TBC HC dungeons hard or nah?

[Lucetia]

SP and STV.

Slightly off topic but that is the first time I have ever seen anyone write STV for Steamvaults since STV has always mean Stranglethorn Valley since Vanilla.

[acphydro]

Slightly off topic but that is the first time I have ever seen anyone write STV for Steamvaults since STV has always mean Stranglethorn Valley since Vanilla.

It always has and always be will “SV”

[anon5123]

The only truly difficult heroics are Blood Furnace and Shattered Halls, and maybe OHB if you have few CCers.

Everything else is just decently hard, or even absurdly easy like slave pens or mechanar/botanica.

[Lucetia]

It always has and always be will “SV”

Yes, I know. SV = Steamvaults, but the person I was quoting was calling Steamvaults = STV which I was then commenting that I have never ever heard anyone call it that since ever since Vanilla STV meant Stranglethorn Vale.

[Akka]

No 5 man content in any version of the game will ever be difficult now that we have seen Mythic+.
The timer and affixes change everything, and every other version of dungeons will never feel hard again.

Yes and no.

First, the difficulty nature in M+ is of a particular brand that is different and doesn't appeal to everyone - it's a timed attempt vs a completion run. That alone change the perception and even the desire to do it to begin with. What makes M+ difficult is that you need to rush, and a single wipe can mean you "fail". While wiping is a pretty common happenstance in TBC HC.

Second, M+ makes comparisons difficult and even somewhat pointless, because it's not about the instance but more about the number after. What are we comparing here ? M1 is certainly much easier than any TBC heroic, and probably even a number of normals. M25+ is certainly harder than anything TBC can throw at you.

[SimithDAEN]

IIRC you only needed 1 or 2 CCs for heroic dungeons. They were hard at first because of the lack of gear/gold but give it a month after hitting 70 and people will be blasting through them quite easily.

[Nak88]

As a frost mage (alt), they are extremely easy. I just pop cds, Blizzard max range/rank and ez, tank gets no damage and I carry the whole instance.

[AeneasBK]

The only real metric for determining difficulty is "how do you fare in PuGs" because not a single heroic is remotely difficult in an organised group you simply have to understand how to defeat the various packs and then it's just going through the motions.

I'd say the hard heroics under the "Would I join a PuG for this HC for quick badges" measure are : Old Hillsbrad Foothills.

And that's kinda it.

[Millyraynge]

blood furnance is always an adventure with pugs.

[arkanon]

SH can be interesting with dps who go ham the moment the tank thinks of pulling, but overall, it generally takes poor play to cause issues. I guess that perception depends on if you pug, play with friends, guild, geared people, people in questing greens, ideal classes, less ideal classes, etc etc etc.

[krouger]

Mechanics are extremely easy but the damage from those trash mobs are extremely high and their HP aswell i believe more than mobs on M0 retail. That said with proper CC and 5 people with little bit of brains heroics are no problem at all

[Necromantic]

My question is, people said in the past that wow vanilla raids were hard and it turned out they were piss easy,

They were hard back when they were relevant content because people had to "figure out" the strats, "figure out" what resistance gear was necessary, etc.

By the time Classic came out, there was over a decade of videos pin-pointing exactly what to do, where to go... showing you how to low-man or cheese these raids. A lot of old school Nintendo games were hard when they came out. Now, you have the internet that can map the entire game for you.

Some modern "after thought" QoL addons can change a lot too. That's why I don't run addons in my game. It just takes all the fun out of it for me.

[OrcsRLame]

They were hard back when they were relevant content because people had to "figure out" the strats, "figure out" what resistance gear was necessary, etc.

By the time Classic came out, there was over a decade of videos pin-pointing exactly what to do, where to go... showing you how to low-man or cheese these raids. A lot of old school Nintendo games were hard when they came out. Now, you have the internet that can map the entire game for you.

Some modern "after thought" QoL addons can change a lot too. That's why I don't run addons in my game. It just takes all the fun out of it for me.

