Fuuuuuuuck youuuuuuu

[bhodi]

Maybe in your guild, but that wasn't true in mine. As a rogue, I stacked to hit when possible. Casters stacked int because there was no +SP itemization. There was a lot less itemization choice.

Do you really think anyone has the skill these days to get through, say, Chromaggus? How about the whelp room? Sulfuron? The fights may have been arguably "cruder" but there was much, MUCH less room for error. Decurse everyone in the raid within 10 seconds or you wipe!

The "top guild" on our server (which still contains some members that I used to play with, way back when) would be around 4th or 5th back in the day. Most of the 'hard core' crowd has since moved on to other challenges and the players that are left after 5 years aren't nearly as quick on their feet, are slow to improvise, and have to be told the same instructions week after week after week. Many of them fail at Raiding 101: stay out of the fire.

Do you really think ANYONE in a MC/BWL raiding guild would have been hit by that hilariously telegraphed yeti charge? I don't think so. Yet, we almost wiped to it yesterday because a bunch of people fail at life. And we are basically the 4th best alliance guild on our server (one of the orig ones).

[Vash]

It's going to be really funny to watch people wipe over and over again. The overall skill levels have really dropped in the last 5 years.

Back then casters stacked int, rogues didn't care about tohit, and most tanks didn't even know proper rotations beyond stack sunder, then stack some more. Geddon's bomb was an immense threat, several raid bosses were nothing more than tank'n'spanks, and +fireresist was the preferred way to victory. Also lolwepskill.
 
Rose tinted glasses, they're awesome.

Eh, maybe early early Ony.  By the time BWL was leet raiding +spell dmg (and +healing) was everywhere and the go to stat for casters already. You had top guilds doing Speed clears of Molten Core in 2 hours.  Healers had down ranking and highly coordinated rotations (hot's didn't stack  ).  A lot of dps classes weren't as complicated as they are today but that was simply because of the significantly more limited talents and spells.  Not long after AQ came out mages were learning to roll ignites as an example of where skill could be applied once the fire immune cockblock was removed.  There are similar examples for nearly every class.  

While the classes themselves may have been more simple in many cases the overall coordination and execution required just to kill a boss or even clear trash is on par with the most technical fights available in the current raid game.  Only 10% or whatever of the playerbase ever got to experience that content for a reason, and those that did (other than select few who got carried by the 40 man raid size) were certainly not clueless simpletons who took advantage of weak boss design.

[Dren]

Count me as one that never even did it.  I didn't like the attunement requirement, so never accomplished it.  Not even close.

[Hindenburg]

Maybe in your guild, but that wasn't true in mine. As a rogue, I stacked to hit when possible. Casters stacked int because there was no +SP itemization. There was a lot less itemization choice.

Do you really think anyone has the skill these days to get through, say, Chromaggus? How about the whelp room? Sulfuron? The fights may have been arguably "cruder" but there was much, MUCH less room for error. Decurse everyone in the raid within 10 seconds or you wipe!

The "top guild" on our server (which still contains some members that I used to play with, way back when) would be around 4th or 5th back in the day. Most of the 'hard core' crowd has since moved on to other challenges and the players that are left after 5 years aren't nearly as quick on their feet, are slow to improvise, and have to be told the same instructions week after week after week. Many of them fail at Raiding 101: stay out of the fire.

Do you really think ANYONE in a MC/BWL raiding guild would have been hit by that hilariously telegraphed yeti charge? I don't think so. Yet, we almost wiped to it yesterday because a bunch of people fail at life. And we are basically the 4th best alliance guild on our server (one of the orig ones).

Leet raiders back then were serious business, you say? Hm... I'll pretend for a second that you didn't talk about the general populace in the previous post.


Yeah, raiders were NINJAS back then, rite?

[bhodi]

While a great picture, verbal abuse to your raiders doesn't refute any of my points...


Here's a simple one for you that I discovered recently - how many raiders even know HOW to assist, or do they just switch targets and start smacking the guy who everyone else is hitting? How many raids actually REQUIRE an assist, where the tank or the target you're supposed to kill switches quickly and you need to have coordinated DPS? You know, a core raiding skill "back in the day"?

None. Not a single one. In fact, Emalon was so "hard", they had to change it so that they grow to gigantic proportions that that people would be able to click on it.

Do you want to talk about tanking? How much easier it is?

*Note that I am NOT pining for the old days, I'm fully in the "more people should be able to raid" platform.

[Malakili]

Do you really think ANYONE in a MC/BWL raiding guild would have been hit by that hilariously telegraphed yeti charge? I don't think so. Yet, we almost wiped to it yesterday because a bunch of people fail at life. And we are basically the 4th best alliance guild on our server (one of the orig ones).

