More Changes for Ulduar
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Admin on Friday, June 12, 2009 - 31 Comments Tags: 10 man, 25 man, 3.1, Ulduar, changes, hard modes, nerfs, raid design, raiding, xt-002 deconstructor, yogg-saron
Admin on Friday, June 12, 2009 - 31 Comments Tags: 10 man, 25 man, 3.1, Ulduar, changes, hard modes, nerfs, raid design, raiding, xt-002 deconstructor, yogg-saron 
Yogg-Saron, just another old god.The changes (or nerfs as some of us raiders like to describe them as) for Ulduar keep rolling in. All of the changes should be live, but some may require a realm restart. The first significant change comes to the "end boss" of Ulduar, Yogg-Saron (who's lovely face you can see to your right):
The Yogg-Saron encounter has received the following changes: Death Ray no longer hits players who are under the effect of Malady of the Mind, Guardians of Yogg-Saron no longer use Dominate Mind, the spawn rate of Guardians of Yogg-Saron is more forgiving, and these Guardians will no longer spawn if a player that is protected by Hodir’s Flash Freeze hits an Ominous Cloud.
Now, my guild is working on the fight currently and to really demonstrate the impact of these changes on our first pull of the night we managed to hit phase three of the fight (which we had never done before). If that doesn't really show how tuned down this fight has become, well I don't know what else will. The spawn rate is much slower in phase one, there are no more mind controls and basically there is zero reason for anyone to die in that phase anymore. The change to guardians spawning on a player protected by a Flash Freeze is a welcome change to say the least.
There are a few other changes also (which can be read on the World of WarCraft Forums):
- In the opening sequence of Ulduar you can now see Liquid Pyrite from farther away.
- The Flame Leviathan encounter has received the following changes: the bonus health Flame Leviathan receives per tower has been reduced, the ejection height from Flame Leviathan has been reduced, the snare effect of the Tower of Frost has been removed, and the cannons on Demolishers and Siege Enginers should now break Flash Frozen vehicles in 1 shot.
- The XT-002 Deconstructor encounter has received the following changes: the health of the heart has been slightly reduced in heroic difficulty and the rate at which Gravity Bomb and Searing Light are cast has been reduced.
Being able to see the liquid pyrite at a greater distance is a welcome change. The whole Flame Leviathan encounter has gotten what seems to be a massive scaling back and I imagine we will see a lot more hard mode deaths for FL. XT-002 Deconstructor also got a nerf, mostly to the hard mode (which only 350 guilds have beat) because activating it should be slightly easier (although if you couldn't activate it before, should you even be doing it?). The gravity bombs and searing light also got their rate of cast reduced which should make the fight slightly easier or considerably easier depending on the severity of the rate change.
While I appreciate the changes Blizzard has made in making raiding more accessible (as has been the philosophy of this entire expansion) it is a little annoying to be working on an encounter and making progress on it, only to see it changed and made much easier. My guild isn't a top guild but we progress fairly well on our 3-day schedule and it almost seems like at this point unless you're in a 5-day a week guild trying to clear as fast as possible you won't be experiencing these fights in their original form. While my guild will soon be one of the 3000 guilds having downed Yogg-Saron, it can't be argued that this is a much easier fight now.
So raiders of Project Lore, are you a fan of these changes? Are you happy that the fights have been made easier? Do you think this is the right way for Blizzard to kind of "open up" raiding to everyone?
Reader Comments (31)
FIrst
why are these old gods so horribly disfigured
they saw hillary clinton naked.
and stop with the FIRST! bullshit.
@cocopuff Who says they're disfigured? What were they supposed to look like in the first place?
And as far as the nerfs go, I don't have a particular side of the fence I align with. While it sounds like downing Yogg will be considerably less frustrating (my guild seems to be at about the same progression as your own), it will also feel like less of an accomplishment. I guess it just depends on whether you prefer actually getting him down or the journey there.
Yogg phase 1 has been a stumbling block for us.