Classic raids not being difficult was death by a thousand cuts, but the biggest of those cuts was just the raw dps that people do nowadays. Even without world buffs people just did so much damage in classic compared to original vanilla.

Like if you go back and watch old raid videos, top dps was usually around 200-300 in T2 gear. In classic that was more like the bottom dps of a casual guild with no world buffs. Nothing else matters if the boss just gets vaporized.

You could ask why people do so much more damage now of course. I think the biggest thing is that people are more skilled. You no longer see the main tank sitting there auto attacking with a full rage bar only using 1 ability every 10 seconds for example. (It's shocking how common that is in old raid videos.) And then the rest of it is just better builds and gearing which to some extent is a knowledge thing but even without prior knowledge or advanced tools gear in vanilla is actually pretty intuitive if you're capable of reading and using an arithmetic calculator.

[ellieg]

Classic raids not being difficult was death by a thousand cuts, but the biggest of those cuts was just the raw dps that people do nowadays. Even without world buffs people just did so much damage in classic compared to original vanilla.

Like if you go back and watch old raid videos, top dps was usually around 200-300 in T2 gear. In classic that was more like the bottom dps of a casual guild with no world buffs. Nothing else matters if the boss just gets vaporized.

You could ask why people do so much more damage now of course. I think the biggest thing is that people are more skilled. You no longer see the main tank sitting there auto attacking with a full rage bar only using 1 ability every 10 seconds for example. (It's shocking how common that is in old raid videos.) And then the rest of it is just better builds and gearing which to some extent is a knowledge thing but even without prior knowledge or advanced tools gear in vanilla is actually pretty intuitive if you're capable of reading and using an arithmetic calculator.

I agree with both of you. For 1, we had 1.12 talents in classic. We also had ppl picking the best talents instead of the weird hybrid 15ish pts in each tree nonsense that was more prevalent back then cause ppl didn't know what they were doing.

On top of that ppl gear better now. Theres a BiS list. It isn't just "this is epic tier, its definitely better than my blue". Or even ppl with the thought process of "im a mage, I need agi cause it gives me dodge and I die easy" or even melee warlocks lol

[Necromantic]

Classic raids not being difficult was death by a thousand cuts, but the biggest of those cuts was just the raw dps that people do nowadays. Even without world buffs people just did so much damage in classic compared to original vanilla.

Like if you go back and watch old raid videos, top dps was usually around 200-300 in T2 gear. In classic that was more like the bottom dps of a casual guild with no world buffs. Nothing else matters if the boss just gets vaporized.

You could ask why people do so much more damage now of course. I think the biggest thing is that people are more skilled. You no longer see the main tank sitting there auto attacking with a full rage bar only using 1 ability every 10 seconds for example. (It's shocking how common that is in old raid videos.) And then the rest of it is just better builds and gearing which to some extent is a knowledge thing but even without prior knowledge or advanced tools gear in vanilla is actually pretty intuitive if you're capable of reading and using an arithmetic calculator.

ellieg beat me to a part of it. Here we are, over a decade later and we already know what's BiS. We didn't know back then. We didn't know what the most optimal talent builds were. We have over a decade of knowledge (and practice for people who played a lot of private servers) that we did not have in 2007. I'm sure there are even addons we didn't have.

[Exer]

I agree with both of you. For 1, we had 1.12 talents in classic. We also had ppl picking the best talents instead of the weird hybrid 15ish pts in each tree nonsense that was more prevalent back then cause ppl didn't know what they were doing.

On top of that ppl gear better now. Theres a BiS list. It isn't just "this is epic tier, its definitely better than my blue". Or even ppl with the thought process of "im a mage, I need agi cause it gives me dodge and I die easy" or even melee warlocks lol

Man you're overthinking. The whole reason is simple, 1.12 talents + better accessibility to guides than in 2004. I never heard of mages needing agi gear, and tanks were more than just spamming 1 ability at full rage bar. Those videos sound nitpicky rather than the norm back then.

[OrcsRLame]

ellieg beat me to a part of it. Here we are, over a decade later and we already know what's BiS. We didn't know back then. We didn't know what the most optimal talent builds were. We have over a decade of knowledge (and practice for people who played a lot of private servers) that we did not have in 2007. I'm sure there are even addons we didn't have.

