🐙 Crucible of Storms is closing way too early!

Community General Discussion
1

I think that many players and raiders are not aware of this, but Crucible of Storms and its achievements are already coming to an end in the next couple weeks with 8.2.

With that in mind, I know that many people don’t care about it, while others agree/disagree with this decision. But I’m not here to create some sort of poll. I’m here to talk about the design philosophy behind raiding, the overall timeframe, and tuning.

It’s going to be a long read, so if it’s not your kind of thing, you can spare your time.

Without further ado, let’s get started.

CONS

1. Gearing from Eternal Palace may devalue Crucible of Storms Achievements

It’s not really true!

Crucible of Storms was tuned very tight, even for World First Guilds with 417+ average item level and using the most optimized composition they were able to make. Just to give you some perspective, those same World First guilds killed Mythic Jaina with 406+ average item level!

That’s more than 10 item level of difference for one raid that is supposed to be the following part of Battle of Dazar’alor raid progression. Also, we shouldn’t forget that Mythic Battle of Dazar’alor only offers 415 item level gear! So in order to progress through Crucible of Storms, you actually need MORE GEAR than you’re able to get. I can’t remember now one single raid that had this disparity with nearly no item level upgrades and that also lasted for less than three months.

2. Gear from Eternal Palace is way too high compared to Crucible of Storms

That’s also untrue if we take into account Trial of Valor and Nighthold.

Trial of Valor is the Legion version of Crucible of Storms, one raid that had very tight tuned bosses in its launch, and came halfway of Emerald Nightmare lifetime.

It’s important to talk about Trial of Valor because it was released between Emerald Nightmare and Nighthold, and the achievements from Trial of Valor were available during the whole lifetime of Nighthold. That’s right, Trial of Valor achievements were available under both the Emerald Nightmare and the Nighthold Season!

Now let’s see how were the item level back then, and how they’re right now.

Mythic Emerald Nightmare: 885
Mythic Trial of Valor: 890
Mythic Nighthold: 905

Mythic Battle of Dazar’alor: 415
Mythic Crucible of Storms: 425
Mythic Eternal Palace: 445

So, here’s the math, from Trial of Valor to Nighthold players had 15 item level increase while from Crucible of Storms to Eternal Palace we’re going to get 20 item level increase, it’s nearly the same scenario especially if take into account that Trial of Valor received way more nerfs than Crucible of Storms and still lasted more than twice as long.

3. Rise of Azshara Essences will make things too easy

That’s also not true either because Nighthold also added their “Essences”:

  • Tier Set Bonuses, Emerald Nightmare/Trial of Valor hadn’t any tier sets available;
  • New Legendaries;
  • New Artifact Traits when 7.2 was launched two months prior to Tomb of Sargeras release;
  • World Bosses with 900 item level gear in Broken Shore, also two months prior to Tomb of Sargeras release;

If we think about all those things that came over Trial of Valor lifespan, it’s fair to say if they were not equal to Essences they were probably more powerful, and none of those things removed Trial of Valor Achievements.

PROS

1. The lifetime of Crucible of Storms

Currently, Crucible of Storms is going to be the shortest raid ever made, since Ahead of the Curve and Cutting Edge introduction back in Mists of Pandaria.

We haven’t even reached two months yet!

The shortest Mythic Raid prior to Crucible of Storms was Terrace of Endless Spring with 104 days! Three months and a half of lifetime!

104 DAYS NOT TAKING INTO ACCOUNT THE FIRST NORMAL WEEK!

Lifetime of Raids since Mists of Pandaria Release

Raid Days Available
Mogu’shan Vaults 153
Heart of Fear 125
Terrace of Endless Spring 111
Throne of Thunder 188
Siege of Orgrimmar 398
Highmaul 202
Blackrock Foundry 139
Hellfire Citadel 392
Emerald Nightmare 119
Trial of Valor 223
Nighthold 153
Tomb of Sargeras 161
Antorus the Burning Throne 230
Uldir 139

*Including the first Normal/Heroic Week!
**Not Including Battle of Dazar’alor and Crucible of Storms since it’s not finished!

2. Crucible of Storms achievements can be removed in 8.2.5 instead. More content available for 8.2

I mean, Crucible of Storms came one month AFTER 8.1.5 was released. Why not allow this raid to have at least a full patch worth of time like every single raid had since the game release?

