Bigger time sink, BC or Retail?

[Kralljin]

But if the gear you get from the first raid tier in classic is the best, why bother raiding the later tiers?

Because it's not cut & dry, there's hardly any piece in MC / Ony that lasts for the enterity of Classic, they however aren't all replaced by BWL gear.

What are classic phases if not seasons…

It’s such a bad take to say you only need to grind gear once and then you are done.

If you farmed Savage Gladiator Chain / Hand of Justice, you have it and there's no need to go back and farm it again.
If you farm Item X on Retail from an M+, you have to farm the the same item with higher Ilvl again next season.

If you farmed a faction to exalted for an item, you have it and there's no need to go back and do rep farms for that faction again.
If you farmed Torghast for a legendary item, you have to go back next season / patch to upgrade it.

Classic phases aren't seasons, because they don't invalidate the previous one.
People didn't go back to BRD and farmed an Item again because BWL came out.
People also still farmed MC, despite it not dropping [Season 2] loot.

[Lolites]

Retail makes you do your daily chores and homework before the vague, ephemeral concept of "fun" even theoretically introduces itself. TBC, on the other hand, is consistently fun throughout.

So, which do you think is a bigger time sink?

if you go for AOTC "only" you dont have to do any grind except for renown to roughly 34, which in begining was 2 weekly q (one of them done passively pretty much, and the other one taking few minutes), and now can be done via dungeons within few days...

sure, there are grind you CAN do, like stygia for sockets, but for AOTC? hell no, wont make that much difference for you

[cuafpr]

i was about 7 months late to TBC due to being deployed but I'd say retail... and yes that is partially based on how it feels to the "time sinks" if I'm having fun its not a time sink totally.. retail is a drag of unrewarding content currently vs TBC where i felt was always making progress and getting something worthwhile for my time.

[justandulas]

What are classic phases if not seasons…

It’s such a bad take to say you only need to grind gear once and then you are done.

Wrong. Gear from t4, t5 will be good for all of tbc. Just like classic was

People got bwl or Mc gear and were set for half of classic or longer. Hell, some of the best items drop out of MC for certain classes pertaining to all of classic

Tbc is no different and I can think of 2-3 trinkets alone, and equally weapons, that will last practically the entire length of tbc. Let’s not forget that some tier sets bonuses are better than others for classes and it isn’t unusual to see a healer or certain dps choose t4 over 5 for example, due to better tier set bonuses

I was there for tbc. All of it. Through sunwell and people would be rocking t4-5 epics til the bitter end

[Kralljin]

if you go for AOTC "only" you dont have to do any grind except for renown to roughly 34, which in begining was 2 weekly q (one of them done passively pretty much, and the other one taking few minutes), and now can be done via dungeons within few days...

sure, there are grind you CAN do, like stygia for sockets, but for AOTC? hell no, wont make that much difference for you

I think a big point you're missing is that some people enjoy progressing their character in TBC, whereas in Retail it's not as enjoyable.

Whether that applies to a person or not is a different debate, it's subjective after all, but you cannot answer a "fun" question with "this isn't mandatory" answer.

The massive elephant in the room is that there are people that do not enjoy the way you progress your character on Retail, which is a big fucking problem for a game where character progression is essential.

[justandulas]

What are classic phases if not seasons…

It’s such a bad take to say you only need to grind gear once and then you are done.

Because I don’t have to grind the same gear next season, or the next, or the next. It’s done once it’s yours. Same for reputations

I’d take grinding reputations in dungeons that become faceroll content within weeks over a never ending m+ treadmill that resets seasonally (invalidating all progress)

Retail has more in common design and loot wise with Diablo 3 than it does the golden era of WoW (vanilla-Wotlk). Is it any wonder why the golden era fans prefer one style of WoW over this modern everyone’s a winner, version of WoW with very little actual rpg mechanics?

[Dracullus]

Answer is pretty simple. If you mean just core game - leveling and max level progression - TBC, by far (gap is even bigger in SL).

But if you mean all stuff, especially whole collecting game - retail.

[Kauko]

Retail, because it never ends... in BC you knew what you had to do to get something. In Retail you just grind grind grind and keep grind grind grind... it never ends. And at the end of the expansion, like in BFA, the only thing you remember from it is the freakin GRIND.

[Lolites]

If you go for AotC only you can actually just buy that

pretty sure buying boost through raids in TBC wont be problem either
but speaking of conventional methods, AotC in retail requires far less grind than playing tbc

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Retail, because it never ends... in BC you knew what you had to do to get something. In Retail you just grind grind grind and keep grind grind grind... it never ends. And at the end of the expansion, like in BFA, the only thing you remember from it is the freakin GRIND.

what exactly do you actualy need to grind in retail if you go for AotC? bcs apart from renown (which is hardly even grind) i cant think of anything you have to grind... sure if you want you can grind some things, some gives you only cosmetic rewards, other give you miniscule performance "bonus", but none of that is required...

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Answer is pretty simple. If you mean just core game - leveling and max level progression - TBC, by far (gap is even bigger in SL).

