Where are the patch notes about the 1.12 nerfs?

[Williams-akama (Williams)]

No fight in Molten Core requires Fire Resist.

No fight in 1.12 Molten Core requires fire resist (excluding where it’s very nice to have it on the main tank)

Emphasis mine. The idea that a FROST MAGE could achieve over 200 Spell Power unbuffed when Healing Power was already larger than generic Spell Power puts a lie to your premise that gear didn’t have it.

there was almost no such thing as +spell damage or +spell healing in early vanilla, not even Tier sets had a whole heck of a lot; the stats that “Casters” and healers valued for PVE was +spirit and MP5.

Its just a freaking fact that +spirit and MP5 Were vastly better stats in early vanilla… The fact that you don’t seem to understand that shows you clearly did not play at the time and so don’t realize how different it really was.

200+ spell damage is flipping nothing; level 40 characters can achieve more than that in 1.12.

Your equivocation is noted, but you were still wrong. You have to make a clear distinction between “the gear was there, but we were stupid and played badly so we shunned it” against “it didn’t exist.”

You still seem to be missing the entire point; spell damage is meaningless to the problem that early vanilla faced… +HEALING is the issue, so is tank threat…

Tank threat in early vanilla was a huge issue; warriors simply could not produce the kind of threat generation that’s possible right now.

DW “Fury” tanking was also not practical because there simply was not enough + healing in game to make that work.

Bear tanks were worthless before the druid buff because their armor multiplier was crap before the overhaul. Paladin tanks were also pointless before gear upgrades.

You think the players were stupid but clearly you did not raid or were in a really crap guild at the time that just did not understand why things were the way they were.

As a result high threat “Warrior” tanking just was not possible because of the pure LACK of +healing that’s required to make a fury tank build practical. YES shield block was required back in early vanilla because mitigating crushing blows and critical strikes is required when healers lack the kind of output needed.

Fights lasted a lot longer because tank threat was low, as a result DPS could not go full throttle; this is why patch 1.10 and 1.11 were so freaking massive; they drastically increased raid DPS; especially for low end guilds who now had access to blue gear that was better than epics were prior to the buffs in addition to massive increase in tank threat (warriors).

Additionally patch 1.9 made things easier for guilds who figured out early on that Druids were no longer garbage and actually are very good tanks; their only shortcoming is that that they still take a lot of damage and require geared healers. (pre-raid bis is a stretch for most average players)

The player base has not gotten better, IMO they’re worse; I have seen more idiot moves in Classic WoW than I ever did in all of Vanilla and TBC.

Why is this? No idea, players are just stupider.

You’re not “wrong” in the literal way you just don’t seem to understand how damn good gear is now vs early vanilla (especially pre-1.3)

Additionally you’ve entirely ignored how important threat generation is and why high threat builds (for tanking) were just not practical under the old system (especially pre-1.3)

Things were very different and a lot slower; it took a few patches for most guilds to catch up after some buffs around 1.7 or so, and so on later, but people caught on quickly…

By 1.11 EVERYONE was wearing +healing / +spell damage and healing and Fury warrior tanks were common as camel turds; it was exactly as things are now; and that’s because the system in place; classes, gear, talents all make that possible.

If blizzard had of shipped 1.1.0 WoW things would be very very different.

[Gnop-atiesh]

It is just one, of a number of changes, you can find more in the bug forums, that indicate we didn’t really get Vanilla at patch 1.12 but some hybrid. If I had to guess I’d guess the mobs, maybe including raids, are at Wrath levels, not Vanilla 1.12.

[Fasciae-fairbanks]

No fight in 1.12 Molten Core requires fire resist

No. In Patch 1.1, no fight required FR outside of Tanks who want to eat Baron’s Inferno and MTing Rag. That’s it.

Its just a freaking fact that +spirit and MP5 Were vastly better stats in early vanilla… The fact that you don’t seem to understand that shows you clearly did not play at the time and so don’t realize how different it really was.

It was only a “freaking fact” because people were idiots and assumed they needed to gear for longevity rather than burst.

200+ spell damage is flipping nothing; level 40 characters can achieve more than that in 1.12.

By all means, show the Frost Mage setup without consumables that hits 200 Spell Power.