I more or less agree, but I think prior knowledge of the specifics of vanilla is overstated in terms of impact.

It certainly helps to have a BiS list, (More so for casual raiders.) but I think general knowledge of how wow works being so prolific is much more important than the specific knowledge of things like BiS lists and talent builds from vanilla.

Knowing things like doing damage is good and crit gives big big damage is imo way more important than having easily accessible BiS lists. As ellieg pointed out, in original vanilla a lot of people went for stuff that is obviously bad that you don't need specific knowledge of vanilla to know it's bad. For example, no one that's gotten multiple AOTCs in BFA and Shadowlands would ever even consider gearing for agi on a mage for dodge for endgame raiding. They'd be looking for stats that pump damage.

If I had to rank order things, (Minus world buffs.) I would rate the differences as follows from largest to smallest.

1. Player skill and general knowledge.

2. Better PCs and internet.

3. A more serious progress focused mindset cultivated by over a decade of retail's raiding meta.

4. Specific knowledge such as boss mechanics, ready made BiS lists and optimized talent builds.

5. Balance changes such as 1.12 talents and post nerf versions of bosses.

- - - Updated - - -

Man you're overthinking. The whole reason is simple, 1.12 talents + better accessibility to guides than in 2004. I never heard of mages needing agi gear, and tanks were more than just spamming 1 ability at full rage bar. Those videos sound nitpicky rather than the norm back then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WHdCCE5HHk

That's the world first Onyxia kill according to Method's world first timeline on their site. You gonna watch that video and tell me those players aren't pants on head retarded by today's standards?

This is some random guild from classic killing Patchwerk with no world buffs. 3 Minute fight. https://youtu.be/oin2gvAr1_M?t=1233

This is a very early kill of Patchwerk from vanilla, not WF because there's no video of WF. 7 Minute fight. This is also courtesy of Method's main site. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhqIp6EsXFE

You can't blame Naxx shit on 1.12 talents.

[ellieg]

Man you're overthinking. The whole reason is simple, 1.12 talents + better accessibility to guides than in 2004. I never heard of mages needing agi gear, and tanks were more than just spamming 1 ability at full rage bar. Those videos sound nitpicky rather than the norm back then.

I can vividly remember playing with zoltar, a warlock with a Firestone who meleed. Warrior tanks who either didn't sunder, or 5 stacked it and stopped. Most ppl didn't understand the debuff cap either. Paladins who refused to wear anything but plate and classes getting mad at the ones that did. Vanilla was a wild place at least on my server.

[Necromantic]

[QUOTE=OrcsRLame;53282896]I more or less agree, but I think prior knowledge of the specifics of vanilla is overstated in terms of impact.

It certainly helps to have a BiS list, (More so for casual raiders.) but I think general knowledge of how wow works being so prolific is much more important than the specific knowledge of things like BiS lists and talent builds from vanilla.

Knowing things like doing damage is good and crit gives big big damage is imo way more important than having easily accessible BiS lists. As ellieg pointed out, in original vanilla a lot of people went for stuff that is obviously bad that you don't need specific knowledge of vanilla to know it's bad. For example, no one that's gotten multiple AOTCs in BFA and Shadowlands would ever even consider gearing for agi on a mage for dodge for endgame raiding. They'd be looking for stats that pump damage.
/QUOTE]

Prior knowledge is only one slice of the pie. We also have TONS of videos on how to low-man or cheese content that we did not have back in 2007. We have more resources overall that we did not have.

[Djuntas]

I faced the ULTIMATE roadblock 3 days ago when I tanked HC mana-tombs on my druid...NO FUCKING WAY THATS BALANCED. 5-6k hits, cant be resisted and armor does not help...gg onm 1st boss. We skipped the boss then continued. But besides that the HC 5 mans just takes some focus, smart pulls and some CC. Good DPS also goes a long way.

Havent done HC BF or SHH, and not planning to...Dont see the point.