Cataclysm Deserve More Love! (Long Post Why Cata was the best)

[Battlebeard]

Warning, long post, Please read before comment, to try to have some quality in this thread!

Hi!

After browsing this forum, I see many threads about the different expansions and expectations about BFA. Something that these threads have in common is that many, in fact most people dislike Cataclysm. I often see people rank it lowest or second lowest after WoD, as well as comments "BFA will be good if it's not like Cata".

Personally, Cataclysm is by far, and I mean by FAR, my favorite expansion. It's true that having legendary daggers for my Rogue for a long time made me like it more than the avarage player, but even in an objective point of view I rank the expansion at the very top.

I though it be fun to discuss this expansion, and find out what people didn't like. Cause I think comments like "lack of content" overshadows the actual amazing parts of the expansion. People tend to remember the things that affected them the most and if you really think it was lacking content you might have forgotten.

I have listed 11 of the things I think made Cataclysm not only a good expansion, but the BEST expansion. I wanted a 10 list but though of a 11th point by the end so I just included it too.


1. Leveling up!
The new zones of Cataclysm absolutely blew me away. Going from 80-85 is something I will never forget and today my favorite part of the leveling experience. They put such tremendous effort into these zones and the attention to detail is just amazing. The quests were fun, had lots of variety, charm and not just the traditional “kill 10 mobs” or “loot 10 items”. Sure these exist too but now we started to see a whole new level of quest design, something that Vanilla, TBC and WotLK didn’t have. Also, the zones were visually extremely beautiful. While some people didn’t like water movement (which I though was just fine), few can say that Vashj’ir was not amazingly looking. Same goes for other ones. We also saw a lot of variety of terrain. Vash’ir is a water zone, Twilight Highlands is mostly an open grassy area, Deepholm is kind of a cave, Hyjal a mountain/forest area and Uldum a sand area. After having snowy after snowy zones in WotLK this was really fresh.

2. The Revamp of Eastern Kingdom and Kalimdor
This is something that divide many people for sure. I did enjoy leveling in Vanilla, but that was mostly because the genre was kind of new to me and WoW was the best mmo on the market (still is though). But the leveling of Vanilla hasn’t aged well, and if anyone remember, the quests (and this is without bugs) were sometimes crazy frustrating. Looting 15 items with a 5% droprate is not a well-designed quest. I agree that the quests chains of Vanilla felt big and epic, but they were far from smooth and convenient. Cataclysm fixed this and beyond! The best quests in the game in my opinion are found in EK/Kalimdor (excluding Cata level zones) and it made questing smoother and more fun. Quests like the one in Badlands, where you punch Deathwing in the face will always be remembered.

3. The Dungeons
I liked WotLK just fine but the dungeons of that expansion were not much to cheer for, neither were TBC dungeons. In Cataclysm we got more challenging dungeons and finally Blizzard started catering to the better players. You could no longer just gather mobs and AoE them down like crazy and if you were a pleb you would not have a good time in Cata dungeons. This was a well needed change, and challenge is a good thing to give players incentive to get better. If there is no easy mode, people will have to adapt. This might feel excluding to people who are bad, but that is a good thing, cause if they want to play, they have to work to get better or quit, which is a win for the rest of the player base either way. And the fact that the Dungeons were also amazing looking, such as Stone Core, Lost City of Tolvir or Halls of Origination is a huge bonus. They were also well designed encounter wise and didn’t have too much trash overall.

4. Rated Battlegrounds
This is something that was much needed, and an attempt to move WoW closer toward a worthy E-sport game. While that didn’t really become a reality, the game still benefited a lot from having more rated content. This, unlike Arena, was different and you could finally play the BG’s in a rated way. Personally I love PvP but Arena was not for me, neither is any team deathmatch kind of mode. Capture the Flag and similar game modes suits me and a lot of players better and now we could finally do it rated style. This was a huge hit and one of the best additions the game got.

5. Tol Barad
Speaking of PvP, Cataclysm introduced this Battleground to the game. It was something that felt very special, compared to normal BG’s. It was organized World PvP, faction vs. faction with an important outcome = access to Baradin Hold and of course the satisfaction of smashing down the enemy. I LOVE big battles. Grand battles of The Lord of the Rings is one of the very reasons I started with WoW and this is one of the best attempts the game has done toward having big fights. Unlike AV and Isle, this was a place where you could just meet and have huge fights. I said in the last point, Rated Battlegrounds that Deathmatch was not for me, but this is different, as it’s more of a War than a deathmatch fight AND Tol Barad also featured some objectives. Everything a Tol Barad fight was around the corner, I prepared to fight and if I was one of the lucky ones selected, it was something to look forward to. Yes, not everyone could participate but that just made it even more epic, to feel like one of the chosen ones.

