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While patch 3.2 is shaping up to focus heavily on improving the leveling experience, there is also what may arguably be the largest shift in design philosophy for raids since Blizzard chose to drop the 40-player format in favor of smaller 25- and later 10-player raids. I'm of course talking about Crusaders' Coliseum, which uses a new multi-difficulty format -- purportedly Blizzard's compromise to designing content for both casual and hardcore raiders. From the new normal and heroic formats, to the ability to extend your lockout timer at will, the changes are going to have a far-reaching impact on the raiding experience in World of Warcraft.
It's fairly easy to look back at the design flaws of Wrath raiding so far, from tier 7's extremely easy 25-player content to Ulduar -- quite possibly the worst tuned instance at its release since Blackwing Lair -- but there was a light at the end of the tunnel. While many were hesitant to accept hard modes as the future of raiding for hardcore players, it turned out that Blizzard was actually able to design content that's still challenging and isn't beaten within the first three days. Even the theoretically impossible hard modes were beaten, some through unconventional means, and others through sheer perseverence. So to that end hard modes were a success, and it looks like we can expect to see an instance full of decent challenges, based on the Crusaders' Coliseum boss encounter preview; Lord Jaraxxus and the Val'kyr Twins look especially fun.
The major question still up in the air is how itemization is going to be handled with Crusaders' Coliseum. We've seen 10-player loot evolve since Wrath of the Lich King released, and in almost every case the hard mode-10 loot was better than 25-normal in Ulduar. Will that continue on in Crusaders' Coliseum? PTR build 10072 added to the confusion with this, as the tier 9 vendors were changed again. The ilevel 258 version requires a Regalia, while the ilevel 245 version requires Emblems of Triumph and a new Trophy of the Crusade, with the ilevel 232 version only requiring Emblems of Triumph. We'll have to wait until testing begins to know for sure, but this could mean one of three things:
- 258 is for both heroics, 245 is for normal, and 232 is meant to be filler / something people running dungeon heroics can get eventually
- 258 is for heroic-25, 245 is for normal-25 and heroic-10, and 232 is for normal-10
- There's no real rhyme or reason to the system yet since the instance isn't open
What this does mean, however, is that progression-focused guilds will be able to more easily gear up specific classes such as tanks or DPS, since each boss will drop a Regalia usable for any set piece, rather than a specific item. The Regalia are still limited to certain classes for each, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.
While I'm not particularly thrilled about a one-room instance with five encounters, I'm pretty excited about what the future holds for World of Warcraft raiding in 3.3 and beyond with these changes. It's nice to see that even though the hardcore audience is very small, Blizzard recognizes that they're a valuable audience for the game. My only real disappointment with Crusaders' Coliseum is that it's not Azjol-Nerub, but I guess we'll all have to settle for fighting Anub'arak in a Kael'thas-esque scenario.
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