Today we’re going to have a little chat about my opinion and experience thus far in the Firelands since the most recent Sept 20th hotfixes. With this, we have a laundry list of nerfs making the content much easier. In general, most bosses have 25% less HP, and do 25% less damage on normal mode. In HC it’s 15%. This has left me torn between ‘This is a good thing’ and ‘Are you serious, I worked my ass off’. Let’s go over the two sides.

The Bad
The prime reason that I’m seeing this as a negative is because my group has worked pretty hard to get where they are (Ranked 13th on the realm). We wiped a lot and got frustrated a lot, but were able to cheer like pros when we downed the boss because we were skilled enough to do so. Now with the 25% nerf, this means that 25% more groups that have been wiping will now share our same glory (Realistically, this is likely to be higher than 25% more given the hp % needed to push certain phase changes.)
There is no difference in title, no extra honor or bonus for doing it when it was more difficult. As petty as this may be, I feel ripped off.

Another reason this is bad is that (in theory) we’ll be with the content sooner. Though we got our asses handed to us week after week by the Firelord, I knew that one of these days we’d have his number. We even came close a few times. We were working and honing our skills to do so. With the nerfs, I know we’re going to beat him now not because we’re better but because he’s worse. Honestly, beating him now compared to before is like beating a retarded sea cucumber to death under water with a hammer: It may take time but it’s not hard.

The Good
A few weeks back one of our healers chickened out and quit, leaving us stuck on Ragnaros. This left us scrambling to fill the 3rd heal spot in our group. Those tore a hole in our group, which we scrambled to fill. When the smoke cleared, we had 4 toons from the initial raids with us and 5 toons with a Fireland’s cherry to pop. We are still missing a DPS. Thanks to the nerfs, we can still make progress while gearing up the new toons, Most fights are easily healed with two healers, and mistakes are more forgivable.
You can say nerf wrapped out group with duct tape.

Some examples

• We 9-maned the first 5 bosses of the Raid.

Shannox:

• With only the tank and one DPS, we DPS’d Shannox so quickly that one of his dogs were still up and enraged.
• The dogs hit like little bitches.

Beth’tilac:

• I tanked one of the drones as a Resto Druid with Barkskin, Treeform and RJ; while rolling LB on the tank.

Alysrazor:

• Can easily be done with two healers, possibly one if you can keep both tanks in range while they have the hatchlings.
• I don’t think I went below 80% mana healing this fight.
• Druids of the flame don’t cast Fiery blast nearly as often (if ever) since they die quickly.
• Tornadoes are also pretty much a tickle, our mage survived 2 hits back-to-back.

Baleroc:

• Two healing it; Took two torment victims/vital flame (one crystal) each before switching off compared to one victim/vital flame. We only switched 3 times before he was dead.
• Single tank instead of two tanks, since he doesn’t hit nearly as hard or often.

Lord Rhyolith:

• I single healed it, using Intervene only once.

Majordomo Staghelm:

• We killed him on our first try during the cat phase following Searing Seeds (before he even made it to the mushroom phase).

Overall, I have to say that the changes are good only because it saved the group I’m with, enabling me to keep raiding each week. If it wasn’t for that, I’d have to say I feel a little ripped off with the short period of time I’ve gotten to spend with these bosses.

End game: I think these changes will make the content boring sooner. Without a challenge, why bother playing? My biggest hope is that with this the Patch 4.3 is coming very soon with some new challenges. Though I can’t see that happening until at least mid-November.