Closing it in 8.2.5 would also remove the item level gap between Crucible of Storms and Eternal Palace since most guild will be still progressing through Heroic/Mythic Eternal Palace and will be sitting below 445 item level.

This way Crucible of Storm would still remain as a challenge and also would give 8.2 more content to do since Eternal Palace has only 8 bosses and will probably last for a long time before the next raid.

3. Alliance Crucible of Storms Hall of Fame can be finished

While the Horde Hall of Fame is about to finish, only two spots are still available for Horde guilds, the Alliance Hall of Fame is still on its beginning, with only 12 guilds on it. With that in mind, how we should take the game rules seriously if they are not going to be followed going forward?

I mean, the Hall of Fame is meant to be given to the first one hundred guilds from Horde and the first one hundred from Alliance. Not one hundred of one faction and only fifty of another. Closing it so soon, and not allowing Alliance players to fill their leaderboard is completely unfair, feels like Blizzard don’t even care about the Alliance community anymore.

This kind of thing would make even more players leave the Alliance, since they already have a small raiding community that’s struggling to survive, and are not even allowed to finish their own Hall of Fame.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Crucible of Storms was really tight in difficult since the World First race, most guilds are still struggling there even to get past Restless Cabal, the very first boss of the instance.

The raid has almost no item upgrades, we don’t have an item level path to follow in order to overcome the bosses like every previous raid of the game, that’s why the guild rankings are barely moving.

I’ve been checking the rankings almost every day and I’ve been seeing numbers like ~1,6 Uu’nat kills for each day since Crucible of Storms was released.

It’s also important to point out the overall length of the encounters and pull count. Right now both encounters have track records of nearly ten minutes for Restless Cabal and over ten minutes for Uu’nat, that’s INSANE, especially if we take into account the overall pull count of ~200 for Restless Cabal and ~400 for Uu’nat, to bring these numbers into perspective, we’re talking about over 50 hours worth of progress for Crucible of Storms alone.

This is insane considering that most guilds are still farming Battle of Dazar’alor for appropriate gear for main characters and alts of needed classes to overcome the bosses in Crucible of Storms.

But there’s more, even Trial of Valor, that was the Legion version of Crucible of Storms AND lasted through all of Nighthold’s lifetime, received a wave of HEAVY NERFS ONE MONTH prior to Nighthold release!

Something that still didn’t happen to Crucible of Storms, even when this raid is planned to be available for less than THREE MONTHS!

This whole thing is really sad for me. I’ve been doing tries with my guild there, but it’s really soul-crushing. We’re losing members every week, we’ve to come back to Battle of Dazar’alor also every week, and the most guilds that I’ve spoken with are dealing with this same drama. As 8.2 patch gets closer and closer every day our hopes fade away and people start to wonder…

Why this is happening:? Is this going to happen again?
Why Blizzard released one Raid so late and are removing it so soon?

I think this is probably the kind of thing that makes fewer and fewer players join the Mythic raiding community nowadays.

Thanks for reading! :heart:

2

I dont mind it at all, that raid is pretty boring, i did try to kill the last boss the first week but i stopped caring after. Its a pretty boring fight as melee. Hopefully the new raids are fun.

1 Like
3

CoS was just a mini raid, doesn’t matter if it ends early because it was just meant to fill time until 8.2. With the heavy nerfs CE is already devalued as an achivement.

4

But barely one hundred guilds managed to get it done, it’s going to be the raid with fewer kills since Naxxramas 60, Sunwell…

5

But what do you get from it? What’s the purpose? You can have your guild on a leader board, and? A lot of current guilds need a lot more motivation and with 8.2 around the corner a lot of that is already shot. Delaying the new content for basically nothing at this point hurts more people than it helps.

I know no one in my guild cares for the gear nor the achievement. maybe if a cool mount was involved. Need a better hook.

6

good, let them banish that raid and delete it lol.
too many mechanics that aren’t actually fun just over lapping because why not.

1 Like
7

Yeah you walk in and the boss is right there its like… cool, no lore, no nothing, just a duo with one is a giant meele and one is a caster. how interesting.

1 Like
8

I’m not speaking of delaying 8.2. I’m only suggesting that people should be allowed to progress, just a little longer, at least until 8.2.5 that will probably come just a couple months after 8.2 release.

That’s not an unreasonable amount of time, I’m talking about just 60 days.

