What's going on at Blizzard?

Merrith · Sep 27, 2016

goishen said:
Second fight of BWL was a lot more than a gearcheck. It was a tank's fight, plain and simple. Tank not in the correct place? Wipe. Tank doesn't transition properly, when all other fights are loose with transitions, wipe. Tank loses aggro for even two seconds, possible wipe. It taught tanks how to... Well, tank.

Our guild alliance had him like two weeks into it with DPS. After two months we finally got him down. And then proceeded to mop up the three (I think?) bosses following him.

Took a little time, but tanks learned it. Of course...eventually we got bored with having to worry about the tank transitions and just made sure to bring 8+ priests to cast mind vision on the tank to roll the debuff right off. Single tank for whole fight = win. Even when they upped the debuff limit to 16 it was doable with 12 priests, along with stoneskin flask or whatevs, recently bandaged, and a few other debuffs to roll it off. At that point though it became more tedious than it was worth and you just went back to killing it normally again.

goishen · Sep 28, 2016

Merrith said:
Took a little time, but tanks learned it. Of course...eventually we got bored with having to worry about the tank transitions and just made sure to bring 8+ priests to cast mind vision on the tank to roll the debuff right off. Single tank for whole fight = win. Even when they upped the debuff limit to 16 it was doable with 12 priests, along with stoneskin flask or whatevs, recently bandaged, and a few other debuffs to roll it off. At that point though it became more tedious than it was worth and you just went back to killing it normally again.

We only raided twice per week, and if I recall correctly, we had to take him down the second night. So, that means that the next week we had to face him (or her) all over again. We were much more, I don't want to say organized, but placated by youtube videos and this is how it should be done.

Plus, we were a guild alliance, so that means that we had our core people there about 20-30 of us, the remaining slots would be filled with varying people. So, we had those difficulties as well.

Malakriss · Sep 28, 2016

I recall making a post about Vael and noted 6 different versions he went through (live testing!) before the 2nd guild on our server downed it. 3rd version was when Geval, our crazy economist priest, found that Flask of Petrifications worked.

Merrith · Sep 28, 2016

Malakriss said:
I recall making a post about Vael and noted 6 different versions he went through (live testing!) before the 2nd guild on our server downed it. 3rd version was when Geval, our crazy economist priest, found that Flask of Petrifications worked.

You missed TBC when he bought up all the primal shadows at under 1g per. Then they removed them from demon mob drops only on void elementals and everyone needed Shadow gear for BT. He raked it in.

Deathwing · Sep 28, 2016

Malakriss said:
Remember on Nefarion when you had one paladin cast Blessing of Wisdom on the entire raid and stand in the middle for the trash to pull to the same place? Because for some dumbass reason mana regen generated aggro, and the followup genius design awarded that aggro to the paladin and not the regener.

Of course you don't, I'm sure most of you went horde. Because hard coded factions were retarded then, now, and forever. So was faction locking classes.

I remember that but I also recall just plain buffing created aggro too. Best way for a warrior to ae tank, besides thunderfury, was to spam battle shout. Stick him in a group with pet classes for max effect.

Khane · Sep 28, 2016

Flask of Petrification. Black Lotus had what... 6 spawn point worldwide and only one could be up at any given time?

Merrith · Sep 28, 2016

Khane said:
Flask of Petrification. Black Lotus had what... 6 spawn point worldwide and only one could be up at any given time?

You underestimate how much Malakriss (and the guy in question) farmed and controlled certain items in the economy.

Malakriss · Sep 29, 2016

They were 4 spawns and respawn was an hour. Silithus, Winterspring, EPL, and Blasted Lands. If you knew the timer and farmed enough to know the positions it was very possible to dominate. Also helped to be a mage.

You won't ever see that level of world limited resource any more.

Xarpolis · Sep 29, 2016

I used to farm Badlands all the time for Elemental Earth to make Elemental Sharpening Stones for the entire guild for our "big" fights. Back at level 60, it used to give a flat 2-3% chance of crit. I used to farm all day long just for the that night's raid. Ugh. This is Molten Core/BWL era.

kitsune · Sep 29, 2016

"What's going on at Blizzard?" to "EQ vs WoW thread #99".

