Bigger time sink, BC or Retail?

[mmocfd1b0ab5a3]

Difference is, that more people go completely ham in classic (and will in tbc too) with requirements. If you are not in a guild that is going smooth, you pretty much have to do it.

There are guilds that suit for everyone. In retail there are guilds who require 2-5 alts. Guilds who doesn't require alts but requires you to farm m+ between raid days to get geared. There are guilds who require none of those above and will clear heroic in their own pace.

Same applies to Classic and TBC. You don't have to clear T4 week 1 just like you don't have to clear Heroic on retail week 1 (only 0.8% of raiding guilds cleared HC Denathrius week 1). Just find a guild that suits you.

[sam86]

Token gear were not equivalent to raid gear for ilvl and itemization and it was not full sets. It was off pieces to fill in something you were missing and they didn't outperform the tier set bonus'. I think the only upgrade I ever got from them was the crossbow on 2.4 to replace the rifle I had from Karazhan. As I never got any upgrade drops from BT or MH until the end of TBC.

the new token gear introduced in 2.4 was higher ilvl than Black Temple/MHJ gear, yes it caused massive backlash but a single item required something like 150 token not counting gems of course
don't compare tokens that were out from exp start that were equal or lower than hc dungeon gear with patch 2.4 gear
So while 2.4 token gear was better, it required weeks of doing every heroic daily to get, time-wise it is far efficient to raid, u only do that when u don't have a raiding team, or just really love hcs

[Magical Mudcrab]

Retail by far.

I think it's a bit more difficult than just a retail or BC answer. TBC has a larger upfront grind, where there is a minimum amount required in order to have full access to the game (i.e.: reputations, attunements, gold farming for r1 flying, etc.). Shadowlands does not have this huge upfront grind, but has a bunch of smaller grinds that gate content (i.e.: depending on what you consider a "grind", anima, the Maw, covenant campaign; M+ may be considered an upfront grind depending on your gearing process). I would currently err on saying that TBC has more grinds but due to those grinds being one time they won't feel as bad as Shadowlands grinds (unless you want to have an alt, at which point rest in pepperonis my dudes).

[Tronski]

i mean if you only do heroic and normal sure.

Do it on a 10 and its guaranteed. hell, even a +5 guarantees the drop.
so yes, if you gotta clear 30 times its 100% because you're a fucking lfr andy and are bad.

- - - Updated - - -



anima is cosmetic
rio is community

the rest is just playing the game.

I forgot to mention ashes, and probably more.
RIO is just another way of saying shitloads of mythic+ just so you can get into random groups when it's not an option to play with regular people.
Every second of playing the game is playing the game. The problem is that playing the game now feels completely pointless past clearing raids on normal once.

[jacoobjulia]

Hey Retail, no question about it due to it's seasonal nature.

[hulkgor]

You should not use the word "mandatory" if you don't know what it means, bud.
Not even understanding a simplified post.. /shrug
There is more mandatory dungeon and raiding in BC than in retail. This is undeniable. 30 min/week dungeons vs 'whatever doing all hc's takes' each day. Coupled with an ever growing raid-content to do with each phase, while retail only the new raid is played for character power. Those are facts, you can read everything up. I did not even say anything about attunement btw.

Dude, what the eff are you even on about? I get it, you're a tbc fan boy. I also love it, and will play it exhaustively, but you're just not making sense. Just because you'll end up playing a lot, doesnt mean it's a bigger time sink in mandatory content.

Shit, Classic\Vanilla was a huge time sink in itself just by jumping around the roofs in Orgrimmar... does that count!?

[Olololo2r5]

Tbc you feel the time sink is worth it. Retail you feel the time sink is like a job your not getting paid for, thus feels like a waste of time

[Bloodyleech]

Dude, what the eff are you even on about? I get it, you're a tbc fan boy. I also love it, and will play it exhaustively, but you're just not making sense. Just because you'll end up playing a lot, doesnt mean it's a bigger time sink in mandatory content.

Shit, Classic\Vanilla was a huge time sink in itself just by jumping around the roofs in Orgrimmar... does that count!?

Uhm, I'm a tbc fanboy..? What? I do not even plan to play it, as it's just way worse than retail. Neither I played classic, as it is even more of a snoozefest with stupid mandatory stuff.

Maybe you should really try to get the basics, if you are, at all, capable of that. Look objectively at this, use common sense.

[Olololo2r5]

Why dont you classic andys and retail furries just kiss and make out already?

[hulkgor]

What? I do not even plan to play it, as it's just way worse than retail. Neither I played classic, as it is even more of a snoozefest with stupid mandatory stuff.

Erm, that actually explains a lot of the rambling. Thanks for clarifying, have a good one.

[Aesahaettr]

For the way I approach the game, I don't think there's that much difference.

I personally don't think some of the mandatory things in Shadowlands are mandatory at all. I don't bother doing an M+ most weeks, my main stopped running Torghast ages ago as I made the couple of legos I wanted and I don't even do the callings or weeklies on my main most weeks. As far as my main goes he's basically raid logging.