6. Archaeology
I just can’t help to love this profession. It’s quite different from the others, as this only benefit you and you can’t make money on it. I am not a fan of Lore per se, but this still spoke to me in a way that no other “kind of lore content” did. It felt exciting to hunt the rare solves and in Cataclysms archaeology, you truly felt like Indiana Jones or something, looking for a super rare and secret artifact. I know it sound nerdy, but hunting that blue qiraji mount was just amazing. I knew that anytime it could appear as a solve, and to see digsite pop up in Uldum was just this “Yes, an opportunity!” feeling. Archaeology was ruined after Cataclysm sadly though, with the “rare” solves being quite common and annoying “solve 20 of this kind” and “get pristine version” achievements. Cataclysm had the good archaeology that I will always love and remember. I STILL haven’t finished two of the Tol Vir solves, which shows how exclusive and awesome the profession is.

7. Transmog!
Praise whatever you believe in! This might be the best feature they ever added, and it came in Cataclysm. Looking good in game was always something I wanted and I found myself equipping old tier sets, Warglaives or whatever, just to look good and to quite frankly show off a little. However, when it was raid time, I put on my raid gear, which was rarely matching. With transmog, I could finally look the way I wanted to at all times! Sadly, legendaries could not be mogged but it was still amazing. Cataclysm had overall good looking sets, but transmog gave us more freedom, which is always a good thing!

8. Reforged!
In late Cataclysm we saw the reforger in game. You could change a stat into something else. Of all the things they removed in the game, this was the most stupid to ever remove. It was just amazing. You could customize your gear, and it became less fighting over gear and less loot drama. At this point, we still had Hit and Expertise, who needed to be maxed and the reforger made gearing up not be a living hell. You could cap quite easily and not be so depending on certain gears. Just like transmog, it gave the players more freedom and were much less depending on Bis gear lists.

9. New Races + Class Combos
I think this was a step in the right direction, as this was a way for the players to get more choices of the characters they created. I always been a huge supporter of player freedom, customization and making your own choices and this was a start for that. While some people care about Lore, I don’t think that is more important than player’s choice. Allowing us to have a wider selection of class+race was really sweet and I just hope one day that every race can be every class. I wanted Tauren Rogue since the first day of Vanilla and I will keep wishing for it every day.

10. The Raids
While this is the weakest point in this 11-point list, I still think I need to mention the raids. During Cataclysm, we had three tiers, tier 11, tier 12 and tier 13. And each tier had its really good points. The first tier, tier 11, was simply godlike. It might be one of the best the game has ever seen. We had 3½ raids to choose from, BWD, BoT and 4Winds as well as Baradin Hold, but I count that as half a raid. BWD, which I consider the greatest, was also quite nonlinear. You could choose which boss to start with (choice of 2) and then choose between 3 bosses which to do. There has been nonlinear raids after this, like BRF, but all too often it’s back to linear ones. To have a 3-raid tier was also amazing, as we could get some variety of scenery. The encounters were also amazing and had 2 difficulties only, something that I think was the best system by far. The next raid Firelands, was really good encounterwise. Mechanics were better here than ever with a HUGE variety. Sadly, only 7 bosses (and 8 in DS) is what has given Cataclysm a bad name, and people tend to see quantity over quality. And qualitywise it was amazing even though I wanted more bosses as well. Dragon Sould was like Firelands, amazing encounters but too few bosses. Even Spine of Deathwing was quite fun, however, I agree it was terrible in pugs.

11. An actual villain!
This is not really unique for Cataclysm, as TBC and WotLK had amazing main villains. But so did Cataclysm, and it was the last expansion where the bad guy was in focus. MoP, WoD and Legion were all a mess in this department, and there was no clear super villain in these expansion. However in Cataclysm, with Deathwing, the threat was bigger than ever. He might not has been as epic as the Lich King, but I rate him a close 2:nd best villain in the game. His presense was constant and before Dragon Soul, he flew around and blew fire into all the worlds zones, killing anyone he hit. THAT was amazing! A worthy opponent that doesn’t get enough hype!



