What if Blizzard Re-released Wrath of the Lich King?

[Eurhetemec]

I'm sorry, but how can you even begin to compare with shadow labs or shattered halls. Even gear in tier 4, you can't afford to half sleep through those dungeon, a bad pull, a CC break could wipe an epic geared group.

That's straight up-false. You're literally remembering Heroic SLabs as SLabs. Normal Slabs was never particularly hard. Heroic SLabs was about 30% as hard as people like you made out it was. How do I know? I was there, and I took people through it all the time, and they were like "How is this so easy?!" and I'm like "Because we're not playing like morons or trying to faceroll it". Heroic Shattered Halls wasn't anywhere near as hard as people made out, and literally became a joke if your tank was a Prot Pally.

I don't even recall needing CC in WotLK. Are you really arguing Wrath and TBC heroics were on the same difficulty level, are you really willing to die on that hill?

I've never said anything of the sort, don't lie and put words in my mouth. It's pathetic. I said difficulty doesn't mean much to player experience when it's all pretty easy, and the actual design of the WotLK dungeons, normal and heroic, was far better than Cataclysm and TBC in the sense that it was ENJOYABLE to play in them.

for you to say TBC heroics were easy is you trying to flexx some imaginary muscle. They were challenging, doable, enjoyable, but challenging. And wipes happened to the best of groups.

Get a grip mate. Normal TBC was piss-easy. Heroic TBC required you to follow very specific strategies, and CC and pull well, but it absolutely was not hard, it just required not being a GOGOGOGO moron. Wipes did NOT happen regularly to the "best of groups" (incredibly rare and due to an unlucky fear or the like usually). They happened constantly to overgeared raider morons who thought that they were hot shit. At that point I'd been playing MMOs for what, nine years? But a lot of people, people like you, it was more like four or less. And people were amazed by like, basic common sense LOS pulls and stuff. And yeah I saw people in T4 play so incredibly fucking badly, or just expect things to magically work out for them, and it didn't, but that's because they were morons. But there were Heroics in TBC where you could play like a fucking moron, if you had the right gear and spec. Heroic Shattered Halls, for example, playing as a Prot Pally (after 2.3 or whenever it was), with decent gear, who could basically facepull large sections of the entire place. I find it hilarious that you think it's "flexing" on your arse to point out that they weren't terribly hard.

I will say this - I enjoyed TBC Heroics - in part because it was obvious that because I wasn't a GOGOGOGO moron, and wasn't a complete noob despite not wearing T4 or whatever, if I was leading or telling people what to do, they became pretty easy, and people were super-impressed and I got decent loot. But they weren't particularly enjoyable or involving in any other way. They got real old real fast because I just had to systematically tell people what to do.

And I notice you're dodging talking about the total shitshow that was Cataclysm dungeons. They were absolutely piss easy (certainly make TBC Heroics look hard by comparison), and just tedious as fuck. Also ugly as fucking sin - even ones that should have been amazing they managed to uglify. I've never been more bored and vaguely irritated than I was through Cataclysm Heroics. The CCing added nothing but tedium.

[czarek]

It would likely be released as Wrath Classic, with the effective balance patch being the last before Cataclysm, but the release structure similar to live back in the day (same as Classic Vanilla is doing). So we'd open with Naxx, Obsidian Sanctum, and Eye. Later we'd open Ulduar, followed by Trial of the Crusader, Argent tournament, and Onyxia. Finally, Ice Crown and its associated dungeons.

I look most forward to tanking as an unholy DK in ICC again

I loved tanking in late WOTLK as furry war and blood dk. It was just sweet meat grinder <3

[Zephire]

Trial of the Crusader was certainly the laziest, the poorest, the worst raid in warcraft history with 1 circular room for the first 4 bosses, plus a cave for the last.

Was a fun raid though. Nice to not have trash, nice bosses and no wipes achievement It's actually one of my all time favorite raid. I'd love for them to do something similar again. Way more interesting than 1-2 boss raids. However, not instead of a normal raid but as a compliment.

