The Middle of the Week Report

May 2016

‘Sup, guys, things happened after our weekend report. Dem things were so… amusing that we had to write about it immediately. In response to that article being somewhat serious, this Mid-Week Report will be more light-hearted. If you’re too young to read some… uncensored words, close the door and don’t tell anyone.

So. Jagex fucked up. They released patch notes which gutted the accepted way to do boss fight without telling players about it beforehand. RuneScape PvMers, understandably feeling as if they were slapped in the face with a wet trout, started QQing on reddit, leaving JMods to try and get in front of the situation.

First, we have to actually tell you what the controversial changes were in case you haven’t read our last article. Barricade will now scale with your shield’s level, meaning that it won’t last 10 seconds no matter which shield you use. It will have a minimum of 4, any additional duration will depend on the level of your shield.

Another thing Jagex nerfed was Heal Other, despite saying that they want the support role to be a thing. Now, Heal Other will deal damage even if under effects of Barricade. While Heal Other + Barricade was OP, they probably could have found a better, or at least less universally hated, solution if they tried consulting the high-end PvM community.

Lastly, Dreadnips have been nerfed to oblivion. In essence, if a boss was stunned by Dreadnips, it will now be immune for 10 seconds instead of 3.

These changes make some content redundant and greatly influence the way raids are going to be played. We predict that tanks will now be gear-checked way more carefully because fights will become more tank… gear-check-y instead of making players to coordinate things to reduce the damage tanks take.

While that may turn out to be a healthy thing for the game in time, the crux of the matter is that the whole matter was handled terribly. You don’t drop such game-changing news without warning when you have RuneLabs, a place where you can discuss things like that and find the best solution together. If Jagex didn’t expect there to not be riots in the streets, they were being naive. If they expected it and went ahead anyway, it’s another, even greater problem altogether. We hope that RuneScape developers learn from this. For their sake, as well as everyone else’s.