Revisionist history much. It was absolutely harder. Both content itself, and the rate of gear acquisition.
Maybe if you came after Annulet was released, then maybe not so much?
But if you came at the end of S1, then comparing it to S2 now (when it’s not the end.) Isn’t a fair comparison.
Algethar academy had crawth.
The entire of azure vaults.
Ruby Life pools had kyrakka… if you managed to survive the trash.
Jade Serpent had the third boss and sha of doubt, and the last pull before the final boss.
Halls of valor had well… every boss except the first.
COS was also hard before they reworked the lines.
SBG was mostly free.
Nokhud had the second boss.
With how fast you can get geared, it was pretty easy to do even +18-20 by the first couple of weeks of season 2. I haven’t touched m+ for a month now, but seeing people complaining now it seems to me that less skilled players are finally getting to do higher keys and are running into problems.
No, I haven’t provided a solution because I don’t have one. I’m hoping the multi billion dollar company can pay some of their staff to come up with their own ideas.
A bare minimum start would be making the spec more forgiving. Some people would appreciate that, some wouldn’t, but we can’t all be happy.
But isn’t that what lower content is for? And since we have a surplus on the high end, I think if you want more people, you want to make stuff less forgiving.
Not going to lie, I like to DPS as I heal. Maybe thats why I enjoyed Disc so much in the past. I prefer to triage while DPSing and then when big mechanics come in focus back on healing & shielding.
BUT, sadly those who cried about healers needing to DPS keys is part of the problem that got us into this mess. Blizzard listened to them and here we are.
healers needing to dps isn’t a serious thing within game. People hardly cared. It’s just overly preached upon in class Discords where people try to min-max stuff. As if you didn’t dps, you were trash.
Now it’s shifted to: If it gets the key done, it’s fine. Doesn’t matter if you go all out dps or not.
Correct and it wasn’t. But yet blizzard listened to them. IIRC even Ion stated such, though I cant remember when that was, so cant reference the article.
The ONLY people who cared anything about this was a super small % of players who focused on the highest keys possible and was pushing the limits of their gear and skill.
I do think there was overwhelming demand for more time to be spent on healing. And so here we are for a different reason. And sometimes during shadowlands it was lacking.
S1 was 2x worse for dungeon tuning and affix rotations but they nerfed them at about 4th week. S1 dungeon rotations was decent. S2 dungeons are worse than S1 dungeons, they have too many amount of bleeds, magic debuffs, dots, diseases and other that can melts people. They don’t fix anything with Incorporeal (spawn in a very weird place and CCs can still stack) and Afflicted (it’s the worst designed affix) since week 1. S2 dungeons is still spiky with a 25% healing nerf.
Afflicted is not worse than Incorporeal. It takes less time to deal with, just make your group properly. I suppose it is worse if you don’t play with the right people.
It’s also far better than explosive, which is what they’re replacing.
S1 dungeons had quite a few more nerfs than just four weeks out.
100% agree. Heck I even had healers raging in raid last season at the healing needed on a couple of bosses. Mostly on thunderchicken at the end. But yea, tuning was whacked!
The worst thing about the affixes is that new healers struggle with doing the affixes. Its not intuitive at all mostly due to the crap UI design. Name plates for the affixes should pop up on the screen for players to see them. Hence why I installed VuhDo…
Just because Blizzard doles out charity nerfs from time to time, doesn’t mean content is too hard.
For all the complaints about afflicted - I’m getting the sense people complain about the affix even with the right people.
Yet in every scenario, it’s easier to deal with than incorporeal.
The worst thing about the affixes is that new healers struggle with doing the affixes. Its not intuitive at all mostly due to the crap UI design. Name plates for the affixes should pop up on the screen for players to see them. Hence why I installed VuhDo…
Wouldn’t new healers also be doing level 7s where penalty for failure is minimal or lower where afflicted simply doesn’t exist?
I dont have any problems with the affixes. I honestly feel blizzard has nerfed so many of them into the ground that they are zero problems themself. Its just the UI design that bugs me. Like if one of the affixes pops up way the heck back because stupid hunter is 5 miles back and bated the thing. So wen it goes off everyone is pffd at the healer for not getting it. Of if it pops up in the middle of a trash pack. Simple name frame poping up on the screen like boss frame do would make things more intuitive for new players to understand.
How’s this different from incorporeals going off, and spawning in equally inconvenient places? And cause CCs can overlap, maybe everyone used theirs on the same one.
Afflicted invalid many group comp because we want to bring 3+ classes with dispel and many classes except a few specs like Mage are off-meta and undesirable on Afflicted week.
The worst weeks in S1 were:
Fortified / Raging / Quaking by mile
Any week with Explosive
Raging affix can wipe the group instantly and you need 2-3+ classes with soothe because of how hard mobs can hit. Quaking can wipe the group with 0 counterplay, Hyrja on Tyrannical / Quaking was pure degeneracy for example. There was a really good reasons to retired Quaking and Explosive affixes. Do you remember hilariously overtuned M+ bosses like tree boss in AA, last boss in TJS and every boss in RLP. RLP and AV were absolutely hellholes, RLP and AV alone makes S1 much worse than S2. After many round of nerfs, S1 dungeons were okay and the affixes were a biggest problems.
Sure but how about magic debuffs, disease dots and another type of DoTs? Most of them are applying DoTs on multiple party members. They can melting people and heavily pressure healers with 25% healing nerfs. S2 dungeons have too many amount of DoTs on different type of DoTs. S2 dungeons are easily worse than S1 dungeons because of dungeon designs and forced to take mandatory classes to be tolerable with dungeons.