These are examples of why I absolutely loved this expansion. There was of course much more. Honorable mentions is class balance which was great as well as the lack of long annoying grinds like we see in today’s game. It’s my favorite expansion by far and I am always in shock to see it rated fairly low on peoples favorite expansion lists.

What are your favorite parts of Cataclysm, or why do you not like it.
Please, try to write more than just “lack of content”, as I suspect that is what most people didn’t like.

[Arrashi]

And short response - thats quite alot of very subjective stuff. And given the overall opinion community has about cata, not many people agree with you.

[Eleccybubb]

Disagree personally. Best expansion for me would be Mists.

Was ok at the start and then just went downhill with Dragon Soul. But to go through each point from my own personal opinions.

1. Only zone I enjoyed was Vashj'ir because I love underwater zones. Worst zone was Deepholm.

2. Agree on this. The world actually had some decent stories to it now if you knew where to look. Such as Alliance in Westfall/Redridge and Horde in Southern Barrens.

3. Hour of Twilight dungeons were boring, can't say I was fond of any of the dungeons except the Zul revamps.

4. Can't give an opinion since I didn't do rated PvP then. However I think this should have been a thing ages ago in WoW.

5. Wintergrasp 2.0 but even worse. No thanks.

6. Decent profession to just chill out to. Plus had some nice mounts/pets around it.

7. Agreed. Single best addition to the game. Could finally stop looking like a clown and use those tier sets I farmed from older raids.

8. Subjective since it's no longer in the game. Was cool to reroll stats but most of the time you ended up rerolling into Hit/Expertise to hit the cap.

9. Can't say much. Always nice to have more class options for each race. Goblin starting zone was pretty cool but shame it didn't remain a hub. Lost Isles was garbage though. Just an absolute slog. Worgen starting zone was boring as hell.

10. Subjective. First Tier was ok imo, Firelands was amazing but Dragon Soul was arguably the worst raid they ever introduced imo. An absolute shoddy way to end off a villain.

11. We had that in Wrath with Arthas. Deathwing wasn't the first to do this. And he may have been an actual villain but he was a garbage one at best and a disappointing fight imo. There was nothing epic about killing his back plates then his fingers/arms and head. Both fights were an absolute letdown.

[Nfinitii]

I wouldn't say the best, I believe it's when lfr came out which has been the biggest cancer on this game in the long run. The dungeons were awesome and tightly tuned, but it was too hard for the avg player. I know a lot of ppl who quit b/c of the dungeons

[Deleted]

Aside from Bennett's valid points about patches, Cata lost the sense of a world to inhabit. You just took portals to the 5 zones from the capital city. It felt disconnected. Also we had the diablo talent system, which undermined the feeling of character progression that the vanilla-wrath talent points gave.

I agree with OP that deathwing's presentation was better than Arthas' or Illidan's. But as the first non WC3 villain, people like myself who had not played the earlier games felt less of a connection of who we were fighting and why.

OP didn't mention the Thrall q chain, which was fun. But then again, the final lore note of the expansion, with the dragonflights ending was a head-scratcher. I thought the dragonflights were there to guard against legion and/or void, both of which still existed. I to this day don't get why Blizz went the Tolkien route & hastily put an end to all the dragonflight story threads.

And with respect, I think you're slightly mad to like archaeology. But to each his own.

[KridenTagg]

You know honestly you bring up many great points in your post, and there were certainly things about Cataclysm that were solid. However, what always sticks out in my mind was the absolutely horrid mess that mana users were in, especially healers. My main was a Night Elf Priest from the beginning all the way through Warlords, and I can tell you that Cataclysm is something I still try to forget. Constantly out of mana, all the time. It did get a little bit better towards the later stages with gear but still, it was an absolute dumpster fire.

Regarding the content and features though, a solid expansion!

[klaps_05]

Cata was perfectly fine. Not the best expansion of them all, but of the highest quality. It was the first expansion when Blizzard started experimenting with new Lore and systems, which is expected to upset a lot of people.

[Deleted]

I thought Cata had great raids for the most part. Loved all the first ones (Sinestra gets a special metion) and firelands was amazing. Tol Barad also had some pretty epic moments. I also found PvP to be pretty great that xpac but I remember getting bored and quitting a few times and for basically the whole of Dragon Soul.

