Never played Cata OG. For WotLKC launch was T6 geared and had the guild 5-man heroic teams all planned out. Might as well take a couple days off work and do the same thing for Cata launch.
I never liked the smell of roses anyway.
Questions:
For 80-85 is it faster to dungeon spam or open world quest? Leaning towards dungeons. Is the 80-85 open world fleshed out?
For both TBC and WotLK, I felt the “level 62/72 greens will replace all your epics” was over-exaggerated. I assume mostly-BiS lvl80 gear is just fine for Cata heroic dungeons, but what about the first raids? There are reputations to farm at 85 right? So I assume I would have a mix of ICC gear and some 85 blues going into phase 1 raids. Thoughts?
Can anyone point me in the direction of a wowhead-analog for Cata as-it-was? So I can answer my own questions about the zones, leveling path, dungeon progression, etc.
277/284 gear will definitely get replaced with 83/84 blues and quest gear. Off the top of my head, 81 quest gear will be like 250 ilvl.
Cataclysm follows Wrath design philosophies very close. So you will want to quest a little - enough to get Friendly with reps to buy tabards for Heroic rep farming. Questing exp/hour is actually somewhat on par with dungeon grinding.
Having said that, if you’re a group of friends/guildies who are all BIS and can really pull half the dungeons in 1-2 pulls, then you can really sky rocket that exp gains.
Raids also won’t be out first 2 weeks. You’ll have plenty of time to level and gear up via RDF.
IMHO, it’s silly to expect Wrath gear to last.
It literally only happened once - TBC to Wrath. Even most of vanilla gear was replaced by 63 outside of few very specific odd ball items.
The reason why TBC to Wrath items lasted longer was sockets, as wrath early dungeon gear didn’t have sockets.
You’re saying it all as if such ilvl raise is somehing out of the ordinary and has never happened before.
And another thing, I’d say quest with your group in each new zone that you unlock until you hit friendly and can buy the tabard and then dungeon with that on until the next zone/tabard.
Once you get to Deepholm at 82, hard break from dungeons since unlocking the Therazane rep takes a bit. Hit friendly and continue on swapping between questing and spamming.
When you get all the rep tabards make sure you prioritize Therazane since all the shoulder enchants belong to that rep. (I think. It might be all helm enchants, but either way.)
Then just farm justice and valor cap. Do bgs whenever to farm honor set since season won’t start right away
Dungeons are always quicker, at least in Classic, TBC and WotLK. I’m sure the it’s the same for Cataclysm (not sure how it is for retail).
In TBC I had a leveling group and I got to 70 in ~1/2 and a half days
I’m not 100% sure but I hear that the stat jump from 80 to ~83 is so large that the greens replace some/all of your gear. I’m not sure if that’s just hyperbole but I keep hearing it.
There’s a site I found that’s either from OG Cata or is from a Pserver that has a detailed list of specs and their rotations along with other misc things (it’s not really finished and seems abandoned but the class portion of it works).
https://www.tauri-veins.com/class_new.php
I made a thread on how to obtain toys and where to obtain pets.
For dungeons I’d assume you’d want high density dungeons but honestly when I do it I’ll probably just be questing while searching for dungeons in RDF, getting exp from two sources.
For professions you can filter by expansion in WoW Head.
This ^, is a link to what Cataclysm tradegoods there are, which I believe would be the most useful thing to search for. You can also go off by profession.
Cataclysm is the first expansion that does it this violently though.
Wrath had it going from tier to tier, sort of which was already bad enough, but having a blue axe requiring 2 levels below what you’re entering with beat the legendary is all sorts of jarring.
~15% difference eye balling it. Very first Normal dungeon is nearly on par with BIS from SWP.
Royal Scepter N - 217 ilvl - 792 SP
Royal Scepter H - 284 ivl - 893 SP
Torturer’s Mercy - 279 ilvl - 741 SP (Cataclysm 78 Req)
Between Heroic and Cataclysm one, about 20% difference.
Between Normal and Cataclysm one, it’s about 6% difference.
Couldn’t find any 2H weapons from 78-81 Cataclysm dungeons. So I can’t compare those.
But looking at TBC vs Wrath and Wrath vs early Cataclysm, the difference is not really that big. yes, Cataclysm one is bigger. So what?
Gem sockets matter too
The same way early Wrath gear didn’t have sockets, thus making SWP gear better, Cataclysm won’t have sockets making Wrath gear better for a bit. Despite occasional raw ilvl being lower.
Just saying…the difference is really not that big. Kinda adds that to list of "reason to be mad for little to no reason.
I would agree that getting new fresh gear 3-5 levels in is pretty standard and replacing all but a few odds and ends for most specs had/is the standard to this point.
I would also agree having an endgame legendary be replaced IMMEDIATELY would feel pretty awful. So both sides have some validity.
Overall though I am all about seeing new builds and new gear setups. To me working on that stuff is part of the fun of new expansions. However for strictly endgame players I would imagine it is just gear treadmill feeling for them.
