Classic was easy, TBC will be easy, but what about ICC 25m heroic?

[Echo of Soul]

Wow raids didn't really start to become difficult until Cataclysm, that's why so many players claim that Classic, TBC and Wrath are the good ones because after that they realized that they weren't really good at the game and started blaming Blizzard for ruining the game instead of blaming themselves for sucking.

This is probably true. I remember that many long time members of my guild started having performance issues during cataclysm and MOP. Complex rotations and complex mechanics seemed to be too much for them so they quit or got benched during progression and then quit. They started playing private servers after that, claiming that vanilla-wrath was when the game was truly difficult and that retail was for kids. I always wondered if they truly believed that or if it was a coping mechanism or delusion so that they wouldn't have to face reality.

[bmjclark]

Wasn't 25 man ICC heroic relatively easy even at the time? I remember my guild blowing through it until LK and my guild was pretty fucking terrible. Granted, we hit LK like a wall so maybe that was the only hard part? I honestly dont really remember.

Either way, I'd imagine Cata is where the difficulty really starts to pick up.

[OokOok]

Wasn't 25 man ICC heroic relatively easy even at the time? I remember my guild blowing through it until LK and my guild was pretty fucking terrible. Granted, we hit LK like a wall so maybe that was the only hard part? I honestly dont really remember.

Either way, I'd imagine Cata is where the difficulty really starts to pick up.

Yeah, considering only 100 guilds had killed heroic LK by the 25% buff he was totally easy and you're full of shit lol. I doubt even after 30% your guild killed him within the month. Yup your guild just blew through PP and Sindragosa. You most likely mean normal, yeah you probably do. 30% buff normal LK kill sounds more like the average MMoC posters

Anyways to the OP, Ulduar hardmodes will be harder in terms of mechanics. The only reason heroic ICC was as hard as it was, was because the raid was tuned for people to mainly clear it at 30%. the 30% monthly 5% BUFF increase was basically a nerf every month. No one was expected to kill it at 0 and no one did. Paragon killed it at 5%. Not only that ICC had 50 limited attempts. That's what made it so hard, imagine if limit/echo only had 50 attemts per lockout, not per fight but per lockout. we wouldn't see raids cleared in the 1-2 weeks

[Eldar45]

I love how people say knowledge of the boss fight is all you need to kill it.

If it was, then it wouldn't take guilds weeks and weeks to get H LK down after the world first video goes out.

[Prag]

Wasn't 25 man ICC heroic relatively easy even at the time? I remember my guild blowing through it until LK and my guild was pretty fucking terrible. Granted, we hit LK like a wall so maybe that was the only hard part? I honestly dont really remember.

Either way, I'd imagine Cata is where the difficulty really starts to pick up.

Definitely wasn’t easy. Putricide was a pain in the ass, Sindragosa and LK were frustrating as shit from the tank perspective. H-LK required a lot of fairly precise tank CD rotations and DPS had to be tight.

Mechanics-wise it wasn’t nearly as complicated as more modern encounters. I watched a Mythic Stone Legion and Sire and I don’t think there’s a comparison.

[Galarius]

i cant wait i heart TBC

[Thelxi]

Assuming they will push things that far, I don't think people will struggle with much all the way until Cata. There are a lot of do or die one-shot mechanics in t11 that will take people by surprise, and that's about it.

[pewpmeiser]

This isn't a hard concept. Things in the game are hard until you get a strategy down and practice the execution. ANY previous encounter will be easy throughout all of the expansions, because we already know what needs to be done. Everything is easy in this regard.

[stevenho]

That's how we killed 3D back in the day.

Not sure what you mean by that.
OS3D was release content, and you were not killing it before 2nd drake landed when it released.
As for 3.3.5 it was a huge buff for most classes compared to release.

[Bigbazz]

Not sure what you mean by that.
OS3D was release content, and you were not killing it before 2nd drake landed when it released.

Sure you were, people were doing that in even weekend warrior guilds before ulduar.

[stevenho]

Sure you were, people were doing that in even weekend warrior guilds before ulduar.

This is the time where you present a pre 3.1 video of anyone doing that.
Or just say "trust me"

[Swnem]

I mean, it's all easier once you know the fights and systems already and can prepare. I don't know what is surprising about that.

If it's balanced like before, maybe Sunwell will give a bit of a fight.

[Keashaa]

Private server still have this content buffed by at least 50% to challenge the elite, but for "normal people" LK25HM will actually be hard.

One question because I really don't know it: Classic bosses are really easy mechanical-wise, so it's no problem to have them work Blizz-like on a private server. But most ICC encounters are more complicated, so are they really working Blizz-like? So for example if the Valkyrs don't work correctly on a private server it's no surprise you need to buff the encounter.

