sNERF, sNERF!!!!

For any of you reading this who don't like when I rant...you probably ought to just go back to your Youtube pr0n right now because this...this is sort of a rant.  I am one disappointed druid right now...

Dear Blizzard...You suck.  You've dumbed down Firelands too much and basically ruined a good, challenging raiding experience.  You have failed...again.I

Here are the Hotfix Notes:

Dungeons & Raids

• Firelands
  • Hell Hound Rend Flesh damage has been reduced by 25%.
  • The damage multiplier granted by energy to Unstable Magma has been reduced by 50%.
  • Alysrazor
    • Health and damage have been reduced by 25% on normal difficulty. Health and damage have been reduced by 15% on Heroic difficulty.
    • Alysrazor now drops 1 additional feather in 10-player mode and 2 additional feathers in 25-player mode in all cycles.
    • The Wings of Flame buff duration on Alysrazor is now uniformly 30 seconds.
    • Alysrazor’s Fiery Tornados now move slower.
  • Baleroc
    • Health and damage have been reduced by 25% on normal difficulty. Health and damage have been reduced by 15% on Heroic difficulty.
    • Baleroc now swings 25% slower while Decimation Blade is active.
    • The duration of Tormented has been reduced on normal difficulty.
  • Beth'tilac
    • Beth'tilac's health and damage have been reduced by 15% on both normal and Heroic difficulty.
  • Lord Rhyolith
    • Health and damage have been reduced by 15% on both normal and Heroic difficulty.
    • The health and damage of additional enemies in this encounter have been reduced by 15% on both normal and Heroic difficulty.
  • Majordomo Fandral Staghelm
    • Health and damage have been reduced by 25% on normal difficulty. Health and damage has been reduced by 15% on Heroic difficulty.
    • Druid of the Flame have had their health reduced by 15%, and Sunfire damage reduced by 25% on both difficulties.
    • The health and melee damage of Spirit of the Flame have been reduced by 25% on normal difficulty, and reduced by 15% on Heroic difficulty.
  • Ragnaros
    • Ragnaros' health and damage have been reduced by 25% on normal difficulty.
    • Ragnaros' damage has been reduced by 15% on Heroic difficulty.
    • Magma Trap damage has been reduced on all difficulties.
    • The health and damage of additional enemies in this encounter have been reduced by 25% on normal difficulty and 15% on Heroic difficulty.
    • Wrath of Ragnaros now knocks targets up, but not back, on normal difficulty.
  • Shannox
    • Health and damage have been reduced by 15% on both normal and Heroic difficulty.
    • Riplimb's health has been reduced by 15%.
    • Rageface's health has been reduced by 15%.
    • Magma Flare damage and Hurl Spear damage have been reduced by 15% on both difficulties.

Doesn't it seem like we just got started in Firelands?  I mean, seriously...

Last night, our 25 man team went into this "fixed" Firelands raid and basically steamrolled everything....including Majordomo Staghelm.  That...sucks.

Normally, I'm not the type to cry about stuff like this but as a healer last night, I can honestly say it was sort of...well...boring.  The first 6 fights in this raid are pathetically easy for our guild.  I'm not saying that we're super elitists or anything, but we've spent the last few weeks learning each encounter and learning how to do it well.  We were already one-shotting bosses a few weeks before this "nerfing" took place, but there were still a few encounters that we had a bit of trouble with and were still trying to learn.  It took us a few nights of consistent trying and failing on Staghelm before we got him down.  Wiping isn't fun, but the feeling you get when you've spent a few nights wiping and trying to learn a fight and then finally, at long last, you down the boss...is just awesome.

I'm going to keep using Staghelm as an example.  My guild struggled with figuring out how many flame scythes we could take at first.  When we figured that out, it was learning how to position ourselves so we didn't screw ourselves over with a poorly placed "leaping flame" circle of death when we got Searing Seeds.  Then it was everyone learning to obey their Searing Seeds timer and not blow us up...and then it was trying to make sure we got healing cooldown rotations set up correctly so that the combination of searing seeds and flame scythe didn't wipe us all out...

I think you get the point.  We learned the fight a step at a time.  Monday night was our first Staghelm kill together.  The fact that we went in the following night, God-Moded our entire way through to Staghelm and then took him down after one....ONE...wipe...means that the nerf was maybe a little too much.  

We definitely should have had a bit more trouble on Staghelm, considering this was only our second kill on him.  I don't even think we got close to our 3rd scorpion phase on him...hell...I think we had him down around 60% health or so before the end of the FIRST scorpion phase.  That means that the raid is now broken.  It's no longer a challenge for raiders that have invested any amount of energy into really raiding and knowing how to play their class optimally. 

I can't help but feel a little robbed of a challenging raiding experience right now.  Sure, it's fun to GOD-MODE an entire raid...but I'm going to miss the actual challenge in each of the fights.  Another really bad thing that can potentially come out of this is:  Bored raiders don't show up for scheduled raid nights.  Once everyone realizes what a joke Firelands has become and they get bored with facerolling it...they'll stop showing up.  That makes things much harder on guild and raid leaders. 

I guess that's all I really have to say about it.  Part of me is glad it'll be easier because that means easier access to epics, but part of me is really going to miss the challenge.