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

[Fkiolaris]

most of the reason BC heroics (and raids for that matter) were difficult was lack of information; addons were less developed, players were less experienced, no dungeon journal, video guides weren't really a thing yet, etc. Also lots of classes lacked the kind of utility (CC, stun, interrupt etc) needed for some dungeons.

In 'absolute' terms they were absolutely easier though; no time limit, simple encounters, DPS checks nonexistent, etc. If you could somehow grab an average player from 2007 and sit them down in front of the modern game they'd barely be functional

I am sorry, but you can make exactly the same argument in reverse: get your average WoW player from 2017 and put them back in TBC and they would be barely functional, too. I mean just for NOT having to rush in and pull half the instance to AoE them down (lol, what was AoE for half the specs in the game?) that would be enough. But then you also had to manage aggro, know the instances inside-out for all the things that might screw you, follow religiously a CC-order, kite, bring reagents for 5-mans that nowadays are only brought if you are doing progression raiding etc etc. I would also say that if nothing else, most people don't bother with knowing the instances at present because very few things really matter and you can brute-force your way through because of gear. In TBC 5mans if ONE person screwed something up it was a wipe, unless the other 4 were massively over-gearing the place.

As I said before, comparing TBC heroics to todays 20+ Mythic is like comparing apples to oranges, but let's not selectively disregard facts when trying to make a point.

[Nihilan]

"Hey guys, look youre all wrong because my BT geared char was breezing through h5m dungeons."

I healed exclusively for almost the entirety of BC and the differences between prepared and unprepared players was immense. CC was in fact important, as were consumables. Could the dungeons be completed without? Yeah. But not my most people. Which is why they are still regarded by many as the pinnacle of 5man content almost a decade later.

Most people will never even attempt a M20 for the same reason that most do not attempt to raid Mythic. M+ requires bigger numbers and it does require technique and strategy. They are both difficult, if for different reasons. I dont think people are arguing differently.

Were there no incentive to speed run M+, they would probably be treated and played more akin to BC 5mans.

[Mamercus]

WoW used to attract an extremely casual audience that it doesn't nearly as much now because those people have a ton of other games to play. There were no iPad/Facebook games and most online games were less readily accessible compared to today. The players that now play those super simple games just play those now -- they would probably never pick up WoW. Also Facebook wasn't nearly as popular as it is today so a lot of people who were just socializing online for the first time would use games like WoW to do it instead of just logging onto Facebook.

Because of this the player base tended to have a ton of people who were really bad at games, didn't use 80% of their abilities, keyboard turned, clicked their abilities, etc. even in raiding guilds. These players are what made content hard -- it wasn't so much the dungeons themselves. The game was also even less straightforward about stats and which ones were best for your class. Where to go to get rotation guides etc. was not as straightforward as it is now although the classes were also a lot simpler with a lot of useless/fluff/trap abilities and talents. Youtube was barely really a thing back then and there were relatively few video guides.

As some people have pointed out the roles were also a little more flexible. A DPS warrior could easily hit a macro to swap to sword/shield and go into defensive stance to eat a hit if the tank got feared or stunned. Hybrid DPS had slightly better offheals than they do now for clutch situations.

I think current content has way more instant kill mechanics (especially in mythic TOS etc. but even in the regular dungeons) that would have owned TBC's population hard. Just compare Attumen in Return to Karazhan with Attumen in BC Kara. BC Kara Attumen basically doesn't do anything but require 2 tanks, casts a random curse, has a knockback, a random charge, and that's it. There are trash mobs now that have more abilities including ones that will wipe you if you are at the appropriate gear level (like some of the trash in the hallway before the first boss of Vault of the Wardens). What it means is that you keep the 2 mobs separated, decurse, heal people, keep the boss debuffed (warrior tanks at least had a bunch of powerful debuffs as did other classes -- meaningful group debuffs are something that Blizz has pruned from the game entirely).

Current Attumen has a ton of instant kill abilities, a horsey-wall you have to dodge multiple times or die, and other stuff to be concerned about. Most TBC era players who are today's Facebook moms would have to quit the game because they would never be able to do those mechanics.

In general trash was a bigger part of the challenge for both dungeons and raids than it is now. Patrols and stray mobs grabbing adds were a much bigger threat than most bosses were. There was more downtime between pulls but not by that much. A lot of it was just that players sucked, didn't have as much practice, and didn't have a defined pull route memorized most of the time. You could easily chain pull if you knew the pulls but many players did not, so they became accustomed to a glacial pull pace that accommodated all the trash players who play stuff like Candy Crush now instead of WoW.

Also in the same amount of time that it took to get a group for one heroic, a modern player will have already probably run a dungeon 3 or 4 times if they wanted to. People just had way less practice and it took a whole lot more time to get coordinated to do any group content.

[zoenova]

Your a very anger person aren't you? You are really cool to swear so much. Try doing heroic's in BC as a fresh 70 good luck with that, its easier now because gear is easy.

