Ghostcrawler "Wow, Dungeons are Hard!"

[Adam-Savage]

Caught this blue post on heroics being "to hard"

We've seen and heard a lot of discussion about the challenge presented by the Cataclysm Heroic dungeons, and to a lesser extent the raids. I'm not sure this is the kind of issue where we're going to be able to change anyone’s mind on the subject, but I can try to provide more insight into our point of view as well as offer some suggestions for success.

First, let me state that we do hear you. We understand some of you aren’t having fun and preferred the Lich King paradigm, or at least something closer to the Lich King paradigm. We greatly appreciate the feedback and it always makes us sad when players aren’t having fun. We're not ignoring you. We get it. We may not always agree on every point, but we understand where you’re coming from, and we want to try to help you understand where we're coming from.

The bottom line is that we want Heroics and raids to be challenging, and that is particularly true now while the content is new and characters are still collecting gear. They’re only going to get easier from here on out. We want players to approach an encounter, especially a Heroic encounter, as a puzzle to be solved. We want groups to communicate and strategize. And by extension, we want you to celebrate when you win instead of it being a foregone conclusion.

On the other hand, we don't want you to stumble your way to victory. We don't want you to be able to overwhelm bosses without noticing or caring what they’re doing. We don’t want healers to be able to make up for all of the mistakes on the part of the other players. While at the end of the day, dungeons may just be gussied up loot vending machines, we want you to do more than push a button to get the loot.

Ultimately, we don’t want to give undergeared or unorganized groups a near guaranteed chance of success, because then the content will feel absolutely trivial for players in appropriate gear who communicate, cooperate, and strategize.

We didn't like that the Heroic dungeons in Lich King and early Naxxramas had become zerg-fests. It made the rewards feel like they weren't earned. It made all rewards except the best-in-slot items feel transitory -- why enchant or gem an item when you don’t need the performance boost and you’ll quickly replace it anyway? Furthermore, it set the expectation that everyone would eventually earn all best-in-slot items rather than those being rare and treasured goals. It made class abilities feel less useful and interesting. Who needs that crowd-control or survivability talent when nothing is hurting you? Who needs a mana-conservation talent if you’re never going to run out of mana? Who needs a crit talent if your heals often overheal anyway?

Finally, the encounters, even the bosses, ended up having a sameness to them because you could ignore their mechanics. It didn't matter -- in fact, you didn't even notice -- if the dragon breathes or silences or drops a void zone. The fights all felt the same.

In Cataclysm, the Heroic dungeons and raids are intended to be challenging -- and they are, at least until you overgear them.



So what can you do if you find the Heroics too challenging? Here are a few tips and alternatives.

Strategy and Communication
Tanks, you can’t pull and AE every group in a Heroic (again, until you overgear the content). It’s a good idea to crowd control at least one target -- and sometimes two. As long as you have someone with a long-duration and/or renewable crowd control and someone else with a short crowd control such as a stun or even a snare, you should be fine. We don’t have anything like Heroic Shattered Halls, and you don’t need 3 mages for CC. Caster mobs, which are weak but do a lot of damage, are good choices for crowd control. So are mobs that buff other mobs or debuff your group. Don’t waste the CC on non-elite mobs or others that will die quickly. The responsibility for marking and setting the pace often falls upon the tank, but sometimes other experienced players are happy to take the mantle. If you are setting the pace, you need to keep an eye on healer mana. Healers will generally have enough mana to keep you alive in any given fight, but you need to be careful not to chain pull repeatedly if their mana is low. Tanks tend to have good situational awareness and are experienced at reducing incoming damage. Where I have personally seen them get into trouble is when they slip into overconfident “I got this” mode and try to tank too many things at once.

DPS specs often get blamed the most for not knowing what is going on. It should be your business to understand the mechanics of the fights. You’re a member of a team, not a follower who can always rely on someone else to tell them what to do. Which are the spells that need to be interrupted? Which are the void zones that you absolutely must get out of? Which are the adds that must be burned down (and conversely, when should you ignore the adds and focus on the boss instead)? If you aren’t sure, then ask. Almost every group would rather take the few seconds to explain a fight than to wipe because you failed to dodge Glubtok's wall of fire or tried to AE Vanessa’s spiders or didn't understand what "Downwind of Altairus" meant.

