Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[Gadzooks]

Blizzard employee says that Warcraft belong to gaming history and deserve a platform to live in - to me that's pretty much confirmation that they want to do it.

That, but also the fact that they have the official numbers. There's a huge community interested in Vanilla, they'd be quite stupid to ignore it.

All in all, this is as close to an official yes that we'll get until Blizzcon Q&A. Although Blizzard has been able to surprise us in the past. We'll see!

ONE dev feels that way - and one dev does not make decisions like this. How you can get any kind of confirmation out of that, is beyond me - unless you fundamentally misunderstand what the word means.

[RickJamesLich]

Basically sunder was more rage efficient, and revenge was the highest tps ability. i.e you didn't need shield slam to hold threat.
I.e no reason to go full prot.

....which is what I said a long while ago.

The problem is that without shield slam, you get into a scenario where people have to wait before they start dps. Also, you again ignore that outside of MC, most raid bosses give infinite rage, in which case you want to use the abilities that generate the most threat, regardless of efficiency. Essentially not using shield slam makes a fight considerably longer since the dps now have to hold back quite a bit of their full potential, fine on easy fights, but on any sort of progression or challenging boss that can possibly wipe the raid, going without Shield Slam means that you did something very wrong.

[kary]

The problem is that without shield slam, you get into a scenario where people have to wait before they start dps. Also, you again ignore that outside of MC, most raid bosses give infinite rage, in which case you want to use the abilities that generate the most threat, regardless of efficiency. Essentially not using shield slam makes a fight considerably longer since the dps now have to hold back quite a bit of their full potential, fine on easy fights, but on any sort of progression or challenging boss that can possibly wipe the raid, going without Shield Slam means that you did something very wrong.

Are we pretending that people went HAM on the pull in vanilla now?

[RickJamesLich]

Are we pretending that people went HAM on the pull in vanilla now?

I'm merely pointing out the reason for that "wait til 5 sunders before you dps" stuff was because of warriors not properly speccing. You *could* get by without shield slam, but it was an unwise decision. Not just because you had to wait before dps'ing at the start of the fight, but also because dps could potentially catch up to the tank's threat over time. Allowing dps to go faster is a huge deal when it means the difference between getting a phase 2 for Rag, or skipping it entirely, for example, since your melee can pump out much more dps, or being able to burst down the Broodlord before he starts killing too many tanks. Just 2 examples but this holds true on far more boss fights than just those.

[Molis]

This Bear tank conversation is in my opinion exactly what will make any Vanilla server flop after the nostalgia wears off.

If there are no content updates or class updates half the classes will realize they are sub optimal in the end game. I am not just talking MC to Naxx. I never saw a Bear or Pally tank UBRS or Scholo.

New player or Wrath baby is going to pick up Druid and say to themselves "Yeah I am going to DPS or tank" and then realize they do not have the tools to do so. You heal or pick another class.
Sure there were outliers, but those outliers needed very specific gear funneled to them. Very few Druid or Pally could tank MC in dungeon blues.

[kary]

I'm merely pointing out the reason for that "wait til 5 sunders before you dps" stuff was because of warriors not properly speccing. You *could* get by without shield slam, but it was an unwise decision. Not just because you had to wait before dps'ing at the start of the fight, but also because dps could potentially catch up to the tank's threat over time. Allowing dps to go faster is a huge deal when it means the difference between getting a phase 2 for Rag, or skipping it entirely, for example, since your melee can pump out much more dps, or being able to burst down the Broodlord before he starts killing too many tanks. Just 2 examples but this holds true on far more boss fights than just those.

So all you had to do was go prot to defiance. Gotcha.
Okay, now I'm curious what this has to do with the whole off tank conversation re: ferals.
And yeah I get what you're saying, but threat management was also an aspect of vanilla dpsing, and unless you were a warrior you could manage your threat very very easily.

- - - Updated - - -

This Bear tank conversation is in my opinion exactly what will make any Vanilla server flop after the nostalgia wears off.

If there are no content updates or class updates half the classes will realize they are sub optimal in the end game. I am not just talking MC to Naxx. I never saw a Bear or Pally tank UBRS or Scholo.

New player or Wrath baby is going to pick up Druid and say to themselves "Yeah I am going to DPS or tank" and then realize they do not have the tools to do so. You heal or pick another class.
Sure there were outliers, but those outliers needed very specific gear funneled to them. Very few Druid or Pally could tank MC in dungeon blues.

I think most people who play these servers have an idea what they want to play at end game. I'd hate to think someone would roll on nostalrius to be a paladin tank and expect to do anything past sunken temple, lol.