But if you mean all stuff, especially whole collecting game - retail.

this, there is a lot of things to grind in retail, but absolute majority of that is completely optional, when it comes to required for progres TBC is much more grindy

[mmocfd1b0ab5a3]

How is this even a discussion. No one is going to wipe on TBC bosses 300+ times before the make the kill. In retail it's not uncommon to have multiple 200+ wipe bosses in the same tier. And I can tell you those 200+ wipes take a lot of hours.

Once you step in TBC raids it's going to be trivial since everything is solved already. You can make artificial time sinks in TBC for example grinding countless of hours mats for that 1% dps up item but in the end it's up to you if you choose that path.

[Lolites]

In retail it's not uncommon to have multiple 200+ wipe bosses in the same tier.

if you have 200+ wipes on bosses in HC raid you shouldnt be there...
you should go back to normal, gear up a bit and reconsider tactics after 10-20 wipes on the same boss, not wipe 200times more

[Vampyrr]

but alas like Vanilla those get harder as it goes on...
As less and less people do heroics less and less people are going to successfully find groups for the heroics in order to get attuned for the various dungeons. Yes they will eventually go away but then you need the heroics and Kara still for badges for the badge gear or you end up slamming your face in BGs until you get a full set of the previous gladiator gear and as Shadowlands has shown us..people these days don't like that.

This will then cause a growing problem that will issue a growing solution

"Hey I can get you attuned, badged up for a modest price"

followed by the long bemoaning of Boost culture in full swing cause if you think just because its BC that people are going to suddenly gain a conscious and not do that then you sir are delusional.

If you join a guild, as otherwise you dont need to attune anyways, their higher geared players typically assist and knock it out for newer raiders without much fuss. The attunements were only difficult when people didnt have gear. PVP gear was optional most raiders didnt bother. Badge gear fills in some of those harder to get slots but you dont get a full set from it. So Id say it got EASIER not harder as time went on.

[mmocfd1b0ab5a3]

if you have 200+ wipes on bosses in HC raid you shouldnt be there...
you should go back to normal, gear up a bit and reconsider tactics after 10-20 wipes on the same boss, not wipe 200times more

I just woke up and thought we were talking about Cutting Edge achievement but looked again OP's post and I realised he was talking about Ahead of the Curve. My bad.

[Vampyrr]

if you have 200+ wipes on bosses in HC raid you shouldnt be there...
you should go back to normal, gear up a bit and reconsider tactics after 10-20 wipes on the same boss, not wipe 200times more

200+ wipes for mythic my guy. Stone Legion Generals it isnt uncommon to see guilds take over 400 wipes to clear it.

[Lolites]

I just woke up and thought we were talking about Cutting Edge achievement but looked again OP's post he was talking about Ahead of the Curve.

i mean HC raids are bit of a stretch, it would be outright stupid to compare TBC raids to mythic raids
i cant wait for some people to move goals again like they did in vanilla classic "it will take months to clear MC", "MC was easy it will take months to clear AQ" "Naxx will be different, it wont get cleared for months" and now we are at TBC and some people start again

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200+ wipes for mythic my guy. Stone Legion Generals it isnt uncommon to see guilds take over 400 wipes to clear it.

thank god the OP and discusion that follows was about heroic, not mythic then...
as comparing anything in TBC to mythic is delusional

[Vampyrr]

i mean HC raids are bit of a stretch, it would be outright stupid to compare TBC raids to mythic raids
i cant wait for some people to move goals again like they did in vanilla classic "it will take months to clear MC", "MC was easy it will take months to clear AQ" "Naxx will be different, it wont get cleared for months" and now we are at TBC and some people start again

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thank god the OP and discusion that follows was about heroic, not mythic then...
as comparing anything in TBC to mythic is delusional

Well I cant fix bad players lol. Sire took the most pulls to get down for us in Heroic at the start but I dont think I was anywhere close to triple digits.

[HansOlo]

200+ wipes for mythic my guy. Stone Legion Generals it isnt uncommon to see guilds take over 400 wipes to clear it.

400 wipes was the times when nobody had good tactics. It recieved so much nerf that nobody should wipe 400 times today.

[Lolites]

Well I cant fix bad players lol. Sire took the most pulls to get down for us in Heroic at the start but I dont think I was anywhere close to triple digits.

i think we get to triple digits in Nathria as whole while progresing, although i didnt count so not sure

[Revamp Man]

Requirements for tbc
Rep grind
Mat farming for reps
Heroic grind
Attuning

Retail
3 weekly quests
Lfr unless you have full covenant gear
1 m+ dungeon a week
2 torghast runs a week
Channeling to anima conductor daily for 30 days because leggo rng acquisition is and always will be garbage

Honestly tbc is more of a time sink because retail is just a 3 hour weekly chore list

[Raava]

They're both the same, to be honest. Sure, if you delve into certain parts of Retail then it's a more of a time sink but you could say the same for rep etc etc for TBC.

Previous expansions will always feel like less of a time sink outside of levelling because the content has been out so long that people have had time to perfect doing every aspect of the content. At the end of the day, expansion content will always be a time sink if you make it one.

I spent time getting two legendary items on each character (four total) and have them at max level, but that's a choice. I spend no time on covenants since they passively level themselves up once the campaign is done.