Healers seem like they largely understand that Heroics are challenging, and sometimes get penalized when the rest of the group doesn’t understand that. If you feel like you can’t cast anything but your efficient heal or you’ll run out of mana, then something is going wrong with the fight. Likewise, if you feel like you must spam your inefficient heals to the exclusion of all else, then your group is ignoring key mechanics or is just undergeared. Boss fights in 5-player dungeons generally shouldn’t last more than two minutes or so (the last few Deadmines bosses can be longer). If you’re running out of mana because the fights are going too long, that is a problem with the DPS or tank in your group. Gear also makes a huge difference for healers, which leads to my next point.

For everyone, regardless of role, I suggest running the dungeons on normal mode until you feel more comfortable with the pulls. Those runs can be quick, the penalty for mistakes isn’t as high, and you can often still earn a little reputation, cloth, or enchanting materials. As a bonus, you’ll probably make a group really happy if you’re geared for Heroics but helping them out in a normal dungeon.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2053469

[Adam-Savage]

Improve
If you just can’t make progress and you are literally wiping on trash pulls over and over, it may be time to analyze your gear. The Dungeon Finder's Heroic item level requirement should be considered a minimum -- and remember, it doesn’t look at enchants or gems or even if the gear is appropriate for you. We are assuming an entry-level Heroic player has a lot of item level 333 gear from Twilight Highlands, normal dungeons, or any of the reputation vendors. These 333s are probably mixed in with a few 318 quest greens, but offset by a few 346 items. If you finished the Hyjal quests, you are probably Revered with Guardians of Hyjal and have access to their 346 items. Questing might only earn you Honored with some of the other reputations, but that is easily rectified with daily quests or dungeon tabards (and don’t forget the Tol Barad reps). There are some nice crafted items. No, the weapons aren’t purple, but when you look at their stats, they are quite competitive.

The item level requirement is intended only to keep out players who have no idea what is appropriate content for them. We know you can game it by getting PvP gear or hiding off-spec gear in your bags. Congrats on being sneaky! If you’re sophisticated enough to try and game the item-level requirements, you should be sophisticated enough to know if you can actually handle the content.

Don't be stingy and decide you aren’t going to mess with gemming, enchanting, or reforging until you have epic gear. Note that you don’t have to always apply the most expensive enchants or gems. Gear matters a lot. It increases DPS, survivability, and mana sustainability. Healers who get, say, 1750-1800 Spirit notice that they can go a lot longer without gassing out. Go ahead and get enchants or gems or reforge to get a lot of Spirit. Some DPS specs who don’t reforge hit at those gear levels would struggle a lot as well. The new Cataclysm flasks are fairly expensive, but the Lich King ones aren’t, and there are elixirs and food consumables you can use as well. Archaeologists can even unlock small bonuses in the new dungeons.

Furthermore, once 4.1 comes out, you will have access to more powerful gear that will let you then revisit the content you couldn’t do before. Your Justice points will let you purchase epic items at that point, and Heroics that were challenging will become a lot easier. Players who have raid gear currently are already starting to burn through the dungeon content again, which is totally expected. You’ll get there too. In Lich King, the content patches tended to completely invalidate the previous tier of content. We don’t want players to feel like they need to farm Naxxramas when Icecrown Citadel is out, but at the other end of the spectrum, it was unfortunate that we largely killed Ulduar raiding when Trial of the Crusader came out.

LF3M 9600GS PST
I love the Dungeon Finder. I worked on it a lot personally. It is quite successful at finding you a group. It doesn't guarantee a successful group. It's a huge improvement over spamming trade chat trying to find a tank for your three-rogue party. But throwing together up to 5 strangers and asking them to do challenging content that some of the group may have never seen before is always going to be risky.

World of Warcraft supports a lot of solo play. However, we want dungeons to be a group experience. In fact, we think the game is more fun overall when you play with friends, which is why we put so much effort into encouraging players to join guilds for Cataclysm. Running a hard dungeon with friends tends to be a much better experience. Communication feels less awkward, and everyone is generally more supportive of mistakes. You learn the strengths and weaknesses and nuances of players that you run with regularly. There tend to be fewer loot arguments as well. PUGs have their place -- don’t get me wrong. But we don’t want to sacrifice dungeons being fun and challenging for organized groups in order to have everything be conquered by any possible group. Make sense?

I’ve PUGged the Cataclysm content a lot. So have all of the designers. We want to stay in touch with what players are experiencing. Heroic PUGs are definitely harder than going with groups of people you know, but they aren’t impossible. If things start to go wrong, you might want to take a moment to analyze why they are going wrong before you bail. I do weep for those players who join an in-progress Heroic Rajh attempt (with suspicious player skeletons everywhere), immediately pull without any discussion, and then have the tank leave the group following the first wipe. That’s not fun for anyone and not going to lead to success. These aren't the original Scholomance or Arcatraz runs that could take four hours with respawns. Making a couple of concerted attempts on Rajh is probably going to be faster than going into the queue again.


