What is Cataclysm’s legacy?

[Shadowsgrace]

Also played for 13 years or so, unfortunately never had a chance to be "the special one" so as I said, can't just be excited for specific raid because "it gave me legendary" because none did.

Not even mentioning how Blizzard handles my main spec in the raids, that basically every tank except Paladin and Demon Hunter had a raid tier where they shined, often multiple times, while Paladin bounces between "second best" in best case scenario to "absolute worst" in worst case scenario. I think the last time my spec was having 5 mins of fame was somewhere back in wotlk where ardent defender was a passive cheat death... that paladins lost over time meanwhile DKs gained it.

Nah, if I ever had to judge raid enjoyment by how Blizzard treated my main character, I wouldn't be able to enjoy the game at all. And it's really hard to keep it up when half the timespan of the last 2 expansions my spec was basically pushed out of mythic raiding (TOS, Uldir and EP have been the worst).

I don't blame you for enjoying Firelands for the leggo staff, I'm just saying I can't share this experience, and tbh I'm not sure if majority of people were actually praising Firelands because they obtained the legendary (even if you were the "correct" class often there was more candidates than time to grind it for everyone). While I've heard this sentiment a lot "Firelands = good, Dragon Soul = bad".

Personally I enjoyed Blackwing Descent much more, I disliked Firelands both due to the "overwhelmingly orange" visuals (yeah I know fire theme, but that lacks any point to create variety), and the difficulty curve that was off, similar to BODA - end boss was a huge step up while everything before him was fairly linear difficulty with not that many hard bumps.

Transmog wise, actually Paladin set was good, but annoying that you couldn't get a matching belt to heroic set - only normal from the rep vendor. On the other hand, not every class was so lucky. I think Druid one was the worst, with both other Cata sets being better, and the one from Bastion of Twilight / Blackwing Descent being one of the most commonly used Druid transmogs to this day (especially the shoulders).

Adding more quests / modernizing questlines so you don't spend more time running from point a to b, than actually completing quest objectives, was great.

What was shit is making several shared zones Horde-only or giving big swaths of existing zones to the Horde while deleting Alliance vendors, hubs and questlines.

I'm gonna miss old Southshore, Silverwind Refuge, Alterac and Azshara forever. Theramore at least can still be phased and quested in, but the rest is gone. Together with several rare recipe vendors and whatnot.

Also a lot of old iconic questlines got deleted because they didn't fit into "1 sub zone" category or due to changes to timeline. Well at least now people can relive these on Classic, however I'm personally not much into Classic due to the old philosophy where some classes were only meant to be healers or supports. I'm just too entrenched in the modern idea that prot pala, boomkin or ele shaman is meant to be a proper spec.

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I imagine they'll try to fix it with Shadowlands and the "Chromie timetravel" options informing players they're in fact going into the past.

Yes I get this, but your chosen class, had the options for Legendaries if you change your main spec, Holy had Val'anyr, Ret had Shadowmourne, but you were Prot and Legendaries rarely made it to off specs. Mage had none of this until Cata, when Dragonwrath was developed. I would have had to completely change classes to have had a chance to get them previously.

[Amerissis]

It’s a polarizing expansion to say the least, liked and hated for different things. Some good, some bad; it’s not as universally hated as Warlords of Draenor, but when you think of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, what stands out the most, good or bad? Was it revamping the 1-60 leveling experience? Given Classic's popularity, do you think no such revamp was necessary? Did your love or hate LFR? Is it Firelands that was so spectacular that kept you subbed, or Dragon Soul coupled with LFR that drove you away? Did you enjoy the new playable races and their integration? Was class design good or bad?

What did you think about it? What did you like and dislike?

[Marrilaife]

Yes I get this, but your chosen class, had the options for Legendaries if you change your main spec, Holy had Val'anyr, Ret had Shadowmourne, but you were Prot and Legendaries rarely made it to off specs. Mage had none of this until Cata, when Dragonwrath was developed. I would have had to completely change classes to have had a chance to get them previously.