[zorkuus]

This Bear tank conversation is in my opinion exactly what will make any Vanilla server flop after the nostalgia wears off.

If there are no content updates or class updates half the classes will realize they are sub optimal in the end game.

We don't really have to speculate on that too much. On Nost class/spec representation was even more scewed than it was in retail vanilla.

[Eliseus]

Are you using 'confirm' as in officiating a statement (whether it's a Yes or No)? I've been reading it as you saying this is a confirmation of Legacy. Confusing and poor choice of words if you were meaning the former and not the latter.

I've stated something is obviously in the works with how Blizzard has presented their want to do this now, rather than the #youthinkyoudobutyoudont. I've stated there will be a confirmation for it at Blizzcon with the said quote we are now talking about.

[RickJamesLich]

This Bear tank conversation is in my opinion exactly what will make any Vanilla server flop after the nostalgia wears off.

If there are no content updates or class updates half the classes will realize they are sub optimal in the end game. I am not just talking MC to Naxx. I never saw a Bear or Pally tank UBRS or Scholo.

New player or Wrath baby is going to pick up Druid and say to themselves "Yeah I am going to DPS or tank" and then realize they do not have the tools to do so. You heal or pick another class.
Sure there were outliers, but those outliers needed very specific gear funneled to them. Very few Druid or Pally could tank MC in dungeon blues.

Nostalrius has been down for about 2 months now yet this thread has millions of views and is still getting bumped every day. The Nostalgia has long worn off, people just realize that vanilla is a better game.

That being said, Bear tanks can handle almost all fights. There are a few exceptions, something like Rag for example, but even then, a few bears have even tanked that (despite the fact that it's considerably harder for druids). But druids have even tanked stuff successfully in Naxx, such as Patchwerk and Thaddius.... bosses that are known to hit hard.

So for a new player, they may find that it's much more complex to tank as a druid as opposed to now, but it's definitely still possible and some will find that challenge to be a lot more interesting.

Just so you know too, some of the best druid tank items can be obtained outside of raiding too.

[zorkuus]

Nostalrius has been down for about 2 months now yet this thread has millions of views and is still getting bumped every day. The Nostalgia has long worn off, people just realize that vanilla is a better game.

It's hard to keep up with you guys. In one breath you say it's mostly the haters posting here and in the next it's the opposite. So which one is it?

[Eliseus]

It's hard to keep up with you guys. In one breath you say it's mostly the haters posting here and in the next it's the opposite. So which one is it?

Now you are making up crap.

[RickJamesLich]

So all you had to do was go prot to defiance. Gotcha.
Okay, now I'm curious what this has to do with the whole off tank conversation re: ferals.
And yeah I get what you're saying, but threat management was also an aspect of vanilla dpsing, and unless you were a warrior you could manage your threat very very easily.

Not sure why you keep ignoring the fact that you put your raid at a big disadvantage if you skipped shield slam lol. I mean we can go around in circles all day about this, for example if I went on retail today, and played a prot warrior and never hit shield slam, I could probably still easily tank a lot of stuff..... it would still be a very bad idea though. Same thing here.

The threat thing was really more of being on the horde side, and not having blessing of salvation. That being said fury warriors had threat issues, but also warlocks, fire mages, and potentially rogues since vanish had a CD and some bosses had threat resets. Of course you could pop feint, but that cost energy which meant less backstabs or sinister strikes.

As for feral druids tanking, you are right in the sense that they weren't as good as warriors. There were *some* instances where they did have advantages though, for example Jindo in ZG, or the fact that you could give a healer an innervate or do a battle rez. Having a feral druid off tank was perfectly viable, but feral druids clearly couldn't main tank everything in most cases. The reason is simple, feral druids had very different mechanics, IMO that is actually a much cooler system then the homogenized junk that we got now, though.

[kary]

Nostalrius has been down for about 2 months now yet this thread has millions of views and is still getting bumped every day. The Nostalgia has long worn off, people just realize that vanilla is a better game.

That being said, Bear tanks can handle almost all fights. There are a few exceptions, something like Rag for example, but even then, a few bears have even tanked that (despite the fact that it's considerably harder for druids). But druids have even tanked stuff successfully in Naxx, such as Patchwerk and Thaddius.... bosses that are known to hit hard.

So for a new player, they may find that it's much more complex to tank as a druid as opposed to now, but it's definitely still possible and some will find that challenge to be a lot more interesting.

Just so you know too, some of the best druid tank items can be obtained outside of raiding too.

Special snowflakes always exist.
Just because some guy that got gear funneled to them for years was able to do something doesn't mean you can.

