Today, we heard from Blizzard that on maintenance taking place the week of January 31, all Dragon Soul encounters will be nerfed with a “Power of the Aspects” spell, that provides a 5% boss HP reduction and a 5% boss damage reduction. Exact Blizzard words were:
During the scheduled server maintenance on the week of January 31, the Dragon Soul raid will become enveloped by the “Power of the Aspects” spell, reducing the health and damage dealt of all enemies in the raid by 5%. This spell will grow progressively stronger over time to reduce the difficulty and make the encounters more accessible. The spell will affect both normal and Heroic difficulties, but it will not affect the Looking for Raid difficulty. The spell can also be disabled by talking to Lord Afrasastrasz at the beginning of Dragon Soul, if a raid wishes to attempt the encounters without the aid of the Dragon Aspects.
So, the nerfs are already starting a mere 2 months since the raid landed – and this makes me a very sad panda 
Here’s why.
Let me tell you how hard recruitment was in December. It was PAINFUL. We were just a few short on our 10 man (woman) HC team to have a large enough roster to build the optimal groups for specific encounters. It was a nightmare of spamming all recruitment and marketing and it drained me and took a lot of the fun out of raid/guild leading for me.
I’ve seen a few months now of our server’s number dwindling down. I’ve even seen a few of my server friends move to the highest pop server in our battlegroup. Actually seen a lot of people just leaving lately. I have heard from others that our server isn’t the only one.
Is wow dying?
Is wow dying?
Enter today. Our team is full, with a 14 person roster of high quality raiders that are all integrated into our tight knit guild family. Since the first of the year, we’ve also been progressing really well in Dragon Soul! We’re working on our third hc boss this week – and this news of the tiered nerfs incoming really has me overwhelmed with an intial feeling of failure and sadness for the game.
I don’t want it to get easier.
I feel a sense of disapointment and I’m sorry for my raid team. Sorry I didn’t push us harder, faster, and get us more HC kills.
I don’t want it to get easier yet.
So, as a raid team we have to look at our options.
Option A)
Turn off the buff. Fall behind on progression because everyone and their mother is using the buff. Fall behind on server leaderboard. Now 5% nerf isn’t exacty making the bosses faceroll but still. But after a bit, it will be 10%. Then 15%. Then 20%. So we continiously would fall behind. Does it matter that we clear it without the nerf? Not so much, leaderboards don’t show the difference unless you look at clear dates.
We saw this all before in ICC. Did anyone turn off the buff? No. So this isn’t REALLY an option.
It’s like.. if you beat a 10 year old at boxing, that doesn’t make you Mike Tyson
Option B)
Succumb to the buff, get totally demotivated (/sigh), and let it hang over your head that you cleared from 3+ on HC after the nerf and had to do it with the buff or fall farther behind.
So, in the end I’m not really liking these options. Yes, tell me that I’m bitching and whining because I am – but these are my facts 
These sort of things have slowly been taking the fun out of the game for a lot of people I know. It’s like the LFR debacle, it was launched too early in my view.
I really hope that we aren’t sitting in Dragon Soul for the next 6 months farming it with it getting easier and easier, just waiting on Pandaland to launch. It makes me wonder where WoW will be in 1 year.
What do you think? Will you be embracing the nerfs? Turning off the buff? Taking a break?
11 Responses to “Is World of Warcraft dead?”
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The nerfs have it pros and cons, yes it come too early but how would it be if they did it over 3 months.
But if they dont nerf things ppl will leave and it seems that this is another try to keep ppl interesting.
They even stated that things in cata were too hard so they make things easier in pandaland. Not a big fan of wotlk easyness.
Will see how things go, if the nerfs dont follow too fast I can co with it.
I’m on the opposite end of the spectrum. I can’t wait for the nerf! My guild was making progress on heroics, but now we’re stuck. Something has to give, either the difficulty of the raid, or the raiders themselves. Since I’d rather not see the guild fall apart, nerfs it is.
I can understand though, that if your guild is still making actual progress with heroics, how this can be a bad thing. I think though the number of guilds that are making progress is far, far fewer, than those that aren’t but wish they were.
I’m not sure how much sense it makes to utlize the nerf to keep your spot on the leaderboards, and then go back and try it w/ no-nerf afterwards. Probably doesn’t inspire people as much.
I think this article reflects more truths than your perceptions of WoW dying.
http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/19/ol-grumpy-and-the-dragon-soul-nerf/
Regarding “It’s like.. if you beat a 10 year old at boxing, that doesn’t make you Mike Tyson” if you don’t remove the buff for personal satisfaction… You’re still beating a 10 year old.
Things move on, things evolve or change. There’s no reason to put so much effort into the negative side of it.