We were the second best raiding guild on alliance back then for our server, and we carried a healthy amount of "bads" with us.  In fact, some of our pre-BC raiders didn't "make the cut" so to speak, and we had to politely (as possible), say that we couldn't bring them to BC raids because they couldn't pull their wait.  MC was a joke.  It was the first raid ever, so it did have a bit of a learning curve, but you tune that place with level 80 hit points and damage, and most guilds would waltz through on their first week.

[Hindenburg]

While a great picture, verbal abuse to your raiders doesn't refute any of my points...

Yeah, if you don't wanna read about how back then the leet raiders were just as retarded about positioning and removing debuffs as they are today...

[bhodi]

But the difference is degree. Everyone makes mistakes, the question is how many people can you get to perform flawlessly for how long, and what happens when one slips.

To put it another way, just as an example:

C'thun, eyebeam bounces to a person within 10 yards, doubling in damage each time. Any bounce after the 3rd is fatal. Can easily wipe the raid.
Thorim, chain lightning bounces the same way. Increases by 50% each time. Max of 6 targets. Only the 6th bounce is fatal to only that person. Does not wipe the raid.

Don't forget that getting 40 people to do something successfully is MUCH harder than only 25, in terms of guild logistics, personality conflicts, and a straight 'one person fucks up and wipes the raid'. Don't forget that factor as well.


The difficulty was reduced to open it up to a wider raiding audience, and then reduced again because blizzard's internal testing team set the competence bar too high. It's really not a stretch to think that a majority of the people who were skilled enough to clear the pre-expansion content and who were doing naxx 40 (the 5 top raiding guilds on a server, basically) have since burned out and left the game, and 'late adopters' don't necessarily have the skills and reflexes of those aforementioned people?

[Musashi]

While a great picture, verbal abuse to your raiders doesn't refute any of my points...

Yeah, if you don't wanna read about how back then the leet raiders were just as retarded about positioning and removing debuffs as they are today...

Dude.  You're just way off on this.  He's right.  I don't know about his point that 'all the good people have moved on.'  But he's definitely right that things were much less forgiving back then.  They have dumbed raiding down significantly, and I'm not complaining.  But to say otherwise is crazy.  Part of it is simply because communicating with 25 people is much easier than doing so with 40.  Part of it is in reaction to how difficult they made the barrier to entry in the last expansion.  But it's easier.  And having been a raid leader in all three expansions, and seen the level of understanding in this one, I can tell you unequivocally that my 40 man raid would laugh at the 'top guilds' today.  I don't think it's because they're not capable though.  They just don't need to have the same level of accountability or coordination with each other.

[Hindenburg]

Why are you all relating your personal guild experiences when bhodi said "average skill level"?

You guys know that that included pugs and terribad guilds in the equation, right? That it also included the guilds that never got past vael, which were, hey, the majority? Those same guys that couldn't even get their mages and druids to decurse properly?

If you wanna argue about how the creme de la creme back then was better than today, and somehow miraculously were all ninjas that made no mistakes, sure, we can do that, but then we won't be talking about average skill level.

That the instances were far more cruel, though, I'll agree.

[bhodi]

Well, we're talking about raids, which immediately eliminates 90% of the player populace. Interesting that you misquote me, when what I actually said was "overall" not "average", and I specifically cited MC/BWL raiding guilds.

My entire point was that if you take a complex boss from the old world, buff his HP and damage correspondingly, there is no way a pug of today can handle it even though he was successfully pugged back in pre-expansion. This (my opinion) coupled with blizzard's ability to overestimate the competence of the player base means that I think on launch he is going to be a pug (and lesser guild) eating machine.

Then, he'll be nerfed so his abilities will no longer be as brutal as they were when he first came out. His claws will be foam padded, he won't clear aggro when he lifts off, the whelps won't kill people in 2 or 3 hits, and the lava will be more like a warm bubble bath so that everyone can have a good time and collect their purples.

That's all I was saying.

[Xeyi]

Most raid bosses don't require a huge amount of coordination now, but some hard modes require it still.  Freya +3 with Iron Roots, Lifebinder's Gift, adds that need to die simultaneously, adds that can't be allowed to die simultaneously, and the need to avoid being silenced by ground tremor.  Missing any of these can mean a wipe by themselves.

Just about everything on normal is pretty forgiving.  Yogg-Saron has a few instagib mechanics, but they are trivialised to an extent by Hodir's protective gaze.  The hard modes really are a step up though.

The old raids were much harder to progress in - really they were more like today's hard modes, with no easy/normal mode available. The difficulty is still there if you want it though.

[Hindenburg]

My english might be playing tricks on me, because, hey, chrono trigger and a dictionary taught me most of what I know about the language, but isn't overall, in that sentence, a synonym for average?
Honest question, btw. To me they're the same.

My entire point was that if you take a complex boss from the old world, buff his HP and damage correspondingly, there is no way a pug of today can handle it even though he was successfully pugged back in pre-expansion.

