BigRedKitty: Stretching Our Mind From Karazhan to Ulduar
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BigRedKitty on Monday, March 2, 2009 - 46 Comments Tags: BT, Hyjal, Karazhan, Raid, Sunwell, Ulduar, aces high, bwl, flame wreath, kara, maiden of virtue, mc, naxx, naxxramas, raids, shade of aran, tier 7, tier 8, vehicles, zg
BigRedKitty on Monday, March 2, 2009 - 46 Comments Tags: BT, Hyjal, Karazhan, Raid, Sunwell, Ulduar, aces high, bwl, flame wreath, kara, maiden of virtue, mc, naxx, naxxramas, raids, shade of aran, tier 7, tier 8, vehicles, zg 
A long, long time ago, in Stranglethorn Vale, our guild started Zul'Gurub. At the same time, the elite guilds had finished ZG, Molten Core, Black Wing Lair, and were doing AQ20, AQ40 and Naxxramas. We had Dungeon Set 0 and epic PvP gear, they were decked out in Tier 3. There was a huge chasm of raiding experience and gear-level between us and them.
A long time ago, in the Caverns of Time, our guild finished Mount Hyjal. At the same time, the elite guilds had completed Black Temple and Sunwell. We had 4/5 Tier 5 and they were decked out in Tier 6. There was a significant difference in gear-level and raiding experience between us and them.
As of this week, our guild has completed all 10- and 25-man raiding content in WotLK. The only challenges left in front of us are Sartharion with two and three drakes up, and some raiding achievements. The elite guilds have finished the "hard modes," but there is no raid-boss they've seen that we haven't. We are 13/15ths of the way to being totally decked-out in Tier 7.5 gear - they have a better necklace and trinket than we do. They also have the gun from Kel'Thuzad, those rotten {expletive (plural) deleted}. There is no real difference in gear-level, and while they have many more years of end-game content raiding experience than we do, we’ve walked where they've walked in the new expansion, and not years after they have.
So what’s the deal? We've heard over and over that the content is easier.
Bullpucky. We remember our first kills in Karazhan. We remember going to Maiden and being sure it was going to take many hours to kill her. We remember warning the guild that wipes were the price of success. Then, we one-shot her. /kapow!
"Don't move when Flame Wreath is cast!" And if you didn't move, and you had the DPS, you'd beat Shade of Aran. Learning the skill took time, as did getting a high enough raid-DPS, but once the skill was learned, never again did a movement fight cause as much fear. Thaddius in Naxxramas is a movement fight, and people don't freak out about that guy nearly as much as they did about Shade of Aran.
The problem with Karazhan was two-fold:
First, an entirely new population of WoW-players suddenly had access to raiding content, and they weren't used to it.
Second, in a 40-person raid, you can have a screw-up. In a 10-person raid, a single person could easily wipe everything.
So in old-school raiding, the old-school raiders learned to raid as they were "carried" through Molten Core. They made mistakes, they were mostly hidden, and the raid kept on trucking. By the time they got to Karazhan, they knew how to raid and thus breezed through it.
In contrast, a new generation of players learned to raid in 10-man Karazhan, and they learned to raid as they wiped. Karazhan was hard, not because of the difficulty of the content, but because individual mistakes were magnified and the results were much more severe.
Was Gruul or Magtheridon much harder than Karazhan? No, because these 25-person raids required Karazhan-geared people to attempt them. And once you've gotten gear from Karazhan, you probably knew how to behave in a raid. The difference between 10- and 25-person raiding isn't much, the only difference is in specific people learning their specific roles. Once the trick of the boss is mastered, the basic raid skills needed are already known. (i.e. don't stand in the fire or the black circle, don't take aggro from the tank, etc.)
Then we get to WotLK and the new Naxxramas. Is 10-person Naxx easier than Kara was? Yes. Is it because the content is easier? We say No. We say that people crushed Naxx with such relative ease because there were no new skills needed to defeat the place. If you raided Kara, you could raid Naxx. There is no skill needed for Naxx that was not taught in Kara.
And who didn't raid Kara? What percentage of people who are raiding Naxx do you think didn't step foot in Kara? Five percent?
That means ninety-five percent of the people with their eyes set on Naxxramas just had to level to 80, then they'd have the gear and the Kara-learned raiding knowledge to defeat the place. And they did, foshizzle.
So now we have the promise of Ulduar. What's the big scary thing there? Vehicle-mounts for combat. /shudder
What fight do we have right now with something like vehicle-mounts? Malygos.
What raid boss do people dislike the most? Malygos. Why? Phase three - The drakes.
