Just How Hard Were TBC Heroics vs Cata Heroics or Mythic 20+?

[Deleted]

No, as someone who was doing +10s in the first week of Mythic + in Legion, no TBC Heroics were not just about mobs dealing a lot of damage. Problem with people looking back 10 years is that they forget all of the actual reasons why TBC heroics were hard/frustrating. Go play on a popular private server and see for yourself, if it was just hard hitting mobs you could breeze through it, actually a lot of the mobs didn't hit that hard and it was CC mechanics without diminishing returns, debuffs and threat drops or random resets and brutal healing AOE threat that made them hard, the mechanics that could only be countered by certain spec and the RNG that infected every aspect of gameplay.

Like 90% of this thread is looking back with completely blurred lenses at 10 years ago and forgetting the actual reason TBC heroics were considered hard. As someone who has re-experienced TBC heroics in 2017, the level of frustration presented via the abilities some mobs or trash packs have is far beyond anything in Mythic +, because in Mythic + you're always in control of the situation and it's an exercise in execution, where as TBC was an exercise in "we're about to fuck you in the ass with some bullshit, deal with it".

In Legion it's about dealing with a situation with the tools you have, in TBC it's about hoping you have the tools available to you at the moment, and trying to hold together chaos because of how sensitive and on the limit everything can be.

I think half of that is made up because in raids you'd aoe shit/trash down too.
I was a hunter, so I can't relate to any aggro issues (MD+FD). but since guilds could easily deal with that in Hyal and BT etc. I don't see the problem threat has.
And mobs rarely did anything other than hitting the tank with spells or autoattacks.
And saying that a lot of mobs don't hit hard when even the easiest instance - mecha-something-nazar had these big as ogre-like thingies with needles that would enrage(?) and nearly two hit the tank or something.. meh, I don't know.

The reason why CC was being used is because the tank would've died otherwise.

Anyway, as a DD, TBC heroics were easy. There was little to no engagement with any mechanics whatsoever. It's pretty straight forward when you can only deal with one or two mobs at a time anyway, due to limitations in either heal or tanking.

Legion M+ do at least require me to meet certain DPS values and boss design in general is obviously far more complex than it was 10 years ago. On top of that, some affixes actually need to be handled properly, all the time.

[Polarthief]

Mythic 20 wut. That shit is harder by a MILE.

Need context for Mythic 20. Is he referring to M20 RIGHT NOW, M20 in 7.2.5, M20 in 7.2, M20 in 7.1, etc. Right now obs that's pretty difficult.

Old five mans are easy comparatively

Lolwot? Did you play old expansions? They were much harder than any expansion post-Cata launch.

because there is no timer. You could take as long as you want and CC every mob in there if you want.

You can still do that on live...? You don't HAVE to beat the timer to complete the dungeon.

Hell if you did this, you could easily complete any non-Tyrannical M20.

Now imagine doing MGT without being able to CC mobs and having to do it in a half hour. Then it would be hard.

Once people were geared, that was relatively easy to do back then. The general dungeon was quite hard though, much harder than live Mythics and even up to Mythic 10.

idk what the fuck you are on about with KJ as well. It took dudes what, 850 pulls? Was it more?
100 percent sure it didn't take guilds 800 pulls to kill Vash. It took longer time wise, but that's not at all relevant to difficulty.

The problem was most stuff back then was artificial (number) difficulty, not actually hard mechanics. Molten Core was "hard" because your tanks would get demolished, not because of the 0-1 mechanics on every boss, most of which was "dispel this".

[Linkedblade]

I raided the entirety of burning crusade. Early on after hitting 70 it was just a matter of learning mechanics. After doing it for a few weeks, they got easy. Possibly some of the easiest content I've ever done, the entirety of t4 content.

[Granyala]

I don't know if i miss those days or if i am really happy, that i don't have to deal with it anymore xD

I know exactly how you feel.
Think a game like that would be incompatible with today's youth. They are plain, simply too impatient.

[Bigbazz]

I think half of that is made up because in raids you'd aoe shit/trash down too.
I was a hunter, so I can't relate to any aggro issues (MD+FD). but since guilds could easily deal with that in Hyal etc. I don't see the problem threat has.

And mobs rarely did anything other than hitting the tank with spells or autoattacks.

You're comparing clearing trash in a specific 25man T6 raid with a 5man heroic dungeon effectively 4 tiers behind? The problem threat has? Healers on multiple target pulls could out-threat a Warrior/Druid tank with relative ease, many mobs had random hard threat resets, tank being CC'd by mobs (heroics were full of mobs with various forms of CC, some that could chain with no DR) also caused threat to default to the next non-cc'd player on the threat table.

Yes in Hyjal it was an AOE zerg fest, it was designed that way by novelty. This didn't exist on trash in any other raid other than specific pulls, like the Murlocs for Morogrim Tidewalker, the small dragonhawk aoe pack for A'lar, the Blood Elf non elites on Solarian or before Mother Shahraz... You delt with those by using a Paladin tank, who though were fairly useless main tanks (by comparison with Warrior/Druid) were absolutely in a different league on AOE tanking.

