Wrath Content Patch Spells Doom for Raiding

armageddon

This is a guest post by fellow guild and Enhancement Shaman all star Aylii who has become worried by the recent announcement of the pre-Wrath content patch and what it could mean to current end game raiding.

A few hours ago, Eyonix posted that the pre-Wrath content patch will be released in the coming weeks, which means that Wrath is just around the corner.

Like in the pre-Burning Crusade content patch, we will get to experience many of the new changes that will be coming to wrath a bit early, without needing the new expansion (Inscription to 375 anyone?). However, there is one flaw in the release that has me worried, and that is the new class spells and talents.

So far in Wrath, we as bloggers have read and kept track of the many changes to our respecting classes in the coming days. From the addition of many AOE healing spells, the change in mana regeneration and it’s respective talents, the warrior dreaming of duel wielding his two-handers, we have watched it all. There is one darkness that looms over all of these changes, and it mostly revolves around something many of us do casually or hardcore:

We love to raid.

Many class mechanics in Wrath were drastically changed to handle the encounters for the future. Crushing blows were removed. Intense need for mana regeneration destroyed. Changes in how we attack and defend. All of this tuned for Malygos and Arthas.

Yet it is released now, when we are still killing bosses who will preform crushing blows, still begging for blessing of salvation because we know we will pull, still chugging our mana potions. The sad thing is, there is most likely nothing we will do to stop it. For, after all, the pre-BC bosses were never changed, so why should the post-BC bosses be changed for wrath?

Crushing Blows

When I read about these changes, the first thing that popped into my mind was, “Gridlock is never going to get his Warglaive now.” The reasoning, Illidan will become undoable with the changes to talents. In the new content patch, Shield Block will be changed to a 40 second cooldown with Improved Shieldblock. Your Warrior will be crushed if he saves his shield blocks for shear. Sure, you can use a paladin to tank Illidan, but then the flame tanks will be crushed. I’d hate to imagine Sunwell guilds trying Brutallus now.

Threat

Every boss in BC is tuned to have threat control. In the content patch, we will be losing the main ways we reduce threat, Salvation and Tranquil Air. The talents will be still there, but until tanks (mostly warriors and druids) get some new gear from Northrend, they will not be able to keep up threat, unless they tank in Arena Gear. Goodbye Reliquary of Souls.

Itemization

So far I know of three classes (specs) who are getting major itemization changes: shaman, druid, and warrior. The smart enhancement shaman currently wears leather gear, which will leave them weaker after the patch due to the new stat bonuses they get (1 ap per str, agi, int). Similarly, protection warriors, who focus on block value and stamina, will be unable to keep threat because none of their gear has strength. Blizzard has stated that they will make the transistion easier for classes such as these, but gear only accounts for one of the problems.

These are the highlights of Eyonix’s post, but it is just that, highlights. There are other things in the content patch that we might see that can kill raiding, such as:

Potions

Potions. Potions. Potions.

We love them, we need them, we crave them. Soon we will be without them. Currently, in Wrath, if you drink a potion, you get potion sickness, which makes you unable to take another potion. Current bosses are tuned to make us chug mana pots, and even with three classes now supplying mana, I fear the changes will not be enough until we hit Wrath itemized gear.

Downranking

If the downranking nerf makes it into the content patch, kiss your healers goodbye. As I write this now, there is currently no alternative to healing people up besides using the max rank heal, which means more mana, which means out of mana healers who have to sit on their butts and watch their aggro loving dps and tanks die. I sincerely hope that Blizzard does not include this in the content patch, ot better yet, unnerf the nerf!
Whatever Blizzard does, I hope they do something about this. Myself, and many other raiders, still wish to raid before Wrath.

Source: Eyonix Post

Now it’s your turn. Do you think raiding will become even more difficult? Would this alarming change add even more pressure to your Guild to start knocking out bosses and seeing more of end game?

45 thoughts on “Wrath Content Patch Spells Doom for Raiding”

  1. @Kestral
    I know, though mallet does tend to be dramatic 😛

    @Obichad
    In my original draft, I did specify that this could be solved if blizzard did retune older bosses. However, in the past when big changes were made (content patch-BC), nothing was changed and it was very chaotic in raiding and in pvp until BC came out.

    They may change everything. They may change nothing.

