The praised content of BC and WotlK

[Scifix]

The reason i liked TBC more than anything else, was because back then, i was more of a noob... yes

I remember the first time my friend gave me an account, and showed me around as i was leveling a warlock, this was late vanilla, and discovering everything, seeing his lvl 60 priest with benediction come riding his horse, seeing things and not knowing anything about what was around the next corner was the best thing about WoW, and this carried over into TBC because i started pretty much just before TBC was released.

sadly, wow cant recreate the feeling of wonder and excitement over something new, and of course, getting older and smarter doesnt help either

[Deleted]

I just saw this thread:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...9#post45912379

I guess that says a lot. People don't want changes at all.
Humans are creatures of habits. It's not a WoW problem.

[Deathquoi]

What stood out in BC for me was the continuing sense of community as LFG wasn't present, even though I also like how LFG turned out now because it makes it easier for alts.

The other thing that stood out was that almost every spec had a niche, sure it was terrible in other areas but people didn't really mind it.

People definitely did mind. A lot of specs were flat out terrible.

[Niwes]

here is another explanation:

many had in TBC/WotLK their (wow) time of... hmm, let me show you:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qUnbdvLpxhA

[Deleted]

I was 11 when Vanilla was released, I chose Runescape over it

Had a trial account in TBC, but didn't actually play until early Wrath. My nostalgia isn't so much content related but more just the fact everything was new and exciting, I could fly to those towers in Scholazar Basin and just go on a little adventure... Times were easy back then y'know?

There was a much bigger sense of community, most likely due to things like friends list, non server merges and a looooot of pugs. I think my realm had more pugs than anything else in trade and I reckon it was probably the same elsewhere. I don't even doubt it could go back to that because the chances are all those people (or the majority) are in the LFG tool.

I'd praise it because it was simplistic, it was a fairly new era for WoW if you consider it was like 8 years ago... Wouldn't necessarily say it was the best though.

[Lightbull]

I still don't think there's anything objective about whether or not each expansion is good, aside from a business perspective. People who fanboy over TBC/Wrath are annoying, and people who fanboy over Legion are annoying. Just let each side have their fun.

[Niwes]

I'm sorry but that reflecting the gameplay is such a bullshit and you are not alone saying this, but that argument coming up in every thread has always the same answers.

Ability Pruning? In BC we had rotations with ONE SPELL. There were only some classes you can count on one hand that had a more complex rotation. Having tons of abilities that were never used or maybe once at a special bossfight is not gameplay.

And Talent trees? Because you had a choice in that? You must have been pretty casual. If you didn't have the right skillpoints spent you had no chance in any Semi-hardcore guild already.

this is totally false. you maybe missremember that with classic. in classic you had frost mages with 4-5 different levels of frost bolt. in classic you had spam-shadowbolt-locks. in classic you had warriors only spaming sunder armor. in classic you had buff-only paladins. in TBC all classes had finalized rotations. i play since 2005 without interruptiin, i still have videos, internet too, of all classes. its wrong.

sorry, but you are completely wrong. check your recall or internet. its just plain false. you talk about vanilla, not TBC.

just out of my brain i have few examples:

- retri: pala was introduced as BE version and had around 3-5 buttons. a stagger mechanic to stack big crit hit of a finisher with seal, judgement and a debuff. had nearly the smallest rotation with 3-4 core keys and some buffs.

- tank pala: had around 6-8 rotational keys with 9-9-6-9 mechanic. judgement, seal, consec, and other stuff.

- resto drood: had rejuv, swiftmend, healing touch, regroth, lifebloom, tranq and dispell plus side stuff (cc etc).

- arms had MS, rend, sunder armor, whirlwind and other stuff

- bear had maul, swipe, charge, bloodthing, berserk, and other stuff

- lock had 3 dots, lifesteal, soulsteal, and other stuff.

most TBC rotations had around 4-7 core keys and 3-4 additional stuff. every classes bar was always full and most things most of the time was needed.

you can watch here:

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3A612DAB321524FB

in short: you are utterly false. or your recall.

