The extremely frustrating experience of class stacking in raids.

[Kralljin]

I play what i like to play not just cuz omg dps that high WAAAAALLLAAAAAA MUST play that class. Enjoy what you like yo play. Stop worrying about what's on raidlogs now these days... It's just numbers!

Not caring about numbers is self defeating in a character progression focused RPG.

Like, what do you get out of raiding? Upgrades.
What do Upgrades do? Make number go up.

[kranur]

Not caring about numbers is self defeating in a character progression focused RPG.

Like, what do you get out of raiding? Upgrades.
What do Upgrades do? Make number go up.

How about experience and just having a good time? Which is what non-hardcore guilds are about. And yes, they do exist, some people just have non realistic expectations like being in guild that doesn't care about min maxing but at the same time clears all hard modes with ease.
It just doesn't work to cry about min maxing and class stacking while having green parses.

[Kralljin]

How about experience and just having a good time?

Doesn't have to be one or the other, right?

Ask yourself: what activity would still see massive participation if Blizzard were to remove any tangible rewards from it? Likely not that many, because the very core of this game progression, be it levels, gear or completionism, it's all a form of progression.

Progression is fun, there's nothing wrong with it and i'm not going to pretend that this isn't a massive reason people are engaging in certain content.

[crusadernero]

Besides absolutely cutting edge raiding, that has no impact whatsoever.

Not quite true. Whatever the meta is, alot of players follow it. They look at what the good players do and try to copy it. Without realising theres no need for it.

Thats the very reason why we often see a million of certain classes in any given season of wow retail.

Once its established X class is best for a raid, they will be preffered even though Y class do almost as good.

- - - Updated - - -

How about experience and just having a good time? Which is what non-hardcore guilds are about. And yes, they do exist, some people just have non realistic expectations like being in guild that doesn't care about min maxing but at the same time clears all hard modes with ease.
It just doesn't work to cry about min maxing and class stacking while having green parses.

Your last part is quite true. Generally, most players would get far if they just decided "Hey, im going to perform as good as possible from now on".

But, finding a guild you describe is not that easy. There aint many of them and if you do find one, you gotta be able to get a spot in the raid.

[garicasha]

Wish I'd gotten on the first page, but I think there is a legit conversation to be had about how hard Ulduar is actually going to be. Now my understanding is that on the PTR some people have gotten Death's Demise in (what will be) the first week, which probably requires stupid class stacking.

And I run a super casual guild that's barely off the ground, and even I hard pass on meme specs like frost, BM, subterfuge, etc. And more practically I try to limit the number of ret pallies in the raid to 3.06*10^4.

But yah even as I type this...for the low low price of $25, I guarantee there's a guild somewhere with a raid time that works with the OP that will clear the Ulduar hard modes on any toon he wishes to play.

Although I'm still interested in how hard Ulduar hard modes are gonna be with roughly 8 weeks worth of gear.

[Biomega]

Wish I'd gotten on the first page, but I think there is a legit conversation to be had about how hard Ulduar is actually going to be.

Depends on your metric, I suppose.

Relative to today's raiding, the fights in Ulduar - even HMs - are an absolute joke. They're from a time where "don't stand in the fire" was still the epitome of raid-mechanic difficulty.

There's the obvious Y+0 exception that actually required some good coordination, and Algalon that required tanks that put defensives on their bars. But for the good guilds and the ambitious raiders, this will evaporate instantly just like previous tiers did.

That's not the only metric to go by, though. In terms of relative and/or historic difficulty, Ulduar was certainly a step up from Naxx. Hardmodes were new, and introduced a kind of performance pressure many people hadn't really experienced. People who are still in that mindset (and Classic caters to that demographic, among others) may find this a lot tougher than they might have expected. If Naxx cruise control is your standard, then Ulduar definitely goes to a different level.

What will "the average guild" experience? No idea. What IS "the average guild" anyway? Some people will struggle, some people will smash, most people will be somewhere in between.

[Kralljin]

Although I'm still interested in how hard Ulduar hard modes are gonna be with roughly 8 weeks worth of gear.

