gently poke them and suggest they should start.

I can see your point, having to do the Rage trash again and again must have been hard on you.

I really appreciate the irony of a guy bitching about how trash is a COCKPUNCH TO CASUALS FROM THE HARD CORE ZOMG, then turns around and disses someone for content they've experienced in the game.  Would you like a filled poopsock with that, sir?

p.s. It was That Guy dropping an infernal on top of the tank.  Twice in a row.  I booted him. "We are not that kind of guild!" "You going to bring him back?" "...No."

[Montague]

Of course, just removing trash altogether would be nice, as it is it's just a cockpunch to seperate the casual from the hardcore, as it causes casual guild more trouble than hardcore ones.

You're completely misunderstanding the purpose of equally-interesting non-epic dropping mobs.  It's used as a pacing mechanism, no different from the two hour duration on flasks, or the way a movie director has the hero beat up a couple mooks before the big bad guy.  If blizzard ever 'removes trash', they simply roll it into the fight itself.  Skadi, azjol-nerub's first and second boss, Brann's event and the final boss of HoS, etc.

Edit: And if you think 'clearing up to checkpoints' is a fine mechanic, I am going to guess you never had to reclear fucking hyjal trash waves. ARRRRRRRRRGH.

Heh, equally-interesting dynamic pacing mechanisms. Loved that thread from the D&R forums.

But yeah, everyone complains about trash but if there was NO trash ever it would just feel like a loot dispenser. There's a fine line between good pacing and cockblockage and for the most part the WOTLK dungeons have been fun and well-paced. Oculus excluded >.<.

[Sheepherder]

...what.  Since when is clearing trash fast 'hardcore' or 'catass'?  It's doing it in the way that takes the least amount of time!  It is the ANTI-CATASS.  You keep track of mana, pull the next pack/position so it'll pat into you/ and voila, you've dramatically cut down the amount of time you spend on trash.  If there are some DPS not AOEing the trash, you gently poke them and suggest they should start.

They clear the shit fast because they're hardcore and want to get the shit done fast because it's on farm.  It gets done fast because they're committed enough to the task at hand to be serious about getting it done efficiently.  If you want to make the argument that quick success makes a guild casual then you are left with the conclusion that that poopsockers that cleared the Wrath content in under a week are casual because they did it quickly.

The best aspect of a gauntlet is that slowly plodding through the trash is not an option.  Combine this with scripted effects like a instant reset of health and mana to full after every cleared wave and you can very finely tune the amount of time it takes for a adequately geared group to clear the trash, because currently the major limiting factor for people not deliberately attempting to plow through trash is slow pulling and stopping to rebuff/drink.  At this point the remaining problems come down to general tuning and establishing a system of checkpoints which doesn't erase more than a single wave's worth of progress if you wipe.

I really appreciate the irony of a guy bitching about how trash is a COCKPUNCH TO CASUALS FROM THE HARD CORE ZOMG, then turns around and disses someone for content they've experienced in the game.  Would you like a filled poopsock with that, sir?

I merely assumed that since your attention span doesn't last the length of a paragraph that you would have issues with the strategy of staying out of the particle effects.

(Note: sometimes it's wise to refer back to the premise of an argument)

But yeah, everyone complains about trash but if there was NO trash ever it would just feel like a loot dispenser. There's a fine line between good pacing and cockblockage and for the most part the WOTLK dungeons have been fun and well-paced.

This.  Gauntlets allow Blizzard to force a fast pace.  Most arguments against gauntlets can be boiled down to "Blizzard is shitty at implementation of them".