I doubt it… people will spend their full time in ZF to level from 40 to 50. Would have been the equivalent of not having SM this phase.
i like the change. but I wish you would have waited until March 4th to tell me.
granted a lot of people probably would feel betrayed, if they worked hard to get to 40, only to find out about the buff afterwards…
from my perspective, this announcement is going to make leveling feel bad until the 5th.
oh vell.
like the change. wish we had less notice or I had more self control. 
Does this mean naxx 40 was too hard and we can expect all raids to have the fisher price treatment?
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I think Mara would be cool. Boss number is irrelevant imo. 6-7 bosses should be a 3 day lockout and 10+ should be 7 days.
Too early to tell though and it really depends what ‘new’ content comes in with Phase 3.
Because SOD was sold as a new experience. All of this information wasn’t laid out in full and even so, we play because we enjoy it, not because of what the future holds, but I’ll still advocate for what we’re enjoying now.
Right now, my group has 20 something people. We could jump into 20 man, but we don’t want to. We’re running 2-3 (with alts) through 10 mans and we raid on different days every week. We have enough alts that you can fill in for every absence and always run at least 2 groups and your other obligations don’t get in the way. Its a wonderful experience.
There is a massive difference between that, and the 20 unique players that need to be online with multiple backups to account for absences, static inflexible raid days, etc.
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Perhaps.
But when he says “This does not mean making raids harder or easier across the board” that might suggest there are differing challenges for players in each encounter. That could very well mean versions of the raid.
i just bought my mount yesterday. kinda annoying tbh. Can you do something for the players that already bought mounts…
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Hi, for context, I’ve been playing classic since original release, and MMOs since EverQuest. I have not touched retail.
The larger the raid is, the more daunting it is. It doesn’t matter how well organized it is. It’s stressful for everyone, and the joy only comes if you beat the raid and if you get something. Some people like to be stressed out. When I was younger, I thought the stress and arguing with people was part of the fun, but as an adult with a job, the more people stress out and argue in WoW, the more I regret playing. There are still people in your community who view WoW as more than a game and as part of their personality, and they make the experience terrible if you don’t play exactly the way they believe is correct.
What I like about classic is not the raiding, not the PVP, not the gear, not doing globally-unique actions like getting the first cross-faction mount on your server (I severely regret the time and effort I spent on that, and this comment is all I have to show for it): what I like about classic is enjoying my time with friends. I don’t have 40 friends, and I never will, purely by choice.
Making my 10 friends group together with 30 aggravated and upset people is not what I considered fun back in the day, but that is what WoW and MMOs were. I don’t miss arguing with family that I can’t have a nice impromptu dinner with them because I spent hours getting a 40-person raid together, and I’m NOT going waste that time on a nice dinner with people I love. Nostalgia ALWAYS forgets the agony in-between the fun times.
That said, any efforts you can spend to accommodate the people with less gaming time and fewer friends, it would be much appreciated. Thank you!
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dang that’s crazy man anyway this is the season of discovery forums
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This I think is the source of a lot of angst in the community, and I’m glad the dev’s recognize it and are taking steps to alleviate it.
Lets see some more interesting changes to 5 man content, either fully new 5 man content, new bosses, or new boss mechanics, and increased difficulty. SOD has been an awesome version of a more approachable wow, but my small group of friends still have no interest in finding other random ppl online to raid with regularly which makes the level cap not super interesting.
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Could we get some focus on Battle Grounds? Better gear rewards, gold and materials?
Running around the world “farming” is boring and not very engaging.
Obviously farming should still be more lucrative…
In regards to gear maybe do like the helm for WSG where the gear only works in said battle ground, so raiders don’t feel they have to pvp to get pre bis for raiding.
I love jumping on and playing battle grounds, but more often than not I have to stop having fun and start doing chores… I already do chores for 9 hours a day for my employer… it wold be nice to not having to do chores in my leisure time.
If 40 mans go what is even left that makes SoD “Classic?” They’re easily the most iconic part of Classic and entirely unique to it. For God’s sake do not make them irrelevant let alone remove them.
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I like to PvP, and raid! I like what you’ve given us so far in SoD… So I’ll have faith that I’m probably just over reacting, or anxious (I think that’s what your post said LoL)
PvP gear at lvl 60 gated?? I could see that if you guys made the gear better than it is already , or at least altered some of the stats. Like you have with some of the lower level gear from dungeons, which has been GREAT! Paladin pvp gear isn’t near as good as AQ40 gear for ret, and healing is basically a mis-matched set of random drops from everywhere. Please give us something to work for on the pvp side.
I’m getting the feeling like I will HAVE to get Lawbringer’s, then Judgement (which actually has dmg and healing… not just healing) Just to be ready for any mid-or higher end pvp. Even then the full rare (blue) pvp set will not even be available when a full set of Lawbringer’s is? (at least give us a full set of rare gear please and throw a small dash of AGI on it? 
) then again… you’ve already given us whole new sets of gear… so what am I even worried about 
40 mans will be fine for me, as we have more than enough for 6 ten man raids already (I know not everyone has that option. My IRL friends don’t have as much time to devote to gaming as I do, and I like to do content with them as well). I feel like, 40 man raids should give slightly** tiny bit… better gear because of the amount of team effort etc. oh well. we’ll see!
I would just like to say that I feel like your guys are really trying here. I can see it and I want you to know I for one appreciate it. I appreciate the constant communication and the speed at which you guys are addressing the concerns that the community brings up…it is truly a breath of fresh air. Thanks for going outside the box and I hope you keep pushing the boundaries of what vanilla ( dare I say +) can offer!
What about the unplayable lag in STV?
Hi Aggrend,
10 man raids and graduated leveling (1-25, 25-40, etc) are what brough me back to WOW after several years away. I do not want 20, 25, 30, or 40 man raids. I’m in a guild with my friends and we do the 10 man content every lock out. If you push that number up then we won’t have enough people to do the content. There’s no desire to recruit or PUG the raids. We’ll just quit. Please reconsider this decision.
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Overall very positive changes. EXP and quest gold bonuses will be great for alts same with the mounts cost reduction. 20 man raids sounds great too, they’re a lot more intimate than 40 mans without having to make sacrifices in terms of mechanics.
The only thing missing is when is dual spec coming?
And it’s great they’re actually posted on the forums instead of some random third party site.
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Ffs ive seen the same responses to this suggestion for 15+ years. It’s not HANDING anything to anyone. It is making it possible to get that one or two items youve been chasing for the ENTIRE LIFESPAN OF A RAID"S EXISTENCE. You literally have to be able to clear the raid every week to get the currency to buy the items, the vendor existing doesn’t just magically add all 278 items in MC to your inventory for free.
Im not suggesting they add TF Bindings or the Eye of Sulfuras to a vendor, im saying give us some way to achieve really rare drops that are literally BIS until TBC is a seasonal game mode that wont even matter when it ends, so we dont have to chase a drop of Ragnaros every single week, even though we are clearing Naxx in <45 minutes.
Or you know what, I’ll even go further… Reitemize these items so that they aren’t god-tier drops in the first level 60 raid zone. lower Onslaught Girdle’s item budget, nerf Lionheart Helm, make these sorts of items less powerful, and make new ones in the later raids that are better.
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Looks great! Thanks for the update.
As someone who mainly solo plays and groups with in game friends I’ve been partying with since phase 1 on chaos bolt, I’m really glad we will have the option to run 20 man raids and not fall behind. I’ve never been too attached to any guild and mostly start pug raids. It’s a lot easier to fill a 10 or 20 man as opposed to 40.
Also buff Ret crusader strike weapon dmg to 100%. You know you want to aggrend 