Normal Mode: Stepup from Naxx, around the SWP difficulty in TBC, if not slightly easier.

Hardmode: Rule of Thumb, if you struggle on Flame Leviathian HM (which is just skill), i wouldn't recommend any other Hardmodes.

[Rocksteady 87]

I find it amusing that the two people losing their collective sh*t the most in this thread appear to be the very same kind of player the vast majority of everyone else tries to avoid like the plague in game. Even more interesting is that they don't seem to be able to acknowledge that they're the problem with the game, not everyone else.

[Dalinos]

Even Raszageth Normal in Vault of the Incarnates is harder than anything in Ulduar bar maybe Yogg-0 or Yogg-1. Razsageth is a double bloodlust, 11 minute, 5-phase fight, of which 3 are actual phases with ~3 mechanics each and 2 are add phases with ~3 mechanics each. All in all we're talking around 10 different mechanics, in an 11 minute fight, meaning you get 3-4 rounds of full blown full cooldown rotations to do on the boss/on its adds. I'm not even gonna bother mentioning Heroic/Mythic mechanics, Raszageth HC/M is harder than anything in the whole of WOTLK period.

For reference, I was clearing SOME (not all) hardmodes as a bear tank in my guild at the age of 17. You're all delusional if you think you NEED to class-stack or play the meta EXACTLY as the pros are playing to do content that was cleared 15 years ago by teenagers in their final years of highschool. As a tank, Hodir was literally a DPS check that required you (the tank) to know what is going on in the fight and move the boss accordingly. Tank swap when needed. Freya + 3 was simply: big cooldowns on big add, big aoe on small adds + aoe interrupts, steady AOE on the 3 adds that needed to die at the same time. Mimiron was all about tight stacking to bait the fires to go wherever you wanted them to and good DPS. Nice gimmick with the little orb you needed to thrown down to ground the Head so the melee could DPS it, yet players (even back then) just found a macro to do it for them. And Thorim...sure, you gotta deal with some extra Frostbolts that Sif is throwing at you.

They were amazing fights FOR THAT TIME PERIOD, don't get me wrong. The fact Iron Council changed depending on boss order had only been used in AQ40 on the Bug trio boss, so it was a welcome throwback. But for experienced gamers in the year of our lord 2023? When we're in our 30's instead of teenage years? Anyone with half a brain will be able to clear Ulduar hardmodes. The solutions are all there for them. It's like when you're asked to complete math exercises 1-through-20. When you did them in highschool you worked em out on your own. They were interesting. Now you're just copy-pasting the answers from the back of the book where the solutions are.

[garicasha]

But we’re getting pre-nerf versions that most people never saw.

But it probably still won’t need class stacking.

It’s still hard to believe that we got buffed Naxx bosses. I mean Patchwerk has 30% more health and even my cobbled together pugs are crushing him in 3 minutes.

[Eternal2u]

Even Raszageth Normal in Vault of the Incarnates is harder than anything in Ulduar bar maybe Yogg-0 or Yogg-1. Razsageth is a double bloodlust, 11 minute, 5-phase fight, of which 3 are actual phases with ~3 mechanics each and 2 are add phases with ~3 mechanics each. All in all we're talking around 10 different mechanics, in an 11 minute fight, meaning you get 3-4 rounds of full blown full cooldown rotations to do on the boss/on its adds. I'm not even gonna bother mentioning Heroic/Mythic mechanics, Raszageth HC/M is harder than anything in the whole of WOTLK period.

For reference, I was clearing SOME (not all) hardmodes as a bear tank in my guild at the age of 17. You're all delusional if you think you NEED to class-stack or play the meta EXACTLY as the pros are playing to do content that was cleared 15 years ago by teenagers in their final years of highschool. As a tank, Hodir was literally a DPS check that required you (the tank) to know what is going on in the fight and move the boss accordingly. Tank swap when needed. Freya + 3 was simply: big cooldowns on big add, big aoe on small adds + aoe interrupts, steady AOE on the 3 adds that needed to die at the same time. Mimiron was all about tight stacking to bait the fires to go wherever you wanted them to and good DPS. Nice gimmick with the little orb you needed to thrown down to ground the Head so the melee could DPS it, yet players (even back then) just found a macro to do it for them. And Thorim...sure, you gotta deal with some extra Frostbolts that Sif is throwing at you.

