Latest news from the PTR:
Hellscream’s Warsong and Strength of Wrynn now provide their bonuses to player pet health and damage, as well as the absorption amounts of Power Word: Shield and Sacred Shield.
Wooooooo!
We knew that the ICC raid buff, currently at 5% damage/health/healing, did not apply to our pets. For MM and SV this was annoying, and for BM this was pretty brutal. But as the buff climbs up to 30%, not having our pets affected was going to be a big deal, putting us hopelessly behind non-pet classes.
I am very, very, very pleased that our pets will now be inspired to further efforts by Wrynn as well as us.
Bah. Stupid buff anyway. Strips the fun out of the achievement of clearing bosses a bit, imo. At the very least I disagree with it on heroic…I can understand it on regular difficulty, but not that.
Still, if everyone is getting it, our pets should too. So yes, good news.
*Pet tanks Prince Keleseth*
*/cast Mend Pet*
*/use Frostweave bandage*
*wins pet tanking Prince Keleseth*
First, very glad this will be getting applied to pets. I’ve been noticing that the melee DPS, who already have it pretty good in ICC, have been pulling ahead of ranged by substantial numbers, so hopefully some Warsong love for pets will help Hunter DPS a bit.
As for Arthemystia’s stance, I don’t understand it. Do you not use Flasks or buffs to raid? This is the same thing, the only difference being that we do not require a party member to provide it or each member of the raid to provide it (buffs and flasks, respectively).
Or are you one of those non-pants wearing characters and that’s just the way you like it?
When will this go into effect? Thanks
Anansi – neither, actually. There’s just some fights that will be turned into a joke once the buff reaches 30%, or even before that. I prefer a challenge, and most of ICC will not be difficult at all.
I understand Blizzard wanting more people to see endgame content, which is what the buff is about, because dedicated progression guilds will get to Lich King, buff or not. But if that’s Blizzard’s intent, keep the buffs for regular difficulty but not heroic. Because it seems to me like they’re slapping hardcore raiders in the face by making their hard-fought progression comically easier, while trying to cater to the casual raider…I don’t think it should be one or the other.
Still, when life gives you lemons….pet tank that sh*t. Or something. I plan to go into ICC with my pet buffed once this hits to tank, then have my dps remove the buff to make aggro more manageable. So there’s good with the bad.
@Arthemystia, the key thing to remember here is that this buff is OPTIONAL. It’s as if Sarth 3D was the default mode, and you can voluntarily choose to make it easier by killing 1, 2 or all 3 drakes. It probably would’ve been nice to have different achievements/rewards associated with/without the debuff, but at least this way more people will have a chance to see the endgame content, without taking anything away from people who still choose to do it without the debuff.
LOL. When I saw your title, Frost, I thought for sure your trinket had finally dropped!
@RobUK: I think that is the biggest problem I have with the buff, that there is no tracking. I have no problems using it if the raid wants to use it, though I would prefer not using it, at least for first kills.
I can just imagine that the date that you killed a boss will now affect some of the elitism where players will automatically assume you had the buff when you downed that boss, meaning you probably can’t do it WITHOUT the buff, meaning you are bad.
Having just xferred to a good server that has a lot more of this type of thing (ICC 20 pug 5.3 gs and achiev minimum) I am somewhat concerned about this.
Rather good given my main is a Hunter and my primary alt is a Discipline Priest. Both are getting buffed =D
I think WoW is trying to balance the mechanic and keep it’s customers. The hardcore raiders got first shot at the bosses and they downed them, which makes them happy but disheartens the casual raider. The casual raiders will now get a chance to down the bosses, but the hardcore raider will get to brag that they did it without a buff. Overall, I think this is a win-win for everyone. Personally, I’m in a casual guild, so it’s nice to know that I can still run the instances in this manner and have a chance to see end game content.
I agree that it is win-win:D
Woooooooo:D
To all whining about the buff: what about casuals/alts?
Back on BC you were shit outta luck if you didnt get on the boat from the start on gearing/learning. There’s still raids being made for BC just because people never got to experience it back then. So, seriously, whats different between making it 30% just before cataclysm hits or doing it at 85 with ilvl over NINETHOUSAND gear.
And as far as a challenge goes for ‘hardcore’.. by that time nearly everybody will have BiS and can dream every encounter. So even without the buff itll be a facerolling exercise for your nose if you’re one of those people.
I really think its a great change for blizzard to allow people to have a chance to see ICC. I’ve been gearing my prot pala for weeks now and can barely progress as i lack some gs/achievements which prevents me from getting in any raid so i can gear up normally. This thing might just help me tank at least one wotlk raid (which is an infinite increase over the 0 from bc already).
I cant imagine how it must be for those that got that issue with all their chars, having most of the game out of reach due to some addon and poorly executed game mechanic.
It’s certainly nice to see that our pets will now benefit from this buff. With regards to the buff itself, why does it matter? I can understand that you’d want to feel a greater sense of achievement and decide to turn the buff off. But surely having this sense of achievement should be enough for you. I know that was enough for us all back in Vanilla.
@ Myrdreon
You weren’t “shit out of luck” if u weren’t in from the start in TBC. I started raiding in TBC at Karazhan when the guild I joined were in SSC. I had no idea what I was doing then and nobody was gearing me. In fact I finished TBC up to Brutallus without ever getting Legacy or Sunfury Bow of the Pheonix =(
People joined my guild on and off through the entire expansion with more or less gear/experience as me. You didn’t need to be in from the start to see all the content.
