Its official -- Sunwell Plateau is the real deal.

[probert]

A lot of memes since the start of classic have emphasized how 'easy' classic is. Part of this is because game challenge has improved over years alongside player skill; addons have gotten better; more youtube, data analysis; DPS and HPS simulators. Logging and analysis is a daily routine, the crowdsourced MMO crowd can outwit and outthink a team of 30-50 developers by sheer numbers.

Vanilla was, for the most part, easy. The hardest part was the roster boss and getting optimal class balance in 40 man raids. Naxx 40 was harder than Naxx 25 in Wrath, but it was relatively easy compared to even heroic raid difficulty in retail nowadays.

TBC was a step up in difficulty, but not tremendously so. Magtheridon was hard in 2008, he was a speedbump in 2021. SSC and TK were a step up in difficulty, Kael Thas and particularly Vashj separating the casual raiders from committed players; again not too hard.

Tier 6 was the 2.3+ nerfed versions, and aside from Illidari Council, Illidan, and Archimonde most of the bosses were speedbumps. Easier than T5 raiding for the most part (if you had the gear).

And now...Sunwell. Well, now we're into the meat of classic raiding and it DEFINITELY is harder.

Looking at the logs after 2 weeks, we see a ridiculously small number of guilds actively clearing Sunwell at launch. Only ~11% of attempts on Kalecgos actually succeed, and he's the easiest boss in the instance as a warmup.

https://classic.warcraftlogs.com/zon...ric=fightwipes

(As of May 17th, 2022)

10.8% of Kalec attempts result in a kill.
6.1% of Brutallus
9.8% of Felmyst
6.9% on Twins

If you've survived those filters, you get the opportunity to attempt to kill M'uru. His (it's?) legacy as the guild killer is maintained, with a 2% clear rate for guilds that can make it that far!

Sunwell is the real deal. Bring your mains, make sure you have best in slot, watch every guide and use every addon you can leverage because you'll need it.

[Gorged]

In my experience its not that the bosses are tactically hard, we have cleared only up to Muru (20 attempts) so far they just have ridiculous tuning numbers wise and its not dps requirement tuning its the fact you have to constantly spam heal tanks as every boss hits like a semi truck at 100mph.

None of these fights will be particularly difficult once the raid has some gear from sunwell.

[Kralljin]

I wouldn't shout it from the rooftops considering the difficulty is largely nummerically based, but yeah, Sunwell will filter some guilds.

Kalecgos requires individual responsibility from each player, if too many people skip out on the portal (especially healers & decurses), you'll have a problem and so do they once they realize they sit at 9 stacks.
Brutallus is just a pure consumable / raid comp check, i think most people should have the gear for the boss considering how easy T6 is.
Felmyst is Onyxia where you can't skip Deep breath with enough dps.
Eredar Twins is a pain with terrible healers.
M'uru pretty tightly tuned at this stage and requires people to play properly, because tanks standing in Darkness, missing a dispel and dead dps will cost you on this boss.

KJ however, is arguably the easiest boss in the raid ironically, despite the fact that he's technically the one with the most mechanics.

[Mendzia]

As expected it is huge step in difficulty - arguably biggest so far in Classic.
My guild wiped i think 17 times on Kalec killing him on our last try that night and after trash respawn.
Afaik we did not wipe more than 10 times on BT progress and killed Illidan early week 3.
But i still think this gap is more like BT/Hyjal were extremely easy than Sunwell is 'soooo fucking hard'.

[Battlebeard]

Real deal, or is it? Who is this for?

It's still too easy for the hardcore raiders who prefer retail, and it's far too hard for us casual dad gamers who enjoy classic. Not everyone is like me, but I feel we were in vast majority in Classic-Classic, and still a big part of TBC-Classic.

[Gorged]

Just as a side note we went in blind with no PTR practice like the top guilds did and in our 7hr raid week went 4/6.
The top guilds spent more time wiping on ptr on these 4 bosses with BiS then we did on live without it. Not saying they wouldn't still clear week one but you have to think the ptr practice helps them alot compared to people that didnt.