    Ayliis last blog post..The Great WoW Depression

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  2. One thing about Illidan… he never crushed to begin with. The tank on him needed to save shield block charges for shear to begin with, so they took out crushing blows on him proper. Of course, the shield block change makes it difficult to catch the shears to begin with… but that makes it a bad design mechanic for a boss needing a reliable shield block to begin with, which is a whole other issue (and why they’re removing crushes to begin with)

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  3. Look on the bright side, at least we’ll be able to enjoy a new hair style while sitting on our butts in SW gazing at the new harbor!
    /sarcasm off

    Realistically, I think/fear you’re right. But on the optimistic side, I can hope it’s not all that bad…
    1. Crushing blows – can be removed all-together from all bosses. Should be fairly easy to do (code).
    2. Threat – Blizzard have already stated that we won’t need e.g. BoS since tanks will inherently generate more threat (about gear see below).
    3. Gear – this, I admit, is a problem. If WotLK talents are meant to work well with WotLK itemization, we’re out of luck. Guess we’ll have to wait and see. The biggest problems will be with Protection warriors threat, but if they manage to generate enough threat without the proper gear stats, it is perhaps possible that while hurting, the change will not be a killer.
    4. Potions – you vastly under-estimate what a difference the new raid-wide mana-regen mechanics will make. You might have to ask your mages to switch to deep frost, and maybe look around for an extra s-priest, but I hope this will not be an issue.
    5. Downranking – see potions, above. Mana regen should be sky-high with a few frost mages, shamans and s-priests in the raid.

    As usual, I guess we’ll just have to… wait and see ;p

    Solidstates last blog post..3-man UBRS

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  4. Most of the problems you worry about are not really problems, but rather simple changes to how we work.

    1. Crushing blows
    —- Paladin tank. He will be uncrushable, and likely uncrushable in wrath as well, its how we have geared and we never could rely on a single massive push to put us past 102.4%. Besides these are not a doom, Bears tank Teron, its doable without a Warrior, its doable with a Warrior getting crushed.

    2. Threat
    —- Tank strips out excessive defence gear, adds threat gear (most tanks in BT level severely out gear the content compared to the initial tanks, we can afford to lose gear), Sunwell is likely harder, however with Hand of Salvation and the inherent threat reduction people will get if the talents change already (and if they don’t we still have salv) we should still be able to win.

    3. Gear
    —- Is not really an issue, we can mix and match gear in lower tier content, and 2/3 tank classes still retain their ability to generate threat without strength gear. Not a major issue.

    4. Potions
    —- Never chain chugged anyway, Lock and Paladin, my mana is near limitless as long as the healers are fine, and they stand back for 5s and gain like 800 mana…

    5. Downranking
    —- Did anyone bar healers actually down rank in combat? There is no beneficial “rank 1 consecrate breaks invis”, its all or nothing anyway typically. Though I suspect a better change would be to have your spells capped at Level Granted +5, meaning your rank 1 frostbolt has a 99% chance to bounce off a level 70, but healers can still down rank, essentially the damage component is unaffected, but the additional effect is limited.

    In short, the effects might be big, but I don’t expect they will be, and even assuming protection warriors are nerfed for a month (unlikely since most will have str gear in the bank for off-sets anyway, just mix and match) its not going to be the end of life since the other two tank classes can easily step up. We will adapt to the situation and we will beat it, someone always does (and I would expect those prot warriors to be fine tbh, every one I know has a decent dps set they could cannabalise to get Str if needed).

    2ndNins last blog post..On Raiders and raiding

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  5. Crushing blows will be no problem, because I think I have read that they changed them in that way, that the mob has to be 4 levels higher than yourself (or has to have 20 more weapon skill than you have base defence skill) to be able to crush you, so that would mean that ALL raid bosses won’t be able to crush anymore, because they’re technically your level + 3.
    The bigger problems will be threat and chain potting, at least on long fights or fights with some threat reducing mechanics.

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  6. 1) I must respectfully disagree with those who are saying that it’s okay, the paladins/druids can just take over tanking. Where does this leave our prot warriors? Sitting outside? Two of my guild’s main tanks are warriors and I’d hate for all their hard work learning encounters and getting gear to go to waste. I love my warriors.

    2) *sigh* I predict lots of crithappy dead mages.

    3) On the subject of itemization… I’m just dreading the dumbing down of everything. General +crit and +hit, spellpower… Ugh. I don’t want to fight mages and locks for gear. I LIKE having two sets of gear. It gives me twice the amount of purple pixels to show off!

    4) I don’t like the idea of having potion sickness, either. I don’t chain chug potions, but they’re a good saver for when something goes wrong and I have to start spamming heals and burning my mana. Those 5 seconds I have to stand back to regen mana to keep casting could easily be enough time for my tank to get killed.

