Originally Posted by
Karenai
People who claim Vanilla raids were "as easy as LFR now", did not raid in Vanilla. Not with their own chars, before every boss got nerfed. Vanilla was not hard, but it was harder then what we have now. Not just because the bosses were hard, most of them were easy in design, but because at first no one had the equip for it and no one knew what to do, also some were extremly chaotic.
For those of us who raided MC before there were ANY guides, in blues and greens, it was kinda hard. And do not forget, Horde did not have Paladins, who made some encounters almost trival. So if you raided as Alliance and do not remember going into raid in greens and blues, you did not raid. You went into raids. There is a difference.
That is the biggest difference in raid "difficulty" now. You go into the raid already sligthly over equipped. Every mechanic is known, every tactic is out there. And most of the time there is only one way to do it right. If you want a challange, you go into hardmodes, where you are not overequipped, if you just started raiding and one slight error can wipe your raid.
I leveled a priest to lvl 90 just before the patch. Ran exactly three heroics, went into LFR and did all LFR raids in three days, because I did not want to push it. Could have done it in one day. As a healer. That is how easy LFR is. Was I carried? Maybe, but I do not think so, as in every raid I put out the second best HPS numbers out, while mostly trying to save the tanks and one raid even the best HPS all the way. All the first time I was in there. I did not even know the mechanics. Did not read any guide, because I wanted a slightly challange.
Now, you have to move faster, react faster. In Vanilla you had to think faster, on the fly. This is lacking from WoW completly. It is what I miss the most. Picking up adds as a dd, because the tank was almost one hit and saving the raid. Tanking more adds then deemed possible. Healing trough the kill, after a wipe was called, because most of the other healers went down. A Boss kill, where at the end every one is still alive is way less satisfying then one where half the raid did bite the dust, but you killed the boss anyway.
One very good point made is the extremly fast leveling. It is just wrong. Especially for your first char. If you want faster twinks, give them a buff to xp after the first char reaches max level. But pushing new players to max level in under a week. Then letting them see all raids the week after is just wrong. It cheapens the experience for everybody.
I very much doubt that WoW could go back anyway. Not to Vanilla like grind, not to harder raids, not to trying to balance PvP. That ship has sailed in WoTLK. It would hemorrage subscribers, not just bleed them. Maybe they copy the idea Wildstar has and give the 1% top players something to do. They try it already with invitationals and time runs for charity, but it is not enough, because those are for the 0.1% who get in.