But Mummy... they downed ICC Hardmodes really quickly :(

[Daxen]

you also got to remember, that the ulduar days you posted where Hardmodes, SWP did not have hardmodes, so you really should compare swp to ulduar normal

Oh god....

[jontaxe]

you don't have "hand of a'dal" achievement, thats why

Wotlk players ;P

Yeah, well, I do.

Uld and ICC are harder than BT, Hyjall. Vashj & Kael might be harder than Yogg+4, but both ICC and Uld are harder than the rest of TK/SSC. On top of that, I won't even break out the tired old Yogg+0 BS. Yog+1 is harder than Kael or Vashj. I've done both, I have your Hand of Adal title.

[hazzerdus]

also, think of this... If you play a game almost every day for 5 years, your gonna be quite a bit better then the first year, or 3rd..

[tarrick]

So just so I have this right... In just day one of SWP, only two of the three available bosses were killed. However, in just day one of ICC heroic, nine of the twelve available bosses were killed.

Explain to me again how your data shows ICC to be harder?

[Possiblyreefer]

yeah almost. Except 90% of people in this thread havnt downed him on normal

[tarrick]

For the same reason you wont buy a car from 100 years back.

No AC, cruise control, crash safety, ABS brakes, shitty mileage/gallon and thousand other reasons. Molten Core was like that. Hard to tell the difference between trashmobs and bosses, shitty graphics, no quests/lore, no speeches, pointlessly long corpse run etc.

Simply because the game design is thousand times better now than before, and instances thousand times more enjoyable. If you forced old players to go through old garbage content, they would quit. Same as you'd walk out of car dealer if he tried to force on you 100 year old model before you're allowed to buy the latest.

edit:

The difference between instance design quality is painfully obvious if you compare 3 year old returned Naxxramas to Ulduar for example. Don't even need to look at previous expansions. Nax has simply shitty graphics and way too much trash.

Umm, what? Did you even raid Molten Core at the time? Yeah, there may have been fewer models throughout the whole of the instance, but remember, it was the starter instance that you go into wearing blues. Even given that the rest of your complains are completely wrong.

Graphics? Compared to now, sure, but at the time the graphics were just fine.

No quests/lore? I'm sorry, but there were plenty of quests and lore about Ragnaros and the Dark Iron Dwarves all throughout Azeroth. Remember that Molten Core was not an instance sitting all alone; it was an a part of Blackrock Depths.

No speech? Ragnaros very much does have a full event when he is awoken. I don't see a speech from every single boss even today. The important, key lore figures do.

Pointlessly long corpse run may be a valid concern, but when I raided, we used that time to discuss what went wrong and what we needed to change to do better on the next attempt. It also served as more incentive to not screw up. Nowadays I see people wipe a group to do something funny, but hey, it's not a big deal because you can be back at the boss, buffed, and pulling in literally less than a minute for most bosses.

[MrSpackler]

Naxx (40) released June 20, 2006

Abomination wing

Patchwerk
defeated: June 23, 2006 (Death and Taxes)
3 days to kill (First week)

Grobbulus
defeated: June 23, 2006 (Death and Taxes)
3 days to kill (1st week)

Gluth
defeated: June 26, 2006 (Death and Taxes)
6 days to kill (1st week)

Thaddius
defeated: June 30, 2006 (Death and Taxes)
10 days to kill (2nd week)


Spider Wing

Anub'Rekhan
defeated:June 20, 2006 (??)
First day kill

Grand Widow Faerlina
defeated: June 21, 2006 (Emerald Guard)
1 day to kill (1st week)

Maexxna
defeated: June 24, 2006 (Forgotten Heroes)
4 days to kill (1st week)


Plague Wing

Noth the Plaguebringer
defeated: June 20, 2006 (Surreal)
First day kill

Heigan the Unclean
defeated: July 3, 2006 (Risen)
13 days to kill (2nd week)

Loatheb
defeated: July 19, 2006 (Deus Vox)
29 days to kill (5th week)


Military Wing

Instructor Razuvious
defeated:June 22, 2006? (Death and Taxes)
2 days to kill (1st week)

