5m instances - easier now?

[schlange]

Are 5m instances now easier since patch 3.0.2? I have never successfully done a heroic and my gear is standard blues but I am wondering if the heroics and 5m are all easier now with a pally tank and 4 shammy?

[Aradar]

The instances themselves were not changed like the raid dungeons were if that is what you are asking. However, I run the same setup as you and if you had any fights that came down to mana issues, those are pretty much gone now.

[Kicksome]

I thought heroics were nerfed like raids were. Can anyone confirm?

[Aradar]

Raids only was my understanding.

[Schwarz]

I thought it was heroics also. And I think the nerf goes beyond just the bosses too the trash also. Things just seem more simple. Maybe it is from the new talents or something else but I think everything got easier. The quick search I did on MMO only showed Raid's being nerfed but I swear I read it was too heroics also.

[Lorune]

Its only raids.

To coincide with the upcoming new talents and mechanic changes for classes in the next patch, we are making some adjustments in existing raid content to provide a smooth transition when the upcoming patch is released. The creatures and bosses in raid dungeons that were introduced in The Burning Crusade will have their health reduced, and most will have their standard melee damage output reduced as well, but their spell and ability damage are not being changed. These changes are being made in all raid dungeons from Karazhan to Sunwell Plateau as well as the outdoor encounters of Doom Lord Kazzak and Doomwalker. On top of this Illidan is also doing his part and will stop casting Shear on players.

Thats the orginal post by blizz

[Sarduci]

The old content was not balanced against the new abilities. I'm guessing that the new content will have new abilities/AI/situations that will bring them up to par with pre-3.0 patch content. That being said, my first heroic run was recently before the patch and my first boss down was Mennu after 2 hours of trying to get through to him. Post patch, I can do all of SP and up to the first boss in Ramps in about 1.5 hours which is my limit for playing for the night. I'll be getting my blocking libram tonight! [img]../forum/images/smilies/biggrin.png[/img]

[suprafro]

If you play a 5x shaman group, heroics got way easier in 3.0 thanks to thunderstorm...makes any trash pulls that were previously tough very, very easy as you have 5 knockbacks to play with you can nuke through the most insane pulls without ever taking damage. Now, If you play with a pally tank, im not sure if thunderstorm would be as useful sense your trying to tank stuff though im sure its still nice to have

[Xar]

Another thing to remember that affects everything is the removal of crushing blows, I believe for anything up to 3 levels above you. So if you ever got a crushing blow before, you won't now.

Technically a heroic is a raid because of how it saves you to the instance. Type /raidinfo. Also notice that if you log out after a heroic, when you log in you are still in-party. I haven't seen any specific mention though whether heroics are nerfed or not though and I did not see anything specific that said it only applied to 10-mans and 25-mans. One thing for sure it's hard to tell whether they were or not but personally I think they are.

Over the weekend my well geared warrior tank friend with 4 of my shaman smoked 2-1/2 heroics in fairly short time. His previous group could not get past the third boss in H.Mgt so after the group fell apart we went in and finished it up. Then we did H.UB and H.SP. Only 1 shammy death at the end of H.UB. The tank was taking less damage than I'm used to seeing that I'd force myself to wait till he was half empty on health then do 4x lesser healing waves to heal him up. He also had so much threat I could go all-out dps'ing from the beginning of each pull, it was insanely fun.

[Kulzor]

Some mechanics help a lot now. For example, you ought to have a little more armor on the tankadin with Devotion Aura up. Mana used to be a severe issue for me, now I rarely run out (granted, the shaman is helping a lot there).

Shaman in general don't have much improvement - pretty much only thunderstorm and stacking mana totems. The tankadin is the big one - the six second (seven with glyph) can really help at the start of a heroic fight, and again the mana issue. Eliminating any threat bottleneck certainly helps as well.

Here is text from the 3.0.2 patch notes:
"All raid dungeons from Karazhan to Sunwell Plataeu as well as the outdoor encounters of Doom Lord Kazzak and Doomwalker have been adjusted and now all creatures and bosses have less health points and do less damage. "

Full patch notes here: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/

So I'd say that heroic 5-mans did NOT have a reduction in health.