I might run one or two torghasts a week for alts, but not every week. And once an alt has a lego he's done. Im doing callings on alts mainly to help them get the campaign gear.

In TBC I was basically raid logging. I see a lot of people saying "oh there was still reasons to go back to x raid" but in my experience that didn't really happen, once we moved on from Kara we didn't go back. Once we were doing Black Temple we didn't really set foot in SSC or Hyjal again. About the only reason we did was for attunements, which I wasn't a big fan of.

[Mardux]

Erm, that actually explains a lot of the rambling. Thanks for clarifying, have a good one.

So what is the explanation for your rambling off about assumptions you chose to make but were clearly wrong?

[ryjkur]

none of those things are needed for a heroic raider.

Are you sure? In the next tier if you don't farm valor you are behind anyone else.

Sure you don't need if you want to clear heroic weeks after launch but you don't need to grind in TBC anything either if you want to clear tier 4 weeks after launch. Just hope someone else can summon Nightbane for you.

[Bigbazz]

TBC requires a large time investment at the start then tapers off.. But then I guess so does retail, my character was raidlogging for months. Maybe the initial grind lasts longer in retail and of course it resets every tier (which doesn't happen in TBC), but once you're settled into it and geared in retail you don't actually need to play at all to maintain, in TBC you still need to farm gold for consumables, which are relatively more expensive.

[Bloodyleech]

Erm, that actually explains a lot of the rambling. Thanks for clarifying, have a good one.

No one rambled - OP asked what takes more time. There is no subjectivity in my posts (except the last one ofc), just simple to understand facts.
Objectively TBC takes more time, just looking at dungeons and raids. If you do not want to understand or aknowledge that, well.. Not my problem I guess.

[ryjkur]

No one rambled - OP asked what takes more time. There is no subjectivity in my posts (except the last one ofc), just simple to understand facts.
Objectively TBC takes more time, just looking at dungeons and raids. If you do not want to understand or aknowledge that, well.. Not my problem I guess.

Aren't TBC raids supposed to be easy? It takes less effort to clear raids since it's old content compared to new raids where you actually wipe on bosses hundreds of time. Wipes = time.

It depends what your goal is. If your goal is to clear Tier 4 then it won't take long since Kara attunement takes few hours max. Of course there might be some gearing before entering raids but so did retail and actual bosses required hours of progressing.

[Bloodyleech]

Aren't TBC raids supposed to be easy? It takes less effort to clear raids since it's old content compared to new raids where you actually wipe on bosses hundreds of time. Wipes = time.

It depends what your goal is. If your goal is to clear Tier 4 then it won't take long since Kara attunement takes few hours max. Of course there might be some gearing before entering raids but so did retail and actual bosses required hours of progressing.

Heroic raids do not use up much time, too. If we talk about mythic - yeah, retail. But with all the raids you have to clear (each new phase more, instead of 1 each season), it will take more time.
As we've seen in classic, even mediocre people will require stuff like this, making it mandatory.

[ryjkur]

Heroic raids do not use up much time, too. If we talk about mythic - yeah, retail. But with all the raids you have to clear (each new phase more, instead of 1 each season), it will take more time.
As we've seen in classic, even mediocre people will require stuff like this, making it mandatory.

Heroic raids won't take much time for good players (mythic caliber) just like TBC raids won't take much time for them too (trivial content).

I'm talking about an average heroic guilds that needs multiple weeks to clear the HC raids.

Basically you are saying Limit/Echo style gearing 6 alts and gearing them prior to raid launch is not required in retail but in TBC playing same insane hours to clear actual trivial content is mandatory.

[Bloodyleech]

Heroic raids won't take much time for good players (mythic caliber) just like TBC raids won't take much time for them too (trivial content).

I'm talking about an average heroic guilds that needs multiple weeks to clear the HC raids.

Those people are bad and will wipe in BC too, same as in classic. There are still people wiping in MC, BWL and so on. Where do you want to cut the line?
For your average joe, everything is hard, even if it is known.

[Mamushi]

Just for comparison Sinful Revelation/Celestial Guidance (best weapon enchants depending on content type) in retail cost 385g and 285g respectively, and I have around 350k gold on my main without doing any active farming/grinding for gold for months. In TBC the best enchants like Sunfire and Executioner have these ridiculous material requirements: https://tbc.wowhead.com/spell=27981/...weapon-sunfire // https://tbc.wowhead.com/spell=42974/...on-executioner

I can already say with absolute certainty that Primal Fires won't be going for the old 20-30g a pop that they used to back in the original TBC and Primal Might won't be 100g each either based on the insane consumable and reagent prices we had during Classic. So in the case of Sunfire you are looking at something like 1k+ gold (even if the shards/crystals/dust are relatively cheap) for one weapon enchant when daily quests typically reward you with something between 5-15g each if I remember correctly.

Raid consumables like flasks, potions and food will be relatively cheaper when compared to classic but still more expensive than in retail