Blizzard messed up with Sepulcher, an essay

Community General Discussion
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Hello,

I’m joining the backlash against Blizzard removing CE and AOTC when S4 launches in August and I will try to pragmatically explain why this is a really bad idea and who that mess can easily be fixed with 1 simple decision.

So let’s start by explaining to which extent Blizzard messed up with sepulcher, the raid itself.

THE RAID:

First thing first, this tier is probably the most nerfed tier ever released, for a total of 78 nerfs, with Anduin being the most nerfed boss in here. Don’t get me wrong, I understand why Blizzard nerfed so much, because the tier was released in a really hard state.
But that raises one question : What was the point of releasing really hard bosses if in the end, they’re being nerfed to the point of mechanics being completely made irrelevant or removed ? I’d rather have easier bosses that aren’t tuned for full time streamers if it means there are less nerfs, because let’s be frank, wasting 150 pulls on a boss to witness a huge nerf really feels bad since it means those 150 pulls are wasted time.

Secondly, the way nerfs were being handled. As I’ve just said, Blizzard nerfed bosses by completely removing mechanics, such as Halondrus’ bombs, Blasphemy working like in HC, so on and forth. I do think that’s not an elegant way of nerfing those fights, since they pretty much made mythic mechanics irrelevant, which in my mind is completely dumb, because if those mechanics are being removed in the end, then what was the point of creating them in the first place ?

Lastly, bosses positions. I’m not against walls in a raid, not at all. This being said, I do think it’s quite silly that 2 walls were following each other right in the middle of the tier to then face 60 and 100 pulls bosses, so I felt a huge let down when I saw how easy are 9th and 10th bosses compared to 7th and 8th bosses. I feel like Rygelon and Lords should have swapped with Anduin and Halondrus, which would have made a more logical wipe counts curve.

Now that the intrisic issues with the raid have been explained, let’s deep dive into another issue with S3, which is the time span.

Timespan:

For this, I will only talk about SL tiers because It would just make more sense due to SL having a slower patch cycle than BFA or Legion.

CN lasted 7 month with 2225 guilds managed to clear the raid.
SOD lasted 8 months with 1780 guilds managed to clear the raid.
Sepulcher will last 5 months with probably between 800 to 1000 guilds that will clear.

So not only sepulcher is longer and harder than previous SL tiers, the time window to clear the raid has been reduced, which does not seem reasonable at all. If anything, the actual last tier/season tend to last longer for the obvious reason that Blizzard ressources are being moved towards the following expansion. But that’s the first time the closing tier last shorter than any other tiers in the same expansion, which imo is questionable.

Secondly, that announcement comes in way to late. And I will explain why. So Blizzard warned us that we still have 1 month left to achieve our goals, which is better than 2 resets, that’s fair enough. However, on average, it take 4 resets for 3 days raiding guilds to kill mythic jailer, which fits in that last month of progress. Knowing those facts, some guilds are open about stopping their progress on Ryge rather than trying to attempt killing the jailor, understandably so.

Since only 940 guilds managed to kill Ryge as of now, that’s how I came to the conclusion that 800 to 1000 guilds will be able to clear the raid, since Rygelon is worth 1 to 2 resets so I don’t think guilds progressing on Ryge now have a shot. I’m also assuming some guilds are going on a break due to summer vacations, which probably will end progress sooner than expected for some guilds.

If we’re comparing to other tiers, it would appear that all of the sudden, 1000 guilds in the world became bad over tier like that, which would be unfair. I don’t think Mythic raiding should be a participation trophy, I really don’t. But I also think that Blizzard has took the wrong path with sepulcher.

Having explained the issues, what are the solutions then ?

**The solutions : **

They’re in this pretty straight forward.

Either delay S4 because that season won’t bring any new content so S4 lasting for 3 raid rotations rather than 4 will not be seen as an issue
OR simply don’t remove AOTC/CE upon S3 being released.

Those are easy solutions to implement, knowing how S4 looks unpopular, nobody would cry about S4 being shortened.

TLDR : Blizzard made a harder and longer raid tier while also cutting down the time window to clear said raid, thus pressuing guilds in performing during summer vacation.
The solution would be as simple as not removing CE/AOTC when S4 launches.

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If wowprogress is working it’s showing 374 guilds have cleared 11/11M

You think over double that will clear it in the last five months?