Mistakes?
We've seen a few threads that suggest that we're too proud to admit mistakes. I find that logic strange, because we do it all the time. Example one: we reverted the 10x honor from Tol Barad pretty quickly. It was a mistake. Example two: Heroic Strike is too dominant an attack for warriors. That was a mistake. Example three: the Lich King Heroic dungeons (and Naxxramas) were too easy to zerg, setting up an expansion-long expectation that purple gear would come easy and often. In retrospect, that was a mistake. We don't at all view the Cataclysm dungeon and raid balance as a mistake.

However, I can name at least three things related to dungeon difficulty that we either did wrong or could do better. We're our own worst critic, and we are very hard on our own decisions.

First, item level is a necessary -- but not sufficient -- hoop to jump through when using the Dungeon Finder for Heroics. We should have also made sure players had at least seen the content on normal mode before. Maybe we should have had Burning Crusade-like attunements. Maybe we should have made the item level requirements pretty relaxed if you’re going with a premade group and much stricter if you’re going with a pick-up group. We’d love to implement (and have some long-term plans that include) better ways to detect if you know what you’re doing other than just the gear you’ve accumulated. Overall, we just needed to state more clearly that Heroic dungeons are intended as a destination, not a first step.

Second, there are only a few level-85 normal dungeons. For a level-85 player who isn’t ready for Heroics but wants to run dungeons, these can get old pretty quickly. Perhaps another way to handle it would have been to have introductory Heroics and harder Heroics. We’ve also flirted with having three difficulty levels before, but that does add an extra level of content to develop and complexity to explain.

Third, the game could do a better job of telling a group why they failed so that so much blame doesn’t fall at the feet of the healer. We talk a lot about not standing in fires, but equally important is the number of bosses that spawn in adds that must be gathered up and/or burned down quickly, or in some cases ignored. We’re also asking a lot of DPS or tanks in those situations, but that information isn’t always conveyed well except through trial and error.


In Conclusion
We do understand that some healers are frustrated and giving up. That is sad and unfortunate. But the degree to which it's happening, at least at this point in time, is vastly overstated on the forums. We also know that plenty of players like the changes and find healing more enjoyable now. Both sides need to spend a little less effort trying to drown out the other side claiming that everyone they know -- and by extension, “the majority of players” -- agree with their point. You shouldn’t need to invoke a silent majority if you can make an articulate and salient point.

As always, we're keeping an eye on things. There are a few bosses that seem responsible for more wipes than the others: Commander Springvale, Beauty, Altairus, and Admiral Ripsnarl perhaps. By the time you read this, you might have seen us implement Restoration druid buffs intended to keep them competitive in raids. We also just tend to nerf content over time because the original players hitting that content have moved on, so we want to open it up to a wider audience.

In any case, we want to ensure that everyone is having fun and enjoying their time with the game, and I hope that this post may serve to some as the "tare" button that helps you zero in on the intended dungeon difficulty scale. For others, just know that we are actively reading feedback. For everyone offering constructive posts and points about their experience, we thank you.

[Felidire]

We don’t want healers to be able to make up for all of the mistakes on the part of the other players.

This is the reason why most people are QQing about the difficulty, the healer almost always runs out of mana, and idiots standing in the AoE - when a single heal costs in excess of 6k, on a 70k mana pool - isn't really helping the group out.

Some healers are completely terrible as well.. But even the good ones can't carry the un-coordinated scrubs through dungeons now.. and that's a good thing in my eyes! =3

As a tank, i'm not finding Heroics to be all that difficult; it depends on how good my healer is and how co-ordinated the dps are.. There are a handful of bosses that give all my groups trouble: (Commander Springvale(SFK), Erudax(Grim Batol), but they'll be easy enough in a few weeks/months. <3

I kinda feel sorry for blizz when people all complain like that, they should spend less time complaining on the forums and more time learning to play their class and getting gear.

[Comett]

We don’t want healers to be able to make up for all of the mistakes on the part of the other players.

This is the reason why most people are QQing about the difficulty, the healer almost always runs out of mana, and idiots standing in the AoE - when a single heal costs in excess of 6k, on a 70k mana pool - isn't really helping the group out.

