Knockdown Too Overtuned for Soloing Older Content

WoW Classic WoW Classic Bug Report
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The new knockdown mechanic to stop the boosting seems bugged. I’m not sure exactly what triggers it - and I’m certain that it’s intentionally vague to prevent anyone from gaming the system - but in it’s current iteration it all but prevents even solo players from just playing.

Today, in TBC Classic, I took my 65 prot paladin back to RFD and ZF to do the quests I skipped while leveling for a break. By all rights I should have no issues soloing these two instances and I didn’t anticipate issues. I resisted most/all spells and only took some damage (my gear is far from optimal)… but in RFD I periodically found some mobs applying a ‘knockdown’ that even hit me through the bubble. This happened even more frequently in ZF… like on almost every other pull. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out which mob was even doing it - nothing was in the combat log - so I could not even try and focus on that mob first… so I turned to Google… and Google told me this is a mechanic that was just added to stop boosting.

I started paying more attention and it seemed to happen on large pulls (mobs run at low HP in ZF, so a single mob on a pally that does low damage and goes OOM in a heartbeat can easily become a large pull), small pulls, all pulls. The only consistent trigger was TIME. It seems that anytime I’m in combat more than 20-30s any non-boss mob (and by that I mean any mob not dropping boss loot) will start knocking down. This includes mobs that were summoned by bosses and are part of boss events. The group for the Divinomatic rod? Knockdown. Nekrum Gutchewer? Knockdown. Basilisks summoned by Antu’sul? Knockdown. Zombies summoned by Zum’rah? Some Knockdown. The single random troll that keeps healing while my hammer is on CD and I’m OOM, starts knocking me down after 20-30s of fighting.

While I totally understand this mechanic to stop boosting - why would this mechanic be applied when a person is in the dungeon SOLO? And beyond that, why would it be 100% Time based and not related to the size of the pull or relation to spawn point or anything? It happened even if I was in combat with a SINGLE MOB that was standing right on top of where they spawned?? Shouldn’t there be more factors in when the mobs start their knockdown sprees?

Additionally - please look into how it interacts with ranged mobs. Knockdown + Archer mobs seems to cause a weird loop effect, especially since they can knockdown at range, where they keep knocking down and running around to shoot, and eventually reset themselves. one entire room reset at one point while I was flopping up and down in ZF.

ETA - fixed subject to mention this is specific to when soloing - also, posted first reply on the character actually having the issue on the TBC Classic server (accidentally used the wrong toon for original post)

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Same person - posting on the right toon (the one on the TBC Classic Server - posted on the wrong one before oops!).

Today, I went to try for my mount in Strath. I know Strath would be at touchy subject, but being 65, and therefore only 4 levels above the upper range - and a gain SOLO (I’m a bit anti-social, unguilded and way too broke to pay for help to get the mount even if anyone could help at this point… which as I explain below appears impossible… I have been trying to see if/when I’d be able to solo this quest chain); I went to give it a shot.

I really enjoyed soloing the older content during the original BC / Wrath for achievements and completion, but with the current boosting-block mechanic / Knockdown it is impossible to solo this content even for completion’s sake. If it isn’t done at the right level, it’s unplayable. I have more detail below, but I guess if the class quest chains aren’t done right at 60 with a full group of 60s, they will now be un-doable. Having a party member over-level in the group will break the instance and prevent completion… which is beyond disappointing.

I had failed to complete this solo at lower levels (62-64) prior to the patch that introduced the knockdown mechanic due to sheer inability to handle the normal mob damage/crappy gear. Now, with some gear upgrades and higher level, the Knockdown is destroying me.

