While World of Warcraft: Shadowlands players may no longer be racing for Mythic World First in Castle Nathria, the first raid of this expansion still offers plenty of challenges and rewards to keep them returning every week. But even though Castle Nathria has been out for two months, several bosses remained as difficult as they were on release.
Despite players having access to better gear than before, many encounters feature unavoidable damage to the entire raid. Due to the nature of these mechanics, only larger raids could reliably deal with the fights to get their heroic items and achievements. However, Blizzard has finally addressed the discrepancy of raid sizes by nerfing damage and scaling for smaller groups.
In total, six Castle Nathria bosses have received some changes to benefit heroes in Raid Finder, Normal, or Heroic. In particular, the constant damage that healers must deal with during battles like Sludgefist have become much more manageable. While most of the nerfs are to AOE damage, a few fights with extra adds like Sun King's Salvation also have their health decreased depending on player scaling. Groups with 10 players will now deal with significantly less punishing mechanics than their counterparts that max out at 30 raiders.
Though the changes are intended to help out smaller groups, these adjustments will fundamentally alter fights that were considered frustrating or a joke by most of the World of Warcraft community. Lady Inerva Darkvein's fight which featured plenty of random AOE and add spawns should now be easily downed by players used to the previous requirements. On the other hand, Stone Legion Generals received its own mini-rework for bigger raid sizes that will force extra responsibilities and scaling on additional players previously used to circumvent the mechanics.
Most players will be happy about the changes, especially those in smaller guilds or tight-knit groups. However, it won't invalidate the mechanics in every fight that are required such as taking the AOE explosion away from the raid in Artificer Xy'mox. Furthermore, the Council of Blood encounter against three bosses remains untouched while Sire Denathrius' own abilities are still just as punishing during his fight. While these changes won't let fresh groups clear the whole raid in one try, it does allow a chance to recover from mistakes during progression and give the final push needed for many pulls.
In the end, players shouldn't expect many more nerfs to Castle Nathria but one final set could be coming soon if the community continues to struggle. Until then, most groups will have an easier time raiding this week and they can always gear up through Mythic+ dungeons and PvP as alternatives.
Source: World of Warcraft