In the 4th season of WoW: Shadowlands, the Blizzard developers started a whole series of different experiments. Starting with old and new dungeons in the Mythic Plus system, through items that can be bought from the raids and their upgrading, to the removal of various restrictions and of course the Fateful Raids. The latter should upgrade the previous raids of the expansion with new affixes and upscaling and keep them interesting and exciting until the start of Dragonflight.
And so, at the start of the 4th season, countless guilds went into the first fateful raid, Nathria Castle. Since this is a new raid tier, at least in terms of item level, many guilds approached it rather cautiously. Although Mythic mode was available right from the start, most groups first approached the bosses with their new mechanics in normal or heroic mode. After the first few bosses, however, many were disillusioned. There was no sign of a challenge far and wide. Castle Nathria was far too easy for groups with halfway decent gear.
Bosses don’t fight back
Whether life points or skill damage, something went drastically wrong when scaling up the old content, or the Blizzard developers went about their work very conservatively. After the overly harsh mausoleum of the First, one can understand such an approach.
However, one should have been a little braver. Because the bosses are currently so weak that you can ignore complete skills that would have led to a safe wipe in the past. In general, it feels like you’re at least one difficulty level too low in the raid. Heroic bosses don’t even resemble the previous Normal, and Normal is lighter than most LFR wings of the past.
The affixes make everything easier instead of harder
But not only the bosses are way too simple. Thanks to the affixes, the battles in Castle Nathria are not getting harder, but rather easier. The negative properties of the various effects carry little or no weight. The buffs, on the other hand, are ridiculously strong.
Every minute a heroism/fighting frenzy and in exchange a magic effect has to be cleaned occasionally and you have to stand in a circle? Such affixes would cause Mythic Plus players to shed tears of joy.
With many affixes, the majority of the raid can ignore them and still benefit from them. Sometimes throwing in a little area damage or knocking away a shield along the way – that doesn’t cost attention, brain power or damage. In return, there is sometimes 30 percent more damage or sometimes tons of secondary values. The relationship is just not right in any way.
All this is not bad, but really good!
It all sounded very negative now. Nevertheless, I am convinced that this is the right way. Regardless of whether it was the intention of the developers or based on incorrect scaling. Season 4 is little more than a test and transitional season to Dragonflight. Hardly any players, not even the top guilds that earn money with the Race to World First, consider the Fateful Raids as competitively relevant content.
Count Denathrius has become a loot pinata for most guilds, even in heroic mode.
Source: buffed
In addition, for many players with the start of the alpha of WoW (buy now ): Dragonflight the Shadowlands chapter is actually mentally over. There wasn’t really a spirit of optimism at the start of the 4th season. Quite apart from the fact that the weekly change between the raids would make progress in the usual sense impossible for most guilds anyway.
At least Sludgefist still has a few deadly attacks up its sleeve.
Source: Blizzard
Therefore, you should see the 4th season and the fateful raids as a fun end to an overall not so convincing expansion. Much like the end of BfA, when we were all running around with ridiculously over-the-top corruption bonuses and the balance and difficulty weren’t halfway right. Let’s have a few more weeks of fun beating up bosses with overpowered characters who can barely defend themselves while looking forward to the upcoming Dragonflight expansion.
Endgame seriousness will come back to the Dragon Isles, I’m sure. And let’s be honest, after the long and hard progression that many of us had in the Mausoleum of the First, it’s nice when bosses don’t just die after 300 attempts. However, I’m curious about the other two fateful raids. Will these be just as easy or is it more of a bug on the part of the developers? We will see.
The post WoW: Fateful raids are too easy appeared first on Gamingsym.