People dislike the drakes because they don't get to play their own class, and because it's a new mechanic. We love Naxx because it's just an extension of Kara. We've mastered Kara, so Naxx is easy. We have never had a vehicle-mount boss before, so people hate learning Malygos.
Defeating one, two, and three drakes-up Sartharion is a matter of gear, positioning, and DPS. All three of these things are easily comprehended by Kara-experienced raiders, and thus three drakes-up Sartharion, while technically a much greater challenge than Malygos, does not inspire the same dread and hostility as Malygos does.
Ulduar is bringing vehicle-mount boss fights to an entire new level, like it or not. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to farm Naxx for fun and profit? Are you going to go for the hard-mode achievements and beat 10-person Sartharion with three drakes up? Or are you going to practice your vehicle-mount combat skills in Malygos?
Just as the Aces High! daily is practice for Malygos, so is Malygos himself practice for Ulduar. If you have the choice, we recommend you get your happy little tuckus out to Borean Tundrea every week, do both 10- and 25-person Malygos, not so much for the gear, but to get used to the dynamic. The skills you learn in Malygos are going to prepare you Ulduar, just like Kara prepared you for Naxx.
Reader Comments (46)
I don't know how much I agree with, I jumped right into naxx having never done kara before, and we had no troubles.
And the needed gear to do it is also fairly low, I was in all blues.
i'm in that 5% who has never seen kara, but ive been raiding naxx for about 2 weeks now and i love it. in fact i already top the damage list as BM =p
I'd be in that 5%. I'd only done Kara one, only to about 4 or 5 bosses. I never even did heroics befor, but with the new content I'm doing great. A peice of T7 gear, a few Naxx peices, and the best none raid gear there is.
I'm not having problems with the raiding, other then being on (work sigh...) I'v clear most of Naxx, with missing a boss here and there.
@Moose
I totally agree, to step into kara you did need to run the heroics for weeks collecting badges of justice and BoP epics to even stand a chance, there were even a few bosses thrown in for a 'gear check'.
I feel cheated by the new endgame content as it appears to have been dumbed down.
I also dont understand the whole 10 - 25 man versions of the same content. I think we all got tired of kara runs and that was only 1 dungeon.. now we're being made to run the same dungeon twice a week... boring.
I and most people feel that a boss you as a guild/group have struggled on (over weeks in some cases) is a much more satisfying kill than a boss you one shot or take down after a few wipes.
This isn't all down to experience (although it does play a big part), this is down to unimaginative bosses and Blizz' ever increasing need to make the content available for all.
Very nice post :) I've recently, with a friend, started a new raiding guild on my server, and i sure as *bad word* hope that atleast most of them have done some raiding before ;)
@soopershammy
10/25 man versions of the same content are not present to force you to run the same content twice. They are present to allow people who play a little more casually or who don't have as much time to play to see the same content as it is far easier and quicker to get a 10 man group together than it is to get a 25 man group together.
10 mans are a TOTAL blessing for a person like me. The time I have available to play (due to RL responsibilities) is sparse at best. For me to be able to get into the game and get into a 10 man raid quickly allows me the chance to see the content I might otherwise not have had the chance to see.
And I think I am in part of the majority of the 11 million who play the game when I say that I prefer to down a boss after a couple of wipes while learning tactics so that I can keep progressing versus spending weeks trying to down a boss. I will never have that kind of time to commit to the game. I'm all for Blizz making 25 mans harder in and of themselves, as well as adding hard modes (i.e. Sarth 3D, etc.), in order to keep the hardcore happy with challenges. But don't begrudge me for wanting an opportunity to see the sme things in-game as you.
I have nothing but TOTAL respect for a player that I see on a Plagued Proto Drake. Hardocore. No doubt about it. They are "better" at the game than me. Still doesn't mean that I shouldn't get to see endgame content in some form.
@ Nebyula: If you were in blues, thank your friends for carrying you through Naxx.
@soopershammy: I rather have a lot of option to gear my toon in order to see other content than "run the heroics for weeks [months?] collecting badges of justice and BoP epics to even stand a chance"
Older times were better.... it´s rubish. Its pretty common to see that kind of posts from the "hard core" raiders... 40 man raids were better, Kara was srs bsns, Naxx it's way toooo easy. I really enjoy playing what I feel to. Run some heroics or be able to PUG an OS, Vault or Naxx, grind some reputation for gear or buy BOE purples. There are several paths and I can choose the one I like to play
Welcome BRK!
tis very true :) unfortunatly my guild is slightly behind in the raiding scene did our first naxx 10 run on saturady twas bad lol tho i've puged naxx, VoA, and OS in both 10 man and 25 not done maylgos yet :( i rli want to cus i love vehicle fights (wintergrasp, oculus and strand of ancients) love the fact tht its differnet and u need to change u'r play style :D every1 else i know hates it tho lol
and acctualy i had only been to kara twice not even geting past shade of aran so i'm pretty much a noob to raiding so is alright for me i picking up the old asppects and the new all at once :P
Hey BRK! Nice to see you around!
