But Why Tho? Patch 11.2: Ghosts of K’aresh Interview
Reducing Trash in Manaforge Omega
Carrying over from Liberation of Undermine, the new Manaforge Omega raid will also feature an exclusive renown track full of raid-specific rewards. Pared down from 20 to 15 ranks, they’ve also improved the rewards.
In addition to the standard stacking damage/healing buff and increasing movement speed inside the raid, renown ranks 3, 7, and 11 will also reduce the amount of trash mobs within sections of the raid. This is described as something of a flavorful compromise.
George Velev, via But Why Tho?
“We do think a lot about the player experience and how it feels to traverse through the content. But also, it’s a lot about what this is supposed to feel like in the game. If you’re going into someone’s lair for the first time, of course, they’re gonna have a metric ton of bodyguards.”
He continued, “We’re also breaking up the amount of time that you have in between bosses. I’m sure some players might enjoy it, but we want to make sure there’s a bit of a break in between so you can hang out on Discord or talk to your friends instead of just focusing on the boss constantly.”
“One of the purposes of the renown track is to show mastery of the content and accelerate content from time to time. So when it comes to figuring out ways that we can make someone’s raid night faster, the amount of raid trash certainly feels like something that we can tweak and play with.”
Trash, trash, trash!
The “Optional” Soul Hunters Boss
Optional is a strong word for a boss that drops tier and one of the strongest special effect items in the entire Season, which is something the Senior Producer seems to agree with.
George Velev, via But Why Tho?
“In my opinion, if it drops loot, it’s definitely required.” This boss does drop shoulder tier tokens, so I’m sure most raids will go after The Soul Hunters to ensure players get their best-in-slot tier piece.”
Elaborating further, it seems the intent was to let players skip the boss once they felt like its rewards were no longer compelling, which isn’t an unreasonable idea – it’s the basis of all raid skips (which are also unlocked via Renown, similar to Liberation of Undermine). Most importantly though, players will need to defeat the Soul Hunters in order to achieve Hall of Fame: Dimensius, the All-Devouring, making it very much required for high progression and Race to World First guilds.
George Velev, via But Why Tho?
“We’ve heard feedback that clarity is needed about the full nature of this demon hunter encounter being optional. To avoid confusion as we inch closer to the season’s start, we’d like to make it clear that while you can bypass this encounter once your raid group decides the rewards from it are not compelling to progress to the end of the raid.”
“Completion of the encounter will still be required for the purpose of gaining credit toward Hall of Fame status. We appreciate the feedback from players who have jumped onto the PTR and look forward to an exciting start to the season.”
To be fair, we only fight most bosses because they have loot.
Rumors of a Third Demon Hunter Spec
Since the reveal of the Void-themed Soul Hunter Adarus Duskblaze, rumors have been flying over whether it’s meant to tease a third Demon Hunter specialization. The hype may have been accidental and unintended though, as despite responding in Blizzard’s typical cagey fashion, the Senior Producer seems to imply that a third spec isn’t coming soon.
But Why Tho?
Does this mean DHs are next to get a new spec? Not necessarily, according to Velev. “We ended up making some narrative beats in Ghosts of K’aresh around Demon Hunters. So we want to sort of explore that little bit more in the raid.”
“Personally, I always really enjoy raid encounters that are based off of classes or specs. It’s a really good opportunity for encounter designers to flex different muscles. So it’s certainly just a fun exploration on our end to see what’s cool and what’s not. In terms of a new class or spec, we have nothing to announce, but it does sound really cool.”
It should have been me…
Dimensius, Larger than Life
Regarding World of Warcraft’s biggest ever raid boss, Blizzard wants to assure players that they took great pains to ensure that weaker PCs won’t struggle to keep up with the sheer scale of the encounter. They’ve also learned a few lessons since we faced Deathwing in Dragon Soul, and are keen on avoiding a fight that’s either too large or too long to feel satisfying.
George Velev, via But Why Tho?
“We have a lot of brilliant and smart engineers on our team. For any single encounter, not just Dimensius, we go through rigorous performance testing to make sure that all PCs of all types can play the encounter.”
“We made sure to listen to the lessons of the past in two major aspects. One was, we’ll be punching a very big thing. The last thing we want to do is have people fighting his toenails for 15 minutes. And we also don’t want it to be a 15-minute fight.”
Deathwing was colossal, Dimensius is cosmic.
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