[Echocho]

Current Attumen has a ton of instant kill abilities, a horsey-wall you have to dodge multiple times or die, and other stuff to be concerned about. Most TBC era players who are today's Facebook moms would have to quit the game because they would never be able to do those mechanics.

Reacting to things is easy. Coordinating and planning pulls is difficult. Put any m+ group who didn't play back then in a TBC heroic in normal blue gear and they would be stomped to death.

[Bigbazz]

TBC Patch 2.1.0 (2007-05-22): Sap will no longer remove you from [Stealth].

Release was in January 2007. Thats 4 months with Sap breaking stealth, unless you were specced into Improved Sap/Dirty Tricks, which had a 90% chance to keep you in stealth.

Fair enough, that's very early on in the expansion though so easily missed... That's also a time when all elixirs and flasks stacked, when T4 was worse than dungeon gear and when a lot of other crazy things were true. But anyway, Sap for rogues even right until the end was not an overly reliable CC, since it only works out of combat and the risk of being seen while trying to sap was extremely high if not talented into Sub.

[Mamercus]

Reacting to things is easy. Coordinating and planning pulls is difficult. Put any m+ group who didn't play back then in a TBC heroic in normal blue gear and they would be stomped to death.

Those people were also terrible at coordinating! Give the same group some time to learn their abilities and get used to how threat worked and they would explode everything even with TBC launch greens and blues. A group that understood how to focus fire had just as easy a time with all the trash packs as any aoe-spam group today. Granted the easier difficulties are much, much, much easier than anything in TBC so that is another factor.

A lot of stuff that we had to do back then (like typing out plans for every pull) are just things that current veteran-average players know how to do automatically without being told.

[Argorwal]

Reacting to things is easy. Coordinating and planning pulls is difficult. Put any m+ group who didn't play back then in a TBC heroic in normal blue gear and they would be stomped to death.

Wait, you think having infinite time to preplan and discuss how to pull an encounter is more difficult than having 1-3 seconds to react to abilities (sometimes multiple simultaneously) on the fly?

I don't even...

[crazyman2]

Orry, but a good hunter was the god class of cc back then, rogues had sap and a cd-blind, cant re-sap because mobs in combat.

Reasons hunter > mage, can re-trap sure, but you could ALSO split pulls if you knew wth you were doing.
You could also double trap on particularily hard pulls, (trap, wait for most of cd, md to pet, first enemy trapped, second mob youre smashing hits on drop drap in front of you, could wing clip n kite if you got timing wrong.

Roots without a cooldown from druids was sexy as well, granted very limited, priests were the only ones for undead mobs...there werent a ton but galavanting into kara before tanks wrre unhittable priests were gods, and in sethekk helped a ton, actually quiet a lot of em had some nasty ud enemies....


But yeah, hunters, lock void walkers could tank a bit also, and if the lock pulled em back he could fear but yeah....to risky... but there was a ton of CC available idk what youre talking about, repentance even for ret(ugh...ret were better than van sure but still meh compared to pure dd... hybrid tax...)

And..as lovely as prot pala tanking was in bc..li HATED
mana tombs, and cot hyjal...mana burn was horrible to a prot pala....relying on dps to interrupt shadow guys in mt, while stunning healer...etc...mt just bleh overall rofl...get a good rogue though and easy peasy


I do agree with crazyman to a point about Shattered halls, 3 is overkill but you wanted a frost mage for the pulls healing to 2headed ogre boss, side pulls, especially of you were teying to get enchant....geoup of 4-5 enemies in conbat with each other and a mortal strike that could demolish most tanks, and still hurt in t5/6, mages just....kite geoup while other dd n tank take out ms guy, then tank taunts off mage...bc dugeons were all about knowing what to do without prevalence of boss mods.

On that note...heading to bed, fat fingering phone screen to much

A good hunter was easily better than having a good mage (and locks were probably better than rogues), the problem is that even back then there were a lot of idiots, and the hunter class in particular had (and still has) a reputation for having the most idiots. I have seen skilled hunters handle up to 3 mobs by themselves (with CC and kiting), and I've also seen many more terrible hunters who couldn't hold one without breaking it themselves. There was also a couple idiots who got to max level and didn't do the quest to tame pets, you're going to trust that to handle traps?

I rarely ran dungeons where hunter was lead CC, and the ones that did were usually known by someone in the group as a competent hunter -they're definitely the guys to put on your friends list and be first choice when trying to fill a dungeon.

Same goes for warlock, seduce one and alternate fear and recklessness on at least one more.

Sheep was just the easiest thing to reapply, and if wiping was an issue it was usually easier to get a mage to handle that properly than hope the hunter figured out how to trap.

Also, pretty sure repentance wasn't added until 3.0, same goes for hex.

[Deleted]

they were wipe festivals. even the NORMAL dungeons when BC opened were WIPE WIPE. was good times.

- - - Updated - - -

Arcatraz HC was no fucking joke. i used to dread going in there.

[Flutterguy]

Mythic+ is objectively harder because it scales, for all practical purposes, infinitely. TBC and Cata heroics were very doable if a bit frustrating for certain ones before you had good gear.