With the new HM vendor the limited Uld pugs will become even more scarce.
One solution to keep uld alive is enabling a 100% drop rate for frags on every boss - or making each boss have a chance to drop 1-3.
Another solution is nerfing uld so any pug can clear it.
Increase the amount of drops per boss.
Completely kill Uld and put frags in the HM vendor.
Personally, I would’ve preferred no vendor, but it’s here, so finding a solution to not completely kill uld pugs (or go full throttle and kill it with frags in vendor) should be considered.
Ideally just increasing the amount of frags and loot drops should be sufficient with a few nerfs, but something needs to be done to keep it alive.
Why would you wanna keep ulduar alive? icc 10 +25 heroic are super long raids, together with ruby sanctum (which will come sooner or later), VoA + maybe togc 25 if youre missing some nice items like DV you already spend a lot of time raiding with a single character.
Thats like asking to keep naxxramas relevant
But your suggestions would help only 1 player in the whole raid, the person who gets the mace. I dont understand how any of your suggestions should bring more people into ulduar (even though I wouldnt even agree that it should be a goal to incentivise players to raid ulduar for another 6 months till we get cata, but thats my personal opinion I guess).
They already increased the amount of frags with togc release, didnt they? If you want the mace, start now. You will get it within 4-6 weeks, so you can still enjoy it for almost 5 months.
My bad, I overlooked your 3. suggestion. I still dont think its necessary, people asked for more ulduar hardmode loot before blizzard announced the 25 HM vendor, so after almost 9months of raiding ulduar the raid can die in peace.
There is simply no need for more items/frags, because we will already have tons of catchup mechanics. On top of that, ulduar wont get closed, so if you feel like you wanna raid it on top of being able to get the gear from marks, feel free to do so.
Ok, thanks for the input. I made the thread because I think nobody will do it, as it currently stands, and as a result it will hurt the: pug scene, Val crafts and the amount of catchup people can do. Having more geared people icc ready and more pugs is only positive for me, but each to their own. And yes thanks I’m aware uld won’t be closed. Thanks again.
I agree, and I think that togc 25 hc and heroic+++ dungeons with the new ulduar 25hm items / toc25 items from the vendor are a great way to provide that. You can always ask for “more” catchups, but we reached a point where everyone who actually wants to get gear for icc can easily get it, without a guild or gdkp.
The announcement of flare being guaranteed farmable in a day in 3 weeks has completely rekt any ulduar activity, it was dead on the very day of the announcement
Indeed. This is why if we want to keep at least some pugs alive so people have additional options to gear up for icc, changes to the raid are required otherwise there will be zero interest, and as a result no runs.
I made peace with the fact that Ulduar, as good as it was, will just die and pugs will not be able to get their legendaries. At least that will slightly increase legendary scarcity.
That’s one way to look at it. I would’ve agreed in a sense, but the vendor changes things.
Personally, I am not even a fan of the easy access to legendries, or the vendor, however, it has been done and there’s nothing anyone can do. If the vendor was not added people would go back (Maybe not loads but enough so people could find a pug), but now the vendor is here, they must adapt the raid too, otherwise it will indeed die, and having a great source of items (some still bis) would be a shame to lose.
Why? There’s no logic or reason to consider older content is required to die, certainly not when there is still bis items in there… that just makes no sense.
I am saying either add all the Uld items to the vendor, or make it worthwhile to do so pugs continue.
They purposely buffed Uld to keep it relevant, so… pretty much Blizzard don’t completely agree with you, either.
The most successful version of the game also had people going back to MC even when Naxx was out. Giving pugs the ability and/or the population the motivation to do it via the suggestions above is not a big ask and provides only benefits for the pugging scene, and the population ability to do more catchup. Removing even more content from an already dead game is not ideal.
Items in Ulduar wont be BiS next phase, they’ll be used as a stepping stone into icecrown. Some of those items will be very helpful in hitting enrage timers and tank/healing checks.
New characters and alts don’t want to spend weeks stuck at gear checks for icecrown, that’s what catchup mechanics are for.
Without stepping stones, characters used new guilds to gear up and would then jump ship to the better guilds, leaving the weaker guilds needing to recruit and gear somebody else up just for the same thing to happen.
What are we basing success on? Sub numbers? That was OG WoTLK. By the time ICC was out in OG WoTLK, all other content was dead. Infact, going back to Ulduar during ToGC was a waste of time entirely.
You can still pug Ulduar.
Do you know what this change does? It means you don’t NEED to pug Ulduar, it doesn’t remove Ulduar pugs.
It will however remove the 70k price on Flare in GDKP runs, because running a day’s worth of 5 mans is a better option than giving 70k gold to a gold seller.
And you know what? I love Ulduar. But I’m also sick and tired of it, I’ve ran it every week (sometimes twice) for 40 weeks now. That’s nearly an entire year.
Yes they do. It is BiS 1 in T10 for holy paladins, resto shamans and resto druids (sorry priests it is BiS 5 for DC and no holy priest will get it outside of GDKP or self organised PUGs that not seem to happen in a 3 weeks anymore).
Some items in Uld will be bis next phase. The mace for starters is bis for a lot of classes, because Blizzard intentionally buffed it and others items so the raid would stay relevant. They’re their words - so now they should take action.
Not to mention, a lot of Uld items like Flare are so powerful they will be the only trinket the majority of casters use for the rest of the game. Some things like Mim bracers for Dks for one are fantastic ally side because you can swap out the polar hit ones etc.
The items in Uld are extremely relevant and a lot of people for months won’t see ICC heroic ones because the raid is difficult and the difference between ICC norm gear and Uld/Togc hc isn’t that massive.
And Classic had the highest pop and sub numbers.
Also, you won’t be able to pug Uld, that’s the point of the thread. People will not make enough groups (if any) because it won’t be worth it. I also don’t really care for personal thoughts on the raid, I don’t even really like it because we’ve done 3 splits in there, but believe it or not sir, the thread is to help the lower end of the community and new players, nothing to do with myself. More pugs here will help them, and funnel that into higher geared raiders for ICC - simple.