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I’m assuming guilds that killed Ryge as of now have a chance, which is 940

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They released the raid for 0,1% ofc they need to nerf it 78 times, just release it for whole playbase next time.

This just shows how bad the guys at blizz are, they got no clue what they are doing,

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Probably not, but OP makes a point. Harder raid less time to clear makes no sense. Though to be fair there has been a massive decline in raiding this season but it could be due to harder mechanics or it could just be that folks are not bothered with 150 wipes for lower tier gear. Or a combination of both. Still I agree that AotC and CE should be left in for the next season for those who do want the prestige of the achievement.

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Hes basing it on what we discussed on the discord yesterday. I said guilds up to 700 are fine or fineish with killing Jailer atm. So his assumption with 800 is okay as well. 1000 i hard doubt as the “regular progress time” does not apply to guilds with higher world rank more often than not. Also summer.

However with nerfs incoming before reset this may be possible dependent on the level of the nerfs.

A nerf to the Jailers damage to Azeroth would hard nerf the fight drastically because you could pretty much just ignore Phase 3. Which removes a noticeable chunk of progression.

The whole design of Sepulcher is a mess. Lihuvim, Halondrus, Anduin, Rygelon are pretty much just husks of their former self. Halondrus shouldnt have been an end of wing boss with his original strength. Dreadlords is a joke for its position in the raid. Anduin shouldnt have been 8th but second to last or at least replaced rygelon/dreadlords together with pre nerf Halondrus etc etc etc.

The raid itself is a gigantic mess because Blizzard quite literally catered towards the WF guilds because oh my god they cant clear the raid within a week oh my god please stop them what could possible go wrong.

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I haven’t read your essay, because I can see from glancing that you’re writing it from a point of view that is well out of my league.

However from a layman’s point of view, I think they messed up raiding altogether with Shadowlands.

Even during Nathria guilds were quitting because it required too much dedication.

Blizz designed these Raids to Challenge the RWF teams, knowing that they spending money and gold to get there.

But then, they designed Legendaries because they realised a large portion of players will buy WoW Tokens to buy them.

They reduced drop rates, in raiding and M+ so that players took longer to gear up, and stay subscribed for longer. Unfortunately, this had an opposite affect, and many players got fed up with dedicating 30-45mins of their time to 35 anima.

The solution to this:

Stop designing the game around E-Sports and start designing the game around making it enjoyable for the majority of players.

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Mhm debatable. Shriekwing wasnt your average first boss of xpac entry raid but he was fine. Huntsman was nothing out of the ordinary. Destroyer was simple. People just could never decide what tactic to use. Inerva was nothing but a zerg. Council wasnt that bad. Sludge just felt bad. SLG was bad. Really freaking bad. Denathrius felt rather easy compared to other final bosses.

Sanctum was when the raid design took a jump from a cliff all the way to the bottom of the abyss.

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Sorry to link a streamer, let alone preach. But I think it’s pretty well summed up here:

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Assuming s4 brings new gear they kinda need to remove CE or people will be getting it with “next seasons” gear which by default sorta turns it into a participation trophy.

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I know the video. But again CN was nothing out of the Ordinary if you raided Mythic regularly. Shadowlands was suffering more from the whole package issue such as covenants etc.

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Not assuming. Ilvl is upped and you can buy certain pieces.

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Yes, which was the point made in the video.

Covenant power and Conduit grinds, Choreghast were there to add a level on top of Mythic raid.

Sure, chime in with some guy who’s going to say “but I did it without”, but those Boyz going for RWF needed to get an edge up on their opponents would be farming those things to be the best!

Those Shadowlands package issues were implemented to make the game more grindy for the 0.1%.

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They deffo are clueless if they’re nerfing so much time, it’s like they don’t know if they wanted this tier to be hard or easy.

That’s the main point and Blizzard does not understand that guilds actually need TIME, ie the actual planned time window to clear the raid, instead of NERFS, which would make boss trivial.

P3 is imo the hardest phase of the fight and knowing how Blizzard handled “nerfs” (Sorry, I don’t call removing mechanic a nerf, that would be an undestatement) so that would probably be the likely target. OR they could also nerf P2 which apperently is a struggle for many guilds.

