Firelands Raid Testing Development Notes

In Development Cataclysm Classic 4.4.1 PTR
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Now that we’ve had a first round of testing in Firelands and some time to process your feedback, we’ve moved forward with many changes to the raid.

First and foremost, we’ve heard many players’ feedback that the current challenge across all difficulties in Firelands on PTR is not as satisfying as they hoped.

Firelands is an iconic raid and throughout original Cataclysm there were a number of significant changes (both documented and undocumented) that impacted the challenge of the raid. For Cataclysm Classic, we’ve gone through every single creature and spell record across all four difficulties in the Firelands raid and reviewed all changes to original creature health and damage values, as well as spell damage for each individual difficulty. We then determined if the change was appropriate and, in most cases, we restored the original values where it made sense to do so.

We want this raid to live up to its challenging, but iconic status and to maintain a meaningful sense of progression across all raid sizes and difficulties, so we’ve made sufficient adjustments to restore much of the “feel” of the original state of the raid. At the same time, we’ve tried to leave behind some of the more frustrating mechanical elements that weren’t as fun as the team had originally hoped when first released.

The exception to this rule is Rhyolith. Due to the nature of the fight, we have decided at this time to not make any aspect of this encounter more difficult through restoring original HP and damage values.

Here’s a summary of many of the post-4.2 adjustments that we have reverted and are no longer present in Cataclysm Classic:

Enemy Health

  • The 25% health reduction on most Normal Mode enemies has been reversed.
  • The 15% health reduction on most Heroic Mode enemies has been reversed.
  • Blazing Talon Initiate health was reduced by 50% on Normal Mode and Voracious Hatchling HP was reduced by 30% on Normal Mode. Both of these have been reversed.

Melee Damage

  • Melee damage of some enemies was also reduced after patch 4.2, and we’re also undoing that. Some enemies that should punch you harder include:

  • Beth’tilac

  • Voracious Hatchlings

  • Shannox

  • Riplimb

  • Rageface

  • Baleroc

  • Majordomo Staghelm

  • Spirit of the Flame

  • Molten Elementals on Heroic difficulty

Spell Damage

Spell damage across all difficulties has been adjusted.

  • Beth’tilac and her adds had damage reductions ranging from 10% to 45% in some cases. These have been reversed.
  • You should expect more damage from the following abilities:
    • Ember Flare in both Phase 1 and 2
    • Burning Acid
    • Volatile Burst.

Alysrazor had many adjustments to difficulty. The following spells now do more damage:

  • Firestorm
  • Volcanic Fire
  • Blazing Claw
  • Incendiary Cloud
  • Brushfire
  • Fieroblast
  • Gushing Wound
  • Lava Spew
  • Fiery Vortex
  • Harsh Winds
  • Fiery Tornado
  • Blazing Buffet
  • Full Power

Shannox now does more damage across all raid sizes and difficulties with:

  • Immolation Trap
  • Jagged Tear
  • Hurl Spear
  • Magma Flare
  • Magma Rupture

Baleroc changes include:

  • Torment deals more damage.
  • Inferno Blade deals more damage.
  • The duration of Tormented has been increased on Normal difficulties to match the Heroic durations.
  • The attack speed slow while Decimation Blade is active has been removed.

Majordomo Staghelm deals more damage with:

  • Burning Orbs
  • Leaping Flames
  • Flame Scythe
  • Searing Seeds deal more damage.

Ragnaros deals more damage with:

  • Dreadflame
  • Meteor Impact
  • Sulfuras Smash
  • Superheated
  • Supernova
  • Magma Trap Eruption
  • Blazing Heat
  • Engulfing Flames
  • Hand of Ragnaros
  • Lava Wave
  • Molten Inferno
  • Molten Seed
  • Wrath of Ragnaros

Thank you for testing the Firelands raid in Cataclysm Classic’s PTR. We’re looking forward to seeing you on Friday, October 4 starting at 1:00 p.m. PDT (4:00 p.m. EDT) and, as always, your feedback.

4 Likes
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I love it. Having the harder version is a big win.

I only wish we could get some mid phase nerfs after most people who will clear it prenerf have done so, which were absent for Tier 11, to give some light at the end of the tunnel for guilds who are struggling. So many have disbanded I feel the server is deserted. Regular mid phase nerfs going forward is something that will breathe life back into those guilds.

2 Likes
3

Seems like you’ve more or less landed where most of the community wanted you to, these look very interesting indeed, it seems like the geyser mechanic has been axed permanently however?

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Thats a bummer. I know the justification in cata as to why they axed it was because it wasn’t dealt how they wanted people to, but it would have been fun to see it, like we got to see prenerf vashj ect.

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They could have made the trigger range bigger on geyser, but they decided to remove it all together since they dont like buffing raids.

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Thank you for knowing the audience of Cata classic. Post nerf Firelands would’ve been a waste of everyone’s time. Too easy for most guilds, but still too hard for pugs. The people who would’ve liked post nerf Firelands aren’t playing Cata.

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This is either going to go really well or really, really poorly.

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I don’t really have high expectations but i’m hoping you don’t make this incredibly hard because you’ll just kill off your remaining playerbase. My guild will probably be fine but I feel most runs these days are gdkps and those are like 1 day max 2 day groups. I don’t want walk in and one shot easy but there’s also a reason i’m not playing in a high end guild on retail and that’s because I don’t want to waste weeks wiping to bosses.

3 Likes
9

Congratulations on losing more money. You guys are some of the worst devs in the industry.

2 Likes