In “The War Within”, the developers of World of Warcraft are trying out a new kind of nerf for raids. Each week, the raid becomes a little easier.
In a few weeks, the release of the latest expansion of World of Warcraft is coming. With “The War Within”, new areas, hero talents, and a story campaign that spans three expansions are waiting. There are also the “usual suspects” in the form of new dungeons and raids.
However, the first raid, the “Palace of the Neru’bar”, comes with a built-in nerf. Each week, the challenge becomes a little easier.
What is the first raid of The War Within? The first raid in The War Within is the Palace of the Neru’bar. As the name suggests, it involves fighting against the Nerubians, who have allied themselves with Xal’atath. This is not surprising, considering that these spider-like creatures descend from the Aqir and once worshipped the Old Gods.
In the palace, the goal is to overthrow the current queen, Ansurek, while also preventing Xal’atath’s plans with the Nerubians.
How does the raid nerf itself? In the palace, certain items drop from the bosses, known as “Nerub-ar Finery”. You can exchange these with an NPC each week to gain a buff that is active during the raid. The buff “Severed Strands” increases your damage and healing per stack by 3% and can be stacked up to 15 times – for a maximum of 45%.
As of now, you can unlock an additional stack each week, so you become about 3% stronger each week – and the raid correspondingly nerfed.
By the way, this buff applies to all characters in your war band. So if you want to play a twink later, they will already benefit from all the stacks of the “Severed Strands” buff that you have unlocked by then.
However, note that The War Within is still in beta. 45% seems very strong, so it is possible that Blizzard will adjust the exact value.
Why is Blizzard doing this? It is completely normal for Blizzard to nerf a raid over time. This usually happens in several ways.
- Manual nerfs: The developers adjust the health points, damage, or abilities of the bosses to weaken them a little. These post-balance changes are usually made when certain bosses turn out to be too challenging.
- Equipment: Characters’ equipment improves throughout the season, making raids easier on their own – simply because the heroes have better gear.
The new “Severed Strands” buff is a third method to give characters a small boost each week and nerf the raid “on the side”.
Blizzard does this so that all groups can eventually overcome the difficulty level they choose. In the past, Blizzard only designed raids for a small fraction of players, but now they want to encourage most groups to complete the chosen difficulty level by the end of the season.
Is this something completely new? No. Similar mechanics have existed in the past, such as in Icecrown Citadel (WotLK) or Uldir (BfA). Even here, additional effects became active after a while, either weakening the bosses of the raid or strengthening the heroic groups. Blizzard seems to have taken a liking to this type of weakening (or strengthening), which is why it makes a return in The War Within.
What do you think of this additional type of “automatic nerf”? A good thing to get a little better each week? Or annoying and disruptive, as it slowly erodes comparability? What you should still accomplish before the new addon, we have explained here.