[shise]

It will be much harder than Vanilla or TBC.
WOTLK is where the game changed, with a lot of personal responsibilities and cooldowns added.

Private server still have this content buffed by at least 50% to challenge the elite, but for "normal people" LK25HM will actually be hard.

That is rubbish, you clearly did not raid in BC all that much.

TBC was the hardest to date. You had one difficulty mode and that´s it. Even in WotLK you could face roll normal until you knew the encounter, then add a few layers of difficulty. Also, in WotLK it was far, far more common to have youtubers already talking in quite some detail about encounters where in BC you´d find beautiful low resolution videos with music background of people already killing the boss

In BC mana management was a real thing and a lot of people had the responsibility of helping others with that, or boosting damage for others, etc. Heck, buffing up was a responsibility on its own still lol.

Yes, from WotLK tactic started getting more complex, but the simple fact that we had multi difficulty choices made it easier as we could "train" for the real deal.

[Koward]

One question because I really don't know it: Classic bosses are really easy mechanical-wise, so it's no problem to have them work Blizz-like on a private server. But most ICC encounters are more complicated, so are they really working Blizz-like? So for example if the Valkyrs don't work correctly on a private server it's no surprise you need to buff the encounter.

It's really about buffing for challenge, not to compensate bad scripting. Plus, these days the trilogy Vanilla-TBC-WotLK is very well scripted by private servers.
Additionally, boss mechanics IMO mostly never mattered then after the two first tries. Difficulty came from numbers, and how to manage your raid to survive big slaps, so class mechanics were the big thing.

[kamuimac]

People only remember the absolutely nerfed version of ICC with 30% more hp, damage and healing.
Even with that buff only ~1100 guilds were able to kill the boss in 25m size, after obtaining more or less BiS gear.
The world first kill was done with the first buff available (and yes there were limited attempts!).

It's not about hardcore guild crushing ICC very fast. That will happen as it happens with todays raids.
It's about the casual player that crushes todays classic and soon-coming tbc raids.
Will that also happen to ICC 25m heroic?

Remember, during WotLK, 10m raiding never had the prestige of 25m, so just ignore that.

it was also extremly easy compared to current retail hardmodes.

its incomparable.

you hardest mechanic was deflie . complete joke

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That is rubbish, you clearly did not raid in BC all that much.

TBC was the hardest to date. You had one difficulty mode and that´s it. Even in WotLK you could face roll normal until you knew the encounter, then add a few layers of difficulty. Also, in WotLK it was far, far more common to have youtubers already talking in quite some detail about encounters where in BC you´d find beautiful low resolution videos with music background of people already killing the boss

In BC mana management was a real thing and a lot of people had the responsibility of helping others with that, or boosting damage for others, etc. Heck, buffing up was a responsibility on its own still lol.

Yes, from WotLK tactic started getting more complex, but the simple fact that we had multi difficulty choices made it easier as we could "train" for the real deal.

people will clear your hardest ever TBC raids in quest greens on day 1 of raids being open.

only limiting factor for them will be how fast they attune people

[Araya]

If ICC25m isn't full cleared within say 72 hrs of its release I will be EXTREMELY surprised.

[Viikkis]

This isn't a hard concept. Things in the game are hard until you get a strategy down and practice the execution. ANY previous encounter will be easy throughout all of the expansions, because we already know what needs to be done. Everything is easy in this regard.

So would you say right now Mythic N'Zoth is easy? You got the tactics down precisely, yeah?

Couldn't you claim that Mythic Sire Denathrius even though it is current content, is also easy because we do know what needs to be done. We have videos of mythic kills, guides to explain every tactic and optimal raid setups to go for. We have all the information needed for the kill. Even that LFR crowd can google up mythic Denathrius tactics.

Or is the skill of the players more important than a video or guide showing the tactics? If a boss is hard for the majority right now, why wouldn't it be hard 2 years from now on? If in 15 years Blizzard releases Classic: Shadowlands would everything be "easy"?

Or do you claim that something is "easy" because the top guilds have no issues but the majority still struggles?

[Thundering]

Wow raids didn't really start to become difficult until Cataclysm, that's why so many players claim that Classic, TBC and Wrath are the good ones because after that they realized that they weren't really good at the game and started blaming Blizzard for ruining the game instead of blaming themselves for sucking.

Wow raids have never been hard beyond original unnerfed forms when they are over tuned and healers cant keep up.

[Mercadi]

When it comes to heroic Lich King, a lot of it boiled down to having not a single person messing up, and stacking warlocks (so that valkyrs didn't need killing). There was almost no room for error. When you have 25 different raiders, it was difficult to get them all on the same page. My guild killed it during the maximum buff, but I'm confident we could have done it at 10 or 15%, once the mechanics were all figured out by everybody.