I don’t understand why there seems to be so much outcry with nerfs. Does anyone care about normal mode 4.0 raid nerfs, or Firelands nerfs anymore? When it first happened there was just as much outcry from folks that were already beyond what was being nerfed in the first place, why does it matter?
People complained that “It should be like the ICC buff instead, now we have no choice”
SO, here we are with what the people cried for, an ICC-like raid nerf, The loud and preachy minority that are making bigger deals out of small things than they really need to be.
I think ppl also started to get bored because of the LFR, killing deathwing 10 times a month on different characters starts to be boring its not special anymore then when you first started on illidan progressing.
LFR is timed wrong and should only be used after several months a patch is out or only be used on the previous tier to make the new tier special.
Even saw some alt in my guild having full tier13, with me hardly have any.
Its too accesable right now and shouldnt be done in this format.
On the positive side got a few WOL ranks in LFR and that makes me a bit more happy
Is WoW dying? Everything’s dying, to one degree or another. Every second it exists is another second towards its inevitable end. However, we can say, without equivocation, that WoW’s peak has gone by. The game lost 20% of its subscribers in the last year. That’s a brutal loss, and the developers seem to have no clue as to how to plug the leaks, they’re bouncing between “Heroic mode is supposed to be heroic” and “We want people to see the content” like they’re schizophrenic, and all they’re achieving is alienating both sides of the player base. 12 million players during Ulduar was the peak, and it’s all downhill from here.
@Hoofit
Most people ignored the T11 normal mode nerfs because they came out when T11 was obsolete, and they didn’t touch heroic mode. There’s still a lot of people who are angry about the Firelands nerfs. Kurn listed the Firelands nerfs as one of the primary factors behind her reason to leave WoW at the end of this expansion. http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/?p=2156
What was it that Ghostcrawler once said? A choice that has only one option is no choice at all? That’s how the Power of the Aspects is. There’s no choice. You either deal with the consequences and reap its benefits, or suffer without it and deal with its consequences anyways. There are no rewards for clearing the instance without the buff, there’s no achievements, no way to prove that you didn’t use it. You can claim that you didn’t but so can every other guild, with equal proof, so you can’t even use it in recruiting as justification. There’s no way to escape its stigma, it will taint everything you do after January 1st, regardless of weather or not you actually use its benefits.
Got to say, this is a much better way to ‘nerf’ content than through the blanket nerfs that Blizzard applied to tier 10 and 11 content and its exactly what a lot of people have been asking for in the last 2 patches instead of those blanket nerfs.
Now whether it comes to using the buff or not is entirely down to you but you have to ask yourself this; will it give you greater satisfaction defeating DW without the buff or greater satisfaction being higher in the realm progression table? For my own two copper’s worth I’d say that realm progression rankings at this point are a moot. Who are you really competing against? Is there still the chance to get realm first? Or would you and your raiders enjoy the victory so much more if you completed the content ‘as intended’? I know my answer.
On the issue of whether WoW is dead? Well I don’t think it’s anywhere near that yet but with basically a year to go before MoP’s release and no further content patches at all (WTF????) then there is every possibility that many servers will die, not least when there are other games like SWTOR that are still releasing content. Sure SWTOR isn’t the wow killer everyone thought it would be but at least they’ll still be releasing new content over the next year.
I believe that the complaining about the nerfs at this point is rather selfious. If the blue post that had been made in response to these nerfs had also been mentioned, then it is worth noting that these nerfs are there to assist those who in fact need them the most. Those that are actually complaining about nerfs the most are, in fact, the minority, not the majority.
Blizzard is making raiding more accessible to the population, and LFR was only meant as an answer to PUGS, casuals, and alts. Even fewer guilds have cleared Dragon Soul than Firelands. Everyone pays the same fees, do they not deserve to see content down when it is relevant? Normal modes should be just that, normal difficulty. A progressive debuff gives guilds the extra edge they needed when they hit the wall.
World firsts are over, complaining about nerfs now is a moot point, and perhaps herald a quicker release of the expansion.
Kazz, Dragon Soul is much more accessible than Firelands was. If you think that a guild that took 5 months to clear Firelands is going to clear DS in 2 months, then you have unreasonable expectations. More guilds have cleared Dragon Soul on normal difficulty than any other tier with the exception of T9 at this point in the development cycle. The game is easier than it has been in years, and they’re trying to make it easier.
I would argue the great majority of people have not hit a wall, save those top end guild stuck on Heroic Spine. By all means nerf individusl bosses that are causing people problems, but please, Normal mode Morchok getting a nerf? That is ridiculous.
My guild has certainly not hit a wall. We are 1/8 HC, and are making progress. In a couple of weeks time I expect us to be 2/8 HC. We don’t need a nerf to help us progress right now, thanks very much.
