Its official -- Sunwell Plateau is the real deal.

[xuros]

SWP is definitely a step up. Possibly on par with ulduar or somewhere in between ulduar and ulduar hardmode.

ToTC and icc hc will be another step up.

Still not anywhere near todays hc mode.

Yeah I'll agree with that. I raid retail on the weekends and Heroic/Mythic level in retail is far ahead of anything so far in classic.

[cparle87]

Okay, now what?

What is this argument? Some sort of theoretical argument "If we had the power of addons today AND the missing restrictions of Vanilla everything would be much easier!".
It's just silly, because if addons massively interfered with the difficulty if not only a specific mechanic but basically any mechanic, Blizzard broke addons relatively quickly (example: AVR).

These addons weren't available when SWP launched back in 08, those aren't available now, what the fuck is your point?

And this time would've resulted in SWP being even easier, that's just the way it is.

Your argument about timegating making SWP harder is just bullcrap unless the sole metric you're using is the real time it takes to clear the place, which is a god awful metric to measure difficulty.
Timegating makes bosses easier if they're not tuned around because it gives players more time to collect gear, it's really simple.

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, WAs today can do some totally gnarly stuff. But the freedom Blizz gave addons in the old days could also do some gnarly stuff current stuff can't.

I never said anything about my own beliefs about whether timegating would've made it easier or harder, you were.

You said this.
"By gating content you make players less powerful, but ironically they are stronger when they face the bosses for the first time if the gated bosses aren't tuned around this timegating.
Tuning them around this timegating however makes them a pain for anyone afterwards because there is this massive jump in difficulty for anyone that hasn't farmed the raid while they were timegated."

And I discussed my thoughts on your statements.

Not really sure why you're being so hostile, with all the "okay, now what" and "what the fuck is your point".

I was genuinely having a good time discussing this with you, evidenced by the second part of my post which you decided to quote at me. Not sure why you decided to get so hostile.

[Coldfrostzero]

My guild consists of two different raid teams. I run the second, less sweaty group. We decided the first week would be a combined effort to get as much down as possible before splitting back into 2 groups. We are considering not having 2 SWP teams because it was such a pain to find the right composition. Adding a healer or two really makes the fights doable, but both teams have 5-6 healers at this point. Some fights just simply require 8 with the gear available.

We had 20 wipes on Kalecgos, 21st kill. Largely just getting the feel down for when people go in and keeping the healers balanced inside the Shadow Realm and outside it.

35 wipes on Brutallus, 36th was kill. Caveat was two wipes were priest who just pulled and died being stupid. We tried a warrior tank for night two because the other druid tank was not available. He was quickly replaced after 4 attempts because he was in threat gems and such.

We had 49 wipes on Felmyst, 51st was the kill. The third night of it, we just dry ran practiced until we got it down. Encapsulate is ridiculous and the gas seemed buggy until the third night. It would MC you when you were clearly 10-15 yards away from it. Night 3 you could stand next to it and be fine. We also had a lot of bugged out attempts where we were tanking her too close to the building and when she flew up she'd slam her head into the building and despawn. She does absurd amounts of damage if things line up. I have 24k health and she was hitting me for 27k within 1.5 seconds. Bad RNG on her swing timer+cleave+corrosion makes it impossible to survive. Our last pull, everything clicked and we killed her easy though. Was really a nice send off to the combined effort, but would have liked to see Twins.

[Feanoro]

If you're acting this obtuse to not see the difference between consumables and world buffs, then i think we need not discuss this any further.

I'm asking you to explain the difference. Your complaint is about overpowering fights with numbers. So far the only thing seems to be you object by their scale. Otherwise, overpowering fights is a core mechanic since 2004 and continues to this day.

A mechanic that by the very place it occurs only affects a sliver of the playerbase is designed to draw out play time...
...and in the same sentence admit that they're being negated by a weakaura, which thus completely negates the entire thing about "drawing out play time".

I could have composed that better, yes. FU mechanics exist, and by causing wipes, they draw out play time, since you have to recover and redo the encounter. At the same time, since some can be negated by a WeakAura, they're not all these paragons of difficulty you're trying to make them out to be.

[Kralljin]

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, WAs today can do some totally gnarly stuff. But the freedom Blizz gave addons in the old days could also do some gnarly stuff current stuff can't.

Point still stands that this has little do with the difficulty of SWP, because those addons didn't work when SWP came out.

I never said anything about my own beliefs about whether timegating would've made it easier or harder, you were.

I think part of the difficulty of SWP were the gates.