You still seem to be missing the entire point; spell damage is meaningless to the problem that early vanilla faced… +HEALING is the issue, so is tank threat…

Healing has zero relevance on how a Mage needs to nuke a boss, 95% of the damage in Molten Core is entirely avoidable.

Tank threat in early vanilla was a huge issue; warriors simply could not produce the kind of threat generation that’s possible right now.

That’s completely asinine. The Shield Slam buff that came later made it scale with your Shield Block, and is a net nerf to the threat it deals without a raid quality shield. Plus, Warriors were and continue to be Tanking without shields equipped, or even going deep into Protection at all.

DW “Fury” tanking was also not practical because there simply was not enough + healing in game to make that work.

Yes, yes there was. I don’t know why you keep bouncing between “not enough” and “no one took it cuz regen”

Bear tanks were worthless before the druid buff because their armor multiplier was crap before the overhaul.

The Armor multiplier didn’t change. What are you babbling about?

You think the players were stupid but clearly you did not raid or were in a really crap guild at the time that just did not understand why things were the way they were.

You really don’t want to play the experience game with me, you’ll lose, badly.

Additionally patch 1.9 made things easier for guilds who figured out early on that Druids were no longer garbage and actually are very good tanks; their only shortcoming is that that they still take a lot of damage and require geared healers. (pre-raid bis is a stretch for most average players)

Do you just… make things up? Nothing in Patch 1.9 was relevant to Druids being suddenly useful, they already had their rework, and Druids were already EH gods with just BWL/MC gear, even compared to a fully equipped T2 Warrior. AQ20/40 gear simply improved already powerful Druids, letting them maintain Armor Cap while growing Health/Hit/Threat even further, which were all already better than Warriors.

The biggest bonus to Druids from the rework was the threat bonuses, not survival.

You’re not “wrong” in the literal way you just don’t seem to understand how damn good gear is now vs early vanilla (especially pre-1.3)

Caster gear changes in Patch 1.4 account for ~20% increase for Mages at least, not sure how much it helped Warlocks. Even with Patch 1.1 gear and talents, a Frost Mage could still have dealt far more damage than people did 15 yrs ago, precisely because people made terrible assumptions and obsessed over gear color rather than quality of stats.

If blizzard had of shipped 1.1.0 WoW things would be very very different.

No, it wouldn’t be. We’d still be killing Ragnaros pre-submerge, we’d still be obliterating the bosses in under a minute, we’d still be ignoring Fire Resist, etc, because the game just isn’t that hard. You can literally avoid everything outside of melee swings on the Tank.

You sound like the idiots that thought people would be blocked from killing MAGMADAR until Week 2 because you’d lack a 2nd Tranq shot.

[Fasciae-fairbanks]

The bosses should be skull anyways in their portrait since that is how they were portrayed in vanilla. This video from late 2006 shows that too.

I don’t disagree on the visual representation, but I also don’t really care all that much whether it shows a lvl62 or a Skull when health and damage didn’t change, and they were never hard to begin with. UBRS is boring, especially thanks to Rend’s encounter.

[Voidarcane-dalaran (Voidarcane)]

I keep seeing it spouted on these forums that this version of WoW is majorly nerfed and all the bosses are shells of their former selves, etc.

I’m not necessarily disputing that since we have steamrolled MC, I’m just curious where the patch notes are that show the actual changes that were made.

Well I would say there are 2 types of nerfs that occurred during Vanilla.

You had indirect nerfs with class balancing throughout making classes better and more viable through raids which in turn made raids like MC easier. Also you have the increase to debuff limit to 16 which means you could add more dots/debuffs onto the target. Making raids that it wasn’t in like MC/BWL easier.

Then you have the second type which is direct nerfs to bosses/mechanics itself. These occured over multiple patches (not just in 1.12 you have to go through each patch note). So you have to look at the 1.11 notes, the 1.10 notes etc to see the nerfs to the raid.

[Galdor-maelstrom (Galdor)]

@Fasciae-fairbanks

You sound like the idiots that thought people would be blocked from killing MAGMADAR until Week 2 because you’d lack a 2nd Tranq shot.

Good times.

I will promise you MC won't be cleared in week 1

It has nothing to do with no lifing and the fact that you can’t kill Magmadar with less than two Tranq Shots at that gear level, and Tranq Shot only drops from Lucifron which would require two raid lock outs for the Tranq Shots you need. And this is assuming they can get 40 players to 60 in 1 week, get them semi-geared, get them attuned, and get the Hydraxian Rep. In essence, MC full clear isn’t happening week 1. My money is on week 2.

