What was the greatest 5-man era of WoW?

[Sonasol]

Why theres no vanilla option? Vanilla dungeons were a pain with bad mechanims anyway so I would never vote that.

I voted BC just because u coudnt make pulls like u do now tank would die. If u agro a mobs for 2 or 3s as a dpsers u were dead. Thats nice :P

[Redcinder]

Why theres no vanilla option? Vanilla dungeons were a pain with bad mechanims anyway so I would never vote that.

I voted BC just because u coudnt make pulls like u do now tank would die. If u agro a mobs for 2 or 3s as a dpsers u were dead. Thats nice :P

Because this is a poll on HEROIC eras ? Vanilla wow didn't have heroics. Why is this a recurring question in this forum ? Basic reading skill required.

[Xargoth6634]

It's such a vague question. Vanilla dungeons were fun and had good atmosphere but the constant keying requirements (scholo, UD strat, UBRS [10 player, but I'm just going to focus on dungeons here since although UBRS was technically a raid it just felt like a bigger 5 man] BC heroics were by FAR the hardest, but not (to me at least) the most enjoyable. Even MagT which I thought was well done and I enjoyed just turned into a "bring a good tank, healer, and any 3 cc classes." Wrath hit the sweet spot, in my mind. Heroics were initially somewhat challenging and gave little things to strive for, such as the bronze drake. By the end of the xpac when you were just running them for badges it was all "Hello 5 minute A.N.!" Honestly, not much sticks out to me about Cata heroics other than some of them (looking at you, Grim Batol) had a lot of trash and it sucked if your group was bad at bombing. Pretty meh dungeons, but honestly I still liked them better than MoP's. I'm not sure what it is about it, but MoP dungeons bore me. They either feel recycled (SMx2) or I just dislike them. (Especially Siege of Nizao and SPM) I'd have to say, best by category for me:

-Atmosphere: Vanilla
-Difficulty: BC
-Ease: MoP

I will say I'd like to see more of a balance with epics from last bosses. BC gave out epics easier than MoP, but I guess it was a lot harder to earn epics overall early on in BC so maybe that's why. I just don't understand why you have to make LFR level epics be 1% drops at the end of heroics, especially when they're mediocre and poorly itemized anyway. I'd honestly prefer they were just left out if it's going to be that big a deal. I saw my first one after several hundred MoP heroics a couple of weeks ago, and it was the healer mace and no one even needed it so it went to disenchant. I think something like a 5% chance would keep people running them a lot more and still give a realistic chance of it getting into peoples' hands while the gear was still useful.

[Zka]

BC or LK heroics, but I prefer BC because LK was complete faceroll 1 week after hitting the level cap, while BC heroics kept us entertained for long.
Late vanilla UBRS was also something I miss ever since. Easy, fast 10 man raid with a one day reset (IIRC).

[Deleted]

Are you guys out of your minds seriously? I too fucking love TBC but comparing the heroics back then to gold challenge modes and claiming they were about equal in complexity is just dogshit. Gold challenge modes are a great addition to the game imho, since they provide you with items that show your skill (remember the times when you were afking in ironforge and a full tier 6 warrior with a bulwark of azzinoth passed by on his amani bear?) - that's what im talking about when i see a person in CM gear. Not only that but they require every character participating to use almost every single spell he has in his spellbook in order to make everything easier for everyone. I dont say they are insane in difficulty nor I think they should be much harder than they currently are (maybe 1-2 minutes down on gold in certain dungeons but thats it), however they are the best 5 man dungeon modes blizzard have came up with and I hope they disable them once MoP is done so that our epeen fame can be preserved. Sorry for the english (I'm not a native speaker but this isn't really an excuse - just that I'm lazy to format my answer).
Gold CMs completed as a tank and disc/restod healers.

[Dadwen]

Definitely Icecrown Heroics. I loved tanking Halls of Reflection with my warri.

loved the ICC 5 mans, still remember being in halls of reflection in a LFD group and seeing tank after tank zone in when it first opened and saying "Hell no" and dropping group.

[pimpeddakota]

Because this is a poll on HEROIC eras ? Vanilla wow didn't have heroics. Why is this a recurring question in this forum ? Basic reading skill required.

Oh gee I missed that in the title of "What was the greatest 5 man era of wow"...oh wait no where does it say heroic you TROLL...stop trolling its against the forum rules

[Otaka]

You missed vanilla from the poll.
It was the greatest era! long dungeons, only one difficulty which is on par and harder than heroics today.

Also 5 men in vanilla dropped items for everyone and not just low gear so people had a reason to do them, if only for rep or other rare items.
The fact that we had to travel to the dungeons from main cities made it even more immersive experience.

Dungeon tool aint really how a game should be played, it just makes people lazy and takes away the immersive experience about knowing the location.
I bet more than half the players ingame dont even know where the dungeon entrances are located.

[Uvwaex]

For the majority of players, I don't think Cata Heroics were the best era.

For someone who didn't have the ability to raid, but still relished the challenge they provided at launch with limited gear, Cata Heroics were a lot of fun.

[Deleted]

Vanilla - they took ages to complete and were incredibly annoying (not to mention their crap-loot) but damn, they had a stunning atmosphere because they were fuckin' epic.

[Deleted]

Again, bullshit. 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.

That is why there were achievements in place which gave them a twist. Same for Cata and MoP. TBC 5mans did not have such a twist. Just like everything before MoP did not have CMs.

