What was the greatest 5-man era of WoW?

[fangless]

so to recap:

make HEROIC difficult dungeons require HEROIC playing ability and a little bit of thought. make them drop HEROIC quality loot (relative to what else is available in the game currently)

if these are too hard for some people, add other things in other niches to provide for those players instead of dumbing down heroics. (scenarios, normal dungeons, quest chains)

I would love to have an intricate tree of branching quests/dungeons that lead to an eventual goal like the TBC attunement quests, maybe not with attunements though. That would give me several weeks of character progression that i could do on multiple characters and it would be artificial gating, which is preferable to actual gating, since blizzard feels like they need to gate things anyway.

The heroic dungeons could have some interesting quest chains leading to them. Stuff like Shattered Halls, forging a key. Make them slightly challenging, so that the players entering them at least have a brain cell (though the SH key making wasn't hard, it added a bit of flavor to the experience).

[ScottsdaleHokie]

Like everything else in this game, TBC.

Heroics were incredible.

[Tyresias]

I loved the 5 man hc dg's in cata the first 2 weeks. Getting the meta then waswn't really a walk in the park at it was really fun the dungeon's being a bit chalenging. Remember talking about doing those after you just fineshed leveling and had some quest and normal dungeon gear. After those first 2 weeks they started the awesome nerfs on em and became the generic wotlk(wich were fun i admit but not really challenging) 15 min dg's.

[Outofmana]

Vanilla had 5man dungeons you know....

Vanilla #1 for me, just because of the overall atmosphere of the 5mans and the slow phase which was needed (until people were in MC gear, but before that it was even more amazing), felt really nice and shitty players learned an awful lot from those runs, for example never ever to pull or it would be a wipe and remembering that throughout the game, better than the zergfest now. Loot was still blue which it should've always remained in 5man, and if you had a shadowpriest/healing priest in Strat:UD for example, the run got a whole lot easier because of 1 shackle. (But it wasn't IMPOSSIBLE, like in TBC sometimes...Arcatraz without shadowpriest was gg for me).
Dark Runes in Scholo, Demonic runes in DM, Righteous Orbs in StratLiving, Living Essences in DM, AD rep in scholo/strat, Flask recipes in Strat,scholo, ubrs, etc. So many reasons to keep returning for them, instead of being like "lol ok capped 1000 valor CY@~ next week".

TBC #2, really hard which made them really fun to do for me as a healer, but when I wasn't raidgeared yet; only if I had a shadowpriest for off-healing. Our guild had a core of 5 ppl clearing timed SH for us to get attuned, we let them clear and 5 ppl zone in fast to kill the quest-dude, I was quite happy about that, I wasn't that great in 5man healing at all (like I just can't heal 10man since wotlk at all compared to 25) and I don't think I would've pulled it off (same can be said for people without any CC of course). I liked the gating system with reputations and keys, felt special to be able to do a heroic, the atmosphere was also brilliant, actually the last 5mans for me to have a really good atmosphere, it really went downhill from there and Magister's Terrace (bah) was the start of the terribleness.

As for the rest, they turned into a means to get valor/justice points as quickly as possible, not enjoying the actual instances themselves like before. Not that they were any good, I guess if I would name one it would be.....well none is that special after TBC really, can't even name one when I think about it, they lacked atmosphere.

[fangless]

I miss farming dungeons for misc item drops like Righteous Orbs or w/e. Or farming mats in general. Stuff like Tyr's Hand, or Elemental Plateau.

The vanilla ones were brutal, that's mostly what I remember. But the interactions between all the SM dungeons, that was flavorful. The two stratholme wings being connected. Making a scholomance key. DM wings all being inside the DM "zone" area.


There's so much flavor/intangible stuff there, and it's been removed because it isn't the LFD queue up go go go mentality.

[wariofan1]

Cataclysm launch heroics were the best dungeons ever in my opinion. They were challenging, immersive, and super fun, though I know a lot of people feel otherwise about that. They were simply everything I wanted in heroic dungeons, with the exceptions of the 2 remade ones.

Then it sadly went all downhill with 4.1, and even further with 4.3. Didn't make it better than the launch heroics proved to be the best part of the whole expansion.

[Duridi]

I voted early Cataclysm, but enjoyed the TBC ones just as much. Hated the rest.