OT:
I feel like Classic failed with it's raids due to everything being on a "future" patch instead of what was current for each raid tier. Unsure how I'd feel about WotLK with it's last patch but only the first patch's content. I think we would be even more overpowered than what we were in Naxx in starting gear. Would ruin it a bit.

[Penegal]

That doesn't make dungeons hard, that makes them a pain in the butt that nobody wants tio do. As I siad, they were easy because everyone was able to massively outgear them quickly. People absolutely did struggle with them at first. People forget this because of the 12 month content drought where people already massively outgeared them to where they were trivial. That is all people remember. It had nothing to do with mechanics.

- - - Updated - - -

Wrath was not kiddie style. Please stop with this myth.

Man, do you not remember that the world first clears of the raids were done in level 70 gear? The dungeons were a joke from start to finish. There was absolutely no struggle in the dungeons. By 3.2 people were nearly soloing dungeons.

[Raelbo]

I am reluctant to try and rank expansions simply because they have to be measured in the context of the time. WoW is a game that is constantly evolving and improving in a number of ways. Not only that but it is constantly having to adapt to changing needs of the playerbase. So a straight up comparison isn't really that useful.

What I will say about Wrath is that it was an amazing expansion to experience while it was current. Certainly one of the best for its time. It also pioneered a lot of new concepts that have evolved into better things today, and I think it deserves credit for that.

As to whether I think it should be re-released like Classic, my answer is a firm no. I think it would be mistake. Not because I think it was a bad expansion, or that I don't think it could be good though. My biggest concern would be dilution of resources and playerbase. As it is already, Classic has cannibalised part of the retail playerbase. I remain skeptical as to whether it has been good for the game as a whole.

And even before we get to start talking about WotLK there would have to be a TBC discussion, which means that you'd be talking about 4 seperate iterations of WoW all running concurrently.... at 4 times the cost, still catering to essentially the same playerbase. I just can't see that being sustainable and healthy for the game.

If Classic ever dies down to the point of being less than 1/10th of the size of Live, then I'd suggest that it's possibly worth moving on to other expansions. Blizzard opened a real Pandora's box when the committed to releasing Classic - in spite of their better judgement. I am not entirely sure that the Classic proponents left them much choice tbh, but now that Classic is out there, it's going to forever affect the future trajectory of the game, for better or, as I suspect, for worse. I guess we'll see in time.

[rrayy]

Man, do you not remember that the world first clears of the raids were done in level 70 gear? The dungeons were a joke from start to finish. There was absolutely no struggle in the dungeons. By 3.2 people were nearly soloing dungeons.

There wasn't any full raid grups in level 70 gear only clearing it. A couple of outliers does = they were easy start to finish. 99% of the playerbase couldn't do that. And of course people were soloing dungeons by 3.2. BY 3.2 everyone and there mother massively outgeared the places due to power creep and the fact it was so easy to obtain that gear. When you are over 100 ilvls over the original ivl requirement of the dungeon, of course you are going to solo it. To say there was absolutely no struggle in dungeons tells me you were only looking at yourself and nobody else.

[Penegal]

There wasn't any full raid grups in level 70 gear only clearing it. A couple of outliers does = they were easy start to finish. 99% of the playerbase couldn't do that. And of course people were soloing dungeons by 3.2. BY 3.2 everyone and there mother massively outgeared the places due to power creep and the fact it was so easy to obtain that gear. When you are over 100 ilvls over the original ivl requirement of the dungeon, of course you are going to solo it. To say there was absolutely no struggle in dungeons tells me you were only looking at yourself and nobody else.

45 item levels is a far cry from 100, man. We didn't have 20 difficulties back then. ToC 25 HC dropped 245 item level items. Dungeons dropped 200 on heroic. The same as Naxxramas 10-man. The power scaling was *not* out of whack *back then*. (edited from "The power scaling was out of whack")

Also, my point about the level 70 gear was that it was that good in some cases because that's when they decided to listen to people who complained in early TBC that they had to swap out Nax epics for level 61 greens from quests. This is what caused the bad gear scale and in turn tuning. Now you get that kind of jump in item levels during the first Tier of the expansion. And you can't solo the dungeons then.

