GRATS! :Dhttp://www.
 

But if it turns out that the end-game still revolves about wiping 12 times to succeed some minor step forward in the 13th attempt, I don't think I'll do that very long.

I don't think we'll see it be done in another way any time soon :( I'm tired of the endless brick walls, and "solved" the problem temporarily by leveling a shaman instead...
 

I don't think BM is hard given the correct group.

You're correct that a SP makes it easy, want it to be a walk in the park? Get a Paladin to tank it as well.

Pally can repeatedly throw down consecrate whilst having sheds of mana thrown at him from VE and VT.

It becomes a trivial encounter and the upcoming patch won't change much as BoSalv = Nuke mode, even without Silent Resolve.
 

Consecrate to catch the 'adds' by the way ... Missed that out.
 

"Blizzard freaked out at the idea of the hardcore raiders completing all the content in 6 months"

Hmm. I'm not sure - that seems like an obvious error.

My theory here is that we've got a severe case of testeritis.

All of these raid dungeons were tested by Blizz's internal raid group/s, right? And no-one really got to them in the open beta, either.

Now, picture this. You're a member of the Blizz internal raid testing team. Either all or a substantial portion of your job is raiding.

You're getting job satisfaction from raiding well, so you're going to get really damn good. If there are two raid teams internally, you're also competing with the others. You've got access to internal stats. You live, eat and breath Warcraft. You probably have team meetings to go over the strategies used by D&T and other top guilds.

Just how incredibly uber are you?

My suspicion is that Blizz has continued to tune their raid encounters to be "a little challenging" for their testers. Unfortunately, they've failed to take into account that these guys are now orders of magnitude better at their job than they were when they were testing Molten Core.
 

I don't know about you guys but i remember wiping at Luci, Shazz, Hakkar, Moam, Skeram and the likes a lot more then 13 times...

Aren't you getting a bit impatient...?

I know i haven't been in more then half of the level 70 5-man (non-heroic)instances - and i certainly don't have all the loot available in there.
 

Besides that, after downing them - we had to share the loot with 40 people ...
 

According to blizzard, way back before the burning crusade was even released, they were planning on making dungeons "need" certain classes. This was their whole reasoning in giving paladins to horde, and shaman to alliance.

I think BM is one of the first dungeons to actualy show this. Paladins aren't "needed" to tank BM, but they sure fair much better then a warrior or feral druid thanks to concentrate.

Lets also add a shadow priest as an almost "need" to BM, or so it seems. So my big question is how will a mage or warrior get into a group for BM? They better hope for a misc. spot opening.

As for the above posters...I never remember wiping on any of the above mentioned bosses more then a couple times. Also those encounters were raids, raids should pose a much greater challenge then a 5-man encounter that is needed to get attuned to an end game dungeon.
 

If you didn't wipe on Luci, Mag and Gehennes, you didn't get into Molten Core in the first six months it was released.

My guild was top 100 Mag kill worldwide at the time and we wiped on him for 2 months straight.

Everyone is talking like this should be "onyxia Diffuculty" but let me jog ya'lls memory... Onyxia was unbeatable for THREE MONTHS and then only killed by a handful of guilds for a few weeks after that.

Both situations got MAJOR NERFS before they were tuned to current standards. Same goes for the 55+ five-mans. If you didn't wipe your brains out in UBRS. Scholo or Strath, you got to the game after the nerfs. Around December 2004 we were taking 15 people into UBRS and wiping repeatedly on Drakk, if we managed to get past The Beast before half the raid quit in frustration.

I think people are getting a little over-eager for content now. People are used to having an epic farm like MC to go to when the 'hard raid' is frustating them.

"Oh, sick of wiping on Skerem? Lets go grab 26 epics in 3 1/2 hours to feel better about ourselves."
 

Lost track on how many times I've wiped on BM, which drives me crazy. Especially since my family style guild has stratified into the grinders and casuals, with the grinders unwilling to go back to BM and help the others along.

My last run was a simple suicide run so I could finally complete Alchemy Mastery. Completely stupid how rare the drops for the Essences are and that you have to have a good group to even have a chance. The other masteries you simply spend a few hours on the elemental plataeu to finish.
 

I really think that all this "BM is too hard!" talk is a bit overblown. Now, that's not to say that Tobold and some others are incredibly frustrated due to some bad luck/bad groups, but the encounter really isn't *that* hard.

For instance, I went in with a guild group (though not a group of players that play together all that often): feral tank, shadowpriest *healing*, Demo lock, Affliction lock, and me (arcane/fire mage). We wiped once because the tank was the only one who'd ever been there before. We wiped again on an attempt that would have easily been a success when our priest fell through the world to his death during the Temporus fight. The third time we absolutely crushed it.

And it's not like our gear is that good. The demo lock (who was on add duty) and I were sitting right around 500 DPS for the encounter, with the affliction lock probably around 400 (according to my meter, anyway). Considering that true "hardcores" playing DPS classes can probably sustain 650 or so DPS pretty reasonably, BM shouldn't be all that tough to do. It's all in the strat.
 