[Wries]

Was a far cry from the best, seen to end-game design and sustainability. But the new zones I liked. Vashj'ir is still my favorite.

[sam86]

disagree with most of them
1- that is normal this is an exp, exp means new zones and lands, cata has 6 zones total making it far lower than wrath for end zones, introduced later 1 more zone still lower
2- the revamp while was great on paper and i was idiot and supported it, it was horrible, we have now cata then tbc then wrath then cata again, timeline is fucked, let's not forget if u reroll a reskined - sorry 'allied' race - u start BFA then cata, it should stayed vanilla and up, makes more sense, the revamp we were expecting more of revamp to be up to time, not this weird fucked time we got
3- cata has the record of hardest dungeons (pre-nerf) in wow, it is the reason why i stopped healing and left the game way early, i HATED that i had to drink every few pulls in vanilla/tbc and I don't want it again, let's not forget the MANY 1 shot abilities that no matter how good u are, u are fucked if anyone make a mistake in a dungeon? then they added the zul'again dungeons with copy-paste of zul'aman literally
4- and it failed, RBGs are dead since they were introduced, and to make queue time shorter they fucked the main reason it was made - to have a rated alliance vs horde pvp - and they made u able to sign as horde vs horde, for even a more joke u might end as horde in alliance side vs alliance in horde side, arena 2v2 and 3v3 is still far better, i seriously question why did they make bg 10v10 when ppl already hated arena 5v5
5- not really 'tol barad' mistake but it was in time when circle of frost freeze for 10 sec, if u use trinket it still freeze u for the rest of duration, and it ticks every 0.5 sec so u have to trinket / blink out, or if u were one of the other 10 classes enjoy being fucked for 10 sec, mage became PVR (player vs raid) and druid feral pounce + rake then turn bear and circle around u bleeding, or warrior get 4 stacks of overpower then 1 shot anyone on sight, no idea which pvp season started that horrible unbalanced but cata is surely competing for top, and i still remember that blizz buffed even more mages because FUCK U i guess
6- at its first iteration it was really REALLY horrible, it became better but we talk about cata era, and at cata era it was sh8t, lvl it only on alchemist for the mount recipe
7- not sure if that is good or bad, it killed showing ur progress but it also allowed u to wear ur beloved gear, it also made blizz become lazy with crap designs and they get away with it because 'transmog', and now in BFA they going to remove tiers to just fuck it
8- reforged caused mages to roll on priest gear because they can 'reforge it', it caused really bad drama, but this is player fault imo, the concept itself is actually good
9- no, i was one of ppl who didn't like that nelfs get female druids and male warriors in vanilla wow because it didn't exist in lore before, guess what i think about holy cows
10- the worst raid in almost every pull is deathwing, with spine nominated for needing rogues/shamans/mages and fuck other classes, and the end of cataclysm we fight deathwing toes, seriously cata has better stuff than wod, but raids they are the worst no competition (let's not forget abysal maw promise)
11- yeah... if only we 'met' him, we see deathwing like.. twice? he doesn't even consider us 'threat' even if we literally fuck him in first (and last) encounter, deathwing was a cunning manipulative extremely powerful dragon in lore, we don't see ANY of that in wow, we only see his spine and toe nails yay

Cata was winning worst exp during its time, and during MoP time, it wasn't until WoD that blizz outblizzed themselves and proven there are far worse than rehashed content of cata

surprised u didn't mention some of its strong points (imo) like music, or how the setting was still wow familiar, not eastern pandas or AU crap

[Babadoo]

First month of Cata was glorious, probably the best this game ever was. But then came nerfs and whole expansion got fucked.

[Uoyredrum]

It was the best expansion other than BC and Wotlk (it was nowhere near as good ad those) and could've been alot better if it wasn't for 2 things: Dragon Soul and them completely blundering RBGs. The rest of the stuff was alright, though I do miss the old world and it was the start of them screwing up the talent trees, but at least in cata they were still mostly in tact. I'd give it a 6/10. If they hadn't screwed up warriors so badly I might have enjoyed it more.

[rda]

I think most people agree about cata, 4.0 and .1 were amazing, 4.2 was the patch that divided players and 4.3 was okay but lasted far too long. Cataclysm will be remembered as the first expansion in the whole "modern" WoW saga, i.e, when they started streamlining the game and making it far more accessible than it already was. I feel a great deal of the truly hardcore vanilla vets I knew back then stopped playing mostly in Cataclysm, that's just anecdotal though. I still loved it, but to be fair, I've loved every expansion.