The achievements and CMs add a lot of flavor to an medium default difficulty (although everyone overgears them, making them easy, when you did them with no ilvl you had to follow all the tactics).

[Raqubor]

Where's the Classic WoW choice? I think classic was the best dungeoning era. BRD says hello!!!! HELLLOO!!! Scholomance? Stratholme? HELLOOOO! Maraudon! Razorfens! Scarlet Monastery! Seriously all those were awesome.

[Forgettable]

I think my favorite 5-Man era was TBC. But that might be because I have my rose tinted glasses on and everything was new and shiny to me because that was when I started playing WoW. Nevertheless, the difficulty in those dungeons really made it feel like an accomplishment to complete them. And considering I wasn't raiding much at that point (Only Kara / Mag / Gruul / Zul'Aman), it was pretty much content made for me. Difficult, but without the need to assemble 25 people.

Second would probably be Wrath, just because overgearing it in ICC times and rushing through them as fast as possible as a DPS Frost DK had its own charm.

[Angella]

TBC hands down. It's the last expansion where Blizzard still had their A Team working on WoW.

[Deleted]

wotlk by far!

[Deleted]

Probably BC heroics. Cataclysm heroics were great as well, but if was a different catch up system during Cataclysm, which made them become outdated much quicker. The nerfs didn't help either of course.

The 3 heroics that came with patch 3.3 were great as well (Icc heroics). Definitely the best made heroics out of all the 'easier' 5 mans.

[Deleted]

That's a damn hard question.

TBC, perhaps. Some of those dungeons were harder then the raids. Bit too grindy though, and took ages to complete certain dungeons.

Wrath at launch was pretty good too. And the Icecrown 5 mans were nice at first too. Heck, then the Trial of the Champion 5 man was fun the first few times.

Cata launch and early ZA/ZG were brutal but rewarding. And I liked the 4.3 heroics too, at first.

At a pinch I'm going to say... Wrath. But they were all good.

The only reason it took longer is that trash actually did something next to standing there doing nothing.

Where's the Classic WoW choice? I think classic was the best dungeoning era. BRD says hello!!!! HELLLOO!!! Scholomance? Stratholme? HELLOOOO! Maraudon! Razorfens! Scarlet Monastery! Seriously all those were awesome.

While I am a fan of 30-60 mins dungeons, 2-5 hour dungeons is stretching it. If they were too split up BRD for example in 3 parts then I'd agree with you and it would be up there with TBC.

That is why there were achievements in place which gave them a twist. Same for Cata and MoP. TBC 5mans did not have such a twist. Just like everything before MoP did not have CMs.

The achievements and CMs add a lot of flavor to an medium default difficulty (although everyone overgears them, making them easy, when you did them with no ilvl you had to follow all the tactics).

I don't want artificial difficulty by achievements, theres plenty of bosses even in curent content where achievements should be how the boss is done and not as some extra.

And let's be fair, the only hard ones you would skip untill you could zerg them. In fact the only "hard" one in Wotlk was the one in Gun Drak or something with the interupt.

[Gilian]

Because this is a poll on HEROIC eras ? Vanilla wow didn't have heroics. Why is this a recurring question in this forum ? Basic reading skill required.

Because they added the word heroic to MoP dungeons doesn't make them heroic either. They are obviously just normal level 90 difficulty. They just removed heroic dungeons and renamed normal dungeons to heroic.

[Arctestoid]

LK babies...

Vanilla with Strat and Scholo at level were amazing and ZF at level was insanely fun - stair fight FTW. BC 5 mans were a ton of fun but that's colored by the fact that I had a regular group of friends who included a kick ass pally tank. But Botanica, Arc, Mech were fun as was heroic Shattered Halls. The Auchindon instances... eh. Shadow Lab was fun, but too much trash.

LK heroics were lame and super easy. Some of the design was great, but it was 'pull, tank gets aggro, AOE, pull, tank gets aggo...'. Especially as a rogue, LK was the begining of the end of truly great 5 mans because it became about damage and nothing else. In some of the Vanilla and BC 5 mans you could shine by CCing (sap, Vanish/Cheap Shot, Blind) all of which could make the difference in fights. Grim Batol early in Cata was a partial return to that but poorly done.

You do know that Scholo and Strath were 10 man raids before they were 5 mans correct.

[Deleted]

I absolutely loved the TBC heroics.
Farming normals & the quest hubs to obtain the keys at honored, to be able to enter the HC versions.
I really loved the ones in the Zangamarash lake (the 3-4 dungeons & a T5 raid SSC was in there) - can't think of the name atm!
Also they required players to play there like like they should, IE: Making use of the cc ability's your class has. (sap / trap / Los pulling / fearing etc ...)
Every since then i disliked 5 man HC's more and more.. call it nostalgia i don't give a fuck it doesn't take away that i found those the most fun to this date.
When magisters Terrrace came out, it was very challenging, you felt good that you where able to get a team together capable of clearing it on heroic. Was also cool to try to get the pet & mount.
In wotlk i camed back during Ulduar patch and those heroics where allready massive faceroll then .. I was palla tank so it was just an AOE fest all around, the only fun i had in those was doing the Glory achievement for the Red Proto Drake.
Same goes for cataclysm & Mop, only reasons i somewhat like & enjoy them was / where for the achievements you could do for the Glory Meta achievements.
Guess im a tbc crybaby that doesn't like that path wow has taken ever since ..