Should World Buffs be removed from Raid Content?

.kurthos · #1 » Post by **.kurthos** » 16 Oct 2015 15:54

There is a metagame within vanilla that revolves around world buffs from earlier raids such as Onyxia Head, Nefarian Head and Hakkar Heart. The gain for an entire raid for these buffs puts them at Tier 3 levels of gear in equivalent which destabilizes the balance of raiding encounters. When Blackwing Lair releases, there will be a major issue with guilds stacking these buffs to push through content.

The following is what you gain from a full world buffs:
19%~ Spell Crit
17%~ Melee Crit
340~ Attack Power
2-4k HP for tanks

You can achieve these on a consistent basis for minimal amounts of time.

My suggestion is that the following buffs should be removed on zoning into raids. You could either remove them from all raids or just progression content.

Positives of world buffs:
-------------------------------------

Give hardcore guilds something to do outside of raids/more things to farm
Give unpopular specs a chance to be viable
Give theorycrafters the chance to test class scaling with higher levels of stats
Makes farmed content easier to clear with less gear, therefore helping both new catch up in progression and hardcore guilds gear up new raiders more quickly.
They can make the game fun from a min/maxing perspective.

Negatives of world buffs:
--------------------------------------

Makes some guilds less competitive for progression kills
Trivializes both farm and progression content in terms of tuning
Some players give up when they lose their buffs (Dont try as hard anymore)

What I'm proposing to the community is that we should make a decision about world buffs in raids. Do we want them available in all raids? Do we want them only in farmed content? We need to know this before moving forward.

Darkmoon Faire buffs get removed upon zoning into raids. In original Vanilla, this was an addition world buff you'd get for raids. I think this is a good solution for implementation of this suggestion.

Cleofatra · #2 » Post by **Cleofatra** » 16 Oct 2015 16:53

World buffs were in vanilla and the raid bosses are scaled in hp to account for wotlk. So keeping world buffs is simulated blizzlike. You'd essentially be removing this aspect of vanilla without much to show for it. Established guilds would still have a gear advantage. At least with world buffs enabled newer guilds could save them for progression.

#3 » Post by **iamadp** » 16 Oct 2015 17:22

Yeah I don't get why we would take them away. It gives guilds who might not have the gear to be able to progress.

#4 » Post by **Merelleya** » 16 Oct 2015 18:15

They do not persist through death so in many instances, you would loose them, if not with a total wipe, at least on one member after the other because someone will most likely always die. I don't see the world buff being the element that tips the scales towards a guild being able to push through the content. If the guild has the gear and the required discipline as well as the coordination a world buff might speed them up a little but not much else. On the other hand, the benefit to not so well geared guilds would be far greater, since for them it could really make a difference.

Finally, they do not last forever, so even if you stacked them all, you would only have an hour, at most 2 of the buffs, while pushing new content takes longer than that.

To me, world buffs speed up the raid a little if it is a raid where you are reasonably certain that not too many people will die before it ends, or they can be used to have an advantage at _one_ try at one specific boss. Not to mention the time it takes to have everybody get them. Even with summoning service it can easily take half an hour or longer to get everyone to everywhere.

Cleofatra · #5 » Post by **Cleofatra** » 16 Oct 2015 20:09

Merelleya wrote:On the other hand, the benefit to not so well geared guilds would be far greater, since for them it could really make a difference.

Indeed, which goes against the argument made by OP that "Makes some guilds less competitive for progression kills". If anything it sorta bumps them up to the established guilds level for that progression attempt.

You are correct though that it is not often used for progression and more for farm. It is a way to make farmed content quicker which isn't a bad thing... since it's farmed content. No one wants to spend 3 hours in MC after they learned all the boss fights.

#6 » Post by **greentea145** » 17 Oct 2015 06:24

Disable Wbuffs in fresh content until it is nerfed. Then allow Wbuffs.

Reason: It's easier to balance without Wbuffs in the equation. It would also add a disparity for people clearing the content based on the mindset and goal of said guild. A competitive guild will attempt to optimize Wbuffs to the extent that the content would be too easy if you did not take Wbuffs into account when scaling the instance. However, a guild who is casual or much more social that doesn't optimize nearly as much would have significant issues with progression should you balance around Wbuffs.

Wbuffs are not worth removing though. They push for optimal play and make you care more. When you clear all the content and just raid constantly waiting for the next release (if there is one) you will need to satisfy yourself to show up and stay motivated to clear content. When you raid with Wbuffs, you have something to lose which you typically can not get a second chance at in that raid day. It pushes players in terms of their own performance and their guild's.

Take it from someone who is still raiding in the oldest consistent active private server guild in vanilla content <Work in Progress> for years now. All the content is released on said server and people continue to quit (mainly guilds). We still show up and push for efficiency and we had the server first kill. Wbuffs are crucial for us to stay interested and to optimize. Not to mention they are completely necessary to even kill the last boss in Naxxramas for that server. That encounter was geared towards needing Wbuffs. And I must say, while it is challenging and fun - it's not a fair means of balancing content. Especially on a progressive server.

#7 » Post by **Dirtybertie** » 17 Oct 2015 12:22

I dont think you need to remove them because once you die , thats it you lost the buff , if it stuck through death then it would be another story

so I think its best to leave these kind of things alone as it wouldent have much of an impact

#8 » Post by **Dunkelstein** » 17 Oct 2015 16:01

Thing about world buffs and progression raiding is that you would stack all buffs for that one really hard boss. Progression raiding to me is wiping over and over until you manage to minmax every aspect and get a (often times lucky) kill.
I don't want to be running to SW gates and Yojamba Island after every wipe.

You would basically end up with guilds trying bosses only once or twice a night because they lose world buffs every wipe. I'd rater have easier bosses with world buffs disabled. World buffs also encourage people to cancel/leave raids after one wipe in pugs.

These are my concerns. Please keep in mind that I never raided in vanilla wow, so I'm not really sure how realistic the above mentioned scenarios are.

#9 » Post by **Krex1992** » 18 Oct 2015 05:43

So what you saying Kurthos is that your guild members give up easily because of some loss of world boss? Well /golfclap from me. I give this suggestion -1 because world buffs are something we have lived with since day 1.

#10 » Post by **greentea145** » 18 Oct 2015 13:49

Hardly constructive Keo.

You are not forced to contribute to the conversation but if you are going to, then at least post something worth reading. Also your care level and behavior in game makes me question if you've ever experienced optimal raiding with Wbuffs on any server. Because if you have, and if you were a competitive player who likes to optimize, then you'd be acting much differently.

#11 » Post by **Krex1992** » 19 Oct 2015 10:35

greentea145 wrote:Hardly constructive Keo.

You are not forced to contribute to the conversation but if you are going to, then at least post something worth reading. Also your care level and behavior in game makes me question if you've ever experienced optimal raiding with Wbuffs on any server. Because if you have, and if you were a competitive player who likes to optimize, then you'd be acting much differently.

Nah, I would not acting much different.

#12 » Post by **Oivster** » 19 Oct 2015 10:52

Hilarious @ OP

Murmur been using world buffs for ages, and now that the other guilds are slowly following you want to disable it?
First and last time i quote Drumy:

xDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxDxD

.kurthos · #13 » Post by **.kurthos** » 19 Oct 2015 16:37

Its more that we think they shouldn't be the standard of what guilds need to do to be competitive. Its not really healthy in the long term.

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