Legend of Vanilla and the Paradox of Difficulties

[Deleted]

so, one weird thing I've seen people complain about since WoW classic was announced is the perceived difficulty of vanilla.

people say that since we're no longer noobs we'll steamroll through all the content, thanks to better strats, better addons and better communication everything will be extremely easy

people have also rightly pointed out that a ton of the content has been nerfed after vanilla, elite quests became regular ones, bosses were nerfed etc.

people also claim that raiding will suck because too many speccs are just not optimal, why take a shadow priest over a warlock? why take a boomkin over a mage? etc.

also worth noting that only about 1% of original players even entered naxxramas, let alone beat it


so, in the end, if this time around 4% of players end up beating naxxramas, and one of your 6 tanks is a bear (slightly sub-optimal) and one of your 6 tanks is a pala (quite suboptimal), is that really so bad?

[WskyDK]

The hardest part of classic raiding was getting 15-20 people who weren't fucking mouth breathers to compliment the people carrying them.

Those who join classic servers with the goal of endgame raiding will clear it with ease.

[Balir]

A vocal minority have been crying for Vanilla servers for a while. It's only fair that they get the Full vanilla feeling warts and all.

[Deleted]

then playing retri pala or shadow priest will work fine?

I will personally raid, but I'm much more hyped for an actually rewarding leveling experience and more fun pvp, stuff like summoning elemental lords in AV is great

[Alienshroom]

A vocal minority have been crying for Vanilla servers for a while. It's only fair that they get the Full vanilla feeling warts and all.

So why did you entire quarantine with us? Your only as good as the company you keep. That or you thrive on negativity.

[schwarzkopf]

so, one weird thing I've seen people complain about since WoW classic was announced is the perceived difficulty of vanilla.

Was real difficulty, not perceived. Levelling to 60 was itself a challenge.

also worth noting that only about 1% of original players even entered naxxramas, let alone beat it

A large chunk of players (who I spend a lot of time chatting to in IF) never had the opportunity to raid - mainly because they'd never had the opportunity to raid

Back then raiding was like having a job, lots of effort and you didn't get the position unless you had previous experience.

[Deleted]

Was real difficulty, not perceived. Levelling to 60 was itself a challenge.

I agree with you, but I was using neutral phrasing, since it's contentious

[Alienshroom]

Was real difficulty, not perceived. Levelling to 60 was itself a challenge.



A large chunk of players (who I spend a lot of time chatting to in IF) never had the opportunity to raid - mainly because they'd never had the opportunity to raid

Back then raiding was like having a job, lots of effort and you didn't get the position unless you had previous experience.

All of these people worried about the difficulty probably would never make it as a dedicated raid kiter and that is if they even made enough to buy their mount after the constant repair bills they got leveling up and dieing because they dont know how to pull mobs.

[epLe]

so, one weird thing I've seen people complain about since WoW classic was announced is the perceived difficulty of vanilla.

people say that since we're no longer noobs we'll steamroll through all the content, thanks to better strats, better addons and better communication everything will be extremely easy

Those who claim this are wrong, and will be noobs in vanilla content.
They will realize how wrong they were if they get even manage to level up to 60.

people have also rightly pointed out that a ton of the content has been nerfed after vanilla, elite quests became regular ones, bosses were nerfed etc.

Yes, but its quite irrelevant.

people also claim that raiding will suck because too many speccs are just not optimal, why take a shadow priest over a warlock? why take a boomkin over a mage? etc.

You dont have any good reason to bring spriest or boomkins, atleast not for the first tiers.

also worth noting that only about 1% of original players even entered naxxramas, let alone beat it

so, in the end, if this time around 4% of players end up beating naxxramas, and one of your 6 tanks is a bear (slightly sub-optimal) and one of your 6 tanks is a pala (quite suboptimal), is that really so bad?

Its not bad at all, 4H is very difficult to do with only 6 warriors, if u manage with only 4 it is down to even more complicated tactics.
But I guess your question wasn't really about that, so yes paladin tanks was that awful, and bears had a very small amount of bosses for their niche.