On the actual topic, has there been any more leaves lately aside from the new Bonfire Studios? I like Ghostcrawler basically calling LFR crap on his twitter every now and then

xzi · Sep 29, 2016

Blitz said:
I believe TF was the best threat weapon even in early Burning Crusade, if I remember correctly?

the MT of my guild got it during BC and used it on trash during SSC a lot, worked wonders for keeping threat at the time.

Cybsled · Sep 29, 2016

kitsune said:
"What's going on at Blizzard?" to "EQ vs WoW thread #99".

On the actual topic, has there been any more leaves lately aside from the new Bonfire Studios? I like Ghostcrawler basically calling LFR crap on his twitter every now and then

Given he works for Riot and on League of Legends, he should be careful about what mechanics he calls crap considering all the shit mechanics in League lol

Sabbat · Sep 29, 2016

kaid said:
Um given I have already gone in and killed 2 bosses in a pug this weekend in half ass level up gear I am not sure what part of this you feel to be totally false. I went in with half ass gear with no consumables in a random pug with no voice chat and managed success against the two bosses I had time to fight. I am pretty sure an actual guild run with consumables and a bare amount of coordination can do these fights. Right now the biggest hindrance is basic gearing and most people are a bit under geared or non optimally geared but that is all poopsock difficulty to get that sorted out not actual raid difficulty.

Man, I'd love to have the logs of those fights, I bet they'd be an interesting read.

Binks · Sep 29, 2016

5 minute blessings, going for 100% uptime, on a 40 person raid -_-

Sumdain x · Sep 29, 2016

a few days ago 2 more people left blizzard, it was on MMO-champion. i think one went to Riot, not sure about the other.

Dandai · Sep 29, 2016

I'd say the recent departures has more to do with career advancement than culture change over at Blizzard. Since Metzen has (allegedly) completely ruled out working again, I wouldn't be surprised if he's very ill and doesn't want to discuss it publicly.

As for everyone else, it looks like they're going to other companies where they'll (seemingly) have more creative freedom and work on new projects (as opposed to developing expansions and content updates for live games).

A quick look at Blizzard's releases over the last 12 months is very instructive for determining why these departures occurred at roughly the same time. All the development teams in the company have shipped their projects, and it will likely be two more years until another major game release (the next major release will almost certainly be the next WoW expansion). Nobody works for the same company for their whole lives any more, and even a modestly ambitious person will look for opportunities outside of their current situation when they feel like they've peaked.

ZyyzYzzy · Sep 29, 2016

Has anyone compared these departures to position listings at Pantheon?

Dalien · Sep 30, 2016

Metzen is going to get bored in retirement, and he will join the Pantheon team to MPGA.

kaid · Sep 30, 2016

Sabbat said:
Man, I'd love to have the logs of those fights, I bet they'd be an interesting read.

There was a lot of pug derping going on but honestly I think most people were overgearing what the expected ilevel was as I think WQ wound up being a bit more lucrative ilevel wise than maybe they were expecting.

kaid · Sep 30, 2016

Dandai said:
I'd say the recent departures has more to do with career advancement than culture change over at Blizzard. Since Metzen has (allegedly) completely ruled out working again, I wouldn't be surprised if he's very ill and doesn't want to discuss it publicly.

As for everyone else, it looks like they're going to other companies where they'll (seemingly) have more creative freedom and work on new projects (as opposed to developing expansions and content updates for live games).

A quick look at Blizzard's releases over the last 12 months is very instructive for determining why these departures occurred at roughly the same time. All the development teams in the company have shipped their projects, and it will likely be two more years until another major game release (the next major release will almost certainly be the next WoW expansion). Nobody works for the same company for their whole lives any more, and even a modestly ambitious person will look for opportunities outside of their current situation when they feel like they've peaked.

It is also a pretty good jump off point for a lot of them. Overwatch released and has been viewed positively overall and now legion launched to pretty good overall reviews. At this point their resumes are in good shape to jump to a different company or start their own to do something new.

What's going on at Blizzard?

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