[God Save The King]

Raid fell over in an under an hour. It's not a difficult instance in any measure.

It's tightly tuned, so if your guild isn't very well geared, Sunwell is rough. Couple that with the very short phase 3/4, and most people aren't anywhere near their BiS. My guild did 2 splits for BT/MH so we're a lot more geared than most raids. We cleared Sunwell in about 4 hours of raiding, 1-2 wipes per boss except Muru/KJ where it was 6/4 respectively.

Mechanically? It's still exceptionally simple. First boss is just setting up group rotation for portals and having a modicum of reaction. Second boss is a pure numbers check, can your tanks survive 4x melees during stomp and can your healers throughput long enough. Felmyst is a simple positioning check. Twins again is all about position. Muru is add management and another numbers check. KJ is kind of a combination with adds, positioning, throughput, and reaction.

Once the nerfs come in, it'll be about the difficulty of t6 content, if not easier.

If Blizzard let people gear up as long as they did for Classic raids or original TBC, then I think we'd see a lot more progress.

[Ave07]

Our raid leader replaced 80% of the raid roster so we could down bosses with certain comps like 9 warlocks for Muru or 8 melee for KJ.

[XDurionX]

I'd say 1 kill every ten attempts means this is incredibly easy.

[Demsi]

It's a step up from BT for sure, but there's still been nearly 3k clears so it's clearly not THAT hard

[Nitros14]

KJ however, is arguably the easiest boss in the raid ironically, despite the fact that he's technically the one with the most mechanics.

Success rate on Kil'jaeden on warcraftlogs is 3.6%, and that's only guilds that have killed M'uru of course. Only boss that is lower is M'uru at 2.1%. Kil'jaeden is clearly at the least the second hardest boss.




The real reason people are dying so much in Sunwell is they aren't used to the number of healers the raid requires. The rest of TBC needed 5-6 healers.

[facefist]

If SWP is the "real deal" then all those memes were completely true. The real deal is being cleared by pugs in the first week of release.

It's harder than anything before, sure, but it is still not hard as everything before it was just super easy. My guild cleared it in approx 5 hours and most of the people in the guild are only 200ish world rank in retail. And only 3 of us had been in SWP before. And people are far from bis gear.

[arkanon]

Just be sure to be upfront about saying it is HARDER than what came before, but that doesnt make it HARD compared to what came AFTER it. That is the discussion that started early after announcement - players unironically saying that Classic was going to destroy mythic raid guilds from retail because it will be too hard for them. The goalpost was shifted with each toppling of the raid by casual pugs with zero experience hours after going live.

Finally we have reached a point that, even back then we all agreed would slow things down, as the tuning is so tight - not mechanical difficulty, not the encounter itself, just the raw numbers (mostly healing) required. Remember - this was a REAL argument being made - that classic wow was harder than anything in retail, and the raids were harder than most mythic raids.

[probert]

My guild cleared it in approx 5 hours and most of the people in the guild are only 200ish world rank in retail. And only 3 of us had been in SWP before. And people are far from bis gear.

If your guild is populated by people ranked anywhere above top 500 in the world, i don't think anything in classic would have ever posed a challenge to you.

[God Save The King]

It's harder than anything before, sure, but it is still not hard as everything before it was just super easy. My guild cleared it in approx 5 hours and most of the people in the guild are only 200ish world rank in retail. And only 3 of us had been in SWP before. And people are far from bis gear.

Yeah there are loads of gdkps/pugs on my realm that have downed 6/6 too. It's easier as a pug tbh because it's mainly about attempts and time commitment. I can't imagine many groups with decent gear taking more than ~10-15 hours total to go 6/6. I think the main reason we're seeing so few kills is because, comparatively, Bt/MH took like 3 hours to do both so a lot of guilds only are raiding 1-2 nights a week for 4-6 hours total.

[garicasha]

10% of pulls resulting in a kill might not sound like a lot, but it means it's roughly a 10-15 pull boss. Maybe 20+ if you pull out the guilds that dominated it.