[Zuben]

Judging the expansions by what they offered then and how we accepted it by standards of those days. Still hard to place my three favourites in order, as they feel balanced. Wrath, MoP and Legion all had great gameplay and lore/setting for their day.

[Deleted]

this is totally false. you maybe missremember that with classic. in classic you had frost mages with 4-5 different levels of frost bolt. in classic you had spam-shadowbolt-locks. in classic you had warriors only spaming sunder armor. in classic you had buff-only paladins. in TBC all classes had finalized rotations. i play since 2005 without interruptiin, i still have videos, internet too, of all classes. its wrong.

sorry, but you are completely wrong. check your recall or internet. its just plain false. you talk about vanilla, not TBC.

just out of my brain i have few examples:

- retri: pala was introduced as BE version and had around 3-5 buttons. a stagger mechanic to stack big crit hit of a finisher with seal, judgement and a debuff. had nearly the smallest rotation with 3-4 core keys and some buffs.

- tank pala: had around 6-8 rotational keys with 9-9-6-9 mechanic. judgement, seal, consec, and other stuff.

- resto drood: had rejuv, swiftmend, healing touch, regroth, lifebloom, tranq and dispell plus side stuff (cc etc).

- arms had MS, rend, sunder armor, whirlwind and other stuff

- bear had maul, swipe, charge, bloodthing, berserk, and other stuff

- lock had 3 dots, lifesteal, soulsteal, and other stuff.

most TBC rotations had around 4-7 core keys and 3-4 additional stuff. every classes bar was always full and most things most of the time was needed.

you can watch here:

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3A612DAB321524FB

in short: you are utterly false. or your recall.

this is totally false. you maybe missremember that with classic. in classic you had frost mages with 4-5 different levels of frost bolt. in classic you had spam-shadowbolt-locks. in classic you had warriors only spaming sunder armor. in classic you had buff-only paladins. in TBC all classes had finalized rotations. i play since 2005 without interruptiin, i still have videos, internet too, of all classes. its wrong.

sorry, but you are completely wrong. check your recall or internet. its just plain false. you talk about vanilla, not TBC.

Okay. Let's see (with help from google, too) the rotations of BC classes that were raid-viable:

Destruction Warlock: Shadowbolt
Elemental Shaman : Chain Laightning, 3x Lightning Bolt
BM Hunter : Serpent Sting every 15 secs, best case 13 Steady Shots in between
Combat Rogue : Sinister Strike until 3 CP, Slice'n Dice, Sinister Strike until 5 CP, Eviscerate. Lot of only autoattack phases due to missing energy.
Retribution Paladin : Hammer of Justice, Crusader Strike, Judgment (if you actually had one as they did no damage at all)
Fire Mage : 5x Scorch, Fireball until Scorch Stacks almost fall off.
Feral Druid : Shred until 5 CP, Rip. Repeat. Lot of only autoattack phases due to missing energy.
MS Warrior : Slam, MS, Slam, WW, Repeat. Lot of autoattack phases due to Rage missing or Cooldowns.
Fury Warrior : Keep Rampage active. Bloodthirst, Whirlwind. Heroic Strike if you have over 60 Rage.

Almost the same rotation as today:

Shadow Priest.

Now let's come to the healers:

Holy Paladin : Flash of Light Spam
Holy Priest : CoH Spam, maybe shields on tanks
Resto Shaman: Chain Heal Spam
Resto Druid : Rejuvenation on your targets, maybe Regrowth


These are all specs that were viable in BC in PvE. And that are good rotations? Stop kidding yourself, honestly. If you can't remember these rotations, google them.
BC rotations were simple as fuck as point of 2.3.4. The ret thing for example was vanilla, not BC with the stack for big crits. And you are calling cooldowns which every class has now so I left them out. As MS you never used Rend after T5 as it was a decrease. Dotlock was not viable in PvE BC, was a damn nice PvP spec though.

Because you had those abilities you didn't use them. As I haven't played tanks in BC I can't say something about that, but I'm pretty sure the Bear didn't use all the abilities you posted.

Dude, did you watch those videos you posted?
These are exactly the rotations I posted they play. Look at those bars, full with everything and only 4 buttons maximum used.