I think you've somewhat pointed out the issue. My guild has 1 70 mage and 1 70 lock (well 2, but the third is my alt, and my priest needs to get through). We have warriors, shammies, druids, priests, and what not, but it's unforgiving without that AE control. The closest I got was with the lock soloing all adds while the rest of us beating on the boss. Wiped on final boss and never got close again.
 

Honestly I'm getting tired of the waaa waaa crybabies out there complaining about this instance, that isntance, and the other instance.

What is with you people that you believe everything must be completed the first time through. Do you not like a sense of accomplishment? Do you give up easily in life too?

I'm so sick and tired of hearing everyone bitch about the difficulty of instances.

The thing is they are more difficult, because!, believe it or not!, you have to think and do some strategy. It's not your regular Tank and spank that a 5year old could do.

I'm going to say this again and again, because it hits on the mark for alot of you. less QQ more PEWPEW.

I wouldn't even bother raiding anymore and frankly I think you would be better off playing a game that allows for what you inherently want. A mindless, button mashing, social game that require less skill and alot more instant gratification.

Anyone whose doing these instances for the "phat lewts" and not for any other reason should probably go ahead and stop playing, cause I know for certain I don't want you in my guild.

The bottom line is you're right, end game instances aren't for you. Level alts, switch to another game, do the easy instances. But whatever you do stop bitching about the end game being tough, because there are alot more people out there then the "95%" you think exist that like a challange in life and in game.

grats tobold, you've reminded me again why I tell people your the perfect example of someone we don't want in our guild.
 

What a terrible attitude, anonymous poster above me. Indeed, if you look at the 1100-post thread over at EJ all but 3 players from 2 guilds have said *they* feel like the entry endgame is tuned too hard from a business point of view even if it fully caters to them. These are almost exclusively raiders who got deep into naxx before the expansion. Why the heck did blizzard drop the raid cap and shorten the raid length if they're going to make the second boss in the raid progression essentially Patchwerk mk. II (+ shatter)? Why virtually eliminate gear progression so that you don't get a satisfying sense of advancement revisiting some of the lower encounters? Why tune encounters around a non-fun amount of consumable farming? To paraphrase Xi, leader of DnT, "I could f***ing sit at my computer with firefox open in one window and the auction house in the other and buy pots. Anything that can be done that way has nothing to do with skill." I'm all for semi-casual players not being able to kill Illidan ever so that there's some exclusivity in the endgame, but tuning Kara to ZG levels and SSC to BWL makes a lot more sense than tuning them to AQ40 and Naxx levels respectively. Difficulty ramps make more sense than brick walls and are far more motivating. How the heck is Blizz going to get new players into the endgame?

Hugh, my third-hand information (so take it with a grain of salt!) suggests that there's some truth to what you're saying. The testers play 8-12 hours a day and get max flasks, consumables, gear, and start right at a boss to test. Not really an ideal scenario.
 

grats tobold, you've reminded me again why I tell people your the perfect example of someone we don't want in our guild.

I don't think I applied at the "anonymous cowards guild" in the first place, so that you don't want me seems a non-issue. :)

The fact that most of the 5% for who the complete end-game is now catering for are mostly rather happy about that, because it makes them feel more l33t, doesn't change the fact that it's a bad business idea to drive away the 95%.
 

I don't have a problem with the difficulty of the TBC endgame.

I have a problem with people. There are the elite inner few in a guild that get attuned for Karazhan then leave to the next few to get it alone or unassisted. People are selfish and really only look out for themselves in this game.

The way the 10 mans are you don't need 40 like the old days. There is no drive to get the "whole guild" attuned to win.

I don't expect Blizzard to fix it. I've changed a third time to the last of three guilds that can or will enter Karazhan in the next few months (Horde).

I'll go level an alt until something comes along to replace WoW.
 

Actually Tobold, out of perhaps 1-200 posters on that "leet guilds" thread, exactly 3 were happy with the state of the endgame. Most of them think the consumables grind is irritating and pointless, the constant shifting 40>10>25 people is eroding the social structure of their guilds (just like you!) and the loot (which it's not all about, but *is* central to ongoing character progression) is virtually worthless. Very few think Blizz made a good business decision tuning the *entry* content so steep, though surely they wanted a naxx repeat in black temple. Most of them understand that it's important to keep semi-casuals in the game. Semi-casuals both bring along casual friends and provide an imaginary audience for the hardcores. They leave, the cash to fund dungeons like Naxx that only 5% set foot into goes with them.
 

"Both situations got MAJOR NERFS before they were tuned to current standards."

Yes, I remember all that. I did some of that. I just thought Blizzard would learn from their mistakes. Wiping on a boss for three weeks can make it feel like an accomplishment. Wiping on a boss unless you spend 100 gold per raid member per attempt feels like work. Wiping on a boss for three months feels like relief. And you can get the same relief from just not playing...

