Be honest. How difficult is WotLK 5-man heroic?

[Akka]

But see, we're actually playing Wrath now instead of debating its merits, I'm enjoying myself no matter what you post on a forum, leaving you nothing to do but complain until 4.0 and I go back to my life, and that is a wonderful thing!

Kinda avoid the whole point by trying some childish "nahnahnah", I guess it kinda says it all.

[Kalisandra]

literally friday night, 4 days after wotlk launch, i just hit 80, was in full 78-80 blues, with 2 badge purples (having replaced my tbc pvp gear with these better items)
I join a heroic violet hold group, dude inspects me outside, wearing partial dungeon blues and tbc pvp gear, kicks me because "i am not fully enchanted" bro, what the fuck? i am enchanting my gear to level but like i aint gunna get full bis enchants for HEROIC DUNGEONS you serious?

What they really meant was "You're not geared enough to carry me".

[Celarent]

Kinda avoid the whole point by trying some childish "nahnahnah", I guess it kinda says it all.

Nyah, nyah, nyaaaah! I'm having funnnn, you're being grouchy on a forummmm, nyah, nyah, nyaaaah!

[SinR]

What they really meant was "You're not geared enough to carry me".

Gotta love these people.

[Pozz]

You cannot compare hardcore with casual players.
The hardcore can buy the craft helm, shoe, weapon and Darkmoon cards, especially that helm has a meta socket in it.

I didnt buy anything(yet) and fairly easily plough through all of them. There's a few packs that turn deadly if you pull multiples, and a few bosses that can be an issue if people dont know what they are doing.

This is heroics at the easiest level they have ever been, while being the top level 5 man pve content.

[Jotaux]

I would say wotlk heroic are about the same as shadowlands heroic. If you are tanking just be uncritable, I still had resil on my lvl 70 pvp gear and it was a breeze. Did a world tour and got geared up within hours of hitting 80.

[Jimson]

It's been a long time, but I distinctly remember the 'Instances Full" boss causing us a lot of pain and suffering.

[Velerios]

Absolutely not true. In current retail heroics are barely above leveling dungeons. In early Wotlk lots of groups wiped on Loken for example a lot.

Because Loken was the first boss that had actually raid-mechanics, something that people simply didn't know back then. So without loot Lokens power level was above the rest, but honestly; he is right, wotlk heroics were the easiest one out of all expansions.

[davesurfer]

Gotta love these people.

While I would never bother with that, I always gem and enchant my gear. It is doing your best as part of a team. I tank so I make sure I gem, enchant, have food etc. It is just your responsibility.

If they go through the effort, is it wrong of them to expect someone on their group to do the same?

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It's been a long time, but I distinctly remember the 'Instances Full" boss causing us a lot of pain and suffering.

OMG you just gave me bad flashbacks. I forgot about that

[Zafire]

I remember struggling with Heroic Halls of Stone for a few weeks after hitting cap with most groups. That room with the lazer and mass-spawns wiped a lot of groups.

[Laerrus]

Compared to TBC and early Cata heroics they were very easy. I remember groups used to run without healers in many of those dungeons.

Absolutely not true. In current retail heroics are barely above leveling dungeons. In early Wotlk lots of groups wiped on Loken for example a lot.

Loken was easy if you did the mechanics as you were supposed to. Later on during the expansion, players quit running out and just stay stacked on the tank.

[Bigbazz]

WOTLK Heroics are easy as fuck, if you're an experienced player of the game. Still seen plenty of people who constantly mess up mechanics, get themselves killed, struggle with mana and anything basic that doesn't even show up on the radar for an experienced player, you couldn't even imagine it to be an issue.

I think people get so familiar with the game they overlook how much better they are at the game than some players. It's also part of why new players have a bloody hard time getting into the game when the basic standard of expected play is comparable with the best players from 10-15 years ago, and the best players of today are in a different league.

My point is that WOTLK Heroics are easy as fuck, but newer or lesser skilled/experienced players can easily have a hard time in them, especially things like Oculus. People keep hyping up Cata heroics, they will crush noobs too, but the level of disappointment people will have when they realise Cata heroics are easy as fuck, I'm looking forward to it.