Gothik the Harvestor
defeated: June 30, 2006 (Fury)
10 days to kill (2nd week)

The Four Hoursemen
defeated: August 25, 2006 (Death and Taxes)
66 days to kill (10th week)


Frostwyrm Lair

Sapphiron
defeated: Sept 1, 2006 (Death and Taxes)
Killed 73 days after instance was released (11th week)
Killed 7 days after Four Horsemen

Kel'Thuzad
defeated Sept 7, 2006 (Nihilum)
Killed 79 days after instance was released (12th week)
killed 13 days after Four Hoursemen
Killed 6 days after Sapphiron (3 days of tries by Nihilum)

[Possiblyreefer]

That being said, Things like 4hm were not essentially hard.
its just that you needed a whole fucking spreadsheet with the exact second to taunt and rotate.
Also the fact NO GUILDS had the 8 geared tanks required to do this

[Cryssy]

Dear "Waterisbest", you really need to chill out. Apart from that, all I did in my post, was giving an insider's view on the high end raiding scene as I've experienced it in the past 5 years. I understand that on such forums most ppl claim to have done this and that, fair enough. You're asking if did Ulduar hm prenerf, insanity and stuff, yes I did. And yes, I've killed blood queen hard mode already and yes I've tried sindragosa and putricide on our alt raid and killed them on 10 man hard. And yes they can both be killed easily within 10 tries by any top20 guild, possibly top50. The matter of the fact is that I haven't seen a single fight so far inside ICC that would stay undefeated for more than an evening if there wasn't any limitation. Granted, I've not seen LK 25 hard yet, but that's about it. Now the more interesting question would be why is someone getting so upset over a simple fact (call it opinion if it makes you happier) regarding raid difficulty. Did you design the instance? Cause if you did, it was a crappy job mate, sorry.

Thanks for agreeing with me.

edit: is a majority of the people in this thread even attempting the lich king or hardmodes? answer: no. stop running your mouth if you have no idea how the fights work.

[Soreila]

The encounters themselves are similar in difficulty I think, but whats changed is the progression up to them. The learning curve was a lot steeper back then, but now theres 10-mans and normal modes to practice for the HMs, so, based on that, WotLK IS easier. More practice = easier to do, and since you're forced to do normal modes before you can do hardmodes, theres plenty of practice. I'm only guessing, but I suppose that as soon as the guilds on HMs now get some more HM loot, we'll see LK HM down.

[Alamia]

Personally I find WotLK much harder due to the fact that we have more to do now.
Previously, in TBC, my rotation as an elemental shaman was CL -> LBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBL -> CL, now it's FS > LvB > LBLBLBLBLBL > LvB > LBLBLBLBL >LvB > LBLBL > FS or something...

This has happened to most (if not all?) classes, that their gameplay has gotten much harder.
Just look at Destruction warlocks, the famouse 0/21/40 build... Curse > Shadowbolt spam.

Yeh, especially for poor hunters! Now they can't go /afk dinner on a boss fight while autoshotting. Now they actually need to be aware of their abilities.

[smrtolet]

Umm, what? Did you even raid Molten Core at the time? Yeah, there may have been fewer models throughout the whole of the instance, but remember, it was the starter instance that you go into wearing blues. Even given that the rest of your complains are completely wrong.

Graphics? Compared to now, sure, but at the time the graphics were just fine.

No quests/lore? I'm sorry, but there were plenty of quests and lore about Ragnaros and the Dark Iron Dwarves all throughout Azeroth. Remember that Molten Core was not an instance sitting all alone; it was an a part of Blackrock Depths.

No speech? Ragnaros very much does have a full event when he is awoken. I don't see a speech from every single boss even today. The important, key lore figures do.

Pointlessly long corpse run may be a valid concern, but when I raided, we used that time to discuss what went wrong and what we needed to change to do better on the next attempt. It also served as more incentive to not screw up. Nowadays I see people wipe a group to do something funny, but hey, it's not a big deal because you can be back at the boss, buffed, and pulling in literally less than a minute for most bosses.