Which awfully sounds like the implication that the gates made SWP more difficult.

I'm asking you to explain the difference. Your complaint is about overpowering fights with numbers. So far the only thing seems to be you object by their scale. Otherwise, overpowering fights is a core mechanic since 2004 and continues to this day.

Yeah sorry mate, i'm done here, if you cannot spot the difference between a Flask and a World buff, then you are being obtuse or frankly lack the insight to have this discussion.

[agentsi]

A lot of memes since the start of classic have emphasized how 'easy' classic is. Part of this is because game challenge has improved over years alongside player skill; addons have gotten better; more youtube, data analysis; DPS and HPS simulators. Logging and analysis is a daily routine, the crowdsourced MMO crowd can outwit and outthink a team of 30-50 developers by sheer numbers.

Vanilla was, for the most part, easy. The hardest part was the roster boss and getting optimal class balance in 40 man raids. Naxx 40 was harder than Naxx 25 in Wrath, but it was relatively easy compared to even heroic raid difficulty in retail nowadays.

TBC was a step up in difficulty, but not tremendously so. Magtheridon was hard in 2008, he was a speedbump in 2021. SSC and TK were a step up in difficulty, Kael Thas and particularly Vashj separating the casual raiders from committed players; again not too hard.

Tier 6 was the 2.3+ nerfed versions, and aside from Illidari Council, Illidan, and Archimonde most of the bosses were speedbumps. Easier than T5 raiding for the most part (if you had the gear).

And now...Sunwell. Well, now we're into the meat of classic raiding and it DEFINITELY is harder.

Looking at the logs after 2 weeks, we see a ridiculously small number of guilds actively clearing Sunwell at launch. Only ~11% of attempts on Kalecgos actually succeed, and he's the easiest boss in the instance as a warmup.

https://classic.warcraftlogs.com/zon...ric=fightwipes

(As of May 17th, 2022)

10.8% of Kalec attempts result in a kill.
6.1% of Brutallus
9.8% of Felmyst
6.9% on Twins

If you've survived those filters, you get the opportunity to attempt to kill M'uru. His (it's?) legacy as the guild killer is maintained, with a 2% clear rate for guilds that can make it that far!

Sunwell is the real deal. Bring your mains, make sure you have best in slot, watch every guide and use every addon you can leverage because you'll need it.

It still isn't hard, stop trying to say that classic is finally difficult. People are still clearing it extremely fast, just the bad players aren't clearing it as quickly as the others. But that doesn't mean it's hard. It simply means bad players can't AFK thru it like most of classic.

[Feanoro]

Yeah sorry mate, i'm done here, if you cannot spot the difference between a Flask and a World buff, then you are being obtuse or frankly lack the insight to have this discussion.

Top 50 raider from 2004 until Legion dropped, thanks. Don't really care if you believe me, but since you decided to make it about me rather than defending your argument, yeah we're done.

[Caprias]

Real deal, or is it? Who is this for?

It's still too easy for the hardcore raiders who prefer retail, and it's far too hard for us casual dad gamers who enjoy classic. Not everyone is like me, but I feel we were in vast majority in Classic-Classic, and still a big part of TBC-Classic.

When 40+ year old dads can beat dark soul games even though it takes them a bit over the average completion time I believe you can spam shadowbolt and move aside every 30 seconds, bonus points for pressing life tap.

Your agenda is hella weird.

[Tonkaden]

When 40+ year old dads can beat dark soul games even though it takes them a bit over the average completion time I believe you can spam shadowbolt and move aside every 30 seconds, bonus points for pressing life tap.

Your agenda is hella weird.

Yea the guy is bashing people but isnt a cutting edge mythic raider and is one of those people who have to wait for big nerfs to come through after his guild has wiped 600 times on the cock block boss. Not exactly beating the door down with skill lol. If he was, he wouldnt be bashing people.

- - - Updated - - -

It still isn't hard, stop trying to say that classic is finally difficult. People are still clearing it extremely fast, just the bad players aren't clearing it as quickly as the others. But that doesn't mean it's hard. It simply means bad players can't AFK thru it like most of classic.

People are also clearing raids other than mythic in retail day 1. Whats your point? The 1% do mythic and the rest of the WoW community does the easy shit. Its always been the case of bad players not being able to clear and the top 1% clearing it first. Your point is moot.

[Puri]

I'm not sure if those numbers really show it's hard. Maybe they show it's harder.
But a 10% success rate means the boss dies every 10th attempt, some may do it in 2 and others may need 20. But that does not strike me particularily high compared to retail progression, for example.

