Gogogo

I'm not really happy about patch 3.3.2 of World of Warcraft, because the patch notes start with a long list of encounters in heroic dungeons that have been shortened. Bosses use special abilities less often, wait times have been reduced, and so on. It all reminds me very much of the kind of players you encounter in a pickup group whose first and only words in a dungeon are "Gogogo".

Speed runs not only kill any possible social interaction between players, they also teach players how to play badly in a group. Nobody lets the tank get aggro any more, as the dps classes are fighting to be on top of the damage meter and start blasting full power the second the fight starts. I've even had dps pulling. Nobody is using crowd control any more, not even in the hard fights where it would be quite useful, like in the Halls of Reflection. Everybody just mindlessly spams AoEs: AoE taunting, AoE damage, AoE healing.

Of course the root of the problem is heroics giving rewards way beyond their difficulty level. Heroics were designed to be run in iLevel 187 to 200 gear, but nowadays often are run by people in iLevel 245 gear to get the emblems of frost for the iLevel 264 gear. That is like running a dungeon 5 levels below your own.

Blizzard really shouldn't give in to the demands of the speed runners and shorten heroics even further with patches. If anything, they should make heroics somewhat harder and more challenging, not nerf the bosses even further.