Look at all those uninformed likes on that post.

[Fasciae-fairbanks]

@Williams-akama

DW “Fury” tanking was also not practical because there simply was not enough + healing in game to make that work.

Just wanted to look at this a second time because holy crap I hate this lie because it is so easily verified.

If all you wanted to do was gear for straight Healing Power, and absent that, Spell Power, in every slot, before entering Molten Core, you’d largely wear the same exact pieces as you would right now in Classic. The only two slots that lack the stats without going for a “of the Healing Power” type item are Cloak and Necklace.

A Patch 1.1 Paladin, focusing on Healing/Spell Power could achieve from gear alone: 446 Total Healing Power

A Classic Paladin, using the same pieces, would have: 505 Total Healing Power

People were idiots in Vanilla. Downranking took several patches well past BWL to become mainstream. And the best part? Almost all of the pieces I used for this have Int/Spirit/Stamina on them, but most of them are Cloth, so Paladins would have likely avoided them because of that, also because they’re idiots with regards to PvE.

The gear was there. It was always there. We just didn’t make the best of it.

@Galdor-maelstrom

Good times.

I will promise you MC won’t be cleared in week 1 WoW Classic General Discussion

It has nothing to do with no lifing and the fact that you can’t kill Magmadar with less than two Tranq Shots at that gear level, and Tranq Shot only drops from Lucifron which would require two raid lock outs for the Tranq Shots you need. And this is assuming they can get 40 players to 60 in 1 week, get them semi-geared, get them attuned, and get the Hydraxian Rep. In essence, MC full clear isn’t happening week 1. My money is on week 2.

Look at all those uninformed likes on that post.

Oh my goodness… the pain

[Voidarcane-dalaran (Voidarcane)]

Look at all those uninformed likes on that post.

Oh that thread has not aged well.

Pretty sure every raid will be cleared within the week they launched up until Naxx. (As for AQ within a week after the gates open for that server).

[Llethander-grobbulus]

There were very few actual nerfs. Mostly bug fixes.

There was, to my knowledge however, a fair bit of class balancing and class buffing that made things easier. One of the most notable changes was the mp/5 change that saw a significant increase to healers’ mana efficiency which directly impacted the raiding scene.

People were idiots in Vanilla. Downranking took several patches well past BWL to become mainstream. And the best part? Almost all of the pieces I used for this have Int/Spirit/Stamina on them, but most of them are Cloth, so Paladins would have likely avoided them because of that, also because they’re idiots with regards to PvE.

Also very much this. Very, very much this.

[Kerg-bloodsail-buccaneers]

I think the biggest factor is that the demographic of the Classic population is much, much different than it was in vanilla. In vanilla, you had TONS of Madden Playstation gamers and their Farmville playing girlfriends trying WoW because it was hugely popular and some friends recommended it. They had never played an MMO, maybe never played an RPG before.

You also had tons of hybrid class players (probably the vast majority) who rolled that particular class because it sounded fun for pew pew… and then they got to 60 and were SURPRISED that they were going to have to heal and ONLY heal in PvE endgame. And most of them refused to spec resto/holy because they wanted to wreck face in PvP and while soloing, and it was too expensive to switch back and forth, but guilds brought them anyway because healers were so scarce. I think in my guild we ran with like 12-14 healers through MC/BWL, and only a few of them were resto/holy. The rest were feral/enhancement/shadow specs who begrudgingly put on healing gear and healed because we needed them to.

Now you have a much bigger abundance of healers, it seems, and all of them are resto/holy and know how to gear and maximize their effectiveness, because that’s what they rolled that toon to do. No surprises this time, and I think healing in general has become more popular over time, with people recognizing how rewarding and fun it can actually be. Back then, very few people actually wanted to heal, IMO.

From my experience, the Classic population is mostly made up of experienced players who either played vanilla originally or have played it on a private server. They are playing Classic because they have played it before, and they prefer it to the currently available alternatives out there. They are experienced and knew how to gear and how to play before they started.