    5) Well… I won’t have to use as many keybindings. Oh joy. /sarcasm

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  7. The visual potion sickness buff icon was removed, but it has been reported that you are still unable to drink additional potions after the first one. I haven’t seen actual concrete confirmation either way though.

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  8. Those who truly love raiding will find a way. Plenty of guilds continued to raid after patch 2.0 changed everything.

    There will be guilds that fail, and raiders who withdraw from the raid scene, but a little raid retooling and the pain train will keep on trucking.

    Joshs last blog post..This Is An Emergency

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  9. I just really, really hope we can kill Illidan before the patch. We’re close, but I didn’t know how fast time was running out.

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  10. This is the exactly the type of post every raid guild fears. The reality is much of what you say actually isn’t problems, (threat, illidan, etc) but by perceiving a problem you are about to create one where one didn’t exist.

    This trend is identical to last expansion and had equally devastating effects on the raid game. The only true problems are the ones we create for ourselves in our mind by doubting that we can do it.

    Veneretios last blog post..The Holy Grail: A Use for Rend

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  11. Illidan doesn’t crush.

    Second, Blizzard is changing the base combat tables to prevent crushing. They aren’t touching the bosses themselves. Previously, creatures 3 levels higher can crush, unless specifically disabled, but now only creatures 4 levels higher.

    In fact, rather than every boss crushing willy-nilly, I think the raid game will become much easier as *no* boss will deal crushing blows.

    Rohans last blog post..Targeting

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  12. I honestly believe that this is chicken little syndrome. Almost all of the things mentioned in the post are NOT in the list Eyonix posted.

    Granted, Eyonix stated his list was not complete, but the -types- of things he posted were generally additions, as opposed to changes. The only change specifically mentioned was new talents.

    I don’t know about you all, but when the new talents come out, I can almost spend my points in the EXACT SAME WAY for the exact same effect as I have at current.

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  13. @ Veneretio – OMG thank you for saying that.

    The SAME EXACT THING was said for BC. Matticus – this is an irresponsible and completely rediculous post.

    You don’t point out any of the benefits to the patch, how other classes are getting buffed, how other mechanics will help, etc. – you just found the things that will piss you off and won’t let you get your 1337 warglaives. LOL.

    If you honestly think raiding will be dead, you are ignorant and irrelevant. If raiding dies this game dies. There are close to 11 million subscribers, so…..

    Guilds will take advantage of this, retool, and figure out ways to overcome obstacles. FYI – that’s the definition of progression and it’s what all healthy guilds do.

    Sweet job of taking announcements and spin them to whine about your loot.

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  14. I thought SBV scaled off of Strength (20 Strength = 1 SBV), or am I mistaken, or has this changed in Beta? Why would Warriors suddenly not have strength on any of their gear?

    Forgive me for being slow, but there is a step in logic I’m missing here.

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  15. I think by the time the patch comes out raiding will be on its deathnell anyway. We saw the effect right before BC. We couldn’t put together any raids because everyone was farming mats or leveling an alt. Nobody wanted to waste time raiding for content that would be obsolete in just a few weeks. Is it fair? Probably not, but for the more casual raiders it didn’t seem worth it. For those people deep in Sunwell it might be worth continuing on to see the content.

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  16. Strength was changed in the beta. It is now 2 Strength = 1 Block Value. So the changes to existing level 70 tier gear for warriors should give them even more block value for threat/mitigation.

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  17. Yeah, we may have to switch to 2 bear tanks on Brut now, instead of the warrior and bear we use now ><.

    I still want to get through Felmyst and Twins before the xp hits. If this “weeks away” turns out to be more like 9-12 weeks, I’m going to be pissed that they announced it so soon.

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  18. I hate to “/agree” with everyone, but I’m really not concerned.

    First, assumedly if they take the salv changes live, they’ll take the other threat changes live, which include blending salv’s effect into everything. Additionally, the new salv’s ability to knock someone’s threat down 20% is good, and useful in a raid environment.

    Potion sickness will not be as big of a concern with the other ways to regain mana come the expansion.

    Downranking is going to be difficult to learn to live without, but I’m hopeful that they’ll see the difficulties during the beta, and bringing the beta content over to live pre-wotlk, and be able to adjust.