[Deleted]

For me it's the early Cata heroics, both the 4.0 dungeons and the troll dungeons in 4.1. They were challenging for tanks, healers AND dps, required CC and coordination, and overall had some really nice themes. That's pretty much all I'm looking for in heroics. Shame the MoP dungeons have NOTHING of this. And I can't be bothered to find 4 similar-minded people to do challenge modes either.

[Seriss]

I have never again grinded so many heroic dungeons a day as I did back in BC.

[Batix]

I voted BC heroics, but I would vote WotLK as well if I could vote for two. Any 5-man ran in the days before the LFG system was introduced.

[gemana]

I really liked the Cata Heroics at launch, when they were actually "Heroic." But that didn't last long as Blizz caters to casuals.

ZA/ZG were also great. Often frustrating in a PUG, I can recall a few times when trash respawned TWICE, while trying to get through ZG, yes, four hours in a 5-man.

But I think my favorite "era" of 5 mans were the ICC trio. I just think they look awesome, and make a great lead-in to the end raid. Halls of Reflection and Pit of Saron especially are classics.

The new MOP 5-mans look great, but with 'middle of expansion' gear, there is nothing 'heroic' about them. I don't even bother going resto anymore, I can do enough healing in elemental spec and plow through them so much quicker. It's a shame really, because they are very nicely designed and have interesting mechanics, but way under tuned.

I know the challenge modes are supposed to be for people like me, and if they had useful rewards they would be. But they don't, so they're not.

[Deleted]

I'd go with BC heroics, because I found the whole dungeon experience in TBC to be very repeatable and varied quite a lot depending on your own class/char, but also on the class mix which you brought along with you to the dungeon.

I can't put it down just to the dungeon design itself - the entire class design philosophy was centred around the idea that individual players were fairly squishy and vulnerable on their own, and that no one player had the keys to success - everything would be a group/team effort; from CC'ers to Kiters - Obviously healers and tanks were important too, and all players needed to manage their aggro.

The healer and tank together had the job of keeping everybody alive; but the dps were responsible for picking up any loose adds and ensuring the tank wouldn't be overwhelmed. Likewise, healers could attract attention to themselves (aggro) easily, and the whole group were responsible for protecting their healer.

I also enjoyed the fact that classes themselves were squishy. Even a mail-clad hunter could barely survive a single strike from one of the Fel Orcs in Heroic Ramparts.

Finally I guess the mobs themselves were varied; players needed to check ahead and find out what they were up against - Patrols were a serious problem for a careless group, and if the trash group had a priest-like class with a name like "mender", then dps priorities would be set. Mobs had the same abilities as players, so it was a big deal to get a mob capable of casting AoE fear, or running away and tagging its friends to join in the fight.

I realise that we have challenge modes in MoP, and those are fun for a while, but they don't seem to have anywhere near the kind of variation or repeatability (And I know its not 100% down to dungeon design, part of it is about fundamental class design too). The Challenge Modes seem to be primarily about grabbing a massive pack of trash mobs and AOE'ing them down ASAP (either that or using an Invis pot and just skipping past it) - all of the strategy and situational awareness from classic dungeon trash seems to be missing (Or, it has been substituted with a timer)

I know a lot of the things about BC were also true in Vanilla Dungeons, so I would probably lump TBC and Vanilla both together in the same boat - at least compared to the almost-solo'able 15 minute AoE grindfests which we have today. Seems to me that there's a really big gap in the MMORPG market for traditional "long play" 5-man dungeons which can occupy a party for a couple of hours, without needing to resort to "artificial" challenges like timers and mass mob-pulling. I really can't understand why Blizzard are putting all their efforts into so many other things but putting dungeons down at the bottom of the pile alongside daily quests.

[Deleted]

the LK heroics were never hard, even at the start. The LK instances were what ruined 5 mans in this game. People no longer had to CC and they were BORING from a mechanics standpoint.

you never played a healer then?

[Deleted]

you never played a healer then?