Some healers are completely terrible as well.. But even the good ones can't carry the un-coordinated scrubs through dungeons now.. and that's a good thing in my eyes! =3

As a tank, i'm not finding Heroics to be all that difficult; it depends on how good my healer is and how co-ordinated the dps are.. There are a handful of bosses that give all my groups trouble: (Commander Springvale(SFK), Erudax(Grim Batol), but they'll be easy enough in a few weeks/months. <3

I kinda feel sorry for blizz when people all complain like that, they should spend less time complaining on the forums and more time learning to play their class and getting gear.

Nicely said. ^_^

Personally I am finding heroics perfectly manageable and in a lot of cases fun. I'm in a casual but competent raiding guild and we are already at a stage now where 80% of the time we can breeze through heroics with a few bosses that give us trouble due to group makeup more than anything else (not enough interrupts for example). Tanks need to stop charging in. DPS need to stop being idiots. Healers need to stop with the "flash heal spam" [and equivalent]. In the end, I agree with the above: stop complaining and learn how to play your class. XD

[Lisaara]

Also a thing healers seem to ignore is "Not everyone needs to be topped off". I can't stress it enough. It'll save you mana, I think, in the long run, if you're more careful with your spells. Main focus is yourself and the tank. DPS is pending.

[Ryai]

Also a thing healers seem to ignore is "Not everyone needs to be topped off". I can't stress it enough. It'll save you mana, I think, in the long run, if you're more careful with your spells. Main focus is yourself and the tank. DPS is pending.

Tbh I think there's some healers with this thought to ingrained in them in normals atm. I'm all for saving mana, but dude when I run out of health pots and bandages are on coomdown and I'm standing on 1k hp PLEASE HEAL ME FFS.

I've had 3 normal dungeons where I was basically only a couple hits from death and the healer had more than enough time to pop a heal onto me or a hot. But never anything. While as I say this is a good thing to teach healers, some are taking it to far it feels and making it feel like the DPS should be healing themselves period and honestly I don't have the time to waste farming embersilk cloth to spam up first aid past frostweave or have all the mats to make health pots for all my toons.

Also a few of the nerfs posted on MMO I read were mostly because you could be boned if you didn't have the right interrupts or silences in the group.

the funny part was then someone was screaming warlocks should only use Felpups for silence, and hunters should only ever use LFD if MM and anything else should GTFO

[Lisaara]

Also a thing healers seem to ignore is "Not everyone needs to be topped off". I can't stress it enough. It'll save you mana, I think, in the long run, if you're more careful with your spells. Main focus is yourself and the tank. DPS is pending.

Tbh I think there's some healers with this thought to ingrained in them in normals atm. I'm all for saving mana, but dude when I run out of health pots and bandages are on coomdown and I'm standing on 1k hp PLEASE HEAL ME FFS.

I've had 3 normal dungeons where I was basically only a couple hits from death and the healer had more than enough time to pop a heal onto me or a hot. But never anything. While as I say this is a good thing to teach healers, some are taking it to far it feels and making it feel like the DPS should be healing themselves period and honestly I don't have the time to waste farming embersilk cloth to spam up first aid past frostweave or have all the mats to make health pots for all my toons.

Also a few of the nerfs posted on MMO I read were mostly because you could be boned if you didn't have the right interrupts or silences in the group.

the funny part was then someone was screaming warlocks should only use Felpups for silence, and hunters should only ever use LFD if MM and anything else should GTFO

Oh well yeah. :O you should never get to 1k in the first place. You should always, at the least, be usually at 50% health. Any lower, the healer needs to give some attention.

Wow, people are really taking it that far? Geebus....><; That killed me on the inside.

Wow......They do realize MM is still kinda....not good at the moment.....right?

[Kalliope]

It depends on the fight. If there's lots of AoE damage, of course you need to heal the party. Other fights, if you don't stay focused on the tank and you have a limited mana pool, you'll end up in trouble if you toss too many heals on the dps.

It's all about gauging a particular situation, and that includes the entire party's gear, not just yours. A low dps group is going to strain your mana pool more than a high dps group. If you're lesser geared yourself, that's going to be an issue. It can also come down to the entire group taking extra damage that you simply can't heal through at this stage. Playing an encounter intelligently can save you a lot of mana. Dispel things that will chew through your mana. If you can't dispel something, then either get a dps who can to do it or let the group know that this is going to be an extra strain on you. A lot of players simply don't know the encounters or think about these things.

