How many hybrids would you raid with if you wanted to clear Naxx in a month or two?

[Matmcc]

I think people are putting difficulty completely down to mechanics. I completely agree that the mechanics of all most every boss fight over the past 4-5 expansions is "Mechanically" more difficult than the hardest bosses in Classic, however... One of the hardest things to overcome in Vanilla is simply damage values and class limitations. Healers ooming and tanks getting smashed extremely hard is the biggest problem all the way through Vanilla, especially early on. Bosses in Mythic might take a bigger percentage of your health away, but healers are more equipped to deal with that now. Every single healers has like 2-3 insta-heals and the amount of HOTS flying around means raid healing isn't a problem anymore. If you're on alliance side in Classic pretty much every single raid heal has to be manually done, you can't rely on chain heal to do the extra healer for you.


Another thing to consider: Most mechanics nowadays aren't random. What I'm implying here is that you can barely blame RNG for wipes anymore. Almost every wipe is down to player error. In vanilla you can get randomly killed by the very first boss (Onyxia) simply because of an unlucky fear/cleave and there's also the chance of being feared into whelps. There are a lot of situations where things like this can happen in classic and I think it has to be taken into account. It's not difficult by definition, but it's another annoying thing that will affect a guild progress.

[Outofmana]

Since when is "disc priest" an offspec. Every proper priest will spec PI, as you don't need full holy for anything at all, the mana alone already offsets the difference, when you don't even look at PI dps increase. Also there's either 1 shadowpriest or 1 priest shadowweaving/healing specced to put up debuffs. Most guilds opt for the latter, as it's easier to get a healingpriest to do this than gearing up (and sustaining) a shadowpriest one, somehow spriests quit sooner or later anyway every time I had one in my roster as a lock, when they get tired of farming demonic runes all day.

Things like ret pala or whatever are generally reserved for either GMs or officers who are in a 'priviliged' position, you'll find it hard pressed to actually join an unknown guild as one, rightfuly so, why would any guild take a 50% dps loss or making loot even more unbalanced over someone else. Choosing the right class or not being stubborn and trying shit like ret paladin while it is known to suck is the first aspect of a 'dedicated' player, doesn't matter how much else he does, he failed step 1. There will already be big enough warrior rosters to gear up, you will find yourself in last place on melee lootlists as ret which essentially makes you worthless to the raid for weeks or months on end.

There's still 5 or 10mans to enjoy, a tanking shaman actually works in UBRS somehow, get your fun there, and respec for raids.

[garicasha]

A little surprised how many people want zero. Which, with how I worded it, seems overly hardcore. I don’t think many people would look at a raid group that works for their time slot and has been farming AQ40 successfully for months and say, “Oh, they have a shadow priest and a boomkin, I’m not raiding with those clowns.” Now if I’d specified a day 1 speed clear, that’d be different.

It does go to show that any retail players that play classic might be in for a rude awakening if they choose to go into raiding!

[Malacrass]

"All I want is good people" and "0-2" is basically the same answer.

Good people won't burden the raid because they like to spam Starfire instead of Frostbolt.

If there would be severe differences between playstyles I would get behind people wanting to have fun with the spec first and foremost, but Vanilla rotations are too simple to make that argument.

So hybrids are either special snowflakes for the sake of being a snowflake, or they are PVP'ers who only bother with raiding to gear up (and once they are done gearing they never show up again, effectively wasting the drops of months).

[Alex86el]

since when is survival hunter and holy priest not wanted?? O_o

also, you might want one ret paladin or melee hunter for nightfall,
and why not one hemo rogue.
your hunters would probably be survival, except for one or two.
priests could go either 31/20/0 or 21/30/0 it's not a problem.
and you could even have a feral druid and a shadow priest.


but i strongly believe that it is the people who are more important.
no toxicity, no drama, and i dont mind if i clear something one "reset" later.

though, i say this having cleared everything server-first on my server back then.
so i dont have to prove anything now.

[Nitros14]

Back then? No. Now? Of course there will be - one thing that exists now that really didn't back then is the min/maxing, cutting edge style culture the top players engage with - and you can't just shake that. People will get to 60 in a matter of days, and there will be guilds that allow only the optimal specs - just as the top guilds do now. You're naive if you think people won't take classic very, very seriously.

