What about TBC do you think people will be most surprised by?

[Speedlance]

I think people will be surpriced how fun BT actually was to progress in. To bad we won't experience the graphical update that happen during BT and caused everybody to have insane lag.

[Kralljin]

If you don't think players are going to optimize dungeons to meta comps, you have not been paying attention.

That's pretty irrelevant, because not everyone plays the "optimal" classes for dungeons.

Shadow Priest, Elemental, Enhance or Hunter are essential in any TBC raid, same goes for the throng of Feral Tanks and Prot Warriors, those just *can't* play the "optimal" comp.
Yet those specs will be in high demand for raiding, how are players supposed to optimize them?

I'd fully expect initially to see a frost mage to slow and possibly 2 warlocks to melt big packs, big LoS pulls and various other tricks to group packs together to mow them down.

Because every mage is willing to respec to Frost *with Imp Blizzard* so they can clear heroic dungeons faster?
You know, between respeccing for Arena & Raids, i don't think a mage will do that just to clear heroics a bit faster.

Disregarding that the AoE cap will massively hamstring you on any huge AoE pull.

You basically prove the point i was making:
It's possible but not without significant effort in terms of preparation, when you spend 30min+ looking for a Tankpally, rather than a Feral Tank you'll get after 5min, i'm not sure it was worth the wait.

Probably not, but once players have some gear, dungeons will get destroyed by a competent group

Considering what i saw in Naxx, i wouldn't necessarily describe the average player as "competent".

[stevenho]

That's pretty irrelevant, because not everyone plays the "optimal" classes for dungeons.

It is very relevant and it has been happening on TBC servers for years.
Pallies and mages+locks have 5x easier time getting a grp than other classes. There is no need to theorycraft it, it just IS like that and it will be even more like that in classic TBC.

[Kralljin]

It is very relevant and it has been happening on TBC servers for years.
Pallies and mages+locks have 5x easier time getting a grp than other classes. There is no need to theorycraft it, it just IS like that and it will be even more like that in classic TBC.

Ah, yes, people are going to reroll on classes so they can more easily farm a place that's just a stepping stone for raiding.

[Th3Scourge]

It's possible but not without significant effort in terms of preparation, when you spend 30min+ looking for a Tankpally, rather than a Feral Tank you'll get after 5min, i'm not sure it was worth the wait.

This is exactly what players will do. Many players want to do things as quickly as possible with as little effort as possible. We see this on live, we see this on classic servers, we see this on private servers.

[Super Kami Dende]

If you don't think players are going to optimize dungeons to meta comps

Why the fuck would anyone care about optimizing Dungeons when after the first month People will be facerolling them regardless of their party make up.

Hell in TBC we never even ran a healer for most heroics we did and my main group of friends I played with played Prot Pally, Hunter, Ret Pally, Enhancement Shaman and Mage as our 5 man group.

[Malacrass]

[...]my main group of friends I played with[...]

With that in mind everything is easy, I think this is needless to say. If you have your core group the diffculty of *anything* plummets, but will that be how a lot of people experience TBC Classic?
I don't know. But what I do know is that I've never played on those mystical realms where everyone is a sweater and Naxx is *easily* cleared.

[Kralljin]

This is exactly what players will do. Many players want to do things as quickly as possible with as little effort as possible.

I find it pretty odd to pull the "little effort as possible" arguement when i literally wrote

significant effort in terms of preparation

Like, it's the most efficient strat in a vacuum, crux is, the game is not a vacuum.

Here you even have the factor that 2/3 tank classes and specs deemed essential for raiding are out the loop, no fucking point when everybody is playing Mage / Lock when you still need a bunch of hybrids to fill the raid.
That's the difference to Classic, the Spellcleave / Melee cleave Meta basically replicated the Meta of raiding, a Comp to AoE down TBC heroics is not reflective of the Raid meta.

[Kyranna]

That was only true for those pushing the cutting edge content to be first at everything.

Let me introduce myself. I used to run a raiding guild back in BC. I happily did all kinds of raiding with the "wrong classes" and succeeded just fine. In fact, that is what attracted people to my guild.

We spent time teaching them how to raid (90% of people just didn't know what to do...just needed someone patient to teach them) and quite a few moved on to those server first raiding guilds while many more just enjoyed the content and raiding in the guild. I personally enjoyed leading those raids because you could figure out ways to do things differently and succeed...it wasn't like it is today where you must complete the dance in a specific way (literally with the current raid).

We were never server first in anything, but we did most of the raids on our own schedule and had a lot of fun. In fact, I know that the main reason I enjoyed BC more than any other expansion is because the fun came first back in those days...not the current "Go Go Go" mentality that dominates raiders today.

I hope to find more players like you, that's the way I played too.

[kaelix1]

Are we really start 'dur dur super hard dur', like really? no1 learn anything from classic?

What i think people will be surprised the most?