I will be very curious to see how we no when my guild tries him again on Monday!
these changes come as a bit of a dismay for me allthough im not a hard core raider and the harder fights can get rather frustrating i do like a challenge which this will kinda take away i also imagine that there will be a lot more pug runs that often fail and i find that even more frustrating
Blizzard is aiming towards the more casual raiders, there is no question. 5 man next raid as we know. I see many casual players having wet dreams over all of these nerfs, and upcoming raids... where has the challenging aspect of WoW gone?
i fully agree even though im not hardcore im not completely casual and if and when i get to yogg it wont feel as good knowing it has been nerfed
I just think they are nerfing stuff to fast. As for the nerfs i have never had any major problems clearing the bosses that are getting nerfed all the time. Meaning: Leviathan/XT/Razor.
When they do that and dont make any chances to the other bosses further into the dungeon's, then those that couldnt do the first bosses in the first place will start to whine about those bosses too and hence the next nerf.
I know blizz has to protect their income. But taking out the feeling of actually acomplishing anything will kill the 3.1 patch verry fast and it will become boring much faster.
Ye i agree the nerfing must stop!!
However i am not a hardcore raider anymore, it still doesnt feel right.
The epic game doesnt feel epic anymore :(
maybe disfigured wasnt the correct word what i ment i was ugly i saw c'thun and i see this guy sso far i cant decide which one is uglyer i picture damn more huminoid looking or atleast have 2 pairs of legs and hands not tenticles and 5 mouths
*sigh* with all these nerfs...Ulduar will take the same skill required for naxx10.....you want to change something blizz change the time it takes to lvl fishing
Blizz = fail. Happy to have stopped playing WoW.
looks like blizz cant do anything right anymore
Project Lore really needs a downvote option so we can rid this place of "First" trash.
I've been really lazy and haven't taken my main into Ulduar yet so these nerfs are welcome. I've been geared for the raid since it came out, just don't have the guild to go into it and I won't pug myself into it....=/ hopefully in the next few weeks I'll be able to check this place out.
@cocopuff
Why do you think the old god are so angry?
@Dan
Amen! My girlfriend even complains about this sort of thing on her KNITTING WEBSITE. It's everywhere, and there must be some sort of contest with prizes going on that I don't know about.
They should keep the highest level dungeon the exciting challenge it was designed as. If they want to make raiding easier for casual players, nerf the second highest level dungeon, in this case Nax. Yes I know Nax has already been nerfed, but they should have waited until Uldar came out. This would make it easier for casual raiders to get geared up to eventually try the new challenging dungeon.
To add more variety, I would like to see them upgrade some old raids. Upgrade the the monsters to level 80+ with the appropriate loot. They could even leave the old dungeons in place, but create a blast from the past hall with portals to the upgraded dungeons. This would cost them very little add not waste all the time that went into designing the old raids.
this is exacly what i am talking about blizzard has been so blind lately many of solutions for the problems i this game that they are trying to fix are so ovioous and easy yat they choose the hard way
This is such BS everyone that worked so hard to get as far as they did..... I hate when blizz noobproofs stuff....
and now they can get even farder
Yea, Blizz = fail. Happy I'm ending my sub. next month. Pez pez. The Game is so easy a bind, deaf, and dead monkey can play this and get full purplez in 2 days.
I would also like to say a word to those people who say: "well, I pay my $15 I should get to do this shit."
That's like buying a basketball and then saying: "I paid my $20, WHY THE FUCK AREN'T I AS GOOD AS M.J. or WHY CAN'T I PLAY IN THE NBA??"
It's called skill. Go get some.
The nerfs has made it so that everyone can go inside there.
That has resulted into a massive server lagg on Wednesdays..
Guys I'd like you all to look at these nerfs as a cater to guilds who have already cleared this content. Maybe Blizzard is just making it so that people who have beaten every boss can get through and gear up faster. But I'm not quite sure why people whine and QQ about stuff getting easier, just play the game and get geared. And the fact remains that even with these nerfs the encounters will still be very challenging. but just more forgiving.
NO MORE NERFS! Come on Blizz if every guild on every server hasn't cleared it that's ok. Yogg is supposed to be hard and only the best raiders r supposed to be able to down him leave it that way!
its take much more then 20$ bucks to play in the NBA i see no problem with the nerfs except that the trade chanels are now full of whining about the game gets to easy and that people are so upset about this they are quiting wow