It feels so good to be in a legitimately challenging raid again. I’ve never enjoyed wiping this much on bosses while we all collaborate and figure out how to down them.
Everyone cheering on discord after we downed the first boss reminded me of downing Ragnaros for the first time.
Anyways, I know there’s a lot of people who are very vocal about massive nerfs, which some might be justified here and there, which should be done very thoughtfully without taking away the inherent challenge of a raid with the best loot in the game.
I’m happy that SE isn’t a loot pinata and we aren’t full clearing it in one or two nights. It’s a breathe of fresh air.
11 Likes
Progression is a lot of fun.
Agreed with the general sentiment.
There are some pain points they should smooth out (I think it gets too hard too soon) but in general the progression feel of the raid is great. Theme is spot on. I also like the new mechanics, music, spell effects and visuals.
You can tell they put a lot of effort into making the fights and it has brought us back to the days of challenging content.
2 Likes
Agreed. Tuning or no tuning, the new raid is great. It’s a player problem.
1 Like
There’s a massive gap of tuning between too easy and too hard. I do not agree with the sentiment that players calling for (justifiable) nerfs want a loot piñata. It’s dishonest at best.
The problem is that Scarlet Enclave is out of place for Season of Discovery and feels like a rug pull. We’ve spent the last year and a half playing a casual friendly version of WoW that is accessible to all types of guilds and players.
Most guilds went into P8 with a 20-man roster as we were led to believe that would be the intended comp size. Needing to PUG an extra 10-20 players means less item progress that goes to our core raid teams and a revolving door of randoms joining and leaving because they rightfully feel like their time is being wasted.
Going forward it’s apparent Blizzard needs to start implementing PTRs, even if they are closed to a limited pool of testers and ship a new raid with two difficulties.
This is coming from a retail player. Hardcore progression raiding is exhausting and after spending weeks doing seasonal progression in retail, I come to Season of Discovery to relax and have fun. If this is what the future of SoD or C+ raiding looks like, I’m not interested anymore.
3 Likes
Yeah, it’s a player problem. Our guild doesn’t have enough players since we were lied to about the 20-player raid.
1 Like
Tbh, i don’t know if all these people complaining about 20 man tuning are legit running it with 20. The overwhelming majority of guilds running Naxx went in with 20+. Heck, when we cleared Naxx HM4 with 20 - and we probably were one of the last ones, we were like 12 on the server lol.
But that being said. It’s only the first lockout. With 20, we got Beatrix to 3%. Over tuned? Depends on who you ask. But I will say that to those complaining, i highly doubt they run with only 20. What’s an extra 5 people to them?
I already have ideas for next lockout if she doesn’t get nerfed on how to handle adds better. It’s the whole pre-nerf Fankriss problem again. It was VERY doable. People just had the wrong approach when doing adds. And it was a very simple solution for whatever reason, people couldn’t think of.
1 Like
Most guilds did Naxx with more than 20 but every run I did at HM3 it was no more than 22 to 25. A couple of weeks we dropped down to 19 because people had to leave.
The difference being, Naxx was very well tuned for the intended raid size. You could go in with extra but it’s such a long raid that you often lose a couple toward the end and it’s doable without needing to replace them.
As a retail raider, I cannot imagine if Blizzard stuck the “wall” boss at the #2 spot. That would never fly in retail because even with 4 raid difficulties, the devs understand that they have to make 1/2 of the raid accessible for gear progression. (Even though gear in retail comes from way more than just raiding)
Unlike SoD, real flexible raiding has variable loot. You bring more people, you get more loot at different break points. (2/3/9 or 2/4/14 for example)
1 Like
I actually don’t think the gap is as wide as you make it. The problem being the player base is so varied.
But yes you’re correct in that the latest raid is much much more tightly tuned than the rest. It’s bordering on OG Vanilla Naxx territory 20+ years ago. Even then OG Vanilla Naxx was even worse.
Keep this in perspective. It’s the first lockout with only 8 bosses. I mean, seriously? 2 bosses is 25% of content already. Let me say this again. It’s the first lockout.
If you’re here to relax and have fun that’s great. But you can’t handle one night of wiping after 1 lockout, you may want to revisit how fragile your definition of not wanting a loot pinata is.
1 Like
To be fair, a lot of 8/10 pre-nerf “dad” guilds tried Sunwell once, knew that it was going to be the last raid and just quit or stopped trying. So a lot of them wouldn’t have even bothered to begin with.
I run with 20. I also killed Beatrix and the dragon in my alt raid that has pugs with 29 and it didn’t feel bad with the extra bodies, but my 20 man raid that is fairly stacked has a lot of trouble.
2 Likes
i replied to your other thread, our 20 man team has not killed her yet either but we’re close. I would have thought that a true 20 man team would have a higher tolerance for wiping - especially since i’d imagine you didd HM4 on 20 during Naxx. That was a bit of wiping as well.
Let’s not use 18-20 year old bosses as a comparison to modern raiding. TBC raiding was creamed the second time around and it will be creamed the third.
Yes, Sunwell was overtuned to some degree but that was a symptom of its time. Blizzard was just starting to experiment with hardcore raiding.
In 2025 Season of Dads, we do not want Sunwell levels of raiding because then SoD becomes a worse version of Cata. I say this because challenging raids in Cata and MoP are at least more fun because playing your class is way more fun. You have better movement, utility and personals.
If I want that specific type of raiding, I will go elsewhere. I’ll wait for MoP Classic when my Hunter plays a lot better and has more tools to deal with difficult content.
We wiped maybe 3 or 4 times before getting hm4 KT down. We are a 1 night raid guild normally.
1 Like
Key part being: Hardmode 4.
If Scarlet Enclave had (let’s pretend) normal mode and an “elite mode” that gave some extra cosmetics, shards or something like an elite tabard to show off, I don’t think we’d be having these conversations.
1 Like
IMO I would have put Beatrix at 4 or 5 as the first major raid check. It’s a nice fight (the effects are cool) but it’s a really early raid check
I am 100% a fan of giving a few layups to start and then ramping up difficulty back half
2 Likes
Even on mythic trash? Or did you cheese like other guilds and change up the difficulty just for the bosses.
I meant 3 or 4 attempts on hm4 KT to get him down, I dont know how many times we wiped on trash…
Meh, i see NaxxHM4 and this as similar raids. It’s just that Naxx was a long freaking instance. Every wipe hurt. It hurt more than Phase 8 tbh. But it was drawn out.
Scarlet Enclave is condensed. Tighter tuned. Close graveyard. More attempts. Maybe it’s why i don’t mind this raid. Each wipe is well - ur right in front of the instance again. Running back is the worst part for me.
But imo, the ultimate amount of work put in is the same. Naxx The challenge wasn’t necessarily KT or Saph. But just being efficient enough to even get to them.