I agree with this.

Cata would have been super-great if the humongous effort they spent on reworking old zones they would have spent elsewhere. It was an honest mistake (and I am not sure many would have predicted it to be a mistake at the time). It was a really, really unfortunate mistake because it led to Cata having a repeat of a year of nothing to do which they just said they won't ever have after WOTLK and players started become dissatisfied and started leaving. MoP that came after Cata was good, but the moment it also got a year of nothing, it lost even more players, people stopped trusting Blizzard. Cata started the decline and it was really tragic because it did so due to an honest misjudgement on the part of the devs.

[Deleted]

Cata ruined a lot of older zones (though the questing did improve, but it is a shame a lot of the stories were tied to the Cataclysm and not stand-alone), heroics took forever at the start (I like difficult dungeons, but not via the dungeon finder with 4 randoms please), there was nothing to do at the end game, the villain was completely out of nowhere, worgen females have garbo models, 4.1 was a boring rehash (but 4.2 was pretty awesome), 4.3 was the worst endgame patch ever full of recycled locations mobs bosses and had atrocious lore (time travelling, not actually fighting deathwing but his fingers and him exploding into fairy dust), it had too much Thrall (who cares about Aggra and their wedding) and it removed my fav spec (Blood dps)

Tldr; sorry OP, I'm gonna have to disagree

[Eazy]

Cata was better than MoP.

[ThrashMetalFtw]

I think most people agree about cata, 4.0 and .1 were amazing, 4.2 was the patch that divided players and 4.3 was okay but lasted far too long. Cataclysm will be remembered as the first expansion in the whole "modern" WoW saga, i.e, when they started streamlining the game and making it far more accessible than it already was. I feel a great deal of the truly hardcore vanilla vets I knew back then stopped playing mostly in Cataclysm, that's just anecdotal though. I still loved it, but to be fair, I've loved every expansion.

4.0-4.2 (t11 and t12) was the by far most fun I ever had in this game. I don't remember anybody disliking 4.2 at the time. There were some complaints about FL having too few bosses, but the quality of said bosses and the Molten Front zone made sure it was mostly positively received. The only downside of Cata, was how absurdly shit 4.3 was.

Also, WotLK started the streamlining of modern WoW, not Cata. Cata was basically just WotLK with better class mechanics and raids, and for all the hypocrites praising WotLK but hating Cata, those two expansions are the two that are the BY FAR most similair to eachother, in terms of game systems and mechanics.


If the 2nd half of Cata continued on the same path as the 1st half, it would be the best expansion to date, but as we all know, instead we got a year of Dragon Soul.

[riptal]

disagree with most of them
3- cata has the record of hardest dungeons (pre-nerf) in wow, it is the reason why i stopped healing and left the game way early, i HATED that i had to drink every few pulls in vanilla/tbc and I don't want it again, let's not forget the MANY 1 shot abilities that no matter how good u are, u are fucked if anyone make a mistake in a dungeon? then they added the zul'again dungeons with copy-paste of zul'aman literally

This guy is the reason why Wow became what it is today in term of difficulty. Casual and too easy! What's the purpose of dungeons if you can do it solo mode? Anyways, too many thinks that way and destroyed all kind of challenges that makes Wow satisfying and rewarding! Still a great game but not the game it used to be! The reason why soo many ask for vanilla.

BTW I'm also a healer and I looooved the challenge back in Vanilla, TBC and also pre nerf CATA. Today, I barely have to heal and I dont have any chance to run out of mana... What a challenge!

[Eleccybubb]

This guy is the reason why Wow became what it is today in term of difficulty. Casual and too easy! What's the purpose of dungeons if you can do it solo mode? Anyways, too many thinks that way and destroyed all kind of challenges that makes Wow satisfying and rewarding! Still a great game but not the game it used to be! The reason why soo many ask for vanilla.

That's why we have Mythic + now.

Also there's plenty of challenge. RBGS, Rated PvP, Mythic + and Mythic raiding.

To claim the challenge is gone or there isn't any that is rewarding or satisfying is subjective at best.

[XDurionX]

They shouldn't have spent 60% of their ressources on remodelling outdated content, maybe then it would have been a bearable xpac.

[Boricha]

All these points are super subjective, and I mostly disagree.