You realize that Sunwell gear is ilvl 154, while normal 5-man blue gear is ilvl 187 ? (SW gear has more optimized stat, but still a whopping 30 ilvl gap, so blue gear is generally at least slightly stronger)
That kinda adds to the evidence that questing gear is enough, and that blue gear is already massively overgeared

SWP gear is way better than the majority of blue items below ilvl200.. Hell some items are even better. Like in my personal case the best pre-raid Wrists, Legs and Shoulders all come from SWP, they are superior to the ilvl200 epic offerings available at 80, the Kil'Jaeden gloves are on par with ilvl200 T7, the KJ helm is on par with or superior to the ilvl200 Azjol Nerub blue helm.

Don't underestimate just how well itemised and optimised the Sunwell gear is, many examples of loot from there being pre-bis or close enough to it.

[Niwes]

14 years ago, I was a newb.
The pug I joined failed most of the time, especially HoS and HoL.

Assume Cataclysm Heroics is rated at 10.
MoP Heroics is rated at 1.
What is WotLK 5-man heroic rated?

in my memories a 3. at best.

and imo, at that time it had to be that easy, for introducing LFD, in the last 30% of Wrath expac.

[Dequanacus]

They were considered extremely easy back then and are considered even easier now. Of course, you can find people that will struggle with any kind of content so personal experience is largely irrelevant in making an objective determination.

[DeltrusDisc]

People are forgetting how things changed as Wrath progressed.
Heroics got easier as the expansion pushed on, they were definitely tougher at the beginning.

[Addiena]

The Oculus would like to know your location.

Heroic OCC wasnt hard ...90% of people however lack any kind of spatial awareness when given 6 degrees of movement.

It was that fundamental shift to a Decent style of movement that made it difficult for people, anyone who had spatial awareness and could handle that shift had a ball in OCC, it was piss easy and one of the faster runs.

Heroic Halls of Stone was actually more painful than OCC. (Painful as in stupidly long and fucking boring)

[Aucald]

All in all, WotLK heroics are on the easier end of the spectrum. Of all the initial heroic dungeons, only Ahn'kahet and Occulus really jump out as mildly difficult, and the difficulty for the Occulus dungeon isn't really intrinsic but more due to the cumbersome and often buggy vehicle combat featured. With the release of the ICC patch, the Halls of Reflection can also be moderately difficult if you don't outgear it.

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Heroic Halls of Stone was actually more painful than OCC. (Painful as in stupidly long and fucking boring)

HoS is quite painful, but it's not really technically difficult or demanding aside from the time and patience spent.

[Deferionus]

People are forgetting how things changed as Wrath progressed.
Heroics got easier as the expansion pushed on, they were definitely tougher at the beginning.

They are not tough at the beginning. We dinged 80 and 5 minutes later were in a heroic aoe tanking it with a full group who just leveled. In TBC you had to use crowd control because it was unfeasible to aoe tank heroics until you were basically raid geared. Without raid gear we are now pulling 3 groups at a time and aoe tanking it with 80 blues from heroics. We are already doing timed strat runs with 12+ minutes on the timer when we get to the boss. We were doing all of this 4 days before raids even release, on a reduced timer to the original.

[Bigbazz]

They are not tough at the beginning. We dinged 80 and 5 minutes later were in a heroic aoe tanking it with a full group who just leveled. In TBC you had to use crowd control because it was unfeasible to aoe tank heroics until you were basically raid geared. Without raid gear we are now pulling 3 groups at a time and aoe tanking it with 80 blues from heroics. We are already doing timed strat runs with 12+ minutes on the timer when we get to the boss. We were doing all of this 4 days before raids even release, on a reduced timer to the original.

Think you miss the point here. Throughout WOTLK some dungeons got nerfed, certain abilities, achievements got made easier too (like in Azjol Nerub) and along with that a lot of classes became a LOT stronger. Some select specs got weaker in some ways, but if you look at classes as an overall there is a massive power increase compared to 3.0.

Like there are outliers, Fury Warriors, Ret Paladins and DK's for example were all busted in 3.0, but I think tanks and healers are all stronger in 3.3.5 and that helps a lot with making the dungeons easier. Also, in TBCC my groups/guild were extremely quickly at the point of just AOE'ing down things in dungeons, despite that the dungeons sat above Gruul/Maggy on the difficulty scale, though Karazhan was the hardest content with pre-nerf bosses being really punishing.

People went into TBCC with the mentality of "dps harder" instead of CC. So we'd do things like let a DPS pull agro, taunt the agro back.. Much more on the fly utility based gameplay with short CC, kiting, taunt tennis. We didn't use a lot of hard CC because it slowed down the run, people wanted to zug.

[Kaleredar]

The ICC heroics were moderately more difficult than the others; Halls of reflection could definitely cause wipes on trash. But for the most part, they were pretty easy.