[schwarzkopf]

All of these people worried about the difficulty

It was a different kind of difficulty - getting INTO a raid was a huge challenge, and you couldn't just go out and do stuff while you looked (you had to be in a capital city).

I spent around 5 nights a week every week for almost a year looking for an MC run etc (along with many other people) finally got into raiding around 2-3 months before BC. I didn't consider 10 man Strat/scholo etc raiding ... even though it technically was.

[Zylos]

Back then raiding was like having a job, lots of effort and you didn't get the position unless you had previous experience.

True, true, and false. You did not need any raid experience to get into a guild that was running ZG and MC, and even BWL. The way you got into a raid guild was by making connections through dungeons. If you were good in a dungeon it was pretty much a 100% guarantee the group would want to bring you again. Become friendly with a raid guild running dungeons and you would get in because guess what...filling 40 raid slots was freaking hard. Also most guilds running BWL as progression would likely be wearing a mix of MC gear and dungeon blues. In general the gear gap in vanilla was not huge until you were in full T2 equivalent gear or better, mostly because vanilla gear was so poorly itemized.

[Deleted]

Those who claim this are wrong, and will be noobs in vanilla content.
They will realize how wrong they were if they get even manage to level up to 60.



Yes, but its quite irrelevant.



You dont have any good reason to bring spriest or boomkins, atleast not for the first tiers.



Its not bad at all, 4H is very difficult to do with only 6 warriors, if u manage with only 4 it is down to even more complicated tactics.
But I guess your question wasn't really about that, so yes paladin tanks was that awful, and bears had a very small amount of bosses for their niche.

my argument was mostly that people claiming the game will be too easy have ways to make the game fun and challanging, but I agree with you, mostly

[Deleted]

Some things were hard in vanilla and others not so much.
Leveling was more difficult as well as getting gold.
When it comes to raiding i would not call MC very hard but later raids hot incresingly difficult.

[schwarzkopf]

You did not need any raid experience to get into a guild that was running ZG and MC, and even BWL.

Yes we did (the hundreds of people I met in IF in the same boat), until towards the end when I finally got to run ZG and MC when someone with some experience decided to collect all us unemployed players and form a raid group

[Deleted]

so, in the end, if this time around 4% of players end up beating naxxramas, and one of your 6 tanks is a bear (slightly sub-optimal) and one of your 6 tanks is a pala (quite suboptimal), is that really so bad?

unless the fix classes and add spells no protection paladin will ever kill 4horsemen in naxx or ervery other boss he can´t attack 100% of the time (e.g. the flame buffet dragon in BWL or Onyxia). Not having a taunt makes that impossible for paladin tanks. Druids in late game can be pretty strong, but again they have to get spell hitcap for taunt and thats hard without the warrior T3 4 piece.

[Deleted]

thats hard

great, that's what we're aiming for

you're probably right about paladin, but other bosses are totally viable to do with a paladin tank or offtank

[Deleted]

great, that's what we're aiming for

you're probably right about paladin, but other bosses are totally viable to do with a paladin tank or offtank

You can do them, but it is pain to tankswap without taunt. Huhuran was immun to taunt and as lucky alliance player we did the tankswaps with blessing of protection and forced huhuran off the tank. It is doable, but you are staring at ktm, stopping everything as active tank and wait for the paladin to pass you.

[soulzek]

Leveling and 5 mans are harder than live. Raids are not. People keep thinking Vanilla is all about endgame 60 raiding like live. It's not. That's the whole fucking point of classic.

[Thage]

then playing retri pala or shadow priest will work fine?

Depends on your raid group. Some raid groups liked to bring along a ret paladin with Nightfall and Seal of the Crusader to keep up the spell damage taken proc, using a swing timer to time buffing their group between swings to maximize uptime on both Nightfall procs, Seal of the Crusader, and Blessings. Dunno about using shadow priest unless they tinker with how many debuff slots a boss has.

[Dasharin]

Leveling and 5 mans are harder than live. Raids are not. People keep thinking Vanilla is all about endgame 60 raiding like live. It's not. That's the whole fucking point of classic.

This guy gets it....PLEASE recreate Vanilla as it was...no advancements...no extra QoL...just...Vanilla....