How is Vanilla’s endgame structured? I’ve read quite a bit on Google, but nothing I’ve read goes as in-depth as I’d like it to.
I started in TBC mid-2007, so I never got to play Vanilla. I’m leveling this Troll Hunter right now, and am just curious what there is to do at 60 and how you do it.
Looking at WCL on Manrkik, all raids are being ran which is nice. I was reading mot rep grinds in Vanilla are killing mobs, is this true? Grinding consumables: What exactly does that entail and is it even necessary at this stage? Pre-raid BIS: is this still a thing as well considering how easy the raids are in Vanilla?
I know level 60 is a long way off, I’m just curious as to what it looks like.
It depends on the class you are playing but generally you should consume when raiding. They aren’t free but most activities (gathering prof, selling stuff on AH, etc.) will net you plenty of gold for the necessary consumes.
As a hunter, if you are comfortable, you can pull for the raid, in later raids hunters are mostly brought for this reason.
consumables for hunter would be like:
elixir of mongoose (at least cheap agi pot if you’re broke)
squid or some hp food (almost nobody will care if you skip this - Monster Omelet is cheap and works)
heath / mana potions / limited invulnerability potion (these are for youself always have these)
grenades, sappers, (eng is bis)
random stuff you like (i always have swiftness pots and a stack of faps just incase)
repaired / plenty of arrows / pet food
flask in later raids
Yes and no. If you are totally fresh it is worth getting them to practice your class (raid pve talents and rotation, etc.) as well as there is lots of gold to be made in those dungeons.
That way when you start to attend the easy raids (zg, aq20) you have some gear and can carry your weight and some gold to spend on items (if you plan to raid gdkp). If gdkp you will quickly make plenty of gold from payout to pay for all consumes you’ll ever need.
Basically zero grinding if you raid gdkp. Go to raids, pump your hardest with as many buffs as you could get, buy items, get payout, buy consumes, repeat.
Classic WoW is a game of Inches, where Retail is one of Miles. The idea is that, if tuned correctly, you will not have enough power in your group to successfully complete any new content with gear alone. That’s what the consumables do, they push the entire group up another half an inch, but that’s 10 inches, cumulatively and in aggregate across the Raid, thus allowing you to kill the bosses that have the loot upgrades that make Consumes obsolete for the content. You gotta pay to play, and Classic reaaaaly lets you pay as much as you will spend (with all the stacking consumable buffs like Mongoose/Greater Agility Elixirs, Giants/Brute Strength, and Firepower(Frost, Shadow)/Arcane Elixirs). The list is long, and the available Buff slots for your character are 40, so commit to the gameplay the way your teammates do, and you will all succeed together.
Rep grinds are primarily killing mobs and turning in items.
Currently the way Vanilla is played the expectation is that you have all the consumables appropriate for your class, and the world buffs. No it isn’t “necessary” , but the way the game is played in 2024 is essentially to come in way overpowered and clear it fast.
Pre-raid BiS is something I would recommend working on. Aside from your set pieces many of the items you will want (weapons, rings, neck, cloak, trinkets) are also BiS or phase-BiS for other classes. You will be competing with Warriors and Rogues for many of these items. Then again, they might already have them so that could be your luck too.
As a hunter elixir of the mongoose is going to be your single most important one. If you have herbalism and alchemy it’s very easy to make these. 2 plaguebloom and 2 mountain silversage. Otherwise you’ll have to grind the gold to pay for them. You can find full consumable lists from a wowheads guide from a quick Google search.
Whether or not they’re necessary depends on the raid and the group you’re with. Generally hunters are considered more of a utility in raids and are used to pull jobs more effectively. Your DPS isn’t as important. For Naxxramas you’ll probably be expected to come in with full consumables and world buffs. For AQ40 you may or may not be required to have full world buffs but probably will be expected to have full consumables. For any other raid it probably just depends on what the group your with requires.
Some people go for pre-raid BiS. I haven’t done that since 2019. You can definitely skip it and just hit the ground running in some ZGs, AQ20s and MCs.
Also, one piece of advice I’d have if you’re a hunter is master the DMT solo run. It takes practice and you’ll probably die a lot at first but it can be very profitable. Of course you’ll want engineering and enchanting if you want to do this.
The mechanisms used to power up haven’t changed, but the relative power levels of an 80 over a 60 are undeniable; gear score and ilvl become untennable at the extremes. The staggered release of SoD has seen to that relatively effectively, although at this point I feel like a Holstien thats been sucked dry of all its milk.
