When the classic raids first came out all of the content was much much more difficult. Blizzard then went ahead and nerfed everything so more guilds could get through it. I know a bunch of people who quit after they kept nerfing raids so more could clear them. Is the only reason it’s considered easier because Blizzard did not undo the nerfs?
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I quit in week 1 of original Cata, but I have watched some fights. There are mechanics in retail that combine two deadly aspects: Personal responsibility, and zero forgiveness.
If a mechanic is 100% an individual’s responsibility, and failing that responsibility results in death, the difficulty level has increased significantly. Add in some mechanics which match the above description and apply to every single member in the raid at the same time, you’ve just introduced a massive amount of opportunity for failure.
Now, the content we’re experiencing in Classic is not what we experienced back in the original release. Here’s what’s missing:
Abilities, talents, gear, network conditions, and in-game mechanics that were different prior to being patched. For example, did you know chain heal was not “smart” during the entire vanilla run? It was only changed in TBC to choose a jump target based on missing health. Prior to that, it would just jump to anyone nearby, even if they had max health.
There was a point where druid’s 41 point talent was innervate, I forget which tree this was in.
I’m sure people who played in vanilla could list out a few more examples.
These missing character states, patch states, item states and network conditions are not accounted for in Classic content.
Hell, even the addon selection in vanilla was not fully fleshed out. We’ve had 20 years of development time to refine addons.
My hunch? Even with the missing conditions from 2005-2007, retail is still harder.
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When Classic WoW came out it was something new. It’s predecessors were more PvP oriented (In my experience UO / DaoC) and Wow found that nice medium between PVE and PvP because clearly there were games with PVE in them; now take into account Warcraft OG OG games which were a mix of the two.
Blizzard went on and nerfed everything so on…In Vanilla I was PvP 80% and PVE (5-Mans) the rest, my wife at the time was one of the quote un-quote Ranked Balance druids for PVE ~ We were 27 (Me)/25 (her) respectively; now with that in mind take in to account the average age of player, I know you’ve read ‘Most wow players are in their 30’s’ .
This time around, it’s figured out. Simple. Plain. you can TLDR my drunken reply above because post like these make me chuckle. It’s as if, we’re back in '99 where AOL is a thing and dial up is all the rage.
/shrug
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Lol no.
It’s easy because the game is literally standing and hitting
Very few bosses require you to move, or do anything really
Stand, hit, use a consume. Don’t pull threat. Hope taunt doesn’t resist
That’s about it tbh.
Retail, at least at harder levels, has so much more going on.
I think of a boss like Halondros from shadowlands. Even on normal that boss was so much harder than anything in classic by miles. The moving, the coordination, the DPS checks.
Classic has nothing that can’t be overcome with consumes and min maxing.
You should see the dance moves they pull of in retail, truly epic
Simpler mechanics. Not a classic attack. Even Normal Jailor/gallywix/etc does things normal Rag does not.
Dungeons are harder. My retail return from 2-3 years solid classic had me see rookery first time. If a classic andy says BRD is hard like rookery, id say they were troll or I’d say I’d like some of what they are smoking since its high grade.
But…retail has things classic does not. More “complete” trees. I like some of the casts to come in tbcc. and wrath (if we get there again). those raids are made with this in mind.
Classic works with the casts it has, tldr. Noting that is fine. I like all the wow’s. Play what one enjoys really.
I believe everything hit much harder in vanilla than they hit in retail currently.
tank tanks, healz keeps them alive. If dps doesn’t get stupid…no unplanned pulls. Have a nice day.
Retail bosses see tank taunt. they attack them. But also throw out poop in the floor rdps has to move around.
In classic my s. priest and hunters free fire even channeled casts. Retail I channel, move. channel, move.
Bosses one shot tanks in classic once you get into BWL. Entire raid dies, if the main tank healer is a second late with greater heal. I think it’s more min maxing, and cast timing. With less “maneuvering” Though, that exists in AQ and Naxx. Though, my Shadow Priest is capable of tanking Patchwerk in his PvP gear, and has the tanking rings from AQ for it.
If anything, we’ve learned things hit less hard in vanilla.
People gave private servers a bunch of trash for “guessing” a lot. We were thoroughly surprised to learn in 2019 that private servers actually overtuned a lot of content, and 1.12 enemies hit like teddy bears.
I know your comparison was to retail, but still… people really like to puff vanilla content up with air.
I’ve not raided era tbh. even 2019 runs.
I was talking dungeon bosses really lol. classic wow split this up. Raid bosses do cool things. Dungeon bosses…tank and spank.
End game content is easier.
World content is more dangerous than in retail.
90% of retail is so much easier than classic IMO. and the only reason the raids are harder is because people haven’t had 20 years to min max and theory craft them to death. and you cant compare mythic Raids in retail to MC. MC would probably be closer to M0
Granted retail raids have more mechanics but it is still very much the same… do som dmg/healing then avoid something rinse repeat.
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EXACTLY.
I can’t wait for Throne of Thunder to come out and for classic fans to beat it in the first hour. And then WoD will come out and they’ll beat all those raids in the first day. And so on and so on and so on.
No you don’t, because a “bunch of people” weren’t clearing these in 04/05. I was in a above average guild back then and AQ broke our guild. Killing one to a few bosses in Naxx was a BIG deal. Killing C’thun was a BIG deal.
Why y’all always lying…
its not even close, mc is like a normal dungeon not an m0. a retail LFR raid has more mechanics than all of classic
And yet only like 2% of the current anniversary players will clear naxx.
The difficulty isn’t just in mechanics, yet even those simple ones are too much for most players.
It was in balance. Also, here’s a few other notes. Paladin’s seal of command was originally 100% of weapon damage with 6 PPM, it was changed to 70% weapon damage at 7PPM later. But now it’s bugged in current classic so it’s 70% weapon damage at 6 PPM, thanks Cezar for testing and pointing this out for me and thanks devs for somehow making ret weaker.
Edit: A few more fun facts.
We currently have a heavily nerfed version of windfury, it gives a lot less AP per swing and also it registers as yellow hits instead of white hits. Mages used to scale and do a good bit more damage base on original vanilla release, but they ate plenty of nerfs over many patches here and there. Also, this is unrelated, but every soul link lock is actually trash at the game and rely on a crutch to play. This doesn’t have anything to do with the topic at hand, I just hate them.