They were amazing fights FOR THAT TIME PERIOD, don't get me wrong. The fact Iron Council changed depending on boss order had only been used in AQ40 on the Bug trio boss, so it was a welcome throwback. But for experienced gamers in the year of our lord 2023? When we're in our 30's instead of teenage years? Anyone with half a brain will be able to clear Ulduar hardmodes. The solutions are all there for them. It's like when you're asked to complete math exercises 1-through-20. When you did them in highschool you worked em out on your own. They were interesting. Now you're just copy-pasting the answers from the back of the book where the solutions are.

Thats kind of why I enjoy classic. The complexity of current raid fights are not for the normal average raider. They design this shit for top end guys and it takes months for regulars to get there after completly gearing up in everything prior.

But yea I dont believe it will be un-godly hard because thats not really the audience?

[Dalinos]

Thats kind of why I enjoy classic. The complexity of current raid fights are not for the normal average raider. They design this shit for top end guys and it takes months for regulars to get there after completly gearing up in everything prior.

But yea I dont believe it will be un-godly hard because thats not really the audience?

But that's what most people don't understand. There's a difference between stacking in retail, where the best guilds in the world were having issues with the absorb shield you gotta DPS down in phase 3 of Mythic Raszageth, and the difficulty of the encounters in Classic. For reference, that shield needed to be nerfed by about 50% because it was over-tuned as fuck. So overtuned that guilds like Echo and Limit were having issues getting it down. THAT'S the shit that was going on which needed them to class-stack.

Or when Spine of Deathwing Heroic could only be cleared by stacking 4 arcane mages and 3 moonkins all equipped with Dragonwrath, the legendary Firelands staff, because you only got a tiny burst window to DPS the tendrils and get his armour plating to fall off. THAT shit also needed class stacking.

Hardmodes in Ulduar in WOTLK Classic 100% do not require class stacking. Only reason STARS, the Asian guild that got world first Yogg-0 back in the day (you know, when it actually counted and mattered) was stacking Affliction Warlocks was because they could DPS Yogg without looking at him and burning their Sanity resource, and that was after they were told that the fight was mathematically impossible (which it was, with the variables and parameters they had set) by Ion Hazzikostas and the rest of the ElitistJerks team of the time. But now? People are doing ICC levels of DPS in Naxxramas gear. Much like they were doing TBC levels of DPS in vanilla Classic in 2019 (looking at you, warriors with T2.5 and R14 weapons). By any competent guild, Ulduar hardmodes will take roughly 3 weeks maximum to progress.

[Eternal2u]

But that's what most people don't understand. There's a difference between stacking in retail, where the best guilds in the world were having issues with the absorb shield you gotta DPS down in phase 3 of Mythic Raszageth, and the difficulty of the encounters in Classic. For reference, that shield needed to be nerfed by about 50% because it was over-tuned as fuck. So overtuned that guilds like Echo and Limit were having issues getting it down. THAT'S the shit that was going on which needed them to class-stack.

Or when Spine of Deathwing Heroic could only be cleared by stacking 4 arcane mages and 3 moonkins all equipped with Dragonwrath, the legendary Firelands staff, because you only got a tiny burst window to DPS the tendrils and get his armour plating to fall off. THAT shit also needed class stacking.

Hardmodes in Ulduar in WOTLK Classic 100% do not require class stacking. Only reason STARS, the Asian guild that got world first Yogg-0 back in the day (you know, when it actually counted and mattered) was stacking Affliction Warlocks was because they could DPS Yogg without looking at him and burning their Sanity resource, and that was after they were told that the fight was mathematically impossible (which it was, with the variables and parameters they had set) by Ion Hazzikostas and the rest of the ElitistJerks team of the time. But now? People are doing ICC levels of DPS in Naxxramas gear. Much like they were doing TBC levels of DPS in vanilla Classic in 2019 (looking at you, warriors with T2.5 and R14 weapons). By any competent guild, Ulduar hardmodes will take roughly 3 weeks maximum to progress.