I mean, every raid had at least 100 days of lifespan, why Crucible is closing with like 70 =( …

9

It’s the least boss raid ever isn’t it? And it’s not ending on 8.2. It’s end on eternal palace open. Which I think earliest is 16th of next month.

Beside people will get power boost with some early essence on 8.2 live. It’s not like there’s a lot of boss to work through either.

1 Like
10

The achievements don’t go away until the new raid opens, two weeks after 8.2 drops. The raid itself is not going away, neither is it’s loot.

And the fight has been significantly nerfed, and Eternal Palace is adding on an extra ~20 ilvls. Stop being intentionally misleading.

This is the fourth post you’ve made on this. You’ve straight up threatened to quit multiple times because you’re going to miss CE.

Get over it. There’s nothing wrong with a raid being extremely exclusive.

Literally what.

11

No there are plenty of 1 and 2’s
but its pretty short and boring with no real reason to kill it, considering 430 drops on random quest crap turn ins now or w/e.

12

I would agree if the bosses weren’t like two Jainas to work with.

The time that Horde guilds took to fill the Hall of Fame is nearly the same of Battle of Dazar’alor to give some perspective.

We’re talking about a 2 Bosses Raid that’s taking nearly the same amount of progress time of a 9 Bosses Raid… think about it.

13

Now you’re exaggerating, again. Cabal, post nerfs, is at most a 150-200 pull boss. Uu’nat is 250-400, depending on your guild.

Jaina was a good 350-400, roughly the difficulty of Uu’nat post nerfs as she was pre-nerfs. Cabal is significantly easier.

1 Like
14

What? I’m not threatening to quit, I just talk about it being the last straw ONE TIME in another topic, among other things that I thought was bad but I decided to keep going and playing because I never felt betrayed, and I also had found some enjoyment in being able to complete raids.

That’s all. I’m just a bit depressed with how they’re handling this raid for no purpose.

I really would like to know why Crucible of Storm is being handled this way, while Trial of Valor wasn’t.

I think every raid lasting around 100 days is a fair amount of time since you know every CE raid lasted more than 100 days, but two months and a half, even before Hall of Fame is finished? What’s the point? I mean, what’s even the point of the Hall of Fame if the Cutting Edge is nearly the same thing in this case?

15

It’s literally one raid. If you’re not good enough to achieve CE, you’re not. My guild made peace with probably just sitting on Cabal and not dealing with Uu’nat. Many guilds have made a similar decision.

That’s what you seemed to have somehow left out. Many guilds aren’t progressing it because they can’t, or because they don’t have enough time.

CoS came out a short time after BoD. BoD, while not exactly the most grueling tier, was still a full raid in it’s own right. Assuming Eternal Palace will be a raid comparable to Uldir-BoD in difficulty, it will be a decent tier in it’s own right.

People simply don’t want to play as much in BFA. Many guilds have made the decision to stop playing until EP comes out, so as to avoid burnout and other issues. Not from too hard of bosses splitting their guild apart. People just aren’t having fun.

I mean, they’ve spoken on the subject before. ToV was intended to be released alongside Nighthold. They underestimated player’s AP farming, legendary farming, and titanforge farming capabilities/willingness, and untertuned EN. Almost ten-thousand guilds killed Xavius. That’s by far one of the most non-prestigious CE’s, ever. They released ToV early to keep people entertained/engaged,

ToV was already planned to be a NH tier raid. It wasn’t supposed to be released so early. So it was simply treated as was initially intended, as part of the Nighthold tier, so as to not screw players over due to Blizzard’s mistake in tuning with titanforging.

CoS was never intended to be part of Eternal Palace’s tier. It was, and is, simply a median point to keep people from growing too bored in 8.1. Blizzard from the get-go indicated it would be tightly tuned and more of a “challenge” raid, comparable to end-of-tier BoD bosses in difficulty. After nerfs, they’re not far off that mark.

You’re intentionally misrepresenting this as Blizzard releasing a raid that’s far too hard and coldly not giving players not enough time and cruelly refusing to accommodate player’s by nerfing the bosses, oh the Humanity

People don’t want to raid CoS. It’s a two boss raid they can live without. You’re drawing a comparison to ToV, which is not a direct comparison. The two are vastly different in everything but boss count.

Some people would argue there’s no point in having CE at all once a boss has been nerfed into the ground. I think this is a fair compromise for a single two boss raid.

If you want it so bad, go do it.

1 Like