It doesn't work like that... You're your role first, then your class. Picking Mage solves that problem, you never have to tank or heal. When prot pala was weak do you think I played ret / holy? Nope, I swapped to a different tank class that was viable, because my spot in the raid is for a tank. Kinda bothers me when people think like this, that leads to specs like ret, enhance or feral being weak for whole patches because people always think "well at least you can swap to healer" or something, so Blizzard feels less pressure to buff them. Meanwhile mages, warlocks, rogues are always viable, often as multiple specs as well.

Not that tanks got much love with legendaries overall, meanwhile dps specs got several options. Druid tanks had nothing, and Warriors can say Thunderfury at best, but that one could still be given to dps specs before them. Only tank class that could fit a legendary would be dks with shadowmourne, but it was again primarily a dps item and no sane guild would give it to a tank over a dps. There was no legendary like Val'anyr for healers, that would actually *target* tanks as a role. Meanwhile rogues and casters got 2 specifically targeted at them.

One reason for that is probably that it's easy to design something that lets you "dps more" while what would you make for a tank, something that lets you survive better? It would probably be pointless because you wouldn't have it during progression and you wouldn't need it during farm when gear already ensures your survivability is past the point of comfort. Now if it's something that helps you do damage, then it becomes prio for a dps over tank. Even when we look at WOD rings or MOP cloaks that were for everyone, but dependent on role, the dps ones were much more impactful. Still, I preferred that approach than having 1 class or role being the spotlight of the season.

Rogue legendaries were the worst imo, because they didn't even target a role, they targeted 1 class within melee role basically making it better than the other options. I can somewhat understand warglaives, because in tbc they probably still didn't consider rets, ferals, enhances to be a competitive spec (even though they could be played with some success), and afaik dps warriors could always use warglaives (and arms was a pvp spec). But the Dragon Soul daggers were just taking the piss. Afaik Blizzard added them because they wanted to increase popularity of rogues as a class. Maybe they should've added mythic+ dungeons back then, they wouldn't have to worry about that...

But anyway, it's starting to get off-topic. It started from why was Firelands a good raid and came down to legendaries. I hoped someone would at least say why they thought Firelands was a well designed raid either from boss mechanics or aesthetic standpoint, or something along these lines. Personally I feel boss design was average and the looks didn't appeal to me.

I actually think Dragon Soul had more visual variety despite people hating on it because the Wyrmrest Temple is a reused location. The biggest flaw of Dragon Soul would be making Deathwing about 2 parkour encounters instead of a proper fight vs a dragon. The fact that "it lasted long" doesn't matter because so did ICC, SOO, HFC, so generally last raids of xpacs when Blizz has to do next one. The fact it "implemented lfr" is also not a reason to hate the raid, they could implement it in any tier they wanted, once the feature was ready, and they wanted to please casuals by letting them see the encounters and the conclusion of the xpac in-game and not on youtube. They had issues like premades abusing DS lfr to get tier pieces for each other, but that's not a fault of lfr, only of loot system that wasn't compatible with random matchmade groups, which was changed later.

Still my favourite raid from Cata is Blackwing Descent due to the atmosphere (witty Nef's comments) and interesting variety within fights. Nowadays most bosses are piles of recycled mechanics lumped together, maybe it's becoming too hard to invent anything new. I think the "special energy meter" one was actually added in cata, Cho'gall and Atramedes come to mind with the extra UI element that appears.

Another legacy of Cata was that 10 man raiding is respectable, and not just pleb mode unlike wotlk. Unfortunately, Blizzard did everything to erase that, because they hated balancing 2 modes together, and they hated that people in vast majority chose the smaller option, and they hated not being able to create fights that require 2 mind controls, 3 mass grips or 4 warlock gateways to function as these don't translate to 10 man (btw I hate these encounters that "require" x amount of y class, all you get is people getting benched or forced to bring an alt to cover this "necessity").

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Sorry but I dont understand you where you say "raiding-guilds didnt recruit people who werent level 75".
Why would I want to recruit a raider that isnt even maxlevel and prepared for trial?

