First and foremost, I recognize the steep increase in difficulty compared to previous content in SoD and pre-nerf Eranikus was probably near impossible without the right comp/strat/rng. But this post is about taking a step back and thinking about Classic raids if there was no information on the internet.
I think people are forgetting a few things regarding Vanilla/Classic raiding. I’m going to write this from the approach of the average skill player/“casual dad” gamer. Not that it needs to be said, but obviously high skilled/organized guilds with a lot of play time would have no issue with any Classic bosses for more than a few attempts.
Raid/dungeon difficulty has always increased in difficulty as you approach max level/end raids of an expansion.
From the basics: you cannot say running Wailing Caverns at 20 is just as easy as running Dire Maul: West at 60. Same thing applies to Molten Core to AQ/Naxx. Same thing applies when comparing BFD raid to ST raid in SoD. Difficulty has ALWAYS increased.
Classic/Vanilla raids have been figured out for the last 16 years and information is posted endlessly online.
However, let’s pretend there is NO information regarding MC, BWL, AQ or Naxx. Sure, MC is mostly trivial, but if you don’t think casual raiders wouldn’t get hard stuck on Major Domo or Rag (especially if you were forced to do a sons phase), you’re wrong. Let’s look at BWL. If you had no information regarding how to do the first two bosses, many guilds would get stuck for a handful attempts. Then you get to Firemaw. How many attempts do you think the casual player would need before they figured this out? Chromag? Handling Nef calls? Yes, these things seem quite trivial because you’ve been doing them forever, but they would not be for the average skill player if you were blind to their mechanics/abilities. I’m not even going to get into AQ and Naxx because their difficulty increases significantly, especially if you were going in BLIND like you are in SoD. No casual or “dad raiding” guild is going to clear any of these raids week 1.
Because you’re under geared and ST is only 20 players (comparing to 40 mans here), there is a ton of PERSONAL responsibility casual classic players are not used to.
When you’re under geared, obviously things are more difficult. Thing is, when you take 40 people to a raid, players that are more geared/skilled can carry others and find success in a boss fight. When you have limited people in the raid and are under geared, one death means a wipe in more difficult raids. This is something Classic players are not used to. The mechanics are still pretty trivial in ST, but you still have to take personal responsibility to do them correctly or you wipe the group at this point. There is no hand holding. However, his will not be true in a few weeks.
In a few weeks, your gear will be better and there will be room to carry others in the raid.
Right now, you have to play well to be successful in ST. But this is Classic WoW after all. A few weeks in ST going 3-6/8, grinding dungeons, obtaining new gear from BM and other various events will make things less difficult and you will clear the raid. Yes, even you who is currently looking at Eranikus and comparing it to a mythic raid boss.
All and all, I think people are upset because they can’t just enter the raid and clear it week 1 like they did in earlier phases. Casual Classic players have this mindset because that’s how it’s been the last 5 years. Just take a step back think about all the bosses in Vanilla that would be difficult if you are a casual/average skill player and had NO information on them before attempting. You’re going to wipe. A lot.
Edit: I’d like to say I’m not insinuating that casual or “dad raiders” are low skill or bad at the game - they just tend to have less time to polish their skills/get more attempts on a boss. If you take people of equal skill initially, obviously the one that spends 12 hours a game in game is going to progress further than someone who plays 2 hours a day. Can be applied to anything in life.
Do you really think if Naxx was released Thursday for the first time ever, no one knew how to do anything, that more than 20 guilds would have KT killed at this point? We are 72 hours in and people acting like it’s the end of the raiding in classic wow.
Right, because players are going in with sub optimal comps, lack or runes, lack of appropriate gear and lack of knowledge/strats. This isn’t going to be the case in a few weeks.
Your whole post just shows your complete and utter lack of understanding of the game, and thats fine, but don’t try to pass as knowing what you speak of.
And just because you know the mechanics on paper, doesn’t mean you can execute them. I could write you a paper on certain raids bosses but that doesn’t mean I can execute them with 19 other players to kill a boss week 1.
I mean I’m 6/8 and half my raid forgets to get slept sub 40% because they panic with the many other things going on. I’ve been the culprit myself a few times.
You’re comparing the game in a state where raiding was more art than science. Where figuring out what works and what didn’t was often trial and error, and based off anecdotal experiences
With the advent of datamining, parses and theorycrafting, sweaties are better placed to handle new content and mechanics, and intuit whether something is merely difficult or unbalanced.
That’s not to say people don’t still do what they have always done - cry on the forums when they die.
Well that’s the mechanics portion. Yes, theyre figured out by top guilds for everyone to see - but actually executing them is different. My point is, even Classic raids would not be cleared by casual players week 1 if they had no experience. I’m not calling casuals bad players, but there is always a learning curve to more difficult raids. I know in 2-3 weeks a majority of the population will clear the raid with better gear, more mechanical experience and more pulls. This isn’t a mythic raid where only .1% can actually pull a kill off.
If you can’t keep the raid up as a healer or dps appropriately while several mechanics are happening at once, it’s mechanical failure - from boss abilites to not hitting your abilities appropriately. Guilds have killed the boss and proven that you can do it with appropriate coordination.
This is Classic raiding. If you don’t think a few weeks of gear and pulls will outshine the boss damage, you’re wrong. Again, this isn’t retail raiding where even if you were given the best possible gear in the world, 99.9% still wouldn’t be able achieve a kill. If you handed the average player ST gear, Eranikus would die quickly after getting the hang of the boss.
You’re right. This phase of SoD and Wotlk onwards has a lot to do with through put of the player in combination of handling deadly mechanics. So comparing the play style in raids may unfair. However, as far as completing the raid in terms of difficulty and executing even trivial mechanics while hitting 1-2 buttons, I think the concept applies. Not everyone is going to be successful week 1 - just the players that put the time in.
It’s one thing when you play near perfectly (avoid boss abilities, hit your buttons and CDs at the right times) and the boss doesn’t die. But guilds have gone 8/8 since the nerf 72 or less hours in and many are 6/8. This raid is doable and everyone that puts the time in over the next few weeks will get their kill when they get more gear/are more polished with new runes, etc.
I agree with most/all of your points! Watching these fights, once we get a few weeks of loot i think this boss will fold, atleast comparing my simmed current dps to my bis dps its night and day.
I was thinking about this, and chatting with some of my guildies earlier in the week. During OG Wrath (not Wrath Classic), I actually joined a raiding guild and for the first time since I started playing WoW (or any video game), I started actually scheduling play time. Our raiding schedule was 8:30pm to 12:30am server time, Tue/Wed/Mon, and that was a pretty normal raid schedule back then. We were a pretty joe average raiding guild.
Tonight, I raided for a little over 3 hours with my guildies, our first time in Sunken Temple. We wiped twice on Eranikus and decided to call it. We have no plans to come back tomorrow. That’s it for us. We are a world top 500 raiding guild.