Awesome advice guys! When I've herd about Ulduar I was scared about vehicle combat before raid itself, now I know that I should practice on Malygos, instaed of rushing in croud of MOBs on bike or tank. TY!
well i'm one of those 5% aswell and tbh in my guild of 80 players there are only 3 that have pre wotlk raid experience. And tbh i find raids quite challenging. though i think that has more to do with the terrible pugs i've been in. I did some reading on the forums and it seems 2k dps is the consensus for individual members. I've been in pugs where there were maybe 2 players getting that high and where most didnt even break 1.5k ( consensus of dps for hc instances ) If those epic geared players find they have no challenge, they should consider pugging for a bit. Just join any of the desperate groups trying to get 10 man together and see how that goes. I bet they'd find that a challenge.
tbh I would argue that despite all of the EXP gaind in kara naxx is still techicaly easier.
ever fallen half asleep during heigan and got slap by the floor for it?
if you have, you begin to understand, it don't kill you, infact you have to be hit by two consecutivly to die. in what is the only thing that fight realy tests.
I guess I have to agree though, sappion was allot easyer to avoid the blizzards after the time spent getting the nack for it doging fire for archimonde!
Well, in your post it says you haven't done Sarth 3D yet, so I guess its excusable, but Maly is so much easier than 3D.
Maly is incredibly easy. The only excuse to wipe is if you let yourself die because you didn't meet the 6minute mark for that achievement.
The vehicle fight in Ulduar also looks like a joke. So far, of the 3 PTR bosses I've tried, the only hard part was learning the bosses' attacks/debuffs/etc.
I hope your guild eventually gets to 3D, but if you think Maly is hard, well, maybe you should just keep working on that for now.
Am I the only one that likes Phase 3? I tend to only need to heal but it's pretty cool =) I also like riding around shooting stuff in wintergrasp on the big ass demolishers. It's so fun!!
Have to say if Malygos is practice for Ulduar my days playing are probably numbered.
There are much better ways to improve content than by adding gimmicks and games within games. If I wanted to play a flight simulator or tank simulator I'd play one. The movement mechanics are awful.
Far better to actually make the content dynamic, make it less possible to memorize the "stand here, walk here, press button A" routines that make the content predictable.
Why not modular content? If you go into instance "A" you can't be sure the content will follow the same path it did last time, that each boss will spawn in the same place, that Boss X is always followed by Boss Y. What's wrong with Boss Y not always using the same abilities from fight to fight? Unscript it! Make us adapt on the fly.
Folks will memorize Ulduar and the tricks just as they do Malygos now. There is so much slush in the movement ranges and targeting it's ridiculous. There are game engines made for action, there are games engines made for exploration and groups ... trying to cram both into the same one is like trying to teach a boar to fly. It doesn't work and annoys the boar.
This player speakin right here (me) is sayin that his guild hasnt even done 10 man nax... i blasted through 60 and got gear as the same for 70 but im having a crappy time gettin 80 gear, probably cause guildies left for better guilds leaveing me with crap guildies.... this makes me sad.
Welcome to project lore BRK. Good to see one of my fav bloggers on a great site like PL.
Great article, totally agree with it
I'm a big fan of Malygos type fights. You get tested on being good at your class for two phases, and in the last phase, you get tested at being a good player. Once you 'break' it becomes really easy, and that feeling of accomplishment gets that much better.
The interface could be a bit better for certain vehicle fights, but overall I find them very enjoyable. The crazier and more hectic a fight is the better for me :)
People who probably are not very good at Maly/Occ/etc. are folks that I'm more than willing to bet still turn around with a keyboard, and are very good at hitting 'New Post' on the WoW boards to complain about something :)
Part of the fun in games like wow is gearing up getting stronger(feeling sronger), all that wil go to waste when you mount somthing and fight with it. The game was based on you beeing your own hero, or at least feeling like it. Now the drake is the hero, cani get it soem betetr gear? Or maybe a fun hat? You know whats next you can! And you have to wash it and feed it or it will die.. what? wait... aint that? ...nvm
I read this, and I wonder WTF my guild is doing wrong since we can't even down a single boss in Naxx... (And yes, we did Kara, though not religiously)
Love your posts and videos BRK! :o)
Freaking boring....