There was also the whole Hydraxian waterlords thingie, traveling to Azshara and so on. Some people who raided classic wow say it was a pain in the ass, you needed to grind, prepare, earn money to repair and so on. For me, that was the thing i liked. It was all the means to get me to the boss. UBRS, being a first 'raid' was something similar to heroics that prepare you for bigger raids, did not drop epics. It only had a chance of droping one. You had to go through hell and back to get the 4 epics from tier .5. In my eyes, that makes them worth something (or rather alot). Riping through ilvl200 content (which is still being nerfed) to get the 232/245 tier and items is, imo, just wrong. I have been raiding since February/March 2005, starting with MC. By the time BWL and AQ were released, we still went to MC, either with a guild as a whole, either as people who needed gear from there to catch up from various progression guilds. 20 man raids also helped in that regard. By the time we were finishing AQ40 and Naxx came out, there were guilds who were still progressing through MC and ZG. They weren't idiots, they just followed the progression path. They probably didn't get to last bosses of BWL, they probably didn't even kill anything in AQ40 and they certainly didn't enter Naxx40. I myself did not kill KT during progression (before 2.0.1, if that was the one with the new talents), but I don't think i was robbed by Blizzard because i didn't experience the full raiding scene for my 13 euros. The logic Blizzard has taken since then was that everybody is entitled to everything just by paying the monthly subscription. It started with the sunwell badge vendor, and continued with the massive nerf to all TBC instances. Then i was like, ok, with only badge gear you still won't be able to do Sunwell, so no much skiping there. When they nerfed everything, i was like, ok, the expansion is coming, it doesn't matter anymore, but now when i look back and what it has turned into.... i'm both sad and outraged. I know very well blizzard is a company. And a company has only one reason to exist, and that's to make profit. More customers, more profit, that's the way it goes. It doesn't however mean that i have to agree with it. Classic wow was completely oblivious to the fact you were paying. Everything you achieved (well, it's a game, you didn't actually achieve anything but you know what i mean) was based on two things. The skill you brought to the game, and the time you invested. Now, thanks to normal modes (while in fact they should be called easy modes), the only thing you need to bring is 13 euros. Provided you are not a special needs person, that's all you need to see everything. All raids except the recently unlocked bosses are pugged (so no social skill required), you get gear that is faar better then the one you are supposed to enter a raid with (naxx 200, ulduar 213 with a few 226, totc 226 with a few 232 and finally ICC with 245), so you just owerpower the content without the need to beat some mechanics of the fights that are there for a reason. That's not very far, IMO, from the various MMOs that let you buy items and currency for money.

I can only speak for myself, but i miss the old wow, and TBC to some extent. I miss the epic feeling i got when we first passed p1 on nefarian, i miss the resist fights, i miss the trash you actually had to use your brain to kill, i miss the untauntable bosses so tanks had to keep up with eachother instead of just taunting off if you need to switch, i miss the dps having to be careful about how much threat they make.... These are just a few reasons i don't raid anymore, and use WoW just as another (expensive) IM client to stay in touch with a few remaining people from the old days who haven't quit as well.

[Deleted]

WALL OF TEXT CRITS YOU FOR 9001, NOT ONE BUT TWO TIMES IN THE MOUNTAINS.

[Katoamaton]

smrtolet may have some good points, but we shall never know.

Next time when writing long messages, think about this metaphor. The reader is a camel. The text is a desert. In order to cross the desert, a camel needs water. Where do you get water? From oasis'. Camel, being a sturdy animal, can walk a long way into the desert without water, but cannot cross it. Add some oasis' in to your desert, and the camels rejoice.

But back on topic. This thread is really informative. Personally I've always said all that talk about WotLK being easy, "shit" or "faceroll" is utter bulltoot. People who say "I've been playing for 5 years and this poop is easy." should really dig into what they said. If you're a carpenter for 5 years, you can make a chair faster and better than when you were only beginning.

[vesseblah]

Umm, what? Did you even raid Molten Core at the time? Yeah, there may have been fewer models throughout the whole of the instance, but remember, it was the starter instance that you go into wearing blues.