[agentsi]

Yea the guy is bashing people but isnt a cutting edge mythic raider and is one of those people who have to wait for big nerfs to come through after his guild has wiped 600 times on the cock block boss. Not exactly beating the door down with skill lol. If he was, he wouldnt be bashing people.

- - - Updated - - -



People are also clearing raids other than mythic in retail day 1. Whats your point? The 1% do mythic and the rest of the WoW community does the easy shit. Its always been the case of bad players not being able to clear and the top 1% clearing it first. Your point is moot.

The point is the same as it's always been Classic is ridiculously easy, always has been, and always will be. And anyone who tries to state otherwise is simply trying to prop themselves up because that is what they play, and want to feel better about themselves for playing such an easy game and gearing up over folks who can't. It's the same elitest trope as it's always been. Oh look how hard this is, no one else can do it, everyone else is failing, but "MY" guild cleared it. And the last few expansions, Mythic clear rates are very close to, if not over 5% in some tiers, so no, your numbers aren't even accurate. If you want to be a dbag, more power to ya, but at least be accurate when doing so.

[Battlebeard]

When 40+ year old dads can beat dark soul games even though it takes them a bit over the average completion time I believe you can spam shadowbolt and move aside every 30 seconds, bonus points for pressing life tap.

Your agenda is hella weird.

Compare Classic Molten Core with Classic Sunwell, HUGE difference, I prefer Molten Core difficulty.

[Nitros14]

I'm going to take a wild guess that you simply added Shield of the Blue (which is not healable because the dragon can't be healed) and Darkness of a Thousand souls damage (which is a one shot) into that number.
Once you take them out, the raid damage in P5 looks very much manageable on paper.

Here's phase 4 Kil'jaeden from 50-25% from a top guild, progress.

https://classic.warcraftlogs.com/rep...1&end=12345872

If you take out the damage from the dragon taking damage it's 10,800 raid damage taken per second. No one gets one shot by darkness of a thousand souls, it still does damage to the raid you have to heal.

Anyway, it is good for your guild that you don't have any trouble with Kil'jaeden. Apparently lots of other guilds find it quite hard.

The kill %'s between M'uru and Kil'jaeden have actually gotten closer over the last day it seems.

[Tonkaden]

The point is the same as it's always been Classic is ridiculously easy, always has been, and always will be. And anyone who tries to state otherwise is simply trying to prop themselves up because that is what they play, and want to feel better about themselves for playing such an easy game and gearing up over folks who can't. It's the same elitest trope as it's always been. Oh look how hard this is, no one else can do it, everyone else is failing, but "MY" guild cleared it. And the last few expansions, Mythic clear rates are very close to, if not over 5% in some tiers, so no, your numbers aren't even accurate. If you want to be a dbag, more power to ya, but at least be accurate when doing so.

5% So great much wow. 1% is effectively the same as 5%. Someone using mythic as a baseline to say x y or z makes classic easy or not easy makes them a clown. Period. Mythic should never be the measuring stick because its tuned for the very top end .0001%ers. Before nerfs, like 10 guilds clear it total lol.

A much better comparison would be heroic or even to Sunwell and the raids are cleared in about the same time lol. Im not saying that classic raids are hard. Im just saying using "but but they cant hang in mythic retail raids" is an ignorant argument as you and probably everyone else here couldnt hang without massive nerfs anyways.

[Kralljin]

If you take out the damage from the dragon taking damage it's 10,800 raid damage taken per second. No one gets one shot by darkness of a thousand souls, it still does damage to the raid you have to heal.

Yeah i think i got it now.

First you have the Darkness of a Thousand Souls, which still does a bunch of damage, but due to how Shield of blue works, it basically cannot kill you unless your healers are afk.
It does roughly 5k damage, while you're in a shield that reduces your damage taken by 95%, meaning that there's hardly any chance that you're below 5k HP (because basically nothing does any damage to you) when it's happening or something else will finish you because you barely take any damage.

Then the 2nd big thing is the tank damage, it's moderately high (altough not Brutallus level) but 100% consistent, no dodge, no parry, where a Resto Druid just keeps Lifebloom rolling and Holy Pally just do their thing by spamming Holy Light (which they can because the Dragon's breath is generating mana), which pretty much negates any possible tank deaths.
It's not like Brutallus where 3 unlucky swings finish a tank in less than two seconds.

The Holy Pally even regenerates more mana during this phase than he spends.