[RickJamesLich]

It's hard to keep up with you guys. In one breath you say it's mostly the haters posting here and in the next it's the opposite. So which one is it?

Who has said "this thread is only getting bumped by people who hate Nostalrius and legacy servers"???

[kary]

Not sure why you keep ignoring the fact that you put your raid at a big disadvantage if you skipped shield slam lol. I mean we can go around in circles all day about this, for example if I went on retail today, and played a prot warrior and never hit shield slam, I could probably still easily tank a lot of stuff..... it would still be a very bad idea though. Same thing here.

The threat thing was really more of being on the horde side, and not having blessing of salvation. That being said fury warriors had threat issues, but also warlocks, fire mages, and potentially rogues since vanish had a CD and some bosses had threat resets. Of course you could pop feint, but that cost energy which meant less backstabs or sinister strikes.

As for feral druids tanking, you are right in the sense that they weren't as good as warriors. There were *some* instances where they did have advantages though, for example Jindo in ZG, or the fact that you could give a healer an innervate or do a battle rez. Having a feral druid off tank was perfectly viable, but feral druids clearly couldn't main tank everything in most cases. The reason is simple, feral druids had very different mechanics, IMO that is actually a much cooler system then the homogenized junk that we got now, though.

You had one main tank. One guy had to spec shield slam. That one guy. Noone else. I'm talking about the everyone else, not the main tank. That's what the discussion was about.

[goibonuden]

You had one main tank. One guy had to spec shield slam. That one guy. Noone else. I'm talking about the everyone else, not the main tank. That's what the discussion was about.

Just a few pages ago you told me I was wrong when I said the main tank would go full prot, and the off tanks would go arms/fury/prot, and I actually believed you because I can't remember everything that well.

[kary]

Just a few pages ago you told me I was wrong when I said the main tank would go full prot, and the off tanks would go arms/fury/prot, and I actually believed you because I can't remember everything that well.

The main tank didn't have to spec prot.
There are 2 conversations happening at the same time.
You could spec prot and maybe generate more threat as the other argument goes, but you didn't have to spec shield slam to main tank. You were fully capable of tanking as a warrior with any spec, as long as you had points in defiance.

Your base toolkit provided immunity to crushing blows and critical strikes. that's all you needed. Things that druids didn't have.

[goibonuden]

The main tank didn't have to spec prot.
There are 2 conversations happening at the same time.
You could spec prot and maybe generate more threat as the other argument goes, but you didn't have to spec shield slam to main tank. You were fully capable of tanking as a warrior with any spec, as long as you had points in defiance.

Your base toolkit provided immunity to crushing blows and critical strikes. that's all you needed. Things that druids didn't have.

You didn't say they didnt have to spec prot though, you said:

"There was no reason to go deeper into the prot tree after last stand. "

and,

"Most warriors (including main tanks) were generally fury/arms with a small number of points in prot. "

As a reply to me saying the main tank would usually go deep prot

[Toxigen]

You had one main tank. One guy had to spec shield slam. That one guy. Noone else. I'm talking about the everyone else, not the main tank. That's what the discussion was about.

In a pure min/max sense, sure.

Were you fortunate enough to have a 100% attendance main tank? Well, grats then.

You didn't need to min/max anything until Naxx. Even then, it was only Patchwerk (raid DPS) and Loatheb (damage mitigation) progression that I recall being true displays of number crunching. 4H was just having enough warriors in 4/8...and KT was a nice balance of both execution and raw throughput.

[RickJamesLich]

Special snowflakes always exist.
Just because some guy that got gear funneled to them for years was able to do something doesn't mean you can.

Gear funneled? Ok let's look at the BIS stuff for bear tanks:

Weapon - Warden Staff (BOE epic 43 staff)
Trinket 1 - Smoking heart of the mountain (BOP trinket that is crafted by enchanters)
Trinket 2 - Mark of Tyranny (Quest reward from killing Rend Blackhand in UBRS)
Shoulders - Defilers Leather Shoulders (reward from hitting exalted with AB)
Legs - Outriders Leather Pants (reward from hitting exalted with WSG)
Neck - Master Dragon's Slayer Medallion (reward from the Nefarian head quest, an item that drops every week, only surpassed by the Mark of C'Thun)
Belt - Lava Belt (MC craftable, extremely strong because of the level of armor, only surpassed by the Thick Qiraji Belt in AQ40)
Idol - Idol of Brutality (drops from the Magister in Strat UD)

Of course I didn't list all of the gear slots but this is roughly half of them and outside of the neck piece, you don't need to raid for any of that. And that Nef head quest for the neck piece literally drops every week. Gear funneling happened in vanilla no doubt, but not really with feral druids.