@the Cheerleader
Your *:D* brings
to my 
. 
@ Malania
You’re right. Not everybody needs to be there from the beginning to experience the near end game. Heck back in TBC i was doing SSC before Kara (on a note lol i won Tsunami Talisman lol @ the amount of rage) and so i was getting my T5 stuff before T4 o.O
In terms of the buff though. You all may think that 30% buff to damage/health/healing is a massive spoiler to the raid, but heres the thing – not every player knows how to utilise that 30% effectively. They see the 30% and think to themselves “Oh! This is so easy now!” and let their guard drop. Its truly a question of skill.
*On a note, Blizz could even be implying that ICC might get harder….
RobUK: Yes, it’s optional, but there’s no incentive to removing it. I like being challenged, but I also won’t handicap myself to stunt my progression or that of my guild’s. But I can speak for a raid team that just got deflated by the buff, because suddenly our intense effort to grind up to Lich King was made trivial by a buff we could’ve waited for to save ourselves a ton of time. It’s also not like Sarth 3D. 3D has its own loot table, and back when it was relevant there was a genuine reason to do 3D instead of none. So it would be like if they suddenly had the same loot tables for no drakes or 3D. THAT’S what I see it as.
Also, I don’t consider disagreeing with the buff to be whining. I offered an alternative that I think appeases both casual and hardcore gamers, that of leaving the buff in for regular but not heroic difficulty. But I’m also of the mind that not everyone needs to see endgame content, and that it should be suitably difficult that casual raiders will not likely see every boss. So there’s likely to be some ideological differences with people on that point. So yes, it caters to casual raiders. Good for them, and I mean that genuinely. But I won’t back down on my earlier point that it’s a slap to the face of hardcore raiders.
It seems I’ve started up a rather contentious matter, however. This, of course, is not my intent. Feel free to disagree, but please keep things respectful.
I do think the buff is now only fair why should our pets miss out and lower our dps compare to other non pet classes getting the maximum buff possible. Blizzards has calculated the pet into our dps to put us on par with other dps classes but when the buff does not apply to our pets we would be losing dps compared to other non pet classes. Now I realise the 30% buff will probably be too much for the most of us, making the instance to easy to cruise through I would like to see the gear slightly changing depending on what % of buff you use. This way the non buff raiders get the top gear however the casual raider can get in there too using the 30% buff but there drops are slightly lower geared and that way keeps everyone happy however its probably to much work for blizzard to do just for 1 instance.
I am with Arthemystia in this one. As a casual player, I appreciate the effort Blizzard is putting for us. Thanks. But this will not help/encourage me any more to play every raid, kill every boss, etc. I just cannot/will not ever put enough hours in the game to actually achieve such a thing. I am totally happy with the buff being for normal mode only.
hello WHU, i have a question, im not sure if this is the place to post it im still new to the site. xD
so yesterday i was in a icc25, and the lady deathwhisper bow drops, i won the roll and was happy
but then later the deathbringers will drops and i lose the roll
the hunter that won the roll seemed kindof noobish so i offered him 900g for it (as a joke lol was trying my luck) he said he would trade it for the bow, after a minute of thinking i went for it and we swaped the DBW for the bow, so my question is, was this a good idea?
my old weapon was the talonstrike ilevel245 crossbow and the trinket i replaced with DBW was the mark of supremacy, the hit trinket from triumph badges.
again im sorry if i posted this in the wrong place. :S
@paladin:
I would LOVE to meet that guy. If you look at the drop rates of the two things and mainly % of people that would possibly roll for the trinket, it is a WIN for you. The bow will drop again in 2-3 weeks and there might be another hunter rolling for it. But when the DBW drops, there will be hunters + all melee rolling for it
My only issue is the timing of the buff.
The final boss content was out for less than…3 weeks…and Blizz decides to cater to those who don’t want to put in the hard knocks?
Seriously, pandering to the QQ masses of who think you should never have to move while healing is not what Blizz Customer Care should be about.
Design hard/challenging content, then nerf it in larger chunks as Cataclysm approaches.
If Zarhym (sp?) is to be believed, and this buff will go up in increments of 5%, then Cataclysm should drop come August/Sept. of this year.
Why not wait and buff the raid 10% in June, then 20% in July, and finally 30% in August. Casuals would be tres happy about finally having something handed to them, and those who enjoy the hard work would have the time needed to plow through.
The buff can be easily remove just by talking to the king, if you dont want the buff in your raid just remove it however I would like Blizzard to give some incentive to those who complete ICC without the buff as i said before like scaling the gear depending on the level of buff you used but i can’t see this happening as there to busy finalising Cataclysmand would already have enough on there plates.
I like Fradin’s idea about scaling gear. That would be a good solution as well.
I doubt we’ll see it though. Obviously it doesn’t change my outlook on the game itself, and I’ll continue to enjoy raiding ICC. But I do think they dropped the ball with this whole buff idea.
Kind of a depressing line of comments. After reading the title I was expecting to hear an amusing anecdote about how Frost had killed off all Gnomes. Instead I find a serious debate about styles of play and thoughts on the ICC buff.
That being said; as to the original topic of this article, I think it is great that Blizz realized “Crap! Hunters have pets!”
Factoid they still don’t remeber that we have pets and that they are asmuch apart of our character as a rogue and his stupid stealth! but they are getting there cenimeter by cenimeter…
for whats a rogue without stealth but just a very squishy warrior!?!