[Williams-akama (Williams)]

Caster gear changes in Patch 1.4 account for ~20% increase for Mages at least, not sure how much it helped Warlocks. Even with Patch 1.1 gear and talents, a Frost Mage could still have dealt far more damage than people did 15 yrs ago, precisely because people made terrible assumptions and obsessed over gear color rather than quality of stats

Spell damage gear was never bad, it was just not as good in early Vanilla as longevity stats were.

You’re so hyper focused on a single aspect of the old game you don’t seem to consider the whole package at all.

Hunters, Rogues, and even the rare DPS warriors could do fantastic DPS, hell even mages who did stack the Spell damage that did exist could do fantastic damage. (Common in PvP)

That’s not the point tho, and apparently I’m saying it wrong or you’re just not getting it, I don’t know…

The game got easier, everyone knew it at the time and there were many of us that pointed it out before classic WoW shipped.

Between directly nerfing the content, and indirectly nerfing the contentv by making the classes drastically stronger via vastly better talents and improvement to base skills in addition to massively improved itemization the game just simply got easier.

We knew it back then, and we told the player base what to expect in classic when it was announced that It’s gonna be 1.12.

It’s a total package deal, just one of the components is not to blame and would not drastically change a whole lot, but add them together and it’s both drastic and game changing.

Take for example spell damage and healing; fact is there is just heaps more in late vanilla than early Vanilla because numerous items for buffed or added.

This was only supposed to be an single example.

Spell damage and healing in its own is not to blame as a whole but it’s only part of the problem.

To have the real early Vanilla experience there is only one way, and that’s literal mirror patch per patch update per update.

Problem is the modern players would freak because it’s not the private server 1.12 world of nax-craft that everyone wants.

Now to the elephant in the room, was early Vanilla hard? No, coming from EQ it was easier but a lot more fun.

However it’s just a simple fact that early Vanilla content went from easy by EQ standard to darn near face roll by 1.12.

Did we get better as players? No.

Did the game get easier? Yes.

Did we notice the transition? Yes around the end of AQ and beginning of Naxx, and it was indeed noticeable.

I am not the only one that noticed, I have not spent my life in private servers like many of these people here, I continued to raid through Wrath where I felt the game has lost its way and that was mostly it for me.

Id read more of your post but I don’t have enough time.

[Fasciae-fairbanks]

Spell damage gear was never bad, it was just not as good in early Vanilla as longevity stats were.

And you’re not listening/reading, the longevity stats were bad because of bad assumptions. People assumed they needed to heal and deal damage for 6+ minutes. If you math out the best gear for doing the most damage you can in a TIMED environment, for the full time, you will always invariably need more Mana and Mana regen.

Hunters, Rogues, and even the rare DPS warriors could do fantastic DPS, hell even mages who did stack the Spell damage that did exist could do fantastic damage. (Common in PvP)

And the irony here is, particularly for Combat Rogues using Swords, is that the only change to their ability to deal DPS came with the addition of some extra Expertise. That’s it. Yet we can find videos of people doing top 5 damage in their raids by never hitting Slice and Dice.

Just look at Curse Guild’s kill videos from Naxx40, half of them still have Fura rocking deep Frost rather than Fire, and still using 8/8 Tier 2.

The game got easier

It really didn’t, and waving a volume of changes without the substantive power they represent isn’t convincing anyone of anything. Especially when you say this:

by making the classes drastically stronger via vastly better talents and improvement to base skills in addition to massively improved itemization the game just simply got easier

The only two classes that received substantial improvements for PvE are Mages and Warriors, to the tune of about 25% damage increases between the load of free stats (Mages) and the addition of new skills (Warrior). The very massive changes to Subtlety and Feral and just Shamans across the board are nice and all… but irrelevant to PvE. Feral Cats aren’t destroying the meters, and people aren’t flocking to Feral Bears in droves, they didn’t in Vanilla, they aren’t even doing it now. Balance, Enhancement, Elemental, and Retribution are still jokes compared to a half-awake Warlock.

And as far as gear is concerned, Mages are uniquely strong in this early phase thanks to several +Frost pieces. Did you even look at the Healing Power difference? 13.2% increase.

The moment we consider BWL and Field Marshal gear, the difference all but disappears, because the Patch 1.4 caster bump and the Patch 1.5 items in Molten Core are all within Molten Core’s lifetime, and all prior to BWL and anything beyond it. Are we going to repeat this same song and dance when people drop Nef the first Tuesday he’s released?

Problem is the modern players would freak because it’s not the private server 1.12 world of nax-craft that everyone wants.

