So I was flying between quest points after completing one of the beginner quests and I’m around level 73. I’m also a Miner / Blacksmith so I’m always looking for more ore to mine. Anyway, I was dragonflying (since that’s apparently the only option now 
thanks a lot for the “upgrade” Blizzard) and I saw a node on my minimap. I drop down like usual and I’m instantly swarmed by level 80 elite bees before I can react. Instant death. I’m like WTF just happened. Ok fly back to my body and try to rez a little bit away. Swarmed again, instant death. After about 4 more rezzes, I’m slowly able to inch away back to the road out of their range. I don’t get why they would do this. Is there a lore reason why the bees need to be level 80 elites just out in the open? Is there a gameplay mechanic behind it? Do I need to farm these bees later at level 80? Is it just to randomly punish players as a beginner trap? It’s supposed to be a level 70-73 zone, so there’s no reason to expect level 80 elites just randomly on the ground. They could at least have made the zone that the bees are in a level 80 zone. Most players are going to be dragonflying from point to point, so there’s zero warning there until you hit the ground at 100 mph and get instantly nuked. What were they thinking?
There are a few quests there but they drop a currency that can be used for a mount.
Having pockets of max level elites in a leveling zone isn’t new. Many expansions have them. I just fly around them when leveling.
Can you give me an example? I don’t remember this being a thing in past expansions.
I’m not a fan of elite areas personally, but apparently someone out there must be because they seem to have become a staple of recent expansions (Dragonflight had lots: the black dragon hub, a centaur area, Brackenhide gnolls, the other primalist/elemental area in the south, the cobalt assembly - basically everywhere primal storms showed up)
My guess for why they don’t scale is so they won’t be trivialized by lower level characters in last expansion’s endgame gear.
That particular area is giving my gatherers a lot of “Can’t stop here. This is bee country” meme moments.
It could be that I’m not remembering these areas because they’re less of a problem if you are starting on a ground mount. This expansion just gives you dragonflying from out of the gate, so it’s just weird to me that this is even a thing in the game. If you can just fly over everything, why are there high level ground mobs? If it’s an area meant for top level players to farm, why is it in a low level area? My only guess is maybe they originally meant for players to use ground mounts and they patched in flying at the last minute.
The BfA bees escaped over the ocean but we still found them so they’ve had enough and want blood
I just wish they hadn’t packed these elite only zones so densely. Like you can barely move without attracting another mob of Elites. Massive zone, itty bitty elite zone.
I’m glad somebody else brought this up.
I was very annoyed about it and did much the same as you, except I didnt go back, I just took the debuff at the spirit healer and left. All those herb and ore nodes can rot because I’m not going into that hellhole.
A really stupid design idea imo.
I was annoyed by these early on because I got face rolled by them a few times not paying attention. Either you do zone scaling or you don’t - take your pick. I’m okay with either. But it’s rather annoying to have a general rule of we scale the zones but then also for special reasons these mobs we don’t. Blizzard, take your pick.
Either I need to check the level of enemies wherever I am exploring or I don’t and can expect them to all be the same level as I am and I only need to worry about their difficulty classification. Elite or not.
There have always been places like this, there were even lvl 20-30 zones next door to lvl 50 zones. One thing about these places when you discover them as you did, and I did by the way, you never forget.
We need danger out there, it keeps things lively and interesting. Face rolling the entire world would get boring.
I don’t think I can post links but
In Vanilla and TBC there were numerous Elite zones out on the world that required a group.
you gotta bee on the lookout
A valid argument against zone scaling. But like I said. You either need to do one or the other. Poop or get off the pot. It’d dumb to set a precident of scaling entire areas to the character and then having random things just not scale. Personally, i’d rather nothing scale but that’s me.
That’s different. In vanilla the entire zone was flagged as being appropriate for characters between certain level ranges. While you could wander into an elite area meant for groups the mobs would be the same level as you are. The other thing with those expansions was for the bulk of the leveling experience when you were learning new zones, you were on a ground mount and those areas are usually designed to be self contained so you don’t just wander into them. You’d go through a valley or something else with guards that were elites and if i recall the unitframe even indicated a higher teir elite.
With these bee area in the isle. You can be level 69 doing the intro stuff and your moving around doing quests your sent to do and literally without warning the exact same mobs and eco system visually now you have level 80+ wolves and bees. Unless you get wacked and remember to look out for it. It’s like a carefully baited trap.
If those are the kind I am thinking of, then they should be marked as elite zones. Like when you go in it pops up with the zone name in red and clearly warns you that you are entering a world of pain.
My uncle Ackbar used to run around saying, “It’s a trap!”
Honestly while not a fan it claimed me one or two times by accident while leveling my 1st character; same with the exploding herbs and ore. That said having elite or fixed level NPCs spread around different zones has been that was as long as I’ve been playing MMOs.
That only happens for PvP, these zones you have to look at the mobs or in my case wonder how you died to some little bees.
You may hate them but I love them, free leather farm
We had elite areas in past expansions like Skettis and the demon/ogre areas in BC, elite undead mobs in Icecrown in WotLK etc.
Also in DF there where many endgame elites in the Dragonbane Keep and in the Nokhud area. This is nothing new.
The design flaw is that the bee area in TWW is not really marked as a distinct endgame area. In DF there is at least a wall around Dragonbane Keep and the Nokhud. In TWW the elite bees hide below the trees and when you see them it could be too late.
These zones were generally physically separated from the main zone - Seradane in Hinterlands, The Tainted Scar in the Blasted Lands, etc. They weren’t clustered up like the bees are.
I have fallen victim to those as well. It does suck, and that area is so crowded and chaotic it can be hard to tell what’s what. I don’t have an argument for or against this setup, but I can see how some find it frustrating.
There were things like Fel Reaver, but at least you could see that guy coming from (literally) a mile away lol.