How will the modern min/max mentality change BC?

[Puri]

Are we gonna have paladins standing outside Karazhan to buff people on the way in? Or a ton of warlocks and shamans?

I mean that's literally what happened at Sunwell then, so yes, you can fully expect it to last the whole expansion.

[seamnstr]

I think the speedrun meta will die off even more. It already has now in Naxx. Harder content makes people try to just clear bosses instead of speeding through the raid. My guild clears Naxx in an evening but we are far from the point where we are able to actually speedrun it (cleared AQ in 48 min).
The lack of worldbuffs will also make people less incentivized to clear raids fast, you can't parse without world buffs in classic so you want to clear as many bosses as possible while you still have buffs, this won't be the case in TBC.
Top guilds will ofcourse still focus a lot on speedruns and world firsts, but it will be a smaller proportion of the player base doing it than in classic.

[Kralljin]

I mean that's literally what happened at Sunwell then, so yes, you can fully expect it to last the whole expansion.

Common setups from Private servers actually include multiple Paladins, so that's doubtful to repeat, outside of hardcore guilds pushing for speed (if that's even going to be a thing in TBC) or funneling parses.

It "worked" in SWP because people had to corpse run after every wipe, now it's just going to be a massive hurdle for any bigger raid, because you're bound to lose some people on trash, who then would have to run out and get buffed again.

It was the case for Worldbuffs, simply because of how powerful worldbuffs are but if you have 2-3 Pallies in your raid, it's just not going to be worth the effort to grab additional blessings to be that much of a difference.

[Witchblade77]

maybe my memory betrays me, but I distinctly remember minmaxing in BC. from farming specific gear items, to manipulating spell ranks (at least as a healer) for best cost to performance to least amount of overheal, to that whole shaman in every group (since as far as I remember, bloodlust only applied to group, not the whole raid) etc etc? and I was back then in semi casual guild. and yet it was STILL a thing that happened.

[prwraith]

haha a BC server will get destroyed faster than classic.

This will be hilarious.

[Synical123]

There was already a fair bit of min maxing for sunwell and Muuru. Likely way more than had ever been seen in Vanilla. It makes me wonder how much more will be done in classic because a lot of it was already done and the content was still very difficult. It's not like these guilds weren't rocking warglaives etc either from BC. Unless in classic they start doing alt runs etc for BC/Hyjal to ensure everyone really has BIS in each slot..

Yeah there will for sure be minmaxing. People doing Darkmoon faire and shit obv. But to the extent of difference between vanilla and classic, it’s not even going to be close. Even raid comps won’t be THAT much different. Look at classic raids right now for top guilds, it’s literally like 50-70% warriors. The class stacking hardcore strat really isn’t a thing in tbc just because of how raid buffs work in tbc. There will be the best raid comps like always but nothing so dissimilar to actual tbc you’ll be thinking it’s an entirely different game.

The things that made classic way different imo is the little items and trinkets people sweated to get on a global scale (MCP, random elixer/buffs throughout the world, world buffs, etc) that literally pushed boss fights to negate half of the mechanics.

Tbc there really isn’t too much of this. Yeah the raids will be easy just because of what we know and the strats are figured out already. But I don’t see it being even remotely as close to what we saw in classic.

[Daymanmb]

I think the speedrun meta will die off even more. It already has now in Naxx. Harder content makes people try to just clear bosses instead of speeding through the raid. My guild clears Naxx in an evening but we are far from the point where we are able to actually speedrun it (cleared AQ in 48 min).
The lack of worldbuffs will also make people less incentivized to clear raids fast, you can't parse without world buffs in classic so you want to clear as many bosses as possible while you still have buffs, this won't be the case in TBC.
Top guilds will ofcourse still focus a lot on speedruns and world firsts, but it will be a smaller proportion of the player base doing it than in classic.

Youre making a lot of weird assumptions... just because your guild isnt trying to speed clear yet, many others are and when people start getting the content on farm, theyll probably try for speed clears, just like they did in previous phases.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

Are we gonna have paladins standing outside Karazhan to buff people on the way in? Or a ton of warlocks and shamans? Everyone is a leatherworker for drums?

And Sunwell will be cleared 60 minutes after release / gating removed, right?

Unless it's changed for TBC Paladin Greater Blessing(s) are removed if the paladin is removed from your group or logged off.
Everyone being LW (4 needed per party of 5 for permanent buff uptime) is pretty much a guarantee for tryhard guilds, just as Engineering is a must for Classic tryhards.

- - - Updated - - -

maybe my memory betrays me, but I distinctly remember minmaxing in BC. from farming specific gear items, to manipulating spell ranks (at least as a healer) for best cost to performance to least amount of overheal, to that whole shaman in every group (since as far as I remember, bloodlust only applied to group, not the whole raid) etc etc? and I was back then in semi casual guild. and yet it was STILL a thing that happened.