I do love how you assume that if they did Patch by Patch release, people wouldn’t be able to handle it, but players are definitely just as skillful at the game now as we were back then…

Id read more of your post but I don’t have enough time.

Had you read it all you wouldn’t be trying to prove your credentials while ignoring the bigger point.

Stop while you’re massively behind.

[Ithlian-proudmoore]

Holy 6 month late post!

[Williams-akama (Williams)]

The moment we consider BWL and Field Marshal gear, the difference all but disappears, because the Patch 1.4 caster bump and the Patch 1.5 items in Molten Core are all within Molten Core’s lifetime, and all prior to BWL and anything beyond it. Are we going to repeat this same song and dance when people drop Nef the first Tuesday he’s released?

This really Is the point you’re making “Vanilla is easy”

Well no kidding, I wasn’t saying it wasn’t easy even in early Vanilla.

My point was that it did get easier over time and we noticed the transition.

My entire post and original point was why that took place, why the game felt like it got nerfed in its own lifetime.

The same thing happened to a lesser degree with TBC and Wrath and it’s not like they were wildly different from Vanilla, they just got easier over time.

At the end of the day who really cares, the only thing that matters is that you’re having fun; I am, I don’t need the PvP sets to do that either because Tier 1 is fine as a hunter and T2 is a nice bump for PvP use also. When AQ ships I’ll do that again and naxx after that even tho I did not complete naxx the first time round.

Are YOU having fun?

[Greatperson-incendius]

You are my HERO. I love you. You laid it all out. I SERIOUSLY LOVE YOU.

Its all for not though. These folks will ignore every fact and every detail so the narrative fits their agenda. You could have blizzard come out and say that the game is in an easier state, and these people would STILL deny it.

You my friend are the hero we need…but not one we deserve.

[Galdor-maelstrom (Galdor)]

Of course it is. Now figure out exactly how much easier it and post the results here, please.

Guys like Velquez post that giant list of minor nerfs and completely omit the changes that made the game MORE difficult.

[Galdor-maelstrom (Galdor)]

Patch 1.5

Ragnaros

• The maximum range of the Wrath of Ragnaros spell has been increased.

Patch 1.7.0

Retaliation

• Will now cause a maximum of 30 retaliatory strikes in 15 seconds. In addition, retaliatory strikes will not be possible while stunned.

Items

• We have determined that the defense statistic was being applied to items too liberally, causing those items to be stronger than they should have been relative to other items of the same level with different effects. As a result, we have reduced the amount of defense points on all items with bonuses to defense by approximately 33% in order to bring those items in line with other similar items.

• The Lawbringer Paladin Set’s Healing Circle effect now only affects your party, but the range of the heal has been increased to 30 yds.

Patch 1.12.0

General

Threat Reduction Effects

• This system has been redesigned to eliminate inconsistency in how the effects work. Previously, some were additive (for example: 30% reduction + 20% reduction = 50% reduction) while others were multiplicative (30% reduction and 20% reduction made 44% reduction, from 0.7*0.8). They are now all multiplicative. This also prevents unpredictable behavior when the total reduction percentage was equal to or greater than 100%.

Please note that in almost all cases, when stacking multiple threat reduction effects you will experience less threat reduction than previously.

Etc, etc. I could find plenty more but I’m not into it right now, maybe I’ll make a giant list of things that made the game more difficult.

[Greatperson-incendius]

Okay so your counter is like 2-3 changes?

Bruh. Bruhhhh.

Aren’t you the “molten core will not be cleared week one” guy?

[Galdor-maelstrom (Galdor)]

@Greatperson-incendius

Aren’t you the “molten core will not be cleared week one” guy?

No… I’m the “Molten Core will be cleared extremely fast because it’s a joke” guy.

@Galdor-maelstrom

I’ve played “retail” for the last 14 years and I confidently believe MC will be cleared week 1 or week 2.

@Greatperson-incendius

Okay so your counter is like 2-3 changes?

The threat change alone is more significant than any other change in the list that made the game easier. I could find far more than this but I did it to illustrate the bias in posting a giant list of “1.12 is easy” changes, while ignoring EVERYTHING that made the game more difficult.

[Mahmin-barthilas]

No, Rag had a 1 hour hour spawn time, if you didn’t kill him in that window, he was gone.