None of this has any real relevance to when you're in a 5man dungeon, and where due to the much higher popularity and desire for Warrior tanks meant you were mostly playing with Warrior tanks, who had almost zero ability to tank multi target due to a very limited toolkit and being extremely resource limited in dungeons... You were mostly dealing with situations where RNG and bullshit mechanics were in play, that's why it was more about outright frustration than mechanical difficulty.

[Granyala]

Once people were geared, that was relatively easy to do back then. The general dungeon was quite hard though, much harder than live Mythics and even up to Mythic 10.

No, people only did that once Blizzard nerfed the crap out of the glaive throwers.
Hardest thing was the "pvp boss" Priestess sth. Them mobs had a tendency to gang up on the healer and instagib us. >.<

[Deleted]

Mythic 20 wut. That shit is harder by a MILE. Old five mans are easy comparatively, because there is no timer. You could take as long as you want and CC every mob in there if you want.

Shattered Halls had a timer you had to complete for the Trial of the Naaru questline (attunement for BT).

[Granyala]

tank being CC'd by mobs (heroics were full of mobs with various forms of CC, some that could chain with no DR) also caused threat to default to the next non-cc'd player on the threat table.

Solarplexus, Manatombs... >.< Argh these groups were mean to heal.

[Alvito]

Having a 45min timer didn't mean it took 45mins. Used to easily clear it before then. Basically to miss the 45min timer you needed to die a couple of times. Also as the rest of your post says the biggest reason when it came down to time was your group. The Heroics were a breeze with a decent group. People that struggled through them and tok a long time for heroics were not in decent groups.

Of course it doesn't mean that or nobody would have raided past Kara. It does mean it was at least at the time a challenge to complete it in that time. You lost the buff if you died too so 1 death and the clock didn't matter. It wasn't just having a decent group it was having proper classes or specs to counter mobs. Since most didn't have cc back then or had awful cc like fear, you didn't see groups with a warrior and enhance shammy for example. It also just took way longer to kill things, having to re cc things was very common since then you haven't seen anything like that. Sure if you had a pally tank, druid healer, mage, lock and a hunter dungeons were a breeze.

[Granyala]

Shattered Halls had a timer you had to complete for the Trial of the Naaru questline (attunement for BT).

BT? I believe that was the attunement for T5.

[SinR]

Ahh... Memories

"LFM H MGT DAILY NEED ROGUE AND MAGE"

[Granyala]

Ahh... Memories

"LFM H MGT DAILY NEED ROGUE AND MAGE"

Ah yes, the joy of DPS shamans and DPS warriors.
As an SPriest at least I could MC SOME of the mobs.

[Deleted]

.

None of this has any real relevance to when you're in a 5man dungeon, and where due to the much higher popularity and desire for Warrior tanks meant you were mostly playing with Warrior tanks, who had almost zero ability to tank multi target due to a very limited toolkit and being extremely resource limited in dungeons... You were mostly dealing with situations where RNG and bullshit mechanics were in play, that's why it was more about outright frustration than mechanical difficulty.

But the point is, you didn't multitarget tank anyway. Because most tanks couldn't handle the damage anyway since they might drop in a single gcd.
There is little to no trash encounter which you couldn't CC in some way.

And once you did that -> mousewheel time.

It all came down to how much damage mobs dealt and that's some seriously boring design and by no means "difficult" for me as a damage dealer.

[kail]

I wouldn't so really say they were harder, just not as speed pull heavy.

[Bigbazz]

Ah yes, the joy of DPS shamans and DPS warriors.
As an SPriest at least I could MC SOME of the mobs.

To be honest a Shadow Priest wasn't bad, Mind Control, Fear with a stamina buff for the group and mana for the healer/dps (and tank if Pala). A lot of the time hard CC wasn't really needed anyway, even a Fury Warriors intimidating shout could be used effectively in a lot of situations. I think more of the problem came from people not having faith in their fellow players (and for good reason), Rogues were an absolute liability if they weren't Sub specced for improved sap also, hunters had a habbit of ass pulling mobs with their pets or stray arrows, and trapping mobs did require some skill/setup.

Warlocks and Mages obviously had the most reliable CC, if it gets resisted or broken you can just re-cast it, not only that but they had really strong all round dps without having to rely on ideal group setups (like Rogues/Fury Warriors), not to mention the extra bonuses like water/food tables, health stones, summoning stones and soul stones.

[Deleted]

Not sure how you reach the "threat problem" conclusion, regardless of the presence of CC, tab rotation had to be done the way you described or every mob would go to the healer at the moment this hit a heal a second time. And this was especially true cause you didn't have an ability that hit every mob at once, so you had to thunder clap, and then try to sunder them all at least once to establish and consolidate initial threat so that they wouldn't just murder the shaman/priest/other in the back.