[chronia]

How can anybody say that we had the same gameplay after the excessive pruning and talent system changes in the last 2 expansions? oO

I think because even with pruning the gameplay didnt change alot alot of stuff that was pruned was hardly ever used or very situational, you still do the same thing, healing / dps or tanking, some classes with alot more buttons now than in TBC (Warlock 2 button spec, Hpala FoL spam come to mind) and some maybe use a little less now compared to TBC. Same with the talent system, in TBC it looked like you had alot of choice, but actually most builds were "set" bar a few talents that did not impact your dps / healing or tanking, and every other build was basicly less performing except for niche situations, however even in most niche situations you would not respec because it took to much time.

With the new talent system, while there are still "cookie cutter" builds for some situations atleast now (atleast i do) i respec alot more depending on what i do (world content, (M+) dungeons or raids, where respeccing per boss in raids is not uncommon.

Agree on hard CC btw, except for high M+ its hardly ever used he last few expansion, atleast not as much as in vanilla, TBC and the first 1-2 months of Cata before the nerfs came in, soft CC's like slows, knockbacks (to interrupt groups), Stuns however i see alot more used in legion that before esp in M+, same with interrupts, interrupts esp on high M+ are basicly mandatory, as some spells just cannot go off.

Dotlock was not viable in PvE BC, was a damn nice PvP spec though.

Not completely true, up to the point where Destro became viable (depending on how lucky the lock was with gear, usually somewhere around halfway into T5) Affliction was the spec to play, and even after that in alot of guilds still one lock played affli for the rest of the expansion for the 3% increase damage talent for curse of the elements.

[Daffan]

Oh...THAT I would like to have explained....

- - - Updated - - -



Which essentially is what was introduced in the end of TBC with badge gear and with the catch up mechanics of a new currency every raid tier in WotLK. And for some people it has been the death blow to the game in every thread about it since back then

The new currency in WOTLK didn't mean anything until the ICC 5 mans came out, in terms of making content obsolete.

Yeah Sunwell was bad. Everyone was farming Sunwell trash and nothing else anymore with their MGT Heroic welfare, good thing it was right at the end of the expansion or else people would have gone insane farming the same trash at the start Sunwell.

[Niwes]

Okay. Let's see (with help from google, too) the rotations of BC classes that were raid-viable:

Destruction Warlock: Shadowbolt
Elemental Shaman : Chain Laightning, 3x Lightning Bolt
BM Hunter : Serpent Sting every 15 secs, best case 13 Steady Shots in between
Combat Rogue : Sinister Strike until 3 CP, Slice'n Dice, Sinister Strike until 5 CP, Eviscerate. Lot of only autoattack phases due to missing energy.
Retribution Paladin : Hammer of Justice, Crusader Strike, Judgment (if you actually had one as they did no damage at all)
Fire Mage : 5x Scorch, Fireball until Scorch Stacks almost fall off.
Feral Druid : Shred until 5 CP, Rip. Repeat. Lot of only autoattack phases due to missing energy.
MS Warrior : Slam, MS, Slam, WW, Repeat. Lot of autoattack phases due to Rage missing or Cooldowns.
Fury Warrior : Keep Rampage active. Bloodthirst, Whirlwind. Heroic Strike if you have over 60 Rage.

Almost the same rotation as today:

Shadow Priest.

Now let's come to the healers:

Holy Paladin : Flash of Light Spam
Holy Priest : CoH Spam, maybe shields on tanks
Resto Shaman: Chain Heal Spam
Resto Druid : Rejuvenation on your targets, maybe Regrowth


These are all specs that were viable in BC in PvE. And that are good rotations? Stop kidding yourself, honestly. If you can't remember these rotations, google them.
BC rotations were simple as fuck as point of 2.3.4. The ret thing for example was vanilla, not BC with the stack for big crits. And you are calling cooldowns which every class has now so I left them out. As MS you never used Rend after T5 as it was a decrease. Dotlock was not viable in PvE BC, was a damn nice PvP spec though.