1-Hc dungeons are not the mythical beast some people make them to be (i go as far and say people will chain pull and AOE down everything like in wotlk)
2-Class stacking and unbalance will be worst then retail
3-Professions are important
4-Raids are easy

[arkanon]

Same as Classic - SOME (far from all) people will be surprised by how easy the content is. I have seen a much more level headed conversation regarding this compared to Classic. Most people do seem to understand that content was and is much, much easier, and even very casual players will be able to clear everything quite easily, if they want to.

[Advent]

That was only true for those pushing the cutting edge content to be first at everything.

Let me introduce myself. I used to run a raiding guild back in BC. I happily did all kinds of raiding with the "wrong classes" and succeeded just fine. In fact, that is what attracted people to my guild.

We spent time teaching them how to raid (90% of people just didn't know what to do...just needed someone patient to teach them) and quite a few moved on to those server first raiding guilds while many more just enjoyed the content and raiding in the guild. I personally enjoyed leading those raids because you could figure out ways to do things differently and succeed...it wasn't like it is today where you must complete the dance in a specific way (literally with the current raid).

We were never server first in anything, but we did most of the raids on our own schedule and had a lot of fun. In fact, I know that the main reason I enjoyed BC more than any other expansion is because the fun came first back in those days...not the current "Go Go Go" mentality that dominates raiders today.

I wish I had met the people like you when I played back then. By the time I got into raiding in late 2007, nobody wanted a paladin tank, so I had to swap to something else. Wound up leveling a mage, and by then, Sunwell had released and no one wanted mages either, so I leveled a shaman. I only managed to get to level 68 before Wrath came around. My whole TBC experience was hearing "Sorry, you're playing a class we're not interested in, can you play X instead?". Lots of gatekeeping back then in my experience.

[stevenho]

Here you even have the factor that 2/3 tank classes and specs deemed essential for raiding are out the loop, no fucking point when everybody is playing Mage / Lock when you still need a bunch of hybrids to fill the raid.
That's the difference to Classic, the Spellcleave / Melee cleave Meta basically replicated the Meta of raiding, a Comp to AoE down TBC heroics is not reflective of the Raid meta.

We're talking about tradepug groups, did you somehow miss that part of conversation?
You can make your own groups as a tank shaman if you like, but it won't change the fact that prot pallies, locks and mages will have it 5 times easier to find a pickup group than other tanks and dps.
Its been like that for years already, why are you even arguing this lol.

[Kralljin]

We're talking about tradepug groups, did you somehow miss that part of conversation?

Of course, that doesn't change the fact that most people are not going to AoE down every dungeon because they don't play a class / spec that even capable of doing proper AoE dps.

You can make your own groups as a tank shaman if you like, but it won't change the fact that prot pallies, locks and mages will have it 5 times easier to find a pickup group than other tanks and dps.

They will have an easier time because they can fit into virtually any group?

Is there a legit reason not to invite a Lock into your group during TBC when you still have a dps slot open?
Top dps.
Good CC.
Solid utility.

Same goes for Mage.
This is completely detached from the AoE capabilities, they're just a solid choice for 5man dungeons.

And Tank Pally, being a Tank is a no brainer.

Point remains, unless the majority of players will roll Prot Pally, Lock or Mage, then there will still be a plethora of groups that won't AoE down every dungeon, because those comp will struggle with such an approach or hardly have any benefit out of it.

[chrisnumbers]

I keep trying to think of something surprising but I can't.
Nothing is going to surprise anyone.
surprise!

[Advent]

I got one people might be surprised by. Now, we who played TBC previously are aware that heroics require keys to unlock, which you needed to be revered to obtain (Before the nerf). What I suspect people might find surprising, is that you can obtain the necessary rep by doing the dungeons on normal. I mean, afaik, that hasn't been a thing in modern wow since... I can't even remember. MoP, maybe?

[stevenho]

Point remains, unless the majority of players will roll Prot Pally, Lock or Mage, then there will still be a plethora of groups that won't AoE down every dungeon, because those comp will struggle with such an approach or hardly have any benefit out of it.

Not sure what "plethora" is to you, just telling how it looks in TBC in 2021 - tradepugs prefer pallies+mages+locks due to aoe and thats all.
I don't think anyone said you can't get a group as another class, feel free to quote.

No one CCs stuff in dungeons, unless group is in quest gear.

[Kralljin]

I don't know what "plethora" is to you, just telling you how it looks in TBC in 2021 - tradepugs prefer pallies+mages+locks due to aoe and thats all.

And i'm telling you that there will be people that don't play these specs / classes and thus are going to do it the regular way, which quite frankly aren't an insignificant minority.

[stevenho]

Thanks for telling everyone that you can tank a dungeon as a warrior.
Who knew

[Kralljin]

Thanks for telling everyone that you can tank a dungeon as a warrior.
Who knew

Comp which requires a specific tank and dps.
vs.
Comp that just needs any Tank and dps.

I don't know, i think i'm playing to my odds when i say the latter will be more common.