I agree that players need to stop complaining and start learning how to play better. None of these encounters are really that hard once a certain amount of proper level gear has been obtained, and all of that can be gained through questing, running normal instances, or crafting gear. If you go into heroics with mostly 333 gear that is appropriate for your class/spec, then you're ready. At that point, it comes down to execution. It doesn't take THAT much more effort to know what the heck you're doing in an instance, especially since there are fewer buttons to worry about for everyone these days.

[Kurasu]

I'm actually pretty happy that they're nerfing some of the 'YOU NEED INTERRUPTS OMG' bosses. I was starting to look into an interrupt pet not because I particularly want them (I don't *like* gorillas!) but because they are the only option for a BM/Surv hunter to have interrupt worth the time. A 1 minute CD interrupt isn't going to help against most bosses. This opens up my pet options a little more. And makes it feel like I'm *not* so useless in groups just because I don't have an interrupt option, which sadly is where things were starting to lean.

[Kalliope]

Oh geez, I agree, Kurasu. >_< The lengthy cooldown on pet interrupts prompted me to leave Castor (nether ray) stabled for those fights. And I really really really wish we could have all of our interrupting pets have a smart cast like gorillas and felhunters.

[Ryai]

It depends on the fight. If there's lots of AoE damage, of course you need to heal the party. Other fights, if you don't stay focused on the tank and you have a limited mana pool, you'll end up in trouble if you toss too many heals on the dps.

Yeah on one fight it was the worm in Stonecore, I was trying really hard to not be hit, but me and another DPS seemed to have the worm magnet on us, no matter where we stood, the damn gyreworm always appeared and whammed into us, it got so bad the tank, healer and other dps decided to AVOID US AND RUN AWAY FROM US ENTIRELY.

I wanted a heal not to be left to die ;_;

[Sasrei]

Yay! Nerf I demand to faceroll on heroics! /sarcasm

I didnt really see a problem with heroics in my guild group, mostly because we are pretty coordinated. But in PUGS.. they were.. kinda scary.

I am sorry but if your standing in the AOE, healers shouldnt have to waste mana healing you while trying to keep the tank up. Its no that difficult to move, fight mechanics are a little different then usual and the whole if you mess up one thing once you die sucked but once you understood them it really wasnt that difficult. Heroics always prepared the way for raids, not just for gear but as well learning how to play your class, ccing, kiting etc and it was fun. Personally what I did not like in WowLK, is when I facerolled in heroics only to get slapped by LK and his cronies . I started playing again in WTLK, so kiting.. foreign, ccing.. foreign. So certain bosses I was soo not prepared for. This way you get a "Hi welcome to raiding" beginners handbook. Instead of the faceroll, get into a raid and see the sign "Put your head inbetween your legs, and start kissing"

[Lisaara]

It depends on the fight. If there's lots of AoE damage, of course you need to heal the party. Other fights, if you don't stay focused on the tank and you have a limited mana pool, you'll end up in trouble if you toss too many heals on the dps.

Yeah on one fight it was the worm in Stonecore, I was trying really hard to not be hit, but me and another DPS seemed to have the worm magnet on us, no matter where we stood, the damn gyreworm always appeared and whammed into us, it got so bad the tank, healer and other dps decided to AVOID US AND RUN AWAY FROM US ENTIRELY.

I wanted a heal not to be left to die ;_;

Ugh. I've had that. The worm is like "OMGCHICKENOMNOMNOM!" xD

[Makoes]

It really is all about Re-learning your class, and game mechanics. If you know how the fight goes, what needs to be killed asap and what can be kited/trapped or left to nom tank, then it should go smoothly.

I am enjoying being a hunter in these dungeons because I actually feel more usefull. Generally I've taken to having my Silithid Ant with my for randoms. Zolk's web helps handle CC and I am learning how to use traps better. One of my main issues though is when a trap is resisted, and I attempt to pull the mob to me so I can kite/try trap again away from group, the tank usually pulls the mob in further straining the healer.
Since I also have my druid healer, I've a greater awareness of healers abilities, and what I can do to help make it easier on them.

I am thinking I might need to make a macro for randoms, that lets the tank know that if a mob is coming at me, not to taunt them back, as It's coming after me for a reason. Or if a mob is on my pet, to leave it there. Anything to help make it easier for the healer to kep the group alive.

Also...wow...some people are not the brightest...If a mob gets on a dps or healer...DONT RUN AWAY!!! Run TO THE TANK so s/he can taunt it off you...call out to tank for help. But trying to run back to the instance entrance with a mob nomming you, does not end well!