If I’m in combat for a bit too long due to a string of unlucky dodges or other RNG, mobs will start knocking me down. It’s already a challenge at this level (as it should be); which is a challenge that I was looking forward to - but this makes it impossible… It still does not show in combat logs, but the knockdown is still happening even though:

  • I’m completely alone in the instance, not being boosted or boosting anyone else;

  • I’m only 4 levels over the upper level range of the instance per the summoning stone;

  • I’m only using bubble or pots or whatever as you would expect (in an emergency to prevent dying…) and knockdown happens even before I use these items at times;

  • I’m only pulling ONE group at a time since I’m definitely not geared or able to do more than that without dying;

  • No mobs are running to get friends or chain pulling adds to keep me in combat beyond what I initially pull;

  • Combat is generally lasting 45ish seconds per pull or less - knockdowns seem to start around that 45-60s mark if I’m not yet out of combat;

Before anyone mentions that the knockdown still exists when you are solo in addition to boosting a lower level as a means to stop gold farming directly, I’ll reiterate that I’m 65 and there would be MUCH better ways to get gold than trying to slowly pull this instance for drops/gold to vendor/AH even without the knockdown. Level 65 is also only 4 levels above the instance level range per the summoning stone - that’s really not that ‘high’ and some mobs in the instance are actually still green to me. There’s clearly something wrong that it’s triggering in this situation.

And while I’m in the instance to try and work on the class mount (well at this point I’m focused on getting the key to the city to eventually work on the mount); it occurred to me that this also 100% breaks anyone being able to grind or build rep with Argent Dawn since even if you pass level 60 you’d need a full group to even try to run the instance to get rep and even then it would be a nightmare. This would also affect any quests or attunements that may rely on running level 60 dungeons.

From what I experienced in ZF yesterday there seems to be a short 5-6s cooldown per mob on the knockdown, but not per group. So if you have a group of even 2-4 mobs, they can ultimately begin to chain it quickly so that you cannot perform actions at all which snowballs until you are just dead. Perfect to stop boosting, but also 100% breaks SOLOING which breaks rep grinding or grinding for specific older gear / quest items / mounts / etc.

I’m not arguing to bring back boosting at all - but please don’t break our ability to run older instances for rep, quests, attunements, experiences, etc. Some of my best memories from Wrath/TBC/etc were SOLOING this old content or running small groups through old raids while getting items. While I understand wanting to build community, this set-up would just shift people from paying for boosts to paying for help to run simple instances they out-level so they can just do quests and experience content they missed.

Why should a level 65 need help killing a group of level 40 trolls? Why should open world elites be significantly easier to kill than instance mobs 10 or so levels lower than they are in a solo situation? I can reliably solo level 63 elite giants in HFP with some CD timing, but can’t always kill a level 55 zombie because they are in an instance? Or guarantee that I can take on a group of three hunter-type level 45 trolls?

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A heavy-handed “fix” to combat boosting that ends up ruining the gameplay experience of legitimate players. Sounds like Blizzard. It’s absurd because just nerfing EXP gains with high level disparity in the group would have been enough on its own to fix it. GG

7 Likes
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I’m not sure what the level threshold is for the changes to take effect, I’ve heard some people say that if the mob is gray for you it happens whereas if the mobs are green it doesn’t.
When you’re in combat for 1 minute mobs will start to stun you. It goes through everything, even Ice Block and BoP.

Every mob will do this after 1 minute, I’ve solo’d Stratholme UD to kill Baron and at the end of it I tested the extent of the changes so I aggro’d 3 Ghouls. Just like Blizzard said after 30 seconds snares and slows no longer effected them so my Frost Nova and Blizzard spells can no longer CC them and after a minute they started to stun me which I couldn’t even blink out of.

This is to stop boots, bots and gold inflation but mostly to curb RMT and while these changes are fairly new we’ll have to see how much they impact RMT.

It’s entirely possible to solo Stratholme, if you can’t currently do it then it only means that your current gear isn’t up to par.

Get to 70 or even wait for pre-patch, that way you’ll be stronger than you are now.

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Definitely leveling higher will help - I don’t doubt that. But some classes always would have been on the cusp of soloing that type of content, just due to mechanics and ability. Seems like the heavy handed fix unfairly penalizes someone just trying to solo the content to finish out quests or get progress on achievements (which I believe should be coming with Wrath…).

I was eventually able to get Magistrate down, and then the actual quest mobs were a joke to solo & get my fast horsey. FYI - even green mobs were doing the knockdown. it wasn’t a ‘grey’ mob issue. It must be entirely time based. I was still 65 at the time.

