Kinda wish Blizz realized what they had...

Instead of nerfing heroics...

Will you elaborate? There have not been any across-the-board nerfs to Heroics, let alone any changes made due to complaints about difficulty.

I don't have the time to list all the decreased amount in damage, or mob mechanics that have specifically been tailored to reduce the amount of people that are hit with the spell. Mostly because they span over three days worth of hotfixes.

Whatever the case, decrease in damage has been applied to almost every heroic or normal instance thus far. I don't know if that can be contributed to Blizz listening to players complaints or content just being glitched, bugged, or what.

If it's the latter, I apologize. But when you see people whining about things being too hard, and then a couple of days later, things are getting nerfed in damage, what else are you supposed to expect?

I'm aware of what hotfixes have gone through. I'm the one compiling them every day. :)

We're happy right now with the overall difficulty of Heroics, but that doesn't mean we won't make tuning adjustments to certain encounters or abilities if we feel they're unintentionally over- or underpowered. That's what we've been doing in our hotfixes recently. Here's an example:

The Crystal Shards creatures in the Corborus encounter are now level 86, down from 88.

That was a hotfix yesterday. You could argue it's a nerf. Technically, it is. But did it make sense that the Crystal Shards were higher level than the boss? Not really. We felt that needed to change once we saw it being tackled by thousands of players.

Will you elaborate? There have not been any across-the-board nerfs to Heroics, let alone any changes made due to complaints about difficulty.

Perhaps you can explain THIS:

"Halls of Origination

* The damage of Fireballs automatically cast by Temple Fireshaper with Molten Barrier active has been adjusted in normal and Heroic difficulty.
* The damage of Pact of Darkness cast by Temple Shadowlancer has been adjusted in normal and Heroic difficulty."

I'm gonna write my journal... sob... sob.

Let's keep this in context please. I said there have been no across-the-board nerfs to Heroics, and you come back at me with evidence of two abilities from two creatures being reduced in damage very slightly... in one dungeon.

And I'm saying it's unfortunate to view difficulty in such a black-and-white way. We've also made changes that affect difficulty in the other direction that I wouldn't necessarily call buffs.

12/17/2010 2:41 PMPosted by Powerangers

Nerf is Nerf. Stop trying to get around it : / ANY changes made to dungeons that affect heroic difficulty, are Nerfs. Damage reduction from creature spells is a Nerf, However slight it is. That's all they are saying : /

• Ripsnarl's Summon Vapor mechanic now ignores line of sight and correctly spawns a Vapor in regardless of where players are standing.

Players were able to bypass Vapors using line of sight. This was fixed.

• Impaling Slam by Forgemaster Throngus now does much less damage, but is no longer mitigated by fire resistance.

Yes, this was a reduction in damage to Slam, but damage was reduced so that we could change the ability so it ignores all resistance modifiers, which makes it easier for us to keep the ability tuned how we want.

• The "corpse-catching" mechanic now properly teleports players to the entrance platform of the dungeon.

This didn't necessarily buff difficulty, but it was a change to prevent players from skipping certain trash pulls.

• Troll druids in particular, when shapeshifting into Cat/Bear form, were dealing an extra 5% damage to themselves via Beast Slaying when afflicted by Barion Ashbury's Asphyxiate. This caused them to die instead of being taken down to 1 health. This has been corrected and Asphyxiate now properly ignores damage modifiers.

This one doesn't really reinforce my point, but I thought it was a slightly hilarious issue. :p

We've also removed experience, reputation, and sometimes loot from several creatures in dungeons which were too easy to farm.

12/17/2010 2:40 PMPosted by Blacksen

I just want you to know that you bring me a bit of joy every time I read the hotfix notes. Your wit and clever sarcasm have turned something that's ordinarily a boring chore into a fun read. Please continue!

Thank you! Verifying and compiling hotfixes can be very time-consuming, so I decided to spice up some of the notes (where appropriate) to keep myself sane, and hopefully give players a chuckle. ;D