"Vanilla Wow wasn't hard"

[Instappen-emerald-dream]

we’re establishing the difficulty level of vanilla, not mechanically, but just from sheer unforgiving things like locust swarm damage. so it would be helpful to know precisely.

Yeah one stack of it would kill a 5.7k buffed clothie in about 8 seconds.

Every 70-120 seconds, Anub’rekhan casts a spell that causes AoE damage in a wide radius (30 yards) around him (the AoE remains centered on Anub’Rekhan as he moves), he will also slow to 40% of normal run speed. Remaining in the radius of effect will cause a DoT debuff to stack repeatedly, dealing a large amount of damage, around 1200 damage/2sec per stack and silencing those afflicted. When he casts this spell, another Crypt Guard will also spawn at his initial engage point. As of Patch 1.12, Anub’Rekhan is immune to Curse of Tongues.

[Araska-emerald-dream (Araska)]

Warlocks had more HP than other cloth users. My endgame geared mage with all the stamina/HP buffs (including scroll, rum, etc) was barely above 5k in Naxx. Priests had similar HP.

[Hypêrspace-dalaran (Hypêrspace)]

thanks . i forgot about the silence. dang i hated that fight. that and patchwerk’s dps check enrage.

[Instappen-emerald-dream]

Warlocks had more HP than other cloth users.

Indeed, but you only have as much health as your healers - when they die, you die.

[Vlonk-bleeding-hollow]

that hamsterwheel video i posted said that the anub’rekhan fight did almost the same amount of damage on locust swarm in vanilla as it did in wotlk version, yet the players had 3,500 hp in vanilla vs. 40,000 hp in wotlk. it’s not a complicated mechanic its simply INSANELY unforgiving. it sounds as if you only survived many bosses by sheer luck.

it was also the only mechanic happening, minus an add every now and then… and you also had anywhere from 5 to 10 priest whose only concern was spam healing that tank… and you also had several spare warrior nearby if the main one fell…

[Hypêrspace-dalaran (Hypêrspace)]

and silence and slow effect. the silence was the killer part cause your healers might be able to keep up with the damage ticks IF they werent silenced also

[Galdor-maelstrom (Galdor)]

You have far fewer tools to use in Vanilla

But everyone complains about all the pruning of abilities and utility and how everyone’s the same on BfA.

[Galdor-maelstrom (Galdor)]

If you count up the mechanics on Uu’nat in the new raid, on Mythic there’s like 30 mechanics to deal with.

[Hypêrspace-dalaran (Hypêrspace)]

thats crazy. lol

[Instappen-emerald-dream]

Agreed.

Complex Mechanics != Hard

From what I remember raiding in WOTLK, the bosses seemed hard at first (because of mechanics) but once you knew them, it was relatively trivial.

In Vanilla, the boss mechanics were simple in comparison, but there were many other things that made the fights super hard. Hard as in hard, not as in complicated. People get hung up on the definition of “hard”.

Look, The Lion King game from SNES was not complicated, but it was really hard.

[Galdor-maelstrom (Galdor)]

It’s part of the reason why I don’t raid anymore. It’s also why I’m more interested in raiding in Classic. Just because something is simpler, doesn’t mean it’s less fun.

[Stpatty-stormreaver]

This question is funny because its based entirely on difficulty sliders vs static difficulty. This is also why I vastly prefer Vanilla over Retail as every boss and place has a feel of being “This place, this Boss” which is more immersive than “4 different Versions of me! Over and over! For no real reason! Ilvls? LOl!” and also far more motivating for me as a quest to beat one final boss is much more enticing than “beat this guy 4 times over”, which kills any and all appeal or fantasy of him even being an actual living thing more than just a computer program.

Anyways, trying to compare this is like trying to compare God of War to Sekiro. On its base Vanilla is harder, there is no LFR, no hand holding, no I Win Gear for leveling, no buying your levels, no raiding with training wheels for a “me too” moment, no 20+ difficulties of dungeons, no loot falling from the sky, etc.

Is the highest difficulty setting of Retail hard? Yeah, it is, does that make the game Overall any harder than claiming God of War is harder than Sekiro based solely on the max difficulty setting? No, its not even a sensible comparison. The top 1% of a game being compared to 100% of a base game with no difficulty slider at all mathmatically just gives way to the 100% being OVERALL on its base setting, the more difficult game. 1% of content is a silly discussion.

[Digdug-proudmoore]

Vanilla wasn’t hard, at all. Unless you personally thought the time required to progress was ‘hard.’

In Vanilla, whoever had the most time invested was the winner. This applied to everything: PvE, PvP, Twinking, farming, reps etc…

There were no difficult mechanics/rotations … just time sinks.

[Vaedryn-uldum]

This.

It would be a joke to do a boss like Lucifron now…until you put 40 people in the mix, in which case it becomes a fluster-cuck.

It was the same with core hound packs. If one or two DPS decided to tunnel one and kill it faster than the rest, you were in for a long night.

[Hypêrspace-dalaran (Hypêrspace)]

i dunno.
this seemed pretty fun mechanically. not a jaina fight, obviously.

[Aldenel-emerald-dream]

Classic won’t be as easy as PServers but it won’t be as difficult as people remember.

[Vlonk-bleeding-hollow]

I see people say retail is more complex and therefor harder. Vanilla, is simpler its true. But I view that like a fighting with one arm tied behind your back. You have far fewer tools to use in Vanilla, so you have to be much wiser and more deliberate with them.

ish…

while shield wall is a once-per-fight thing ( once per few attempts even), you have far less thing to worry about.

there’s no need to coordinate CD between 5 healers… because they don’t have CD.
there’s no external CD rotation… because there’s no external CD.
healers don’t have to wonder how they’ll maximize their throughput and conserve mana… because they only have 1 or 2 heal to use ( with maybe some ranking).

it’s far easier to follow a strat when you only have 3-4 variable to follow, as opposed to few dozen.

[Hypêrspace-dalaran (Hypêrspace)]

It was the same with core hound packs. If one or two DPS decided to tunnel one and kill it faster than the rest, you were in for a long night.

reminds me of something that happened recently: was on retail and guild i am in, wanted to get some guild raid achieves. one of the members was not on discord, nor was he reading the guild chat or raid conversations, where the raid leader would shout repeatedly, dont kill the boss!! half the achievements were unattainable as a result.

multiply by 40. haha

[Instappen-emerald-dream]

There were no difficult mechanics/rotations … just time sinks.

Mechanics & Rotations != Difficulty

[Stpatty-stormreaver]

Its already been proven to be as hard as people remembered. The test demo was killing people who haven’t died in retail leveling in years = difficulty confirmed. Will people likely quickly adapt to said difficulty? Yeah, I think so.
Does that make said difficulty non existent? No, it makes it very real and is the very reason WHY you will have to adapt.

Will it be as Mechanically difficult as Mythic? No, but 100% of the game will be harder than the other 99% of retail. Retail can have their 1% that is literally just the 4th repeating iteration of the same thing you have done 3 times before. Yawwwwwwwwwn