People really need to simmer down, take a breath and realise that this is a game. Take it slow, and do it proper, make sure everyone knows the fights, and explain easily and simply what the fight entails...

Is there knock back? AoE? Things on floor to watch out for? Adds? Phasing? Stuns/sleeps/debuffs? etc.

In Uldum for one fight: Watch out for glowy things on floor, boss will stun/phase us, kill adds asap, un-phase, nuke boss, repeat. Easy, simple, and clear.

whoops, went off on a rant

[Cozzene]

Some encounters needed nerfs. When I get impaled during the 2nd boss in GB, you get 0 heals. Then as soon as I'm dropped (inevitably into a fire puddle) he starts spraying his shield, arrows are raining down, and we wipe. Being able to heal while impaled is a MUCH welcomed change that I don't think will cause a significant impact, just make it slightly less stressful for the healer. Baron Ashbury needing one less interrupt is ok with me (as a healer); I cannot dispell them all when you fail to interrupt and still have enough mana for his AoE angsty form. And no, letting them die won't make it easier either =)

But like, fighting Lockmaw in the temple, why on EARTH was that a big deal? Fine, we'll bottleneck him at the stairs opposite the temple. Slabhide drops less rocks... because giant black circles are hard to run from? No one will group up to avoid LoS issues? Lord Walden was easy as sin. I'm SO looking forward to his nerfs... Blight of Oz. in Throne... didn't tick THAT hard. Now it ticks for even less!

[Ryai]

Slabhide drops less rocks... because giant black circles are hard to run from?

I think it's more the fact that like 25 fell around me once. And I lagged to sin. Also the fact it wasn't fun for me at all on normal- avoiding rocks, managing pet, making sure pet didn't get smished, making sure I didn't get smished, why can't I shoot? Oh he's in my face, joy. Why is Kc not going off? Did it glitch again? Was my pet stunned- oh he's in the air. Oh shit more rocks.

The fight isn't friendly for ranged or people who have to you know stand and cast.

And my raptor got stuck on a rock once O_o

Also...wow...some people are not the brightest...If a mob gets on a dps or healer...DONT RUN AWAY!!! Run TO THE TANK so s/he can taunt it off you...call out to tank for help. But trying to run back to the instance entrance with a mob nomming you, does not end well!

As a healer who has done this let me explain- when you're stressed from having to heal a group and yes it can actually happen, as much as some people can faceroll heal others can't, and I am one of them. So when a mob jumps me I usually run around like a headless chicken, around the dps usually to try and get adds off me. And the few times I did run to the tank I was ignored.

Thanks to the wrath mentality of Oh the healer is a tree, he can heal himself..

T_T

[MeAjur]

Also a thing healers seem to ignore is "Not everyone needs to be topped off". I can't stress it enough. It'll save you mana, I think, in the long run, if you're more careful with your spells. Main focus is yourself and the tank. DPS is pending.

I'm one of those healers who do like to top players off. But in my defense I do it conditionally.

Number one: tank always gets healed first. Sometimes sacrificing myself to keep the tank up which I've read is actually a no-no but oh well. But if the tank goes down anyway I can at least attempt to save myself on my druid (Shadowmeld is kinda hit-or-miss, though) but my priest likely will go down with the tank as well. Number two: everyone else who gets hit gets a hot if I judge the tank will survive without my attention long enough for me to pay someone else a little attention. A single cheap hot is usually enough to get most dps back to full health while in combat. Of course there are exceptions like when a group is surprised or if they're less than ideally geared which will force me to burn mana. But generally speaking I can afford the mana to get everyone topped off.

[VelkynKarma]

I wonder which crowd they were really thinking of for these nerfs?

I haven't actually done any of the new dungeons myself yet (personally I'm kinda terrified to go into PuGs right now since...they require communication and effort, and I rarely if ever saw that in any of my pre-Cata dungeon runs).

In the quotes they mentioned both PuGs and guild-groups. A guild-group or any other assembled group of friends could probably down heroic bosses easily even before the nerfs with a little patience and cooperation. I'm imagining pugs would have a much more difficult time of it though....perhaps this is some of the reasoning behind the nerfing?

~VelkynKarma

[Nightsights]

most of them are ok. H Grim Batol is the toughest. all four of the bosses are tough. everyone in the group needs to be well geared and skilled.

the other heroics have a tough boss or two, like 1st boss in SFK(if you dont have good interrupts), corborus and ozruk(hunters have to melee to get the bleed debuff to break the paralysis) in SC, and Admiral Ripsnarl in DM.