Pretty much as far as tanking goes the most "difficult" (double quote because nothing in wow has ever been difficult in any way shape or form) part of a pull was the first 15-20 seconds because of having to establish that initial solid threat

I started tanking in TBC and was a warrior, I didn't need CC to tank up to 7 mob, but god if I could I took CC. cause it just made my life sooooo much easier and I'm not the type that masochistically makes his life more difficult on purpose, I used the tools I had in my party.

I didn't tank much in TBC, but I learned to respect the tank and tried to what I could to make his/her job easier using any of the tools at my disposal. To this day I hate shitpeople who open with AoE before the tank has even had a chance to hit everything properly.

- - - Updated - - -

BT? I believe that was the attunement for T5.

Could be. It still had to be done for both.

- - - Updated - - -

BT? I believe that was the attunement for T5.

Could be. It still had to be done for both.

- - - Updated - - -

Ah yes, the joy of DPS shamans and DPS warriors.
As an SPriest at least I could MC SOME of the mobs.

Think about being a ret pally in TBC. Not a chance unless you ran in a group set up by friends or guildies. You had to be super good to do competitive dps.

[Bigbazz]

But the point is, you didn't multitarget tank anyway. Because most tanks couldn't handle the damage anyway since they might drop in a single gcd.
There is little to no trash encounter which you couldn't CC in some way.

And once you did that -> mousewheel time.

It all came down to how much damage mobs dealt and that's some seriously boring design and by no means "difficult" for me as a damage dealer.

This is not true at all, there were a lot of mobs that could not be CC'd at all and there were a lot of group setups you were inevitably going to be running with that didn't have the perfect setup for the dungeon, and each dungeon favoured different classes/specs. The level of work the tank had to do as a Warrior/Druid in TBC was off the scale because of having to babysit an entire group with a limited resource pool, and threat was super sensitive, pulls with 3 + mobs in active combat were fairly common because contrary to your belief every mob could not be CC'd and not every mob hit hard enough on the tank that it needed to be, the dungeons were designed well in that regard.

There were big pulls such as in Slave Pens the last Naga pull before the last boss room which included Mind Controls and fears on the main tank that effectively meant the group had to deal with it without the tank, because the tank was going to be CC'd for maybe 60% + of the pull. Like here if your whole group did not play well as a team in terms of control, cooldowns, CC, target priority you would just wipe, it was organised chaos more than anything else.

Like I said, it's all down to TBC being about mobs disabling your ability to function, rather than providing you with challenges you overcame with default gameplay. It's been mentioned countless times by people actually playing the TBC content on a certain popular private server in 2017, you're just arguing with people who have first hand recent experience by using faded memories.

[Deleted]

I'm pretty sure I was able to set these nagas into traps. 2 of them at the same time, even. I could also beast-fear the sporebats - probably.
Dunno, sounds like people do it wrong and AoE pull everything like we do today.

So basically 3/4 of that pull is disabled by me alone. It's fire and forget after the pull.

Maybe I just had the tools as a hunter for a clean walk in the park... well, not maybe, I certainly had them.

[Lime]

We're comparing BC/Cata heroics to a M+20? If you think they're even close you either have a weird memory of BC or have never done high level M+. As someone who pushes high keys every week I'll say that in my opinion it's not even close. Very high level M+ requires an insane level of skill, gear, coordination, near perfect execution of mechanics, and a well balanced group comp. If you don't believe me watch the M+ dungeon invitational right now. Sure BC heroics could have deaths or wipes of the group was trash but it's not even close by any stretch of the imagination. You could go in with any 5 average players and clear them without much trouble. 0% chance you take 5 average players without discord and a good group comp that you'll even kill the first boss in a +20. In terms on length BC dungeons weren't any longer than other expansions dungeons. Maybe 30 minutes MAX,

You really think these guys saying that M+ is just a skill-less AoE fest are actually running high M+? lol no

Many people have put it perfectly, TBC Heroics were a completely different kind of difficulty.

[Gadzooks]

People were generally very poorly geared back then as well. The number of people doing them was generally very limited due to attunements as well. And furthermore, finding groups was very difficult due to having to trawl trade chat for potentially hours on end to find people.

Take your pick of those factors

It wasn't just gear. In typical fashion, players would blast through atunements as fast as possible to get to the heroics, and then were just useless in them. Getting through Heroics meant gear, knowledge, and experience - that's why a good rep on your server helped, because one bad player could lead to an all-night wipe fest. I don't recall them be insanely hard, but they were definitely a notch up - but you had to run them a lot on normal to get the atunement, so you'd at least know the general layout, or should. Heroic meant more CC, tricky pulls, and harder hitting mobs. They weren't flat out gear/dps checks like Gruul's or the Curator were. The only one that people avoided for being hard was the hellfire heroic, from what I remember. I remember they felt about right, that this is the difficulty dungeons should be at, the normal versions, once you figured the pulls out, were kind of too easy. Especially the Dark Portal one. Once you had the gear to get past Gruul, they weren't that hard, IMHO.

I've never played the Mythics, so I can't compare, but looking at them on paper, they look a lot harder. Again, I have no experience to base that on.