Comments on: New patch coming soon

By: Novo

Novo — Mon, 12 May 2008 20:04:04 +0000

Of course… if you had a tree… I suppose they could just heal everyone up anyway.

But bash would be more fun. ;-)

By: Novo

Novo — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:56:32 +0000

Would this work for Aran, if you were in a lower-DPS group, and had a Tree?

Last I checked, trees do not get polymorphed (though other forms do). Tree shifts to bear while Aran drinks. When Aran casts Pyroblast (and not before!), bash the cast. As of 2.2, Pyro can be interrupted. No pyroblast, no damage to the raid.

It might work. I’m not sure. Now I’m curious!

By: Blacknimbus

Blacknimbus — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:43:57 +0000

There is still a semi-safe spot for Prince. In fact, I wasn’t aware there had been a change…although I did notice that we had two Infernals drop in the same spot near where we stand last weekend.

I had to respec my SP to do Illhoof and Prince so we could gear up another DPS…and my plus heal was only at 1200 with the few pieces of healing gear I’ve picked up. I hadn’t healed anything since ZF, but we got through it.

The Prince fight has always been about luck…which is annoying. Either we one-shot him, or wipe 4-5 times before we drop him.

By: Felkan

Felkan — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:25:30 +0000

While I haven’t made it to Aran yet, I will say the full heal on sheep affect has save our butts several times on the last boss of Sethekk Halls and heoric Sethekk Halls especially in the later in which his “I can shot thru pillars but you can’t” attack does quit a bit of damage to everyone making healing quite stressful.

By: Mithral

Mithral — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:35:36 +0000

It’s possible they will leave the Shade of Aran fight as-is, while changing the spell for most other instances of its use. Blizz does have separate spells for various bosses/mobs/players, so it’s not inconceivable that the Shade’s ‘Mass Polymorph’ will still heal the raid.

As others have said, if you’re getting polymorphed, you don’t have enough DPS.

By: Fathul

Fathul — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:07:21 +0000

Player polymorphs will still heal the target, but mob polymorphs won’t heal players. This change almost has to be intended for Shade of Aran. And while you can interrupt his spells to keep his mana high, low-end guilds working their way through Kara might still not have the dps to get him down before he hits 20% mana.

@Alex: Yes, they made Prince tougher by removing the safe spots, but those weren’t an intended feature of the fight. They simply fixed the fight to make it work as it should. Polymorph was working as designed, so this is an intentional buff to Aran. This won’t affect me, but it’s a strange move considering Blizzard’s history.

By: Valyre

Valyre — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:55:06 +0000

I think my perspective on the change to polymorph is based on the offensive use of the spell on mobs, not the other way around. Shackle, ice trap, fear, and banish do not heal your mob back up to full. So in my mind, they’re just balancing the field for sheep. So for example, if you’re in PvP and you get sheeped, you’re now at full health, giving your team the advantage. Being a paladin, I can stick Blessing of Sacrifice on a teammate and let the opposing team’s mage just keep healing me back up over and over. I don’t even have to blow a cooldown.

I doubt that the change was directly intended to make Shade harder. Also, my understanding is that with proper interrupts in place, the whole sheep thing is a non-issue. If Aran doesn’t get to cast as much, he doesn’t run out of mana. We considered being sheeped at the end to be a sign we didn’t do a good job on the interrupts.

By: Fathul

Fathul — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 14:06:30 +0000

It is certainly an odd change, and one I don’t see the need for. Shade of Aran is the only major fight that I can think of where polymorph is a huge deal (I know Talon King Ikiss in Heroic Sethekk and one of the mobs in the High King Maulgar fight polymorph, but it’s only 1 character at a time, and they don’t do a 7000 damage blast right afterwards). As Logan said, Blizzard’s history is one of nerfing boss fights, not buffing. Loot Reaver was an obvious exception, but that made sense. People aren’t putting together Kara groups just to down Aran because of how easy he is. In fact, I’d say he’s already the third hardest boss in Kara. This is strange.

By: Alex

Alex — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 14:00:39 +0000

Normally, they do make fights easier as things go on, but they made Prince more difficult to some degree by eliminating the “safe spots.” While not neccessarily a bad thing (guilds will come out more coordinated for having learned that), it was surprise they made entry level raid content more difficult. Though, I guess you could argue, too that all of kara is a bit easier since every is vulnerable to bleed effects.

By: Logan

Logan — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 13:32:32 +0000

While the new change to polymorph will make Shade significantly more difficult for raids that don’t have him on farm, I don’t think it will be prohibitively difficult. Raids will just have to be more mindful of his mana and, just as in fights like Magtheridon and High Warlord Naj’entus, make sure that everyone is topped off as he nears the 20% mark. Boss mod updates will likely monitor this and give raid warnings as well. That part of the fight will be tougher, but not impossible.

That being said, I really can’t see Blizzard keeping this change in effect… at least not for this fight. Shade of Aran is already a big sticking point for many young Kara raids. It doesn’t make sense to make the fight harder, especially given Blizzard’s proven track record of nerfing difficult fights more and more as new patches/xpacs approach rather than buffing them.