WotLK was one of the most forgiving expansions in terms of endgame. This is why we had hard heroics at the start of Cata but people bitched about it so they nerfed them.

[rrayy]

45 item levels is a far cry from 100, man. We didn't have 20 difficulties back then. ToC 25 HC dropped 245 item level items. Dungeons dropped 200 on heroic. The same as Naxxramas 10-man. The power scaling was *not* out of whack *back then*. (edited from "The power scaling was out of whack")

Also, my point about the level 70 gear was that it was that good in some cases because that's when they decided to listen to people who complained in early TBC that they had to swap out Nax epics for level 61 greens from quests. This is what caused the bad gear scale and in turn tuning. Now you get that kind of jump in item levels during the first Tier of the expansion. And you can't solo the dungeons then.

WotLK was one of the most forgiving expansions in terms of endgame. This is why we had hard heroics at the start of Cata but people bitched about it so they nerfed them.

Agaim, people had massively out geared the dungeons due gear being so widely accessible and the fact they were that way for over a year led to the complaining they were too easy. Nobody was complaining they were too easy at the beginning of the expansion. People only stated complaining after they massively out geared them which made it look like they were easy.

[Penegal]

Agaim, people had massively out geared the dungeons due gear being so widely accessible and the fact they were that way for over a year led to the complaining they were too easy. Nobody was complaining they were too easy at the beginning of the expansion. People only stated complaining after they massively out geared them which made it look like they were easy.

People were complaining Naxx 25 was too easy while it was current content and you are telling me no one batted an eye in dungeons? Are you from the NA region by any chance?

[rrayy]

People were complaining Naxx 25 was too easy while it was current content and you are telling me no one batted an eye in dungeons? Are you from the NA region by any chance?

Now he is trying to discount based on region. As I aid before, nobody was complaining about the dungeons at the start of the expansion. The complaints of them being too easy were at the end when everyone massively over geared them. I can remember many of those complaint thread and the complainers were reminded that of course they were easy because they had out geared them by a mile.

[Penegal]

Now he is trying to discount based on region. As I aid before, nobody was complaining about the dungeons at the start of the expansion. The complaints of them being too easy were at the end when everyone massively over geared them. I can remember many of those complaint thread and the complainers were reminded that of course they were easy because they had out geared them by a mile.

Well I can also remember how people were complaining about dungeons and raids ever since WotLK started. One of us is wrong. And none of us can show who the wrong one is.

[Lei]

Well I can also remember how people were complaining about dungeons and raids ever since WotLK started. One of us is wrong. And none of us can show who the wrong one is.

Ulduar was a huge step up in difficulty after Naxx, especially hard modes. Also not to forget, if wrath was the "come one, come all!" expansion, then an easier naxx as a starter experience was fitting. Naxx was my first raiding experience in a casual guild. Sometimes we were like hot knife in butter, sometimes we wiped on bosses and couldn't finish kelthuzad for the week. But it was great fun as a first raid for me.

I was a healer in wrath. There were all sorts of things why people died in heroics. Like the jumpuh from the platform in Nexus. Ankahet (spelling) with the must interrupt mobs that gave out damage in big hp percentage. People rather died than to interrupt these. Ankahet was a cemetery all way through tbh. People died on Keristrasza in nexus because they didn't move to reset their stacks for god's sake. I could name many "oh gosh, people will derp here!" examples. But if you look at them with today's skillset (AND CLASS TOOLKIT!), you never gonna understand how it was.
I play a resto shaman. Resto shamans (or shamans altogether) had the lowest hp of all classes. People were running around with 20k hp in my gear level, I had 16 k until a patch that raised it. Which was just enough to die on Loken's AoE for example even with nature restist up. Not to forget how classes were not capable of the same things (toolkit). Which could end up in very different hc experiences for you.

The coliseum dungeon was not easy. ICC dungeons were not easy (in group finder). Or if they were, Cata heroics were just as easy.

If anything, starter Cata heroics were hard because of the group finder. If you did them in guild groups, they were not hard.
You should not "remember how people complained". You should have played it and experienced it.