For those who havn't done p3 Putridice, if you watch the videos of 25 man Put killed before Thursday, you'll notice the phase 3 stacking damage is totally manageable. The debuff on the tanks stacks 4-5 time and ticks for something completely healable, like 4-5k. Speculation said the scaling on this debuff was bugged and the damage would later be increased.

Now, once you hit p3 the damage of the debuff triples per application. At 4 stacks the debuff ticks for a manageable 4-5k. Then at 5 stacks the debuff starts ticking for 12-15k. This is not manageable healing. Basically, Blizzard is forcing you to either make a very tight soft enrage timer, or use three tanks, which is a simple solution, but not one you see coming.

Now most of the time, I wouldn't really care about this. Encounters get stealth-buffed and nerfed all the time, it's not usually a big deal. But consider all the aspects of this buff.

1. This is done mid-week, after several kill videos are released. You can say this is a problem for the people who assumed killing the boss later in the week would result in more information on it, but a lot of people do that. Replicating a video of a kill earlier in the exact same week and wiping to something completely unrelated is really silly.

2. This isn't a small change that is easy to work around. This is a substantial change in the encounter that comes at the last possible noticeable moment. Not only because a third tank has absolutely @!#% to do in the first two phases of the encounter, but because the damage increase to the stacks is completely unpredictable up until the fifth stack, at which point you basically instantly wipe. If you memorized the damage on the previous videos you might feel like the damage is increasing a bit fast, but people don't really do that. The actual application of adding a third tank isn't hard, but you don't even learn that you have to do this until 5 seconds before you wipe, and its completely contradictory to all previous knowledge on the encounter. This isn't even hard, it's nit-picking. There is nothing fun or challenging about the change, it's just a random way to screw a good portion of the mid-high end raiding population out of their attempts.

3. On that note, attempts! Yes not only did you ninja change an obscure last-moment part of this encounter, but you did it on an encounter with limited attempts. I'm sure you've ninja buffed/nerfed encounters in the past, which isn't a big deal if you have unlimited attempts, and which is one of the reasons I could care less for the Rotface/Festergut changes that were announced. Why on earth would you do this to an encounter with limited attempts? Are you going to do this in the future? I dislike limited attempts but I don't really have a problem with them. Changing an obscure but necessary factor in the final moments of an encounter with a handful of attempts with absolutely no warning is incredibly dumb. We almost lost our server first kill to some random U.S. 300 guild soley because they knew from our experiences that you need a third tank for the encounter.

I really don't get it. You're just being a @#!*. Even if you make the argument that we should have to learn the encounter like the guilds that killed it before thursday or whenever this nerf took place, you're only confusing people that are less willing to adjust from confirmed information. If you think it's fair to cause guilds to lose rank based on their willingness to use available information, you have a twisted and obscure view of what is fair.

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Q u o t e:
For those who havn't done p3 Putridice, if you watch the videos of 25 man Put killed before Thursday, you'll notice the phase 3 stacking damage is totally manageable. The debuff on the tanks stacks 4-5 time and ticks for something completely healable, like 4-5k. Speculation said the scaling on this debuff was bugged and the damage would later be increased.

Now, once you hit p3 the damage of the debuff triples per application. At 4 stacks the debuff ticks for a manageable 4-5k. Then at 5 stacks the debuff starts ticking for 12-15k. This is not manageable healing. Basically, Blizzard is forcing you to either make a very tight soft enrage timer, or use three tanks, which is a simple solution, but not one you see coming.

Now most of the time, I wouldn't really care about this. Encounters get stealth-buffed and nerfed all the time, it's not usually a big deal. But consider all the aspects of this buff.

1. This is done mid-week, after several kill videos are released. You can say this is a problem for the people who assumed killing the boss later in the week would result in more information on it, but a lot of people do that. Replicating a video of a kill earlier in the exact same week and wiping to something completely unrelated is really silly.