Hold on to your hats, and I'll try once more, this time less verbose: old content compared to new content is for most parts inferior. You know it, I know it and most importantly Blizzard knows it. That is the reason why Blizzard is happy that new players can skip the old trash content and get into the new instances that are built with today's technology and today's design paradigms. Old crap is old, and for all practical purposes retired as it should be.

Totally irrelevant to discuss who did what instances when, and most of all in what gear. MC was worth player's time when it was new, just like 100 year old cars were the newest and the best 100 years ago. Today it has no practical value, only nostalgia attached to it. Same thing goes for Nax25 on the start of WLK. It's old, and has no practical value anymore now that the players are clearing ICC. At no point on WoW's history there has been any indication blizz is interested in supporting old content parallel to new one, on the contrary they've said many times it's one of the basic premises of their design philosophy that players get to new instances and get new loot from there. That's the stock answer to FAQ: "why legendaries don't scale?"

[infinitis]

lich king ptr - boss up for single day maybe 2 from x hour to x hour
sunwell ptr- 4 days of ptr sometimes for single boss and we definatly raided the $%#$% outa the ptr..

Its very simple, Wrath boss encounters might be a little more technical (ie mess up mechanic you wipe) but BC encounters where tuned very close.. you need say 195k dps from start tilll end or you wipe + do the mechanic...(not that im calling sunwell stuff non technical it was) Wrath doesn't have that and i doubt blizzard will ever bring that back. thats why we run 5 druids and 5 paladins. plenty of bubbles and brez.. :P

Now days your limit is attempt counter and if you did 10 man.. if your like my guild who has lich king 25 down.. im betting it on sheer luck because only 1 group did their 10 man .. and we could tell as we watched them take all 20 attempts to drop the sucker... that and a main tank that fell off the breaking ice 3 times....

[h4rr0d]

Yogg+0 had no limits and took months to get a first kill on, making it by your standards the hardest boss/raid in the game by far.

The reasons OP fails have been prety much all said on Page 1 but I'll reply to this one.

Y0 was tuned for raids with avg ilvl 232 gear (solid mix of U25HM gear), and U25HMs were tuned for raids in ilvl226 gear meaning there was kind of soft gating system (very RNG affected one on top of that) involved in slowing down the progression. Just instead of having 2 instances, you had one you had one.
Could you do SWP in T5? I very much doubt it. Even if you managed Kalecgos, you wouldn't be able to kill Brutallus. Never, ever. You had to have full raid decked in t6 to have solid shot at Brut.

Yes, M'uru took 5 days to kill, but the raid already had the gear the boss was intended to be killed with. I don't think Y0 would last 2 months if ppl were given t8.25 + some ilvl 232/239 items since day1 it was available. Raids had to progress thru 1.5 tiers of gear in order to stand solid chance against the boss. So your 'took 77 days to kill ys0' boils down to 'it took 77 days to get thru 1.5 tiers of gear'. Doesn't sound that impressive this way now, does it?

And for that harr harr, LK HC will last over a week. Yes, it will, because of limited attempts system. But the 3 bosses needed to unlock him took less than 20 attempts in total (not counting alt raids here) to be downed.

to OP: GJ on gathering all the data

[sadface]

IM 95 YEARS OLD

WHEN I WAS A KID WE HAD TO EAT PEBBLES FOR BREAKFAST, CONCRETE FOR DINNER AND WOOD FOR TEA...

WE DID'T HAVE CLOTHES WE HAD TO WEAR LEAVES IF WE WANTED TO GO OUTSIDE

today is easy mode you get everything given to you

[Rafy]

You need to take in number of attempts...

SWP they had infinite attempts on the bosses, so it probably took them more attempts to down each boss.

ICC theres limited attempts, so in terms of attempts, it was probably nowhere near as many attempts as it took to down bosses in SWP.

Therefore SWP was harder than ICC. ICC will simply take longer due to the shitty attempts limit.

Longer <> Harder

in SWP you pulled the bosses like you pull crap here on the forums.
in ICC on limited attempts you think 10 times before you make the pull, or you will get gkicked instantly.

[Rafy]

lich king ptr - boss up for single day maybe 2 from x hour to x hour

LK was never up on PTR for testing...