Because you had those abilities you didn't use them. As I haven't played tanks in BC I can't say something about that, but I'm pretty sure the Bear didn't use all the abilities you posted.

i dont get what you wanna achieve with that eye blending stuff? i can wrote that stuff too and i.e. hide Rend at the beginning of every mob, hide Prot Warrior which was very viable and had a lot to press, and stuff like that.

this is just stupid. and not the truth. look at the videos...

[Deleted]

i dont get what you wanna achieve with that eye blending stuff? i can wrote that stuff too and i.e. hide Rend at the beginning of every mob and stuff like that.

this is just stupid. and not the truth. look at the videos...

Look at my edits, look the videos. The Warrior videos never use Rend for example as you never did after T5.

You are blindsided. These are the true effing rotations and you simply can't accept that.

Really, guys like you make me deslike the time of BC, which was a great time for me as stated in OP. Simply because guys like you try to present false facts. This is the truth. Or please tell me the hard rotations for BM Hunter or Firemage. Where are these?

And beside that, MS had Sunder Armor, yes. But that was not part of the ptimal rotation and which guild did not have a Tank warrior? Don't forget you could use only ONE Sunder Armor Stacking on a target.

This with Wotlk was the prime time of my raiding and I know I am right. Also, I just googled it. Every spec and I am god damn right.
I'm sorry I didn't post the one time Curse of Elements at the start of the fight for Destro Locks. What a diversity in Gameplay I missed there

[Kokolums]

we all know BC and WotlK are the two praised expansions because of their content.

Wrong. They are praised because WoW was a SOCIAL game in vanilla and BC, not for their content. The content in vanilla and BC rather sat in the background while the TRUE game was the interaction between players within the in-game community in a fantasy world.

Your error is the same one Wildstar made. Wildstar attempted to recreate vanilla / BC content but omitted the social setting.

[Niwes]

Look at my edits, look the videos. The Warrior videos never use Rend for example as you never did after T5.

You are blindsided. These are the true effing rotations and you simply can't accept that.

Really, guys like you make me deslike the time of BC, which was a great time for me as stated in OP. Simply because guys like you try to present false facts. This is the truth. Or please tell me the hard rotations for BM Hunter or Firemage. Where are these?

i dont say every class had 12 buttons to push. but i say you polish stuff to strongen your arguments. TBC had fights where CC was neede every 20 secs. were aoe burst phases was a thing. etc. you put some classes out of the context, look at some ST encounter out of context and go like "blah blah they press 3 keys".

i raided in TBC A LOT. played 4 classes at max. and had 4 another as alts. nowhere there was some 1-3 button stuff. this is just so stupid. i will stop arguing here. you have your arguments or recall. just stick with them. i dont care. but the general overall life of a succcessful daily raider in TBC was NOT what you make it looks like.

[Deleted]

Game now: better game/gameplay/cinematic
Game then: better roleplaying aspects

[Deleted]

i dont say every class had 12 buttons to push. but i say you polish stuff to strongen your arguments. TBC had fights where CC was neede every 20 secs. were aoe burst phases was a thing. etc. you put some classes out of the context, look at some ST encounter out of context and go like "blah blah they press 3 keys".

i raided in TBC A LOT. played 4 classes at max. and had 4 another as alts. nowhere there was some 1-3 button stuff. this is just so stupid. i will stop arguing here. you have your arguments or recall. just stick with them. i dont care. but the general life of a succcessful daily raider in TBC was NOT what you make it looks like.

Give me god damn fucking true examples and not LOOK AT MA VIDEOS THERE HERPADERP where I am even proved! Look at the the warrior, exactly what I posted. EXACTLY.

You are a typical fool that simply makes me angry. ME NO LONGER "DISCUSS" BECAUSE ME TRUE AND ME NO POST PROOFS

Look at your videos. Please take a god damn fucking look. Look at that lousy rotations. Whatever, stay with your opinion that BC rotations were hard. At least you are already saying that you are not talking about every class. But generalise that the abilites got pruned. Holy fuck. You can't prove anything and stay stupid. Good job.

And if you count something like dispells in rotations you can't be taken seriously. But whatever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gAQjX1oK6E

Just look at those videos. I'm sorry I forgot Kill Command for the Hunters, but they were part of a macro mostly that didn't interrupt your atuoattacks with Steady Shots.