If they want people to progress faster, the way to do it would be to have bosses drop more loot. If everyone has BiS and can’t progress, then I can see the need to apply boss nerfs, otherwise, at least let people try to succeed before deploying the nerf bat.
If everyone can wear “Purple”, “Purple” became new “White”.
Imagine how interesting wow would be if there would be only white (no stats) stuff?
I feel inclined to chime in.
As a previous poster, everything is in one way or another dying. As humans, all games and all things move from one state to another, inevitably ending.
Is WoW dead? I don’t think so. First off, everyone for some reason keeps saying “With MoP atleast a year away…” – why are you saying that? Blizzard has iterated time and time again that they are doing their best to speed up release cycles, obviously hinting that MoP is absolutely not a year away. Maybe 6 months, maybe less. A year away and no more content in between – even the thought is absurd, much more so the reality of it.
Secondly, all things also fluctuate. Player bases go up and down according to PR, hype, counter-hype, and all the little things in between. SW:ToR is the new kid on the block, people move over there to see what’s going on. Some come back, some stay, some go elsewhere. Getting all worked up over subscription numbers going down is futile at best. I feel like I see more people on Tyrael’s Chargers than any other mount. Do you still enjoy the game? If yes, keep playing and worry about the gruesome end when it comes knocking on your door. If you don’t enjoy playing the game anymore, move on. Competition is good, and it’s probably a big factor in Blizzard’s new and improved release cycle.
Third, to the DS “nerfs”. First though, let’s examine who in any given base of players, are the vocal ones? It’s usually the fairly good players. You do not find blogs from bad warriors, mediocre priests, or terrible druids. The ones who are vocal on any given subject, are the ones who master it fairly well, and take pride in their mastery/understanding/interest in and of the subject. What does that mean? For a game as large as WoW, it means that the vocal masses make up at BEST 1% of the player base. The numbers are conjecture, but I hope my meaning comes across.
So, for this one instance, the vocal player has started working on the 3rd heroic boss out of 8. That means that the guild is fairly good at playing the game, but not extraordinary. Good players, interested in trying as well as they can to finish the content. They feel that the nerf is coming in too early, they have the potential to atleast go 2 or 3 more bosses on heroic mode, given enough time to work on it. Fair enough, I’m sure Blizzard atleast tries to listen to all its players.
Now, who among the player base are the invisible masses, the not so vocal ones that do not cry out in outrage when things are nerfed or buffed? It’s the mediocre to bad players, with lots of good players thrown in the mix too. These people do not know that their primary attack just got a 3% damage nerf or buff. They don’t even know that their class can now combat res. They are playing the game, enjoying it, even though the do not know all the ins and outs and can not master their class completely. They don’t know the precise wording on all their talents, but non the less they enjoy playing the game. These people number in the millions. These people can not get past Ultraxion normal with their guild, because atleast 2 of the 6 dps are pulling numbers that good players could produce at level 80. Their second healer doesn’t know what healing addons or mouseover macros are. Their tank didn’t understand the last defender of azeroth buff, and tried to conserve his cooldowns as much as possible, for that One Big Hit that was going to sink the ship. These players don’t research encounters, don’t bring the right type of flask (because, what’s another 300 intellect really in the huge pool of intellect?), or listen to advice given by their peers. When they realize that the bosses in DS now get easier, they might cheer because perhaps they’ll go on to try Warhorn or even save their little guild from stopping raiding or even disbanding.
Things are more complex than the vocal masses make them out to be. Blizzard has to try to balance a game for millions of different players, and there’s no law saying that only the skilled to very skilled people have the right to go into a raid and be fairly successful.
End rant
I used to be a fairly hardcore player, with a server second Lich King heroic kill and some good rankings in Ulduar under my belt. Now I’m a casual player, a father of 2 young girls, playing in a tiny guild with other parents, struggling to kill Ultraxion on normal mode. People just can not push the button. I can push the button. I can probably kill Ultraxion with my eyes closed, provided the other 9 players in my raid group know what they’re doing. But yet, as a small guild with very mixed players in, we can not get past 4/8 on normal. To us the buff will simply be a way to continue having nice evenings on Mumble together, raiding a little, talking a little, laughing about our holy paladin pulling wife aggro when the raid goes on too long.
I urge the vocal masses to remember who they are, and that there are many others out there who are not as skilled and great as they are. There are heroic modes for you, and to be honest, if you haven’t gone more than 2/8 heroic by now, perhaps the nerf will be a way for you to eventually go 8/8? Try to look at the bright side, don’t always scream bloody murder when some little insignificant thing happens.
Much love, nice blog!