Tbh I just googled Cata launched December 7 and I remember I found a guild that told me they aren't starting raiding until after Christmas break. So I wouldn't say I share the sentiment about "rushed experience", I had plenty of time to get ready, and the only things you needed is run some heroics for pre-raid gear and maybe level professions. Reputations weren't that important, and you could get them passively by wearing a tabard in dungeons (that's why people got shocked when in MOP reps were important and required dailies to grind).

Also I guess the quoted guy meant 85 not 75. But levelling in Cata was very quick with their new paradigm (linear quest lines that lead to each other instead of random single quests scattered all around the zone), much faster than the 10 levels you needed in tbc or wotlk. Zones were smaller and you had flying from the start (except Vash'ir, but fuck that place, if you didn't chose Hyjal you got a nasty surprise in 4.2 anyway har har).

"Potions and flasks were expensive" that's basically a story of every expansion, ever. The only difference is in some it was easier to make gold, in some it was harder. Also from Legion on it got worse due to noflying until halfway expac (WOD offset it with generous herb garden).

I vaguely remember using double elixirs instead of flasks in Cata, because it was better to get secondary stats than primary for me, and it wasn't that bad. You know what I remember as bad? Goddamn Deepholm fishing for the Lava fish. Also crafting the engi feast because the cooking one had some ridiculous requirements and was locked behind a guild achievement.

Funnily, there was more "rush to raiding" in wotlk once people heard that some pro guilds cleared Naxx while still wearing Sunwell gear. Since then Blizzard ensured that the gear gap between old xpac and new one is big enough you're forced to regear. Even nerfed Halion 25man trinkets when they proved to be stronger than Cata dungeon drops.

It has a positive effect of letting people return after skipping an xpac and start as a clean slate, equal to everyone else, so it makes sense from design standpoint.

[ThrashMetalFtw]

T11 and t12 was some of the best raiding tiers of all time, and the inital Cata 5mans are without a doubt the best they have ever designed to this day.

Cata had amazing classdesign that made anything earlier look like it was designed by amateurs, and the also awesome MoP classdesign was a natural evolution of what happened in Cata.

The last expansion where loot felt rewarding instead of disappointing (TF was added in MoP).

Cata had some of the best looking Tier sets. Doesn't matter what class I play, I find myself always Tmogging a lot of the Cata sets.



Overall, the 1st half of Cata was some of the best time I ever had in WoW, and that's coming from somebody who started playing 2 weeks after TBC was released, and experieinced both TBC and WotLK. If Dragon Soul and 4.3 in general wasn't so lazy and rushed, it would have been one of the best expansions ever.

[Topornic]

The answers contain highly subjective adjectives.

I think the spec lock-in, talent trees removal and no more learning spell levels. Also water effects.

[Dch48]

It introduced LFR which is great even though it was gutted in MoP and took a while to recover. I did not like the breaking of the world though. I hated losing Auberdine and I wish the Dwarves would rebuild the Loch Modan dam. That thing was awesome.

[ThrashMetalFtw]

It's the expansion where Blizzard truly thought that they were the kings of comedy and didn't have to focus on the theme of the story. Why have the Twilight Cult be heinous and menacing when you can make them stupid and incompetent while also putting references into everything.

I'm not saying comedic quests are bad. The one where you talk to the drunk dwarf about Deathwing was good. It's just you need to wait for the right time and place for them. When you put it everywhere even in moments that are supposed to be serious you just ruin the mood. If Blizzard clearly doesn't care about the story of Cataclysm then why should we?

Also making blatant references to everything isn't funny or creative. A lot of it doesn't even age well.

I hated the comedy and pop culture references aswell, but I don't remember them ever being a part of the Twilight Hammer. You had Millhouse Manastorm as a decently high ranking member for some comedy, but other than that, they were dead serious all the time.

I still remember the questhub at the end of Hyjal where the Twilight Hammer had wiped out the Burning Legion in the area. The way the Twilight Hammer were showed in that series of quest, was the only time I ever felt like "these guys are actually fucking evil and a real threat" in all of WoW. Never got that feeling with the Scourge, or the Burning Legion, or the Sha, or the Iron Horde, or any of the other villains.