On the other extreme end you'd have something like original unnerfed Mythic Halondrus where the kill % was 0.2%...although that's kind of misleading, because using percentages when there were literally only 5 kills for a while is silly.

The better question might be if a guild can kill Reliquary of Souls, what can't they do in Sunwell?

[cparle87]

I'd say 1 kill every ten attempts means this is incredibly easy.

That was my thought. I was trying to think of a way to phrase it. With say the most recent mythic race needing, for example, 200 attempts before WF kill wouldn't that be 0.5%?

[Utrrabbit]

A lot of memes since the start of classic have emphasized how 'easy' classic is. Part of this is because game challenge has improved over years alongside player skill; addons have gotten better; more youtube, data analysis; DPS and HPS simulators. Logging and analysis is a daily routine, the crowdsourced MMO crowd can outwit and outthink a team of 30-50 developers by sheer numbers.

Vanilla was, for the most part, easy. The hardest part was the roster boss and getting optimal class balance in 40 man raids. Naxx 40 was harder than Naxx 25 in Wrath, but it was relatively easy compared to even heroic raid difficulty in retail nowadays.

TBC was a step up in difficulty, but not tremendously so. Magtheridon was hard in 2008, he was a speedbump in 2021. SSC and TK were a step up in difficulty, Kael Thas and particularly Vashj separating the casual raiders from committed players; again not too hard.

Tier 6 was the 2.3+ nerfed versions, and aside from Illidari Council, Illidan, and Archimonde most of the bosses were speedbumps. Easier than T5 raiding for the most part (if you had the gear).

And now...Sunwell. Well, now we're into the meat of classic raiding and it DEFINITELY is harder.

Looking at the logs after 2 weeks, we see a ridiculously small number of guilds actively clearing Sunwell at launch. Only ~11% of attempts on Kalecgos actually succeed, and he's the easiest boss in the instance as a warmup.

https://classic.warcraftlogs.com/zon...ric=fightwipes

(As of May 17th, 2022)

10.8% of Kalec attempts result in a kill.
6.1% of Brutallus
9.8% of Felmyst
6.9% on Twins

If you've survived those filters, you get the opportunity to attempt to kill M'uru. His (it's?) legacy as the guild killer is maintained, with a 2% clear rate for guilds that can make it that far!

Sunwell is the real deal. Bring your mains, make sure you have best in slot, watch every guide and use every addon you can leverage because you'll need it.

Calling it hard is a joke, considering 99% of the people on classic atm are the ones who could not handle retail raid difficulty so they swapped to an easier version.

[Nitros14]

The better question might be if a guild can kill Reliquary of Souls, what can't they do in Sunwell?

21,500 guilds killed Illidan. Currently in week one there's 10,317 kills of the first boss of Sunwell and 1,689 full clears.

At this point in Black Temple's release there were 6,309 Illidan kills.

At this point in the Eye/Serpentshrine's release there were 844 Kael'thas kills and 1,080 Vashj kills, suggesting Kael'thas and Vashj were actually more difficult than Sunwell since the playerbase was bigger then. Of course there were the threat bugs?features? with those two bosses week one.

I believe Vashj's kill % hovered around 1% for a while the first week, so lower than M'uru.

[Mendzia]

It's a step up from BT for sure, but there's still been nearly 3k clears so it's clearly not THAT hard

What 3k?
It is on 1,7k now... and you made your post before weekly reset.

That was my thought. I was trying to think of a way to phrase it. With say the most recent mythic race needing, for example, 200 attempts before WF kill wouldn't that be 0.5%?

Comparing:
1. 15 yo content that were farmed milions of times in original TBC, private servers with hours of videos/guides, crazy BiS lists and weird things like thronlings etc
2. with content made for 0.1% retail playerbase that required several thousand of dollars equivalent of gold in BoE items, multiple +15hrs raid days, no PTRs, extremely unbalanced/bugged, and after that nerfed multiple times, people having programists to make weak auras totally avoiding many mechanics after time and many more
Truly makes sense - yes.