And they'll finish the content the moment it comes out and be bored. That kind of attitude is pretty silly in classic. It's just not built to stand up to that.

[AeneasBK]

Things like ret pala or whatever are generally reserved for either GMs or officers who are in a 'priviliged' position,

I'm not disputing this position in the slightest but out of curiosity, I had been under the impression that Naxxramas was about the only place where Retribution could do passable DPS; is this just dreaming by Retribution fanbois or is there any truth to that?

[munkeyinorbit]

...It does go to show that any retail players that play classic might be in for a rude awakening if they choose to go into raiding!

What does that even mean? I am a retail player and there will be no shock for me. If I want to raid, I will pick a hunter or mage. If I don't want to raid I might pick something else. Where is this "retail players don't know what they are doing" bullshit coming from? Too many years on a PS rotting your mind?

- - - Updated - - -

I'm not disputing this position in the slightest but out of curiosity, I had been under the impression that Naxxramas was about the only place where Retribution could do passable DPS; is this just dreaming by Retribution fanbois or is there any truth to that?

It is dreaming. Paladins will never do passable dps at any point in vanilla raiding. Just play warrior and steal rogue gear.

[PenguinChan]

I'm not disputing this position in the slightest but out of curiosity, I had been under the impression that Naxxramas was about the only place where Retribution could do passable DPS; is this just dreaming by Retribution fanbois or is there any truth to that?

Naxx let Ret paladins do better DPS - plus having BiS gear helped.

It's pretty pathetic that people seriously think you need super optimal raid compositions for even Naxx. It proves that people are going to be shocked when actually good high end raiders dance circles around the content. Bringing funny specs after first clearing it and having it on farm, and doing it sub optimally - a lot of Classic raiding was about passing the minimum gear checks and knowing the basic mechanics, optimization wasn't anything of a priority when the content was designed around 40 players.

I bet a lot of people don't know that Bear druids and Prot Paladins could actually tank in raids, albeit depending on their defense and gear (and some easy to farm consumables). Unfortunately with little gear for either of them, they couldn't go up higher in the tiers like Warrior could.

It is dreaming. Paladins will never do passable dps at any point in vanilla raiding. Just play warrior and steal rogue gear.

Except that they did and will continue to do so and videos will keep coming out to prove you otherwise. Sure, it's an uphill battle of being able to get gear in the first place because of the bias, and how they're more reliant on consumables but it's a myth that Ret is absolute dog trash tier.

It's just way easier to bring a Rogue or Warrior who requires none of that.

[Sentynel]

0. If you're not willing to play an optimal spec you're not suitable for high end raiding.

Classic and high end just doesn't go well together in the same sentence.

[garicasha]

"All I want is good people" and "0-2" is basically the same answer.

Good people won't burden the raid because they like to spam Starfire instead of Frostbolt.

If there would be severe differences between playstyles I would get behind people wanting to have fun with the spec first and foremost, but Vanilla rotations are too simple to make that argument.

So hybrids are either special snowflakes for the sake of being a snowflake, or they are PVP'ers who only bother with raiding to gear up (and once they are done gearing they never show up again, effectively wasting the drops of months).

Some good points here, although there are some specs with different class fantasy like enhancement shaman.

And the vast majority of retail players are not on this forum. We obviously al know this stuff, but a player that started in Cata probably isn’t expecting some vanilla classes to do 50% of the damage of others.

[Twdft]

a 15 hour / week raid group

I would let players who have a near 100% raid attendence for 15h per week in classic play whatever the fuck they want.

[Kithelle]

Naxx says hi. (overtuned shitty mechanics still require high end raiding)

Up until C'thun everyone can do whatever they want, but at that point you hit gear/spec checks

This ^

Naxx was overtuned and very few cleared it by the end of vanilla, you aren't going to want hybrids dragging you down.

[Lollis]

We're obviously not living in the same reality if you're comparing this:

with this

There are no progression videos for Champion of the Light normal because every guild in existence killed it on the first pull.