Dedication came outside of raids, in the form of farming the maw to get conduits (Even if they’re negligeable, some guilds actually enforced grinding for those) and every grind related to legendaries, from materials or gold to craft/buy base items to then run choregasht to get enough ashes.

A streamer complained aboot having to spend a 6 figures amount of gold to purchase a legendary, which is not reasonable for what’s actually a basic feature, ie changing gameplay. Even if legiondaries were RNG, they didn’t require such amount of gold.

Even Max recognized they should stop desining around them, so yes, they should desining around regular players spending 6 to 9 hours per week rather than 18 h per day.

Then I have other solutions :
-Remove S4 because it does not seem popular
-Remove S4 ilvl increase

Blizzard created this bad situation so it’s on them to fix it.

Whenever I dare to point out that as a raider, I should not have to run those chores, I’m being told I should “play” but…playing should be aboot doing what I actually enjoy.

And in the end, the vast majority of the playerbase disliked those. I still think thorgasht could have been a great piece of content, I really do. But I’m being hardwired to believe that is just a mandatory chore like we had in BFA in the forms of islands or warfronts.

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No thanks, the only people complaining are those that aren’t going to get CE. Thats not a real indication of anything. I’ve literally seen 2 people here whine about it. The rest seem pretty content to get more gear and a bit of variety.

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So you think it’s just fine to shorten the time span of an actual tier which S4 is not bringing. I’d get the argument if S4 was brining actual new content.

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Pretty much yes.

This tier is probably one of the least successful in the history of the game. The sooner it ends the better.

They should have probably given more notice but what would that have changed except giving the people more time to whine.

I really don’t see why the release of “new” stuff should be delayed because a minority of nerds want to wave the CE title. No one really cares but them and the really skilled and dedicated people did it months ago. No one cares about the 577th guy to finish a marathon except that guy.

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It still is vastly below what is the norm. 1.3k is the unofficial cutoff. 700 is around half of even that. And the raid was already hard nerfed with Lihuvim, Halondrus and now Anduin being a husk of their former self. Halondrus should have never gotten live in the form he originally did with his position in the raid however.

And 700 is a number that i have given personally based on my own experience from observing raid tiers in general. Arguably it depends on how the nerfs are going to be whether that number is changing a lot or not much at all.

So people that are playing in a range that is usually fine for CE dont have to panick over it. Said guilds also suffering from potential leavers now as people are panicking over CEs and application to higher guilds are running rampart. Even guilds such as Pantheas are getting hard spammed with applications.

Said people will also have to run Sepulcher again. Starting the gearing process anew and the progression tied to it given the bosses will also be upscaled (and given Blizzards history with scaling i dont see this succeeding even remotely). Not to mention the weekly rotation where only one of the three raids is fated and has increased ilvl so good luck on getting your pieces that you couldnt grab with your 3 total coins as you will have to wait 3 weeks to try again. Also progression will be a nightmare for guilds in the older raids if they havent progressed said raids back then already. Certain fights in particular.

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There is no new content for raiding so one solution could be removing raiding part out of S4 and just let that season be about M+ and pvp.

Sorry again but S4 ain’t bringing new content. I’d get the argument if S4 actually released a new raid tier or if we were talking about delaying DF launch but that’s not the case. Players just want to be offered the same amount of time they had on every SL tier rather than onlitered HC+ bosses.

That’s interesting because most of guilds are planning raiding like a marathon rather than a sprint. Blizzard basically told most of guilds to run a sprint instead of a marathon.

I came from guilds rank which were 1500 so not good enough to clear fast which would allow for reclearing but good enough to achieve CE. Heck, I’d even say that last tiers tend to last longer because they know there won’t be new actual content for months so there is nothing wrong with having more guilds competing their marathon, be it 2 weeks before expansion pre patch launches.

Blizzard does not understand that players needed and wanted a decent amount of time rather Than watered down bosses. Guess they don’t wanna admit S4 is a mistake.

Guilds sticked on Lords don’t have a shot from my understanding but they literally obliterated Jailer this night XD

From what I’ve read, many of these guilds decided to call it a day, more especially with summer break being around the corner. I have a friend who is in this kind of guild and there is no other feeling than just sadness and frustration, understandably so.

At this given point, I think Blizzard should just remove raiding out of S4. I’m dead serious because I don’t see the point of S4 having at most 5 raid rotations…

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