    And really, this is the point. They want to see how the wotlk powers and such fare in a larger player base. I’m really ok with a couple weeks of raiding weirdness (which, frankly, we’d see anyway in wotlk, if they DIDN’T do this) in order to see a smoother transition into the new content. Also, not all of the weirdness will be because of problems with the content… it will be us getting used to the differences.

    It’s a bit easier to get used to those differences on things that we already know, hmm?

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  19. @Everyone
    In regards to the crushing, yes, I forgot those certain bosses didn’t crush. Generally it is late when I think of things as such.

    Secondly, I feel it is valid concern. Right now, we have -little- information in regards to what Blizzard will do in the content patch, and it -was- shown in the past that only half of the needed things were changed.

    My main concern was for only certain classes and spec, two of my mains which are most effected, my shaman and my warrior. It is unlikely blizzard would implement a total gear change for those classes in a content patch to change their tier gear. If they did, it would be a first.

    If we get a blue post, saying exactly what will change, then more power to blizzard trying to quell our fears. However, I am willing to bet you all of my gold and characters that not all the needed changes will be made in the content patch to offset the released class talents and abilities.

    So, please stop saying that my post was crying wolf, and instead find blue posts for me that quell my concerns.

    Ayliis last blog post..How many have you read?

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  20. I have a post about half written myself about this problem exactly. We, (the guild I belong to), are finally ready to start BT. Ready to START BT. We are having the raid team discussion as we speak. Then we find this. Now we aren’t sure what to do.

    Is it even worth it? Some will say yes, others will say no. The raider in me says go for it, but I like you am very concerned that I will be unable to tank or heal in a few very short weeks.

    Knurds last blog post..Thank you!!!

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  21. @Aylii

    I agree with you completely as my latest post states … however … we are in the minority, and we are QQing … and doing it based upon a first look at the future.

    For other’s it is not going to be that big of a deal and you have to be prepared for type of push back. I am. I am hoping that one of my readers see a light side to this that I have yet to come up.

    Knurds last blog post..The end of the world or not?

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  22. From the recent blue posts on the beta forum it seems like they are looking at spending a bit of time on the PTR to figure out this patch. I’d suggest getting your raid guilds over there and try out a raid or two to give good feedback and help them get it right.

    Also, if the achievement systems goes live with this patch as was recently mentioned by Tigole, I suspect a number of people will continue to at least be interested in raiding to check off that ticky mark in their achievement panel, which would be a nice change from the all-BG all the time environment before BC.

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  23. In a topic called “Illidan’s Shear and WoW 3.0 Talents” Bornakk has this to say:

    “Changes can be made to encounters if we feel they are necessary to allow the fight to work right. That said, the release of the patch isn’t tomorrow, it’s sometime in the coming weeks, so you still have time to work on the raids. Good luck on Illidan.”

    So it seems they are keeping an eye on concerns like those raised in this post.

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  24. Rawr! Everyone’s so antsy today! What’s up with that?

    In any case, changes or no changes, I’m still going to raid anyway regardless. I’ve always adapted from Vanilla to BC and this will be no different.

    Come to think of it, if these changes do have a lasting impact, it’d kinda help prep everyone for Wrath raiding. In a sense anyway.

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  25. It has been said I believe but I will sum it up here.

    Illidan doesn’t crush, his Flames don’t crush, in fact nothing in the Illidan encounter crushes at all.

    that said, Shear comes a lot more often than the 40 sec Shield Block cooldown, so I still doubt warriors will be able to tank Illidan unless it is changed.

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  26. Bosses cannont crush once the content patch drops. Mobs must be 4 levels higher than your level, meaning that in any raiding encounter, you would have to be one level lower than the current level cap for that mechanic to come into play. The term uncrushable refers to 102.4% active avoidance, which only prot pallys will be able to achieve with Holy Shield, and with the patch, that will merely be a passive threat mechanic, just like Ret Aura.

    Raiding isn’t going to stop just because Shield Block gets a nerf of sorts. Warriors and Pallys are getting a significant boost to their block value, due to Blizzard adding strength to all tiered tanking gear and most plate badge gear. Two points of strength will equate to 1 SBV, whereas the equation on live is currently 20:1. All those +dodge, +block, +parry items you’ve geared for is not really going to matter. You’re going to take less damage, while your threat is going to go through the roof. Save that Shield Block for when your healers are incapacitated (ie stuns, silences, etc).

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  27. As far as the threat issues are concerned isnt misdirection going to be on a 30 sec cd i have no clue about tricks of the trades level but surely threat can be managed with a littel imagination

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