Mechanics on the trash seem to work for the most part. We didn't check them one by one, but they all seemed to be casting their abilities.
Tuning comments on trash mobs
Each wave has a timer so there are DPS checks to be made on every one of them, because not all waves are the same, some can seem trivial while others can cause trouble depending on the
On the waves to Rage Winterchill and Anetheron we ran with 22 and struggled meeting the DPS checks on the packs with 4 necromancers because their summons have 97k health instead of the normal 33.8k they should. While we still cleared them the casters barely had time to drink between waves which creates a snowball effect. It's also especially evident the bug which keeps healers from getting out of combat a long time after combat has ended, similar to this report:
The checks for Anetheron and Kaz'rogal were not met with a team of 23 BiS characters, because as soon as we couldn't meet a wave DPS check the other would stack up.
For this raid the result of the tuning of the trash remains inconclusive as we didn't have a full team. In general the damage received is very high making the healers struggle with mana.
Mechanics comments on Rage Winterchill
The boss seems to be doing the mechanics correctly.
Tuning comments on Rage Winterchill
Icebolt damage is too high and doesn't need scaling from its base damage. In the image, the person is being hit by 9344 damage in 1 second and 12199 total damage in just 2 seconds.
The damage problem with Icebolt also comes with it being spammed sometimes every 2 seconds which means healers can't keep up with these amounts of damage on so many people so fast https://github.com/chromiecraft/chromiecraft/issues/6976
Death and Decay is being scaled meaning that instead of getting 15% total health damage per second we are getting 20.25% THDPS, meaning that instead of having 6.6 seconds to get out of the zone from the center, the player has only around 5. This increases the difficulty of the fight with reaction times by 32% https://youtu.be/GRNZglE70RM. Source: https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Rage_Winterchill_(tactics)
This fight is factually overtuned both of his main mechanics don't need any scaling
Towering Infernals
These will kill most players marked within 2 seconds, as they hit for around 3.8k+ with Immolation while immediately meleeing with 5k+ hits giving the effected player 2 seconds to be healed/tanked off and anyone nearby around 4 seconds. These two abilities don't need any buffing from their base values. Source: https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Anetheron_(tactics)
Small hit box
Complicates the fight more for melee as they need to be closer to each other, making the infernal mechanic more punishing if the marked player doesn't move away in time
Sleep on the tank
While not supposed to happen, the boss is tauntable so it can be fixed with two tanks swapping when this happens.
The fight seemed OK. The raid damage received felt a bit high, but more testing would be necessary to reach a conclusion.
Mechanics comments on Archimonde
Due to time constraints, we were unable to test this boss
Tuning comments on Archimonde
N/A
Overall comments on raid mechanics
Besides a few abilities having unusual timers, mechanics in general (trash & bosses) seem to be working OK. Archimonde was not tested in this PTR, so this rating is based on the 4 bosses before him.
Give a rating out of 10 for the state of the mechanics in the raid
8
Overall comments on tuning
As TBC raids become mechanically more complex, this current approach to globally increasing damage values is making fights become unnecessarily harder than they were supposed to be initially by the original game developers, like spells doing 21% health dmg instead of 15% reducing the available reaction time players have to survive mechanics.
Wrath gear does not scale like this with stamina, for example the TBC and Wrath pieces of T6 both have 34 agility and 36 stamina:
The effect of "receiving higher damage but having the same amount of health" has on gameplay is players being killed faster giving a feeling of not having any control over some mechanics, like dying in less than a second with an Icebolt because the damage received is too high which also frustrates the healers.
I do understand the dilemma, that if damage received is too low then players will just ignore mechanics so it's a delicate balance.
Give a rating out of 10 for the state of the tuning in the raid
Mechanics comments on trash mobs
Mechanics on the trash seem to work for the most part. We didn't check them one by one, but they all seemed to be casting their abilities.
Tuning comments on trash mobs
Each wave has a timer so there are DPS checks to be made on every one of them, because not all waves are the same, some can seem trivial while others can cause trouble depending on the
On the waves to Rage Winterchill and Anetheron we ran with 22 and struggled meeting the DPS checks on the packs with 4 necromancers because their summons have 97k health instead of the normal 33.8k they should. While we still cleared them the casters barely had time to drink between waves which creates a snowball effect. It's also especially evident the bug which keeps healers from getting out of combat a long time after combat has ended, similar to this report:
The checks for Anetheron and Kaz'rogal were not met with a team of 23 BiS characters, because as soon as we couldn't meet a wave DPS check the other would stack up.
For this raid the result of the tuning of the trash remains inconclusive as we didn't have a full team. In general the damage received is very high making the healers struggle with mana.
Mechanics comments on Rage Winterchill
The boss seems to be doing the mechanics correctly.
Tuning comments on Rage Winterchill
This fight is factually overtuned both of his main mechanics don't need any scaling
Mechanics comments on Anetheron
Confirmed issues:
New Issues
Tuning comments on Anetheron
Towering Infernals These will kill most players marked within 2 seconds, as they hit for around 3.8k+ with Immolation while immediately meleeing with 5k+ hits giving the effected player 2 seconds to be healed/tanked off and anyone nearby around 4 seconds. These two abilities don't need any buffing from their base values. Source: https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Anetheron_(tactics)
Small hit box Complicates the fight more for melee as they need to be closer to each other, making the infernal mechanic more punishing if the marked player doesn't move away in time
Sleep on the tank While not supposed to happen, the boss is tauntable so it can be fixed with two tanks swapping when this happens.
Mechanics comments on Kaz'rogal
New Issues
Tuning comments on Kaz'rogal
Information is insufficient to know if this boss can be beaten by a non BiS raid with its current amount of health.
Malevolent Cleave is hitting for 12k followed by normal 5k swings, meaning a BiS tank will be receiving damage spike os about 90% their health.
Mechanics comments on Azgalor
Confirmed issues:
Tuning comments on Azgalor
The fight seemed OK. The raid damage received felt a bit high, but more testing would be necessary to reach a conclusion.
Mechanics comments on Archimonde
Due to time constraints, we were unable to test this boss
Tuning comments on Archimonde
N/A
Overall comments on raid mechanics
Besides a few abilities having unusual timers, mechanics in general (trash & bosses) seem to be working OK. Archimonde was not tested in this PTR, so this rating is based on the 4 bosses before him.
Give a rating out of 10 for the state of the mechanics in the raid
8
Overall comments on tuning
As TBC raids become mechanically more complex, this current approach to globally increasing damage values is making fights become unnecessarily harder than they were supposed to be initially by the original game developers, like spells doing 21% health dmg instead of 15% reducing the available reaction time players have to survive mechanics.
Wrath gear does not scale like this with stamina, for example the TBC and Wrath pieces of T6 both have 34 agility and 36 stamina:
The effect of "receiving higher damage but having the same amount of health" has on gameplay is players being killed faster giving a feeling of not having any control over some mechanics, like dying in less than a second with an Icebolt because the damage received is too high which also frustrates the healers.
I do understand the dilemma, that if damage received is too low then players will just ignore mechanics so it's a delicate balance.
Give a rating out of 10 for the state of the tuning in the raid
6