Its official -- Sunwell Plateau is the real deal.

[Celarent]

I disagree, because Blizzard often times kicked balance concerns down the road, especially during the last patch and that has to be taken into account when discussing the design that has been applied.

Start to finish, TBC has hard blocks on classes.

And again, this doesn't mean TBC isn't fun or that it didn't earn its success the first time around. It's just more a product of the time and state of Blizzard's development than translates as well today.

[schwank05]

I like that the fights are still sub 5 mins. I despise Retail raiding got the simple fact that a raid boss does not need 15 stages and 10+ mins long.

[Raidoser]

To be fair that's a very intentional design decision that not all classes can do everything. They moved away from it in Wrath yes but it's not universally agreed that was a good thing. Dungeon gameplay got a lot worse in Wrath I feel.

No, it's way better for classes to have at least all base tools needed to do their role job then you can specialize each classes in what they do better than others, otherwise you must limit the design of encounters because not everyone has the same base tools (except if you don't care about balance).

Dungeon gameplay was boring in wrath because enemy did nothing really dangerous even in heroic mode, i mean paladin had Divine plea as a mana regen tool and even with 50% healing reduction during the effect you just spammed it on CD mindlessy, it wouldn't had been possible if wotlk dungeons were harder like in cataclysm where using Divine plea without care would easily lead to a dead group member or wasting the mana gained.

[Eternal2u]

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.

Got my first 6/6 GDKP clear last week. Just keep rolling rolling rolling.

[Nitros14]

I like that the fights are still sub 5 mins. I despise Retail raiding got the simple fact that a raid boss does not need 15 stages and 10+ mins long.

Funny to say that in the expansion with Kael'thas.

[Northern Goblin]

No, it's way better for classes to have at least all base tools needed to do their role job then you can specialize each classes in what they do better than others, otherwise you must limit the design of encounters because not everyone has the same base tools (except if you don't care about balance).

Dungeon gameplay was boring in wrath because enemy did nothing really dangerous even in heroic mode, i mean paladin had Divine plea as a mana regen tool and even with 50% healing reduction during the effect you just spammed it on CD mindlessy, it wouldn't had been possible if wotlk dungeons were harder like in cataclysm where using Divine plea without care would easily lead to a dead group member or wasting the mana gained.

In fairness, they suffer from the same problem as all heroic dungeons in that they got outgeared very quickly. With a couple of terrible exceptions in TBC, this has generally been the case. So much so that they had to add entirely new difficulty levels later on because heroic was never hard, even Cata's difficulty is excessively overblown, and mostly because people ran LFD at the start of an expansion for the first time and had to deal with random bads.

Early on there's some nasty points in Wrath heroics, but by the time you're rocking T7 (which let's be honest, doesn't take very long) it's quickly overrun for the most part. Spellflingers are still gonna fuck a tank up though.

[schwank05]

Funny to say that in the expansion with Kael'thas.

Sadly never fought him pre Nerf our kills were all pretty dang fast.

[Millyraynge]

One must not forget that the willingness to theorycrafting has increased more and more in the masses. And the more fiveheads have devoted themselves to the matter, the faster and more efficiently the numbers game has been deciphered.

Sunwell was hard and people knew min-maxing back then though. DPS values didn't look much different then than they do now. Of course, significantly fewer guilds were actually performing at that level.

But that came to an end with WotLK. All hardcore guilds were consistently min-maxing in WotLK. So with the Ulduar hardmodes, for the first time in Classic, the feeling of true resistance will certainly arise even among the somewhat better guilds.

So I would really eat a damn broom if someone manages to beat Freya 3k or Firefighter first try, even if you know the bosses fully blindfolded. All other bosses/harmodes (except Yogg+0) are definitely killable first try though.

[Nitros14]

So I would really eat a damn broom if someone manages to beat Freya 3k or Firefighter first try, even if you know the bosses fully blindfolded. All other bosses/harmodes (except Yogg+0) are definitely killable first try though.

I don't remember Freya's hard mode being that hard. Firefighter sure, pretty tough. Alone in the Darkness 25 was way harder than any of them before the huge nerf when Trial of the Crusader came out.

[Mendzia]

I really enjoy the step up in difficulty if you compare it to extremely easy BT/MH.
Anything in Sunwell is harder than any encounter before imho (except probably pre-nerf Vashj).
I expected Kalec and Felmyst being slightly easier... but Brut+Twins were surprinigly not that challenging in healing/dps checks.
M'uru was exactly as i thought he will be and took 3 weeks of progress and around 60 wipes.
Only KJ left for us so this can be the week we finally finish TBC. :P

[Rikkuu]

I Think SWP hit the difficulty sweet spot even for casual dad guilds...

