These 2 weeks of TBC Pre patch has made me realise something..

[Spoonman]

Classic Vanila feels 100 times better when played with the 2.5.1 Patch than it did with the Vanilla Patch we had (1.13.7??)
The biggest reason behind this is that 80% of the classes doesnt even feel playable in the "Vanilla Patch" when u compare it to the "TBC Patch"
I led lot of pug runs in Vanilla Classic and before pre patch it was just warriors everywhere but now after the patch holy crap the variety is incredible
Every single spec feels very viable in the Vanilla Era
If I ever think of myself staying in Vanilla WoW I would def do it with the 2.5.1 Patch

What does this mean going forward?

What if now that TBC launches we instead would play it with the final patch of WOTLK?
With this I dont mean we should have Death Knights in TBC or that you could level to 80 or even go to Northrend
I only mean that the classes that were active in TBC all would have spells, abilites and talents based around the final patch of WOTLK

Thoughts?

[Delever]

Classic Vanila feels 100 times better when played with the 2.5.1 Patch than it did with the Vanilla Patch we had (1.13.7??)
The biggest reason behind this is that 80% of the classes doesnt even feel playable in the "Vanilla Patch" when u compare it to the "TBC Patch"
I led lot of pug runs in Vanilla Classic and before pre patch it was just warriors everywhere but now after the patch holy crap the variety is incredible
Every single spec feels very viable in the Vanilla Era
If I ever think of myself staying in Vanilla WoW I would def do it with the 2.5.1 Patch

What does this mean going forward?

What if now that TBC launches we instead would play it with the final patch of WOTLK?
With this I dont mean we should have Death Knights in TBC or that you could level to 80 or even go to Northrend
I only mean that the classes that were active in TBC all would have spells, abilites and talents based around the final patch of WOTLK

Thoughts?

The only thing I ll say is that I remember when the WoTLK pre patch hit I pugged BT up to Gorefiend with a bunch of randoms just because of how ridiculously OP everyone was with the new talents and abilities. And that was back when most people still were very shitty at the game, myself included. So with todays standards I dont think its a very good idea.

[Wavebossa]

I was with you until the Wotlk prepatch idea.

TBC spec balance and variety feels better than vanilla because it was better. Wasn't perfect, but was better. TBC was the most "expansion" expansion for WoW. I would argue that later expansions retooled alot of things instead of expanding on good ideas.

Basically, i dont think it would work as well going forward.

[Prag]

I think it’s easy to mix “viable” and “optimal”.

I prefer TBC, too. Specs feel miles ahead in terms of feel and function. Balance is obviously skewed right now, but it’s a lot of fun AND I don’t have to worry about not using an ability (eg Rend or Serpent Sting) because of some arbitrary cap.

I’m looking forward to WotLK in a sense, but not as strongly as I was eager to move away from Vanilla specs.

[kranur]

What next? Have wotlk with cataclysm talents?

[Kralljin]

No.

Wotlk nuked the concept of support specs - "Bring the player, not the class".
Wotlk made every tank capable of AoE tanking and gave almost every dps access to AoE abilities => Massively enabling the AoE dungeon Meta.
Wotlk also massively shortened the CD of certain abilities, such as Recklessness / Shield Wall (Basically offensive and defensive CD's) which caused a huge powerspike for the players.
Wotlk talents are balanced around 80, not 70, certain talents do not work without certain abilities (Elemental has a Lava Burst related talent, that frankly makes no sense without Lava Burst).

I get that some people desperately crave Wotlk because it's their peak of WoW, but it represents the point where the devs intentionally turned the player into a powerhouse that can nuke a multitude of enemies in their path with Cooldowns & AoE abilities.

[Thage]

WotLK's design systems should come with WotLK, not before. Even with the whole #somechanges thing Blizz is doing now, the core gameplay for TBC is still intact and should remain so. If you're keen on pushing TBC content with WotLK systems in place, your goal might ought to instead be pushing for a longer prepatch period once 3.4 lands or find or found a guild intended for level 70 content done at-level without death knights or Northrend items.

[shise]

I don´t think it would make sense, TBC classes were TBC designed. What would they then do for WotLK classic.. because it´s coming and it´s certainly coming with wow classic tokens btw :P

[sam86]

Wotlk nuked the concept of support specs - "Bring the player, not the class"

wotlk is the only exp with a true support non-healer spec demonology warlock, literally the ONLY exp to ever do that
how the fuck did it nuke it exactly? which wotlk did u play?

[Segus1992]

I was with you until the Wotlk prepatch idea.

TBC spec balance and variety feels better than vanilla because it was better. Wasn't perfect, but was better. TBC was the most "expansion" expansion for WoW. I would argue that later expansions retooled alot of things instead of expanding on good ideas.

Basically, i dont think it would work as well going forward.

Basically this - TBC feels like an upgraded version of Vanilla because that's exactly what it was. No spec was fundamentally changed in TBC, but rather just improved on or iterated on. TBC is Vanilla 2.0, whereas Wrath is WoW 2.

- - - Updated - - -

wotlk is the only exp with a true support non-healer spec demonology warlock, literally the ONLY exp to ever do that
how the fuck did it nuke it exactly? which wotlk did u play?

Ever heard of TBC Shadow Priest? True support? What you smokin bro?

[Heathy]

tanking as prot does feel better from what I can tell, the average amount of rage you generate seems to be enough to spam devastate and that creates a lot more threat than spamming sunder did prior to this.

ill miss the fury/prot hybrid though. mainly because you were still pretty decent as dps even if you didn't have impale. while this system is more focused. it felt pretty good to be able to tank and also dps moderately well just by switching gear sets, it'll be a shame to go back to being either a full tank or a full dps. that inbetween has been killed off pretty much.