If by complex boss you mean complex raid boss, pugs of yesterday couldn't kill them either.
Would a buffed Vael rape today's guilds? Fuck yeah. Vigorously. And heck, he wasn't even very complex.
Buffed Razorgore? Massacre.
Anything immune to taunt, with a threat roof? Bloodbath.

[K9]

Back then casters stacked int,

Healers still do 

[kildorn]

. Decurse everyone in the raid within 10 seconds or you wipe!

That had little to do with skill, and was pretty much the start of required raiding mods. Threat meters being the other highly desired one, but the debuff removal minigame was a punch in the dick with the base UI on a raid level.

[Vash]

My entire point was that if you take a complex boss from the old world, buff his HP and damage correspondingly, there is no way a pug of today can handle it even though he was successfully pugged back in pre-expansion. This (my opinion) coupled with blizzard's ability to overestimate the competence of the player base means that I think on launch he is going to be a pug (and lesser guild) eating machine.

Then, he'll be nerfed so his abilities will no longer be as brutal as they were when he first came out. His claws will be foam padded, he won't clear aggro when he lifts off, the whelps won't kill people in 2 or 3 hits, and the lava will be more like a warm bubble bath so that everyone can have a good time and collect their purples.

That's all I was saying.

Except it sounds like they're planning to redo the entire encounter, so other than deep breaths there's really no telling what mechanics the fight will have in it's new incarnation.

We will also be updating the encounter mechanics to be more fitting for modern raiding, but we can guarantee players will get to experience the frightening horror of deep breaths once again.

I would be shocked if it's not fairly easy and very pug friendly, tbqh.

[bhodi]

That had little to do with skill, and was pretty much the start of required raiding mods. Threat meters being the other highly desired one, but the debuff removal minigame was a punch in the dick with the base UI on a raid level.

I actually lump this in with skill. Knowing your character means knowing if you need to watch a debuff/buff means knowing common addons to assist you and make you better. I honestly don't know anyone who runs the default UI, even in terribad guilds.

My english might be playing tricks on me, because, hey, chrono trigger and a dictionary taught me most of what I know about the language, but isn't overall, in that sentence, a synonym for average?

In this context, it's vague enough that both apply. I'm somewhat of a stickler for people who don't know the difference between average, mean, and median and I found it funny that you just changed the word even though you put it in quotes :)


I didn't know they were redoing the entire encounter, though if they use the same brush they painted naxx with, that means they'll keep everything the same except for adust the numbers, remove a trash pack and remove an ability or two. It MIGHT be pug friendly since I know Blizzard had a huge wakeup call when the ulduar kill/wipe numbers were wayyyyyyyyyyy out of line from their internal testing (hence the repeated nerfs) but god I hope not. I want people to cry bloody tears for their onyxia scales and epic mounts. At least for the first week or two.

[Malakili]

. Decurse everyone in the raid within 10 seconds or you wipe!

That had little to do with skill, and was pretty much the start of required raiding mods. Threat meters being the other highly desired one, but the debuff removal minigame was a punch in the dick with the base UI on a raid level.

Still, it wasn't long after Blizzard did away with Decursive.

[Jayce]

You guys know that that included pugs and terribad guilds in the equation, right? That it also included the guilds that never got past vael,

*raises hand*

Even so, we weren't the worst terribads. It just took some endurance to drag 40 people successfully through ZG and MC.  We downed Vael but he broke the guild in the process.

Also, please to be explaining the difference between "mean" and "average".  OK, Wikipedia told me the story, but I think most people learn average as being synonymous with mean.  Mostly because there are hardly any cases for the average (median?) joe to use any of the other ones.

[Hindenburg]

Still, it wasn't long after Blizzard did away with Decursive.

IIRC, they did that in 2006. Late 2006.

[Vash]

Still, it wasn't long after Blizzard did away with Decursive.

IIRC, they did that in 2006. Late 2006.

They removed the ability for addons to automate things (aimed squarely at decursive) before AQ iirc, possibly sooner.  Decursive was still around later as a debuff removal tool (still is today), but is little more than a simple click-cast gui mod after the change.

I remember when it happened because priests who loved the mod that automatically refreshed Inner Fire whenever it dropped QQ'd rather prominently as it was broken in the same change.

[Ingmar]

You people are serious whiners.

For real. This might as well be a WoW General forum topic, with better spelling.  

Do you really think ANYONE in a MC/BWL raiding guild would have been hit by that hilariously telegraphed yeti charge?

Probably about half of them.

[bhodi]

The other addon they deliberately broke at the same time (for healers) was the one that listed all raid members into a constantly changing list that was sorted by HP, making it very easy to raid heal.