Its not overly simple, yet its not a guildbreaker...

[Aphrel]

But that came to an end with WotLK. All hardcore guilds were consistently min-maxing in WotLK. So with the Ulduar hardmodes, for the first time in Classic, the feeling of true resistance will certainly arise even among the somewhat better guilds.

We will still likely be seeing much better class stacking and overall raid/healing setups.

etc, 25 hc LK will likely die within very few pulls with a dozen locks in the raid to entirely ignore valkyrs xD

and a modern addon finding and assigning all the damn healing debuffed mobs in p3 yogg will carry that phase.

[Millyraynge]

I don't remember Freya's hard mode being that hard. Firefighter sure, pretty tough. Alone in the Darkness 25 was way harder than any of them before the huge nerf when Trial of the Crusader came out.

Played at For the Horde back in the day. Of all the bosses, Freya 3k was the most nerve-wracking for us.

Freya, however, could be outgeared better than firefighter at some point.

yogg+0 does not appear at all in my enumeration, because that is a completely different dimension.

[Flurryfang]

One must not forget that the willingness to theorycrafting has increased more and more in the masses. And the more fiveheads have devoted themselves to the matter, the faster and more efficiently the numbers game has been deciphered.

Sunwell was hard and people knew min-maxing back then though. DPS values didn't look much different then than they do now. Of course, significantly fewer guilds were actually performing at that level.

But that came to an end with WotLK. All hardcore guilds were consistently min-maxing in WotLK. So with the Ulduar hardmodes, for the first time in Classic, the feeling of true resistance will certainly arise even among the somewhat better guilds.

So I would really eat a damn broom if someone manages to beat Freya 3k or Firefighter first try, even if you know the bosses fully blindfolded. All other bosses/harmodes (except Yogg+0) are definitely killable first try though.

As with any other encounter, that have been able to "solved" on private servers, freya 3k and firefighter will proberly be done on first try, if not 2nd, by some guilds. Its just how it is, because for some players, its just another tuesday when Ulduar opens, as they have been clearing that raid on their own server weeks before.

[Millyraynge]

As with any other encounter, that have been able to "solved" on private servers, freya 3k and firefighter will proberly be done on first try, if not 2nd, by some guilds. Its just how it is, because for some players, its just another tuesday when Ulduar opens, as they have been clearing that raid on their own server weeks before.

There is nothing left to "solve". In vanilla ulduar, all the top guilds were "woke". You can have so much routine due to a private server, with T7 gear some Ulduar hardmodes are just super hard. Yogg+0 is definitely impossible with that.

Most likely, the spell steal trick will not be available from the beginning, which will make some bosses a bit more difficult.

[stevenho]

with T7 gear some Ulduar hardmodes are just super hard. Yogg+0 is definitely impossible with that.

It is possible and it will be killed on day 1.
By China, who will again outPTR everyone.

[Nitros14]

It is possible and it will be killed on day 1.
By China, who will again outPTR everyone.

Maybe with 12 warlocks.

[Kralljin]

Yogg+0 is definitely impossible with that.

I think it's going to be possible, Ulduar gear isn't really powerful.

You'll walk out of T7 decked in 213 pieces alongside a handful 226 from KT, Sarth +3D and Malygos.
Ulduar 25man drops 226 pieces, meaning that you're not too far behind on the power curve, the only really powerful pieces in Ulduar are the Hardmode 239 Items, but those are pretty rare and everyone will merely use a handful of pieces even in BiS.

Then there's the entire question about pre nerf and post nerf.
Ulduar is a massively nerfed raid, check patch history for every Ulduar Boss on wowpedia, pretty much all of them got nerfed / fix in some fashion.

If Blizzard truly intents to launch the enterity of Wotlk post nerf, Ulduar will be much easier than it was in 2009 when it first launched.

Nevermind that as another poster just said, you know which classes to stack for Ulduar, Yogg+0 in particular.

[stevenho]

Maybe with 12 warlocks.

Correct. Entire T7 we will be focusing on gearing locks and DKs for yogg0.

[Zoura]

Our raid leader replaced 80% of the raid roster so we could down bosses with certain comps like 9 warlocks for Muru or 8 melee for KJ.

9?!?! You are fine with 4-5, even 3 but 4 is very nice. But 9!