That's the benefit of classic too with exactly tuned fights(prior to ulduar) fixed known talent trees for the entire expansion knowing they won't be fucked with patch to patch and of course known boss fights and strategies.

To me that's why I like classic so much there isn't all the guessing about what's bis what's the meta how things scale etc.

You can improve and perfect your class because it won't change minus the gear.

It's just there for a different audience than the retail raise which is why I'm glad there is both

[Dalinos]

That's the benefit of classic too with exactly tuned fights(prior to ulduar) fixed known talent trees for the entire expansion knowing they won't be fucked with patch to patch and of course known boss fights and strategies.

To me that's why I like classic so much there isn't all the guessing about what's bis what's the meta how things scale etc.

You can improve and perfect your class because it won't change minus the gear.

It's just there for a different audience than the retail raise which is why I'm glad there is both

For me WOTLK classic is a been-there-done-that kind of thing. I got my 100 mounts during WOTLK. I got both Ulduar and ICC raid mounts. I farmed my Battlemaster title. I got the Its Over 9,000!!! Feat of Strength the day it was released because by the time they released that FoS I was already in the 10k mark. I did my 11 months of ICC so everyone can get 284 weapons from LK25 heroic. I played the FUCK out of WOTLK when it was current and then some. Only thing I didn't do was get Gladiator - I was fine with getting Duelist as Feral/Rogue/HealerPalaInProtSpec at 2.3k rating in 3's, and farm Time Lost Proto-Drake. Cause I'm a druid. With Flight Form. Fuck that stupid proto-drake.

I don't tend to replay games I have 100%'ed. So, WOTLK classic just aint for me.

[ablib]

I can only hope the OP quits. The less people that think this way about the game, the better.

I can't imagine playing a game the way other people think it should be played, and not how I want to play.

I can't imagine going through life so insecure.

[Itisamuh]

I cannot even fathom the mentality it would take to allow others to force me to do something not to my liking in a video game. The first instance of that would result in me telling them to fuck off and proceeding to find a new group. Not everyone is a stuck up asshole who treats video games like a job or a military mission. Plenty of people realize that min maxing is seriously overrated and not at all required to do whatever needs done.

[Millyraynge]

The raid setup only plays a role at the beginning. Hardmodes are numerically tuned to normal mode Ulduar gear. Optimal setup and min-maxing allows appropriate guilds to play most hardmodes even in full T7.

Most hardmodes are gear checks. After a few 10s and 25s IDs, all hardmodes will quickly lose significant difficulty.

You have to remember that the gear from Ulduar is just so much stronger than T7 gear. While in the first ID XT hardmode is almost impossible, after two IDs you will scratch your head and ask yourself, why was he so hard?

[Toby451]

Raid comps were more diverse back then because the game hadn’t been solved to the same degree, not because it was perfectly balanced in 3.2. I remember being a paladin tank because I loved the lore of the class, and that being seen as an inferior option to rolling warrior just because warriors had always been the best tanks. The game is the same now but the community is much sweatier.

Truther spotted in the wild.

[Mysterymask]

End of the day this is a SOLVED GAME

if you want to play at the bleeding edge level you play ball or move out of the way we've known what classes could accomplish that for over a decade now and the information is LITERALLY everywhere. Granted yes if your goal is just to clear you can do that with most compositions with competent players.

[Toby451]

Thats kind of why I enjoy classic. The complexity of current raid fights are not for the normal average raider. They design this shit for top end guys and it takes months for regulars to get there after completly gearing up in everything prior.

But yea I dont believe it will be un-godly hard because thats not really the audience?

They literally make multiple difficulty levels catering to all skill levels of players. The problem isn't the difficulty of the content. Its the mindset of the playersbase. People cant just be happy doing the content level that is appropriate for them. They "force" themselves to do content beyond their skill level chasing slightly higher item level instead of just doing the content at a level they can enjoy without stressing over it.