This ultimately leaves people in a dumb area where you will have a donut hole where you are too high to be ‘allowed’ by Blizz to group with anyone to run the instance as it will trigger tons of anti-boosting features; but too low/undergeared to solo it quick enough; and therefore effectively shut out of it entirely.

Even if I wanted to get a group of other 65s together to just run Strat to get my mount - not at all boosting - just to run it (for experience/rep/whatever), we would likely end up demolished if we end up with a single chain pull. I shudder to imagine a dungeon with runners and an inability to root them…which would happen after 30s…

I don’t support boosting at all - but I think that there should have been a bit more consideration / checks placed on the anti-boosting mechanics to ensure that non-conventional LEGIT groups or even just SOLO players aren’t also getting dragged into the punishment. Soloing isn’t boosting…

I can’t imagine that Blizz has no way of determining who is in an instance or the #s of players and player levels. They should have anti-boosting mechanics triggered by more specific limits, IE:

*There is more than 1 player in the dungeon
*The highest player level is >1 or 2 levels above the summoning stone level (with lower levels in the group)
*The lowest player level is <1 or 2 levels below the summoning stone level (with higher levels in the group)
*The loot setting is master loot or something similarly abnormal for a legit group (idk, but I assume this was how boosting worked since they often advertised no loot)

Lastly, there should be some type of chat or raid warning when there’s anti-boosting mechanics in place for the instance. I’m mentioning this because one of my initial issues was that I didn’t even REALIZE the problem here was anti-boosting mechanics!

Call me naive, but I legit thought that I was just getting some bad luck on normal mob abilities and mechanics… I can get a raid warning when I’m not in a group’s instance telling me I’m getting ported out / removed from the instance, but not even a combat log message about getting damaged & knocked down by mobs due to anti-boosting? It just becomes some huge mystery?

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this is definitely and issue for players trying to solo dungeons for something like the strat mount. ive ran strat solo over 200 times to get the mount. now when i do it, i have no issues until i get to the abomination gauntlet, i like to pull the gauntlet in two pulls. but now the combat goes on for long enough for blizzard to assume I (a monthly paying customer who pays more than they should to play this game) am a bot trying to farm or something idk. i dont do it for gold, i just want the mount, i find this frustrating. just let me play the game blizz. feral druid level 70 btw with raid gear.

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Knockdown needs to be fixed.

I was trying to farm some mageweave in a dungeon and I keep getting knockdown with 3 mobs on me!!!

This is just a terrible joke. no wonder mageweave is 10g a stack on my server.

Blizzard you are just bad. Stop being bad.

Put in a level range like every OTHER GAME IN THE WORLD. Like a player 10 levels above other players will stop exp gains for everyone.

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So, clearly some thought was given to this before they just rolled out a “fix” that would stop some sort of “game breaking” behavior. This REALLY frustrating though, and it just feels like a horrible bug itself. I’m not sure if the offender is boosting or gold farming or bots, but I feel like there are better fixes for any of of those.

  • boosting: Nerf the XP when there’s a higher level.
  • gold farming: Nerf the instance trash raw gold drops a bit.
  • bots: Ban them, ban them fast, don’t let them cash out, or they’ll just keep making more. And, if the most common offender is dungeon farm bots, then your search is narrowed and your job is even easier.

I wish they wouldn’t ruin wow activities just because a bot can do it easily. Sometimes we enjoy a nice mindless grind. Bots are going to go somewhere else, but a grind that I enjoyed from time to time is now ruined.

BTW if the AH wasn’t so horrible, raw gold grinds would be much less enticing. I just can’t stand using the AH for longer than I absolutely have to. Like hell am I going to “play the AH”, or even scan for something profitable to farm. “BRB clicking through 500 pages of single stack arcane dust to determine what the current market price is”
I’m really not sure why they are holding back the nice, polished retail AH, that they developed anyway. Is anyone actually playing classic because they love the clunky auction house?

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kill them faster and/or divide the abombs into smaller pulls