11-04-2006, 05:59 AM
Quote:My CTRA decursive function broke some time ago, I had no problems on Chromaggus. I can't speak to Noth or Sapphiron, except to say that many of the people who say Sapph is impossible without decursive also say Chrom is hard without it.
OMD, if you've seen me around you know my stance on Decursive. Since early on I've felt it's a crutch and that it encourages reliance on an automated system to, in effect, play the game for the gamer. Identifying and cleansing debuffs is an aspect of the game just as healing or tanking might be, and the "decursive" functionality destroyed that. I've never used Decursive. I manually select and decurse (or abolish, as the case may be) debuffs since I have the entire raid up on my screen at all times with debuffs shown. I did it on Lucifron. I still do it on Faerlina. Sapphiron might be a while. *grins*
What worries me is that Blizzard openly tuned encounters with Decursive (and other mods of its kind) in mind. They admitted this, and if you look at the damage output of some of the nastier debuffs in Naxxramas it's pretty obvious that they need you cleanse the raid as a whole, ASAP. I've not yet seen Sapphiron in person, but I don't like the thought of an encounter that's been tuned expecting the players to use Decursive with that "expected" functionality outlawed.
Fights like Patchwerk in which an immense amount of healing is needed just got harder through the decreased effectiveness of downranking spells. They will either necessitate even more consumables or (and perhaps this is their goal) a complete rethinking of what makes suitable healing gear.
The other side of the coin is that some encounters just got a lot easier, and should also be tuned accordingly. Maexxna is going to be a joke with stacking HoTs. What was a challenge when learning the encounter is going to be nullified by the abundance of heals over time. They should increase her damage vs. Web Sprayed opponents accordingly to compensate.
I don't want automated cleansing in the game. I don't want them to reconsider the changes they are making to the +heal system and downranking. I do want them to reevaluate the content with the new game mechanics in mind. I also feel that it is unfair to anyone attempting these encounters for the first time that Blizzard would respond to their difficulties by saying "it'll get easier with higher level people."
The expansion is unfinished. The same could be said of the changes in mechanics if they neglect to take a second look at the encounters.
See you in Town,
-Z
-Z