Blue Posts: Not blind nerfing Dragon Soul, PTR maintenance tomorrow
Join us every weekday evening as Today in WoW runs down all the WoW news that you could possibly want. From comments from Blizzard's blues to the latest datamining info -- we've got you covered.
Don't forget to check out our Weekly Podcast Roundup to find out what else is going on in the WoW community. And if you have a news tip, feel free to drop us a line and let us know.
Blue posts
We also explained our thought processes in the original announcement blog about the debuff here.
For those of you who raided in Firelands and/or Icecrown you're no doubt aware that as time goes on we want to keep people progressing by adjusting the difficulty. For any number of reasons a group may be having difficulty on a specific encounter each week, and our intent in adjusting the content is to ensure the ability to keep progressing, enjoying the content, and gearing up. With Icecrown we progressively buffed the players, and while this slow progression (and ability to opt-out of the buff) were both beneficial, it led to an expectation of your characters power, and once you left the raid you could certainly feel less effective. For Firelands we attempted to fix that by nerfing the content instead of buffing players, but we nerfed the content difficulty all at one time, which was counterproductive for players who really didn't need as severe a change as we made. With Dragon Soul we're attempting to do the best of both by having a progressive nerf to the content, keeping player power constant while providing small increases in assistance over a long period of time, as well as allowing players to opt-out of the assistance by speaking to Lord Afrasastrasz.
-----
Despite arguments to the contrary, there is a choice involved here. You can choose to leave the debuff on or turn it off. If you're looking for the challenge that doing the raid gives you without the debuff and your raid group isn't interested in turning off the debuff, that is still a choice that is being made. No one is forcing that on anyone. If you personally feel forced, then it may be an option to find another group that is interested in the challenge of doing it without the debuff.
Meanwhile, the debuff affords those that want to progress a bit, who have experienced difficulty, more of a leg-up.
It's fine to disagree with us on this, but please make sure that you continue to do so in a constructive manner and refrain from starting flame wars or posting harassing/defamatory language toward posters in the thread.
WoW news from other sites
MMO-Champion Dragon Soul Difficulty Change - Power of the Aspects to 10%
Wowhead News News Round Up: Dragon Soul Nerfs Continue and so do MoP Talent Explanations
News and features from WoW Insider
Spiritual Guidance: The Mists of Pandaria pre-beta shadow priest
Encrypted Text: Rogue poisons dramatically redesigned in Mists of Pandaria
From around the web
Today in WoW brings you the preceding day's WoW and gaming news. Also of community interest: our podcast listing, staff blog and Twitter listings and WoW websites and blogs (all part of our Guide to WoW Resources). Find out what's going on in the WoW player community every week in The Classifieds.