So how easy is it, really?
Some nice screenshots and a quick update on Wrath-Dungeon difficulty coming in. Yesterday I ran some more instances with PuGs and quested a bit further down the roads of the Borean Tundra. I’m now close to dinging 73 and have only quested out three flightpoints. Leveling is going very well and I’m sure there’ll be many a quest left for some money making at 80.
We ran Drak’Tharon Keep (74-76) and The Violet Hold (75-77). The bosses there are 76 and 77, respectively. Now while 76 wasn’t giving me too much of a headache (I can eat the one or the other crit), I was kind of worried about the Violet Hold. With bosses five levels ahead there were some serious crits and crushes about to come in, things wouldn’t be as smooth and cuddly as the Nexus.
Frankly: We one-shot the whole of Drak’Tharon with scary ease. Actually I tried to wipe us once, when I pulled eight 75 melee-mobs at once, but at the end of the fight the healer ended up with more than 80% mana still left. Then on to Violet Hold: Except for the windfury-weilding shaman boss, nothing of it was a problem, at all. The group consisted of me as a 72 tank, a 74 heal pally, 74 shaman, 72 hunter, 72 death knight. We cleared the place with ease.
I get it that the first few instances are totally designed around fresh 70s, but a dungeon with bosses 5 levels above me, designed for someone 3 levels above me, shouldn’t be a walk-through. Not in my mediocre raiding gear (it’s T4 & badges, far far away from high-end sunwell). That’s wrong. I’ll have to do more testing on higher instances, see how far I can push it. I just think it’s wrong that a 75 instance is significantly easier than some 70 heroics. If Naxxramas is as easy going we’ll seriously consider doing the 25man version with 10-12 people, to finally get some challenge into Wrath.
Blizzard, I very much like the approach to open more content to the casuals. But please don’t take away all the challenge, because if it’s not hard to kill a boss, it’s also very unsatisfying. We want to prevail in epic battles, not smack critters around.
Two more screenshots:
All of the regular instances are really really easy. This changes completely once you get into heroics. There is a big jump in incoming damage from bosses and mobs and just overall difficulty. If you are bored with facerolling through regular instances just wait till you hit the heroic wall for the challenge you are seeking.
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Hinenuitepo Reply:
November 20th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
Agree. With my very solid guildies, we wiped at least once in all the heroics we’ve run so far. Most have decent gear still, but not great obviously (being fresh 80s). I’m on my realm-ally first DK (one hordie beat me for the achievement) and in greens and blues more than held my own against the mobs even in heroics.
I would say heroics still aren’t ‘hard’, but they do have some challenge at least.
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Yea I will agree on heroics being harder. I still have no CC’d all that much in heroics though. The hardest heroic I have ran is Gundrak. The final boss in there hits as hard as anything I have tanked and its really has a epic feel to it.
We did do a 10 man Obsidian Sanctum with all drakes down and it was 2 shotted and really easy that way. I look forward to trying it with drakes up
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Hinenuitepo Reply:
November 28th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
We started 25-mans and two shotted obsidian sanctum, one-shotted the w’grasp boss (both with 22 ppl in raid) and cleared 6 naxx bosses on our first night. We only do 25-mans twice a week, so can’t wait for next Tues!
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