If a healer in WotLK asked players to CC or wait for mana they'd usually be met with "just keep up with the tank and heal". I still wouldn't say the dungeons were hard though; they just gave all non-healers an excuse to charge ahead and try to make the game as difficult as possible for the healer while they were having an easy ride

[Eranthe]

If a healer in WotLK asked players to CC or wait for mana they'd usually be met with "just keep up with the tank and heal". I still wouldn't say the dungeons were hard though; they just gave all non-healers an excuse to charge ahead and try to make the game as difficult as possible for the healer while they were having an easy ride

They weren't hard to heal. I remember a ret paladin that beat me to 80 (i was realm 2nd warrior) healing heroic halls of lightning because ret healing was so good then. Aside from that I healed countless heroic during wrath and they were nothing compared to the difficulty of vanilla/bc/even cataclysm.

[Zubacz]

TBC heroics were by far the best. People progressed through them. Trash required skill and coordination and getting that one epic at the end felt really great. True, some of them were overtuned (Escape from Durnholde) and nobody did them even as daily, but most of them were really fun. They provided the step on the learning curve, before raiding, that has been missing since end of TBC. If you did well in 5-mans and were added to friends lists and asked to come again, you knew you were ready for more.

Cataclysm heroics in the beginning were good. They forced dps to watch threat, cc and interrupt. Tanks had to really try to not take too much damage or break cc. Healers had to dispel (!!!) and could go oom. Main problem with them though, was that you got into them using the LFG tool and often had to deal with Wrath-babies.

The remake of ZG and ZA was decent as well but not even close to the challenge they could have provided for organised 5-man teams.

[Anakso]

I'm surprised BC heroics are so high, didn't really like them then.

Wotlk heroics were the best imo, MoP has had pretty bad 5man content. Well, not really bad but not enough of it.

For me it's Wotlk>Cata>MoP>BC

BC might be higher if it had LFD but waiting around for 2hours while a group formed only to have a tank leave when we still couldn't find a healer was not fun game play, plus no achievements which is half the reason I like 5mans in the first place.

MoP would be much higher if they'd actually given us more 5mans this expansion than what we launched with but they decided not to so we've had the same old stuff to run all expansion coupled with no real reason to run them one you can get into LFR, unless you want achievements but because there's no reason to run them then good luck getting some of those with an LFD group full of mostly people that can't do LFR yet.

[Outofmana]

BC might be higher if it had LFD but waiting around for 2hours while a group formed only to have a tank leave when we still couldn't find a healer was not fun game play, plus no achievements which is half the reason I like 5mans in the first place.

This for me is actually why cataclysm hcs were just terrible and TBC, without a queue, were perfect, in TBC you made a group yourself and got to do an incredibly hard challenge with the 5 of you (And not timed like the gimmicky invisibility pot Challenge mode runs, ARGH) (usually friends or guildies), was amazing with loads of chatting. But in Cataclysm you had to queue thus ending up with (even queueing with 4) a tard who could fuck up the run by you by ninjaing, ninja pulling, ninja looting, healing shitty, tanking shitty, dpsing shitty and the bigger difficulty (didn't come close to TBC though) just did not work and ended up having people hate healing them (since that's the person getting the really hard time then).

Achievements in this game has ruined so much for me, god knows how many times I just wanted a fast dungeon run and 2 ppl from the group go "achievement on this boss pls, wipe if we fail" on one of the hardest achievements and wasting my time. What's wrong with a cool dungeon run, but I guess these uninspired instances of late need achievements to make them interessting.

[Feene]

BC heroics were absolutely the most fun and challenging. Also, just for flavor, they had the best gear models and best looking instances imo.

Another reason the experience was more fun was that you had a regular friends list of people you went with and rarely got some random person you didn't know. You knew for sure everyone was capable and pulling their weight.

[Ciddy]

BC, by far. Cataclysm heroics bored me to tears, and I haven't even done the achievements for clearing all the MoP heroics (or even all the normal MoP 5-man dungeons). I enjoyed the 5-man stuff in Wrath too.

Also, there weren't really "heroic" modes in Vanilla (aside from trying to do stuff like the 45-minute Baron run or do certain "bonus" objectives), but I enjoyed the 5-man content. I liked most of the really long 5-man dungeons that everyone else hated (Dire Maul, BRD, Maraudon, etc).

BC was my favorite time in WoW overall, but I think that's mostly because my guild was at its strongest back then, and most of my best friends in game were still actively playing. We did everything together then, and I rarely had to pug anything.