The only villains that come close are the Naga in Vasj'ir when they capture Neptulon. Both villains from Cata, so I really don't think bad villains is a valid argument against Cata. Deathwing was horrible sure, but the way Twlight Hammer, Naga and Ragnaros Firelands forces were portayed was probably the most threatening they ever managed to make their villains in-game.

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Destroying the old world, destroying classes, destroying WoW.

Cata was the first expansion with good classdesign.

[pionock]

Cata finally let me level more classes without wanting to tear my hair out. I only had a warrior and a DK up until that point. It was so boring to try to level a mage as frost, lock aff, or hunter BM. With the new talent system, it finally made leveling a lot less painful.

[Kantoro]

There is no legacy. Too many opinions on what s good and what is garbage.

One's man's junk is another man's treasure.

[allegos]

Cata finally let me level more classes without wanting to tear my hair out. I only had a warrior and a DK up until that point. It was so boring to try to level a mage as frost, lock aff, or hunter BM. With the new talent system, it finally made leveling a lot less painful.

I'm leveling a Shaman now, and it struck me yesterday how nice it is to have Stormstrike so early. I can remember when Shamans and Paladins used to have to autoattack their way to level 50 to get spec-defining spells, because that was the only way to keep nerds from cherry picking a godmode do-everything spec for PvP.

The positive impact that the talent changes had on hybrid classes is the reason why wild horses couldn't drag me back to Vanilla, no matter how much I'm glad it exists for the people who do want it.

[Chinese Bootlickers]

"At least it isn't WoD/BfA" levels of bad.

[Absintheminded]

Cataclysm was the death of talents. Now, it could have ultimately been a change for the better, but what it really did was show Blizzard wasn't interested on improving a core aspect of WoW, they just wanted to simplify it and make it easier to tune.

[valax]

Other : Ragnaros's legs

[Luxeley]

Transmog if you feel like plugging in something positive, Lfr if you want to plug in something negative.

[Draenox]

I like the revamped world a lot, and the cataclysm leveling zones themselves have some of my favorite ones of the entire game (Vashj'ir, Uldum). The transmog system has also been one of the best systems Blizzard ever implemented.

It also had Dragon Soul though, which was disappointing at best, but overall it was a decent expansion.

[munkeyinorbit]

The death of 25 man raiding. Irrelevent now but it was a huge thing back then.

[WowIsDead64]

Pros: Best leveling, ever made
Cons: It was really bad idea to attempt to make flashback to Vanilla gimped class mechanics after having the strongest classes ever in WotLK

[Razorice]

T11 and T12 were great, Transmog was awesome.
Oh also, Dungeons at the beginning of the expansion were great too.

[Rageadon]

Looking back at Cata, it's was an okay expansion and very good one compared to the ones we have gotten the last years.

but thinking a bit more about it, like when i played it and what i thought about it at the time
it was kinda boring and it lacked content after launch, it was the 3 raids in the start and people complained that heroic instances and the raids was hard so blizz just nerfed everything with 20% like EVERYTHING most fights became laughable and we didnt get firelands that soon either if my memory is not off, we got Zul Aman and Zul Gurub "revamps" which was hard in the sense you had to CC the mobs again which most people hadn't done since before the nerf hammer.

So it was a lot of shit shows in those two instances (remember my friend used 4hrs in Zul aman and thought it was normal xd ).

Then we got firelands which is the one raid i raided the most during Cata, Dragon Soul was "meh" at best and that is thanks to the Deathwing fight which is a huge letdown after Lich king , illidan and kil'jaeden to name a few.... it was the baddie of the x-pack and we fought his back, damaged his tentacles then we hitted his head, and we won, just like that... why blizz, why?

And LFR was way worse in Cata than its today, and thats where all my hate for LFR comes from.

Pvp was fun,the thing i did most in cata, you could counter most specs and classes with knowledge of it, i know you could one shot people, but yea.. who didnt try for the lols

Transmog was maybe the best thing they added then and still is.

[Usernameforforums]

My friend claims that pvp in cata was the best. I’ve never liked PvP or cata. Firelands is a great raid and probably the best thing to come from cata. Some of the mounts are great. Aeonaxx is one of my faves.