You raid as an excuse to get gear for open world PvP.
Then you camp low level areas, redridge/duskwood as Horde and zones like Hillsbrad as Alliance.
Sadly Era is nothing but GDKP infested, so i doubt you could find any normal guild now. Also phase 6 is easily the worst of Classic, experiencing the game phase by phase would make more a much better time.
We don’t run any GDKPs on grobbulus and the horde guild requiem I’m sure would love to have you join! They’re just starting BWL progression, so it’s a great time to join them too. Alliance has killed KT and also still welcoming anyone curious to join a self sustaining / self sufficient community server [Era] A Call to Grobbulus, Horde Victorious
The ultra sweaty way, where parses are king. You’ll need to roll the right class, get the right gear, grind out or buy all your consumables, and find the right guild with the right needs. You’ll clear the content fairly quickly every week while you and the rest of your raid team pursue BiS, pushing to bring your clear times lower and lower.
The ultra chill way, where nobody really cares about parses. You can play whatever class/spec you want, acquire only the consumables you really need, and struggle a bit to find a group that meshes with you (but they exist). You might not clear the content very week but you will clear it. You probably won’t get your BiS anytime soon but if you’re this kind of player, you probably don’t care as much and are more interested in the community you play with.
These seem to be the two extremes and while I’m sure there are guilds who identify somewhere in between, I’ve observed that most tend to gravitate towards the first. Indeed, most of the advice in this thread so far has been in support of that first approach.
While I certainly have a preference for the latter one, that doesn’t mean the first approach is a bad one. Many folks find it to be compelling to pursue perfection and for those who are willing to invest the time and/or money to do so, I’d imagine its quite rewarding. I mean, once upon a time I did spend a week solid trying to refine my best time on a partiuclar Mario Kart track just to say I was better than all my friends
What kind of player you want to be is entirely up to you though, and you don’t have to stick with one or the other for the entirety of your time. The nice thing about this version of the game is that you can get out of it what you put in, and there’s always another alt. The journey is what’s important, so make it what you will.
What SA told you is spot on, I can also tell you that it is possible to do self found to a reasonable level of gear if you have the time via Battlegrounds, tho the path isn’t as easy as some may pretend; you do get to have fun.
He can confirm that I have never gold DKP on this character, but is trying to get me into raidibg with him. SA is a Good player, he raids naxx has near BiS for every spec imaginable (not kidding), and has been 100% genuine in his response as far as I can tell, and a darn Good guy in game too,
So first not all raids are easy, a lot will depend on the quality of the raid leader, as well as the people. Now obviously if your doing ZG or MC and half the people are Naxx geared, the raids wouldn’t be challenging, alternatively, if you have a weak raid leader, a weaker tank and weaker healers, no real geared players, where you have a lot of people who parse grey, even raids like ZG and MC will be tough, and AQ40/Naxx would be out of reach.
Remember 40m Naxx is far more challenging then WOTLK Naxx, and while certainly easier if your getting carried by a solid raid team, even in Classic, Naxx killed many guilds. Additionally half the fun of Classic is the journey, doing the dungeons and stuff, just joining raids to get carried thru them kills a lot of the experience, and really the only reason not to get pre-BIS is if you simply can’t find dungeon groups.
One of the great things about classic era raiding that is far removed from later versions, is the fact that every 40 man raid has amazing gear and sometimes bis for the entirety of the game. Items like quick strike ring, thunderfuy, etc. all come from mc and are bis all game. This gives even the best if geared players a reason to come back and raid.
Its the way I see everyone play these days no matter the MMO. Seeing carry services in Gw2 puts the final nail in the coffin for any MMO. That game shouldn’t require carry services at all… It’s just sad times.
A new expansion comes out or event you find people scrambling to buy gold or cheat services to get on the top and then show off. Soda did the same thing with HC addon, he bought gold and bags early to get ahead then got caught.
I call it out this way because I hate it, not because I do it. I always complain to my guild that I grind the auction house and materials for gold meanwhile some douche just buys 800$ worth of gold and gets no ban. This person being someone who was in our guild before.
I don’t and never have purchased gold, and I know that most players on Era also do not buy gold.
Its very easy to detect the gold buying in game because when its present you see TONS of botters farming the gold for the hungry coiners… The hungry coiners are in Cata, Retail and SoD.
If you don’t play with the coiners excluding the times when they locust swarm your game, you don’t have to worry about it.