Using one of the easiest and most undertuned fights in the whole of mythic content (with a heroic video no less) and comparing it to a private server video where NOTHING is correct.

Seems fucking legit.

Most guilds killed CoL Mythic on the first pull it was so easy, but using one badly tuned early fight does not magically make Naxxramas super hard.

[jiih]

i wont mind hybrids if i know the people but recruiting strangers on release? hell no because i dont trust anyone i dont know.

its the same as now with itemlvl. if i can choose between two randoms to join my raid one with 400ilvl and one with 350 i will never take the later one. same goes for vanilla why should i most likely invite a bad ret paladin over a bad warrior?

i am not going to cripple myself because some people want to live out their downsyndroms. also playing a garbage specc and being a burden to your raidgroup is just soil for drama when it comes to gear sooner or later.
and dedicated players dont play a garbage specc main :-)

[Alvito]

The attunement grind and resistance farming gear grind is going to take a serious toll on people as a result I really doubt people are going to be able to be nearly as picky as people are suggesting. Raiding in classic wont be like it is now where you just plug in the new spec you want because you lost your last one. People also have the knowledge of what should be the strong options for the final stuff and will front load with a lot more of that than you would have normally had in MC. Add on top of that you will be able to put way more debuffs up on targets in MC than you could have while current and earlier gearing will play out much differently. Even with the slight be of ease that provides groups there are going to be several stop gaps that people have never dealt with or have forgotten completely that will be constant reality checks for people. I don't say this because I think it will stop everybody from raiding. It will temper peoples ideas of how things will play out though.

[Nitros14]

Using one of the easiest and most undertuned fights in the whole of mythic content (with a heroic video no less) and comparing it to a private server video where NOTHING is correct.

Seems fucking legit.

Most guilds killed CoL Mythic on the first pull it was so easy, but using one badly tuned early fight does not magically make Naxxramas super hard.

No one said mythic raids now are easier than Naxxramas. But he said any fight now is harder than Four Horsemen. Champion of the Light is not harder than Four Horsemen.

And in the other thread he said normal (not heroic or mythic) fights are way way WAY harder now than Naxxramas, which is an absurd statement.

"Naxxramas super hard" that's just a strawman. I never said Naxxramas was super hard.

[arkanon]

No one said mythic raids now are easier than Naxxramas. But he said any fight now is harder than Four Horsemen. Champion of the Light is not harder than Four Horsemen.

And in the other thread he said normal (not heroic or mythic) fights are way way WAY harder now than Naxxramas, which is an absurd statement.

"Naxxramas super hard" that's just a strawman. I never said Naxxramas was super hard.

Dont pull something with all that reaching, stretching, and mental gymnastics.

[Nitros14]

Dont pull something with all that reaching, stretching, and mental gymnastics.

What's your point?

My point is that the original poster was overstating his case. Yes mythic raids now are harder than Naxxramas. But trying to say normal raids

Normal raids today are still way, way, WAY harder

which are facerolls where you one shot everything are massively more difficult than the hardest stuff in classic is absurd.

[Lollis]

What's your point?

My point is that the original poster was overstating his case. Yes mythic raids now are harder than Naxxramas. But trying to say normal raids which are facerolls where you one shot everything are massively more difficult than the hardest stuff in classic is absurd.

I missed the part about normal raids tbf. He's plain wrong about that.

I've approximately averaged the difficulties, so there is a little spill over here and there when you regard early or late bosses but the way I see it:

Normals beat Onyxia, the majority of MC, a handful of BWL, most of ZG & AQ20, Some early AQ40 bosses and one or two Naxxramas bosses
Heroics beat The rest of MC, BWL, ZG, AQ20, everything up to Cthun & everything except a handful of Naxx bosses (loatheb ect)
Mythics beat everything else, the more top end mythics encounters destroy most Vanilla boss encounters multiple times over.

As for outdoors:

I'd probably put the likes of Kazzak, Azuregos, and Ysondre pushing towards the top end of Normal with Taerar as early heroic, and Emeriss and Lethon as middle to late heroic. (All in their original none bullshit anniversary forms of course)