Pleasantly Surprised

A small update today as I'm still on holiday, but I was desperate to make a comment on a recent development before it became an outdated footnote. Mists has been live for close to a fortnight now and the past week has seen the first of the new raid content available to players. Moshu'gan Vaults has seen a fresh batch of 90's throw themselves into Normal difficulty encounters with 6 different bosses. I am yet to participate in any of the new raiding content but I was online on Wednesday evening (Saurfang time) and had my ear 'very close to the ground', if you will. What was relayed to me caused me to slowly break into one of the widest smiles affected by World of Warcraft for a long time.

"It's taken us 90 minutes to beat the first boss on normal mode"

"Only one guild in the world managed to clear 6/6 on the first night, and it's just the normal difficulty"

"They've changed things since Beta, it's much harder now" 

That's right! Blizzard has finally done justice to the opinion I have long privately held. Raiding has three very distinct difficulty levels. LFR, Normal and Heroic. I have always been disappointed with the fact that Normal and LFR difficulties have been far too similar in that both pose little to no challenge for the majority of players. Both were glorified sightseeing tours through the raid dungeons and I make no apology for describing it as such.

LFR is the mode for a wander through some ancient halls while you throw a Fireball or click your Cleave once or twice. Normal mode should never have been treated with the disdain it received through most of Cataclysm. It should be difficult to the stage that when you meet a boss for the first time you will not be successful on the first or second attempt. Finally I was beginning to see Blizzard reflect my own beliefs when hearing of the challenge that some Saurfang raiders were facing that Wednesday night.

As I write this things have changed slightly, but Wednesday night has been proven to be anything but an anomaly. No Saurfang guilds have cleared 6/6 normal mode and only one sits at 5/6, with a bulging queue at 4/6. This only serves to build my own sense of anticipation for the challenge that awaits with the other 10 bosses this tier, not to mention the small issue of heroic modes.

I've said it once and I'll say it again, it is an exciting time to be a Saurfangian!