11/12 in my guild's 2nd 10 man raid group (out of 5 groups) and the main group has been raiding since week 3, so they're 12/12 with 3/12 HM.
My raid group will down Nefarian this week (hopefully) or the next. That means twelve bosses to farm for the entirety of 4.1. I was looking towards the firelands IMMENSELY, because I enjoyed this tier of raid content tons. It was fun, challenging, but not so hard I was frustrated. I'd be alright with if NEW stuff was coming out, like a bunch of new five mans. I'm not too keen on heroics giving epics either.
But, rehashed ZA and ZG isn't awesome. I didn't run it in Vanilla and I didn't farm for the mounts (go figure, I'm the only person on the planet that doesn't like it!) but it's not NEW. That means Blizzard threw in a few new mechanics, new loot, and spruced the place up. But nothing is new and exciting!
An entire patch and all that is released is two old instances changed into 5 mans. I'm not a quitter, I know they better be putting off Firelands because it's going to blow my mind, but throw me a freakin' bone man. Abyssal Maw heroic? Just tell me if more is planned, cause I'm going to be bored out of my mind.
(by the way, yes, I do stuff other than WoW. "oh who gives if you're bored, go outside and get some fresh air." isn't going to phase me. I do, believe me.)
The point isn't really that we're delaying Firelands so we can release ZA/ZG instead, or because we don't think players are ready for a new raid. Our messaging on the subject directly implies this, and that's our fault. What we're really saying is that we want more frequent, slightly smaller updates to the game so that content keeps coming. Since Firelands isn't quite ready yet, we've made the decision not to hold back the other 4.1 patch content for it. Instead, we're going to release patch 4.1 with the content that's ready to go so the majority of players have more things to do, while also putting some finishing touches on Firelands so we can ship it out in 4.2 shortly thereafter. We're not arbitrarily holding back Firelands. On the contrary, we don't want to hold back other content updates for Firelands. The main content features currently planned for 4.1 are:
All of this is in addition to a number of UI improvements, class balance changes, and more. We'll have more information on the patch 4.1 features coming soon. :D |
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We thought about different ways to fit in a normal tier of these dungeons, but in the end it just didn't feel right. We wouldn't want to make normal versions of these dungeons award current Heroic level loot, but there aren't really any good places in between to stick a normal dungeon tier. We feel the best solution for patch 4.1 progression is: level-85 normal dungeons, Heroic dungeons, ZA/ZG Heroics, raids. ZA and ZG will drop gear for just about every slot as well, but we're really trying to focus on dropping items for slots that have been hard to fill in the current Heroics. |
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I don't have any specifics to share at the moment, save for one I think is cool. Those with the appropriate Archaeology skill will be able to unlock one of four additional bosses (chosen randomly) for their group in Zul'Gurub. These bosses were previously known as part of the Edge of Madness. The four bosses will share some loot, but also have some loot unique to each of them. |
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I can't say for sure, as the process for applying development changes internally, building patches, and testing them is very complicated. Our goal, however, is not to delay Firelands further than it would have been in order to put out everything else in 4.1 first. |
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I believe that (ranged slot for DPS warriors) was specifically brought up in a meeting I had last week. We want to get some items out there that are currently missing, even if it's because they're only useful to a small number of classes/specs. |
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We're preparing all of the information on this new feature for you. :) |
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I'll have a dance party at my house. You're all invited. Time TBD. |