The BC endgame, obviously miscalculated BC items, questionable stat choices for many classes, and recent nerfs all feel like amateur hour. Combine all that with the promise that BC would be casual friendly and bring raiding to more players... I feel like BC was a bait and switch.

I'm usually the first to leap to any fellow game designer's defense, but I'm honestly confused about some of the endgame design and patches recently. On top of that, basic game functionality seems to have taken a hit. The WoW client crashed more in the last month than in the last year.

A server split and constantly changing group requirements is causing problems with the community, too. There have been too many changes in too short a time, and I think everyone is feeling the stress from that. I'm certainly not having as much fun as I was pre-BC, which is unfortunate.

But Conan and Warhammer aren't out yet, and probably won't live up their hype, so what else can I do?
 

So strange. I went from raiding to choosing to play more casually, and I'm dumbfounded by the number of people complaining that TBC is shafting the casuals.

How in the world can people supposedly so casual have exhausted all of the new quests in the game, and have exhausted the "lower" 5 man instances to the point already that the difficulty of the Black Morass actually matters?

Nothing about this sounds casual to me. It sounds like people devoured content at a record pace only to find out that TBC endgame is suspiciously similar to the old WoW endgame.

Hey, if you're worried about phat lewts you should be on the Arena weapons bandwagon anyhow. It doesn't matter how casual or crappy you are, you have enough time to get nice loot for minimal effort there.
 

I was also pretty shocked that they did not give people pre-created lvl 70 characters to test with, I thought at first, well maybe they are just announcing that they won't because they want people to test the lower level content and the levelling process, and then later handing out lvl 70 characters with attunements for people to test with.

After all, that's how they tested it, they user didn't have their developers grind all that rep, they just inserted a row in a database.

Without players to test this stuff, we are seeing constant changes in production, when this should all have been handled during the beta by giving out lvl 70 characters once they did enough testing on earlier content (unless they felt like they didn't have enough feedback yet). But I have always been kind of dumbfounded with their decision not to beta test the raids.
 

One thing I think people are forgetting, at least in this particular forum, is that the Old School raid bosses, after a certain time, were completed with some, if not many, members of the raid geared higher than the current encounter. Who tanked Ony? Usually the best geared warrior you could find with gear from MC or higher.

This will start happening again. People better geared will start running those beginning content through faster and easier. People with Tier 4 or 5 gear will help people through BM or Kara, and people will complain that the content is too easy.

For casuals, this is a great time in WoW to feel what it is like to be at the cutting edge of content. This is what the hard core raiders do. They struggle through hard content, learn encounters, discuss new strategies, farm consumables, and have fun beating a challenge.

Treat BM as your own little Naxx and enjoy it. Soon, your 1337 friend will ruin the experience for you.
 

One thing is certain, it has placed a large pressure on raiding guilds to 'pull along its memebers' and get them up to speed with attunements, this has been a very frutrating job indeed, I have had to work my fingers to the bone and skip countless numbers of Kara Raids due to getting our guys attuned, keeping my finger on the pulse and knowing where our members are and what they need then pulling this all together, leveling on BC is a piece of cake, attunements are a whole new challenge especially to those not accutome to chasing faction. The massive issue facing the 'difficult instances' like BM and SV and even Arca in some way is the high number of inexperienced possibly impatient players that you end up with in pugs and even in guild, so many players have never seen a 40 man, they dont even know what onyixa or Drak is let alone know how to tank or heal properly, so many of them are just trying to be a DPS machine, take the simple pally for example (I know I am one 20/41/0) we essentially cannot compete for DPS vs any other class and most guys are playing them retospec, there are the odd few who do understand that the protection tree has been enhanced and the holy tree is about to be nurfed, yet most of the players assume pallies cant tank, cant DPS and can only heal / buff / clense.

The hardest thing to deal with has been the number of guys that just lack that experience of working in teams, sticking to what thier class is for and respec whenever needed, hell I respeced just for BM then back to my current after that the result was we nailed if time after time, shadow priest in sued of course.

Karazahn is not that difficult the only issue I have is the time involved for the casual, middle range players. Lets face it we all have them in our guilds and some times we need them and thier well geared toons to progress, IMO Kara is a juiced up epic version of UBRS with extra bosses (sometimes i think too many bosses) our guild has gone all the way to shade in 3 weeks thats 7/12 bosses if im accurate but we have chipped away at it almost every night but 1 or 2 per week from 6:30pm to 11pm say about ~20 hours per week, its just a tad too long and leaves you with no time to help other guildies get attuned or farm mats or make money for your epic flying mounts if you dont have the G's already, i know I dont running 3x lvl 70's is definatley not cost effective and time efficient, the only thing thats handy is getting the key fragments and leaving ur alts logged out just outisde the door ready for the invite and summon where needed lol