These glorious rotations. Hard as fuck, yeah....


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY3KVfovgaA

Or that video, that glorious warlock rotations. Shadowbolt, Shadowbolt, Shadowbolt, SHADOWBOOOOOLTTTTT. Oh, AE? SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED.

Oh fuck yes, you used every ability you had.

That videos hurts me even more because even Kil'Jaeden had less abilities than Etraeus. My Nostalgia got damn destroyed the last days.

[Deleted]

Game now: better game/gameplay/cinematic
Game then: better roleplaying aspects

I guess game a few years back was fresh and we all were younger. Time always changes things but coming back to Now, Legion is pretty awesome probably best for some time.

[Atraxxa]

Hello dears,

we all know BC and WotlK are the two praised expansions because of their content. Some say the quality was the best or the content at all. Even though it was the prime time playing World of Warcraft for me, too, I try to reflect the times and got a bit confused.

Why were those expansion the most enjoyable for me?

I really enjoy Legion though and think the content and quantity and quality is fantastic (even though the storytelling on Broken Shores is not that good, but from the view of gameplay the game presents you a lot right now, you are never going to hit a wall and have nothing to do left -> if you feel exhausted it's your personal problem).

But why did I enjoy TBC and WotlK?

Back in TBC I've been a Semi-Hardcore Raider and a Hardcore Raider in WotlK.

In TBC I raided and did some Arena. That's it. Sometimes dailys, but the dailys were not urgently needed so If I only did them If I had enough time to waste. Farming Buff Food and Flasks/Potions. That was whole World of Warcraft in TBC. The quality of raids was good, you still had a progression, that was fantastic as you had to start on your level and had to work through to the good guilds.

WotlK was bascially the same but with more Dailys and easier ways to get Alts equipped with badges vendors. Back then I raided hardcore as mentioned above and it was more time consuming, but in WotlK I had that time. Still beside raiding and dailys I had nothing else to do. Though Wintergrasp was always fun, but on a fix schedule.
The raids beside the worst raid in history with ToC and the first Tier with Naxx revamp/Malygos/Sartharion were probably the best raids in the game so far.
While you could do more with your Alts it ended in Wotlk with the cancer addon Gearscore. Since that day it has been harder to get more "content" for alts.

I am pretty sure right now that I had the most fun in MoP and right now in Legion, but my brain says TBC and WotlK were great. I guess that is a full load of nostalgia. Right now I feel extremely satisfied as I am always able to do something I like. There are so many different aspects I can play this game even though the biggest part is still raiding in two so far really good raids imo.
I want to play my Druid now and Heal? I search for a M+ or random raid, if my mood ist complete lazy I run LFR. I want to do something with my main? I can run BGs, push high M+, do World Quests, make transmog or mount runs.
EDIT: Since 7.2 playing with alts is easy af. With 3 hours ingame time on 110 my freshly leveled hunter has 45 points in his main weapon and a pretty good ILVL to start with.

Still my brain says: WotlK and TBC was great. My eyes say: The quality and quantity of content has never been greater.


What is the reason, what was the actual content of those praised expansions, that they are called the best expansions? It feels like a misfunction between heart and brain.

This is just an opinion ofcourse, but I believe most enjoyed it because it was a different community back then, guilds mattered at that point, no cross-realm and everyone knew who everyone was on a server, it was a completely different feel to the game. You remember when you saw someone in T3 and you were on total awe? Now we just look at the skimpiest tmogs... completely different game.

[Dziubla]

Both BC and WOTLK were hated during their time. The people who claim they love them (and vanilla) often did not play during those times.

BC brought wellfare epics which was going to "ruin the game".

WOTLK brought casual raiding which was going to "ruin the game".

The one xpac which was actually much loved during it's time was MOP. I have played since 2005 (active during all xpacks) and MOP is by far my favorite. It combines the narrative focus of WOTLK and diverse (or hard if you wish) group content of BC.

Majority of ppl who "hated" those expansions, were forum-warriors, who didn't even play the game, just spent their entire days lurking forums and hating the game. You know, the same ppl who now hate on Legion.