2. This isn't a small change that is easy to work around. This is a substantial change in the encounter that comes at the last possible noticeable moment. Not only because a third tank has absolutely @!#% to do in the first two phases of the encounter, but because the damage increase to the stacks is completely unpredictable up until the fifth stack, at which point you basically instantly wipe. If you memorized the damage on the previous videos you might feel like the damage is increasing a bit fast, but people don't really do that. The actual application of adding a third tank isn't hard, but you don't even learn that you have to do this until 5 seconds before you wipe, and its completely contradictory to all previous knowledge on the encounter. This isn't even hard, it's nit-picking. There is nothing fun or challenging about the change, it's just a random way to screw a good portion of the mid-high end raiding population out of their attempts.

3. On that note, attempts! Yes not only did you ninja change an obscure last-moment part of this encounter, but you did it on an encounter with limited attempts. I'm sure you've ninja buffed/nerfed encounters in the past, which isn't a big deal if you have unlimited attempts, and which is one of the reasons I could care less for the Rotface/Festergut changes that were announced. Why on earth would you do this to an encounter with limited attempts? Are you going to do this in the future? I dislike limited attempts but I don't really have a problem with them. Changing an obscure but necessary factor in the final moments of an encounter with a handful of attempts with absolutely no warning is incredibly dumb. We almost lost our server first kill to some random U.S. 300 guild soley because they knew from our experiences that you need a third tank for the encounter.

I really don't get it. You're just being a @#!*. Even if you make the argument that we should have to learn the encounter like the guilds that killed it before thursday or whenever this nerf took place, you're only confusing people that are less willing to adjust from confirmed information. If you think it's fair to cause guilds to lose rank based on their willingness to use available information, you have a twisted and obscure view of what is fair.

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As a point of clarification, this was not a buff so much as a bug fix. The AEs being cast by the abomination driver in P1, P2 and the tanks in P3 were being affected by the player AE cap, thus diminishing the amount of raid damage being done in 25 player Putricide. We fixed that bug in a hotfix. Of course we waited until Tuesday's server maintenance to apply the hotfix so as not to unfairly punish people that raided later in the week.

Furthermore, the encounter was designed to utilize 3 tanks. If you're just barely making the DPS check killing Putricide with 2 tanks, you might have a problem. Essentially, if you're using 2 tanks and both tanks are at a 4 stack your raid should be dead. With that said, I have a hard time believing a guild capable of meeting the DPS requirement for Festergut can't make a substitution in their raid comp to overcome the bug fix.

If all else fails, zonewide buffs will be available soon enough, allowing you to crush Professor Putricide, see his oozes driven before you, and hear the lamentation of his abominations.

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Q u o t e:
Why would you require the fight to use 3 tanks when the 3rd tank is clearly going to be rather useless till p3 and all the fights previous to yogg0 only require 2 tanks?

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Mainly to force you to burn a raid spot for a tank, thus having less DPS to work with, and secondly to see a glorious three way tank swap at the end.

Maybe you should start thinking about your poor tanks, eh? Remember the third wheel that you make switch to tank spec for Marrowgar and force rotting tank loot on? That person has feelings too.

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Q u o t e:


Does anyone know when these are coming out?

I sort of feel a sense of urgency because I do not want to kill bosses I've worked hard (pre-nerf) on after they are nerfed. I remember spending two weeks solid on Yogg having extended our raid week an extra day just to get in enough time on him... Then he gets a nerf and we not only kill him on the first attempt, but do so without any deaths... It really cheapened the kill and basically spit in the face of all the people who worked hard on it...

So if this zone buff comes in a week with the new gate, I am going to have to get creative to get my guys over the hump... Possibly offering cookies! If it comes after Arthas dies, then I won't mind because then we suck and need help.

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You will be able to choose to NOT use the zonewide buff for whatever that's worth to you. So it seems your battle pride may remain intact.

Going to lock this thread as it has degenerated into a lot of trolling (decent trolling mind you) and WHITE HOT RAGE.

See you all next week for the blood prince discussion: "Balls of flame in my raid? It's more likely than you think..."