[Sjofn]

I actually lump this in with skill. Knowing your character means knowing if you need to watch a debuff/buff means knowing common addons to assist you and make you better. I honestly don't know anyone who runs the default UI, even in terribad guilds.

Hello, I am Sjofn! I use the default UI. And I tank! 

[bhodi]

Hello, I am Sjofn! I use the default UI. And I tank! 

Are you kidding? you don't even use an omen threat meter type thing? What about deadly boss mods? wow.

[Rasix]

She didn't say she tanked "well".   

[Musashi]

I think between the combination of much easier tanking, a larger hit point pool, and a probably simplified re-tuning, it will be a much easier encounter than it was before.

If Blizz decides to keep Ony's aggro dumping skillz, and make phase three aggro reacquisition crazy, I suspect there will be a lot of people who do what I just did, and go look up the old EJ thread.  Fireballs indeed.

[Nevermore]

Hello, I am Sjofn! I use the default UI. And I tank! 

Are you kidding? you don't even use an omen threat meter type thing? What about deadly boss mods? wow.

I tank (sometimes) in the same guild and I don't use anything like that boss mods thing either.  I have omen but I don't pay attention to it at all when I tank.  I do look at it once in a blue moon when I dps though, but that's just to see how close I can get my bar to the tank's. 

[Ingmar]

It should be noted that it irritates me that we have tanks that don't use a boss mod. (I prefer BigWigs personally.)

[Sjofn]

Hello, I am Sjofn! I use the default UI. And I tank! 

Are you kidding? you don't even use an omen threat meter type thing? What about deadly boss mods? wow.

I used omen in TBC for other people's benefit, but not mine. I have not once felt like I needed it in this expansion either, and no one has asked me to install it, so I haven't. I don't use a boss mod (and, as Ingmar has said, it pisses HIM off I don't). It does mean I tank things like Grobbulus a little sloppier than Thorgrim does (the clouds are not always easy to see right away), but there's pretty much a warning SOMEWHERE on my screen to tell me when something I need to care about is about to happen (hell, I'm the one who calls when polarity is going to shift and shit in Naxx), and I pay attention.

I do understand some classes need mods if for no other reason than quality of life (I would probably install some sort of new heal grid if I started healing raids for some reason, for example), I just don't really feel like I need 'em as a tank.

[Malakili]

I just don't really feel like I need 'em as a tank.

Its not just about "need" its about min maxing and taking as much chance out of the fight as possible.  Boss mods, unit frames, cooldown timers, etc can really make you more efficient.  It might not be the difference between a wipe and a boss kill every single time, but every 1 in 50 times it might be, and with 25 people in the raid, those little minor errors that mods can help with, really do make a difference.  Granted, do what you want.

[Ingmar]

I'm still working on getting our enhancement shaman to not drop earth elemental totem in the middle of boss fights, making sure everyone always has an up to date boss mod is down the list a ways. In general I agree though, there's really no reason not to use one, given at this point they seem to design fights with the idea that you will use one in mind.

[K9]

Even if not for convenience, why wouldn't you use addons to fix UI frames and such. The default blizzard bards and unit frames are terribly designed, and have a ton of unnecessary artwork which clutters the screen. Honestly, if MMO devs made FPS games we'd still be using a Wolf3D style interface.

I admittedly have stripped down the number of addons I use a lot. Now it's just Pitbull, Bartender, Grid, DBM and Coolline that I use. My grid dies the other night and I had to raid with the default blizzard raid frames and it was a truly unpleasant and disconcerting experience. The lack of range check, aggro checks, debuff warnings and tiny tiny health bars made my run very un-fun.

DBM is also a massive help for things like Mimiron, where it's nice to know when Plasma Blast is coming.

[kildorn]

Threatmeters are mostly not needed anymore, the base UI covers it relatively well (though it flakes about the difference between 100% and "you now have aggro"), and you don't need them installed to update everyone else's threat meters.

I'd never heal with the base UI again, but mostly because mouseover healing is so much love that it's crazy, no matter what healing UI you wind up using.

Bossmods are nice, everyone should run them, and at the same time pretty much every fight in the game telegraphs attacks far better as well. But I adore the edge of screen dimming effect on boss mods when you have a "you need to be doing something right now and paying attention" debuff on you.


edit: This all said, I do not consider "has good UI mod choices installed" to be "skill". Decursing the raid in MC was not a skill based fight, it was a piss your decursers off based fight. Which is likely why we don't see anymore "dispel the whole fucking raid RIGHT NOW" spam encounters.

I consider that about as much a skill as a fight where your debuffs would appear on the upper left corner of the screen so only people who moved their party frame could complete the event. The game should never be Player vs UI, and there's no real skill involved in beating the UI.

[Paelos]

For anybody that's died in a ground effect, boss mods usually scream at you that you're in a fucking ground effect. And yet, 90% of the time, that's the problem with raiders "not getting it."