Yes, Heroism/Bloodlust is party wide and doesn't give people a debuff. So what you do is rotate Shamans inn and out of your Warlock group as Warlocks are the best benefitiaries of your Heroism/Bloodlust, there's a few exemptions- like if you need everyone to pump. But if there's no "burst phase" then rotating heroism/lust for the Warlocks will be the best.

[Lurker1]

it won't change if i had to guess only maybe 2% even try bc.

[Heathy]

I would have thought speed running would be better in TBC, competition between horde and alliance in classic is knee capped by blessing of salvation which seems to allow alliance guilds to push more, while windfury is amazing it only compounds the problem. horde are just limited in how hard some classes can push and I frequently see locks pulling aggro, kings is also pretty big ofc. palas and shaman on both factions means that the speed running should be closer as each faction has the same tools. if you look at the disparity in classic, you just can't make up for that stat increase and overall threat reduction.

[garicasha]

I have heard, but don't remember as I didn't raid Horde, that blood elf seal of blood or whatever is OP for Horde raiding.

[msdos]

BC was when people went HAM on raid and group compositions. TBC was the first time I was ever in my life denied 5 man invites because I played an Ele shaman. I'm talking about you would not get into heroic Shat Halls as Ele. Chain lightning was still breaking sheeps and even when it wasn't people didn't wanna bring you to find out; plus no CC, plus the fire ele would pull the whole room (on a 20 minute cooldown), it was a nightmare and I went resto/enhance and never looked back at Ele ever again until WotlK.
If you enjoy being a leather working, Blood lusting, totem bot 2.0 for the casters, with zero CC and a garbage 20 minute CD, then Ele is your bag. You do get 9% hit with talents, so it isn't all bad.

Enhance and Resto are way more potent and useful in BC, especially in PVP.

[AeneasBK]

Everyone is a leatherworker for drums?

I think rugged leather is going at a premium on my server precisely because people are switching over to LW on alts for this reason. At least I can't think of any reason they'd even be selling, let alone expensively, as it's just the cured hides ppl want at this phase, and getting them would make an abundance of normal rugged leather.

Happy to be given a better reason, or maybe it's just my server that's an anomaly. But it seems weird to me that it is selling atm 3x the price it usually sells at, even compared to the start of phase 5 when people wanted the rugged armor kits for farming Earthstrike.

[Millyraynge]

I think rugged leather is going at a premium on my server precisely because people are switching over to LW on alts for this reason. At least I can't think of any reason they'd even be selling, let alone expensively, as it's just the cured hides ppl want at this phase, and getting them would make an abundance of normal rugged leather.

Happy to be given a better reason, or maybe it's just my server that's an anomaly. But it seems weird to me that it is selling atm 3x the price it usually sells at, even compared to the start of phase 5 when people wanted the rugged armor kits for farming Earthstrike.

the resources for drums of war are very limited. It's like devilsaur leather just for the whole expansion in way higher amounts. Nagrand will become full war zone over the whole expansion.

[kranur]

Probably not to how it is in classic. Class stacking to that extent won't happen because hunters, rogues and even mages are up there with locks.

There will be some fucked up mentality with only aoe-ers getting into shh and sl rep farms.

What I'll be happiest about the most is not having my main buff locked and parked to raid.

[Kralljin]

the resources for drums of war are very limited. It's like devilsaur leather just for the whole expansion in way higher amounts. Nagrand will become full war zone over the whole expansion.

Drums of Battle have 50 Charges and only require 4 Clefthoof leather.

There are enough Clefthooves spread over Nagrand for it not to become not an expansion long issue.
Even *if* it somehow becomes an issue, Blizzard can just adjust the spawnrate like they did with Devilsaur leather and Black Lotus.

[Synical123]

Drums of Battle have 50 Charges and only require 4 Clefthoof leather.

There are enough Clefthooves spread over Nagrand for it not to become not an expansion long issue.
Even *if* it somehow becomes an issue, Blizzard can just adjust the spawnrate like they did with Devilsaur leather and Black Lotus.

Pretty much this. The leather for drums are almost never contested. It’s better to be fighting over primals and then using one primal to buy all the leather you need. If anything is going to be a full on war zone it’s hot spots where elementals gather. It should be an expansion long fight though as once we get into th t3 content primals aren’t as precious.

[tikcol]

Illidan won't be prepared for what's to come. Better change his catchphrase

[Millyraynge]

Drums of Battle have 50 Charges and only require 4 Clefthoof leather.

There are enough Clefthooves spread over Nagrand for it not to become not an expansion long issue.
Even *if* it somehow becomes an issue, Blizzard can just adjust the spawnrate like they did with Devilsaur leather and Black Lotus.

ok 50 charges... I though it were 5

[mmocfd1b0ab5a3]

I don't think it will be any different. SimulationCraft was there in late TBC tho with only few classes supported at the time. We used LootRank site etc to check BiS gear before that.

In addition to that people min/maxed with professions. The only difference is I don't remember extreme class stacking that might happen.