[guisadop]

I would love something like this. Maybe WotLK with vanilla spells? Or with TBC spells? Or BfA/Shadowlands with WotLK/BC spells?
Honestly, it would be interesting to see.

[TrollHunter3000]

Classic Vanila feels 100 times better when played with the 2.5.1 Patch than it did with the Vanilla Patch we had (1.13.7??)
The biggest reason behind this is that 80% of the classes doesnt even feel playable in the "Vanilla Patch" when u compare it to the "TBC Patch"
I led lot of pug runs in Vanilla Classic and before pre patch it was just warriors everywhere but now after the patch holy crap the variety is incredible
Every single spec feels very viable in the Vanilla Era
If I ever think of myself staying in Vanilla WoW I would def do it with the 2.5.1 Patch

What does this mean going forward?

What if now that TBC launches we instead would play it with the final patch of WOTLK?
With this I dont mean we should have Death Knights in TBC or that you could level to 80 or even go to Northrend
I only mean that the classes that were active in TBC all would have spells, abilites and talents based around the final patch of WOTLK

Thoughts?

why the fuck would anyone want that? I mean, if we're going that route let's play TBC with BFA talents

[Spoonman]

why the fuck would anyone want that? I mean, if we're going that route let's play TBC with BFA talents

I dont see it working by applying an expansion with the new talent system into a old one.
This means it wont work to apply a patch starting from MoP into anything older than it

So we could play TBC with cata talents but it works better with WOTLK because in cata there is no talent point rewarded on lvl 70

[MrLachyG]

Classic Vanila feels 100 times better when played with the 2.5.1 Patch than it did with the Vanilla Patch we had (1.13.7??)
The biggest reason behind this is that 80% of the classes doesnt even feel playable in the "Vanilla Patch" when u compare it to the "TBC Patch"
I led lot of pug runs in Vanilla Classic and before pre patch it was just warriors everywhere but now after the patch holy crap the variety is incredible
Every single spec feels very viable in the Vanilla Era
If I ever think of myself staying in Vanilla WoW I would def do it with the 2.5.1 Patch

What does this mean going forward?

What if now that TBC launches we instead would play it with the final patch of WOTLK?
With this I dont mean we should have Death Knights in TBC or that you could level to 80 or even go to Northrend
I only mean that the classes that were active in TBC all would have spells, abilites and talents based around the final patch of WOTLK

Thoughts?

Why would we play TBC with WotLK patch? That’s not how it works at all. When the prepatch for Wrath Classic comes out then we will get the Wrath system

[ReVnX]

It feels better because TBC completed Vanilla. TBC feels like original WoW's final product.

[Donald Hellscream]

I think the biggest issue would be how players would just plow through the content, more so than they already will, which would cause some people to lament that there is nothing to do because they gobbled up all the content so quickly, granted it will probably still happen with how much more skilled people are now compared to back then.

[Ohsorry]

The only thing I ll say is that I remember when the WoTLK pre patch hit I pugged BT up to Gorefiend with a bunch of randoms just because of how ridiculously OP everyone was with the new talents and abilities.

BT and Sunwell also had like 30% nerfs across the board iirc.

[Kralljin]

wotlk is the only exp with a true support non-healer spec demonology warlock, literally the ONLY exp to ever do that

What are Shadowpriests, Balance Druids, Elemental and Enhancement Shaman in TBC to you?

Calling Demo a "support spec" in Wotlk is pretty overblown, they have a single "unique buff" Demonic Pact, which grants the raid 10% of their Spellpower.
Technically, it's supposed to be identical to Totem of Wrath, but for some reason, that only granted a fixed 280 SP, therefore, unlike any other spec specific support buff, Demo received an objectively more powerful than Ele.

But compare that single buff to multiple unique buffs that those specs above brought in TBC, it's not even close.

If you want to apply the logic of "well, but it does scale with their gear!", then i can also call SV in TBC a support spec because Expose Weakness scales with their agility.

how the fuck did it nuke it exactly? which wotlk did u play?

In TBC, every hybrid had some unique buff, in Wotlk, they didn't.
Elemental / Enhance went from one of the most sought after specs to: "We already have a Resto for Bloodlust, just reroll Rogue / Lock please".

[Beloren]

No.

Wotlk nuked the concept of support specs - "Bring the player, not the class".
Wotlk made every tank capable of AoE tanking and gave almost every dps access to AoE abilities => Massively enabling the AoE dungeon Meta.
Wotlk also massively shortened the CD of certain abilities, such as Recklessness / Shield Wall (Basically offensive and defensive CD's) which caused a huge powerspike for the players.
Wotlk talents are balanced around 80, not 70, certain talents do not work without certain abilities (Elemental has a Lava Burst related talent, that frankly makes no sense without Lava Burst).

I get that some people desperately crave Wotlk because it's their peak of WoW, but it represents the point where the devs intentionally turned the player into a powerhouse that can nuke a multitude of enemies in their path with Cooldowns & AoE abilities.

you forget that prior to WotLk, the other classes couldn't tank, it wasn't just making every tank capable of AoE, only warriors could tank, the other tank specs for palas and druids were off tanks at best. it wasn't just aoe ability that was improved at wotlk.

same for dps, specs like balance druids were just rubbish, if you weren't a mage, rogue or warrior, hunter, lock - forget it, you weren't competitive till WotLk. your contribution was buff or utility, which others had just as useful ones.