I think that's the big difference between Brutallus, Twins and KJ, on those fights, healers absolutely have to heal a (semi) random target that takes massive amounts of damage, else they die.
Whereas on KJ, the incoming is actually very predictable, you just have to keep people above a certain HP threshold that a random Legion Lightning won't finish them.
It's not even something that needs to be healed instantly unless that person gets unlucky, whereas the random Flame Sears on Twins or Encapsulate on Felmyst requires immediate healer attention.

TL;DR the damage is certainly happening but it's unrealistic to actually kill a player.

[Caprias]

Compare Classic Molten Core with Classic Sunwell, HUGE difference, I prefer Molten Core difficulty.

No there is really not that much difference, most classes still have 1-2 button rotations and there isn't much happening mechanically.

The only thing to acknowledge are harder stat checks so you can't bring level 58 characters like in molten core but that's really not an issue with the information you've access to 15 years later.

I refuse to accept that "dad gamers" are not capable of a 1-2 button rotation and resolving a mechanic every 20-30 seconds, you must be a troll.

[RobertMugabe]

A lot of memes since the start of classic have emphasized how 'easy' classic is. Part of this is because game challenge has improved over years alongside player skill; addons have gotten better; more youtube, data analysis; DPS and HPS simulators. Logging and analysis is a daily routine, the crowdsourced MMO crowd can outwit and outthink a team of 30-50 developers by sheer numbers.

Vanilla was, for the most part, easy. The hardest part was the roster boss and getting optimal class balance in 40 man raids. Naxx 40 was harder than Naxx 25 in Wrath, but it was relatively easy compared to even heroic raid difficulty in retail nowadays.

TBC was a step up in difficulty, but not tremendously so. Magtheridon was hard in 2008, he was a speedbump in 2021. SSC and TK were a step up in difficulty, Kael Thas and particularly Vashj separating the casual raiders from committed players; again not too hard.

Tier 6 was the 2.3+ nerfed versions, and aside from Illidari Council, Illidan, and Archimonde most of the bosses were speedbumps. Easier than T5 raiding for the most part (if you had the gear).

And now...Sunwell. Well, now we're into the meat of classic raiding and it DEFINITELY is harder.

Looking at the logs after 2 weeks, we see a ridiculously small number of guilds actively clearing Sunwell at launch. Only ~11% of attempts on Kalecgos actually succeed, and he's the easiest boss in the instance as a warmup.

https://classic.warcraftlogs.com/zon...ric=fightwipes

(As of May 17th, 2022)

10.8% of Kalec attempts result in a kill.
6.1% of Brutallus
9.8% of Felmyst
6.9% on Twins

If you've survived those filters, you get the opportunity to attempt to kill M'uru. His (it's?) legacy as the guild killer is maintained, with a 2% clear rate for guilds that can make it that far!

Sunwell is the real deal. Bring your mains, make sure you have best in slot, watch every guide and use every addon you can leverage because you'll need it.

Classic raiders are finally confronted by bosses that require "skill" and not just numbers.
I have wiped so many fucking times on Magtheridon in early TBCC that it's absolutely no surprise that a lot of guilds are struggling.

[Battlebeard]

No there is really not that much difference, most classes still have 1-2 button rotations and there isn't much happening mechanically.

The only thing to acknowledge are harder stat checks so you can't bring level 58 characters like in molten core but that's really not an issue with the information you've access to 15 years later.

I refuse to accept that "dad gamers" are not capable of a 1-2 button rotation and resolving a mechanic every 20-30 seconds, you must be a troll.

You obviously don't keep good track of SWP. Guilds wipe ALOT on all bosses.

And every rotation is far more than 1-2 buttons. And rotation isn't the problem, it's the boss mechanics and gear demands. SWP is really, really hard compared to anything pre-SWP, especially pre-TBC (classic).

Check some streams, people DO struggle ALOT with every single boss in SWP.

[Tsyplenk]

Calling it hard is a joke, considering 99% of the people on classic atm are the ones who could not handle retail raid difficulty so they swapped to an easier version.

99% of people play Classic because it's an all round better game lmao. Nobody wants to play dead retail garbage.

[Battlebeard]

99% of people play Classic because it's an all round better game lmao. Nobody wants to play dead retail garbage.

I'd say 99% play Classic to reexperience nostalgia and indirectly parts of their youth. Objectively, Classic is far worse at most parts, but we have fond memories and we like it because of those memories. This is a game for dads and old people, why would young people with a competitive mind ever chose Classic over Retail?