Be honest. How difficult is WotLK 5-man heroic?

[Daedius]

WotLK heroics were the easiest heroics have ever been in the history of WoW.

Pit of Saron and Halls of Reflection were rather difficult.

[Mendzia]

2 or 3 in your scale.

On beta people were clearing them pre-80.

You are stronger on 76 with Sunwell gear than with same gear on 80.
Anyway - entering HCs do not work anymore before 80 afaik.

[Fkiolaris]

WotLK 5-man heroics were definitely easier than TBC (and Cata) Heroics, which is part of the reason they got the specific reputation. But at launch in a pug with casuals/new starters they could be problematic, way more than what people give them credit for. I expect a similar story with WotLK Classic, min/maxers will blow them out of the water while the hordes of people starting now will find them more challenging for sure.

[Nitros14]

Oculus is one of the easier dungeons if you actually understand how the drake abilities work. It's not complex stuff.

[RobertMugabe]

There are several spots where the dungeons become semi-hard with 3.0 gear like Azjol Nerub before the 1st and 2nd boss. The 3.3 dungeons were actually a bit hard.

Overall though Wotlk dungeons are difficulty wise between heroic and m0 dungeons on retail. Definitely a lot easier than TBC heroics.

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Pit of Saron and Halls of Reflection were rather difficult.

Forge of Souls early on too if you didn't CC the adds.

[Nitros14]

There are several spots where the dungeons become semi-hard with 3.0 gear like Azjol Nerub before the 1st and 2nd boss. The 3.3 dungeons were actually a bit hard.

Overall though Wotlk dungeons are difficulty wise between heroic and m0 dungeons on retail. Definitely a lot easier than TBC heroics.

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Forge of Souls early on too if you didn't CC the adds.

We're also playing with all the class buffs from the Icecrown Patch, so 3.0 heroics will be even easier than actual release.

[RobertMugabe]

We're also playing with all the class buffs from the Icecrown Patch, so 3.0 heroics will be even easier than actual release.

I am talking from a 3.3 perspective. Unlike in Vanilla, the classes actually DID NOT get buffed for the most part. Most classes were actually heavily nerfed, especially DK's. There were no straight up buffs to all classes, just balancing (some getting buffs, some nerfs... just like on retail).

[Relapses]

Oculus is one of the easier dungeons if you actually understand how the drake abilities work. It's not complex stuff.

It's not complicated but none of the drakes' abilities are particularly well defined and you have to admit that the Z-Axis and WoW aren't exactly best friends. Every encounter they've ever tried to introduce a Z-Axis into has been pretty poorly received by the playerbase. (Minus maybe Al'Akir?) An entire dungeon where the whole gimmick is vehicular combat and a Z-Axis is... well... it earned the reputation it had, imo.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Speaking of Oculus, that was the only dungeon my friends and I would queue into (RDF back in the day) and place bets on how many people would immediately leave group when it turned out to be Oculus.


Fun times... heh...


EDIT: btw this still happens when people choose WotLK Timewalking to level in.

[Hctaz]

The Oculus would like to know your location.

Oculus never felt hard, it was just tedious and required you to master vehicle combat in a 3-D plane when you're used to just playing your class normally in 2 dimensions.

[Nitros14]

I am talking from a 3.3 perspective. Unlike in Vanilla, the classes actually DID NOT get buffed for the most part. Most classes were actually heavily nerfed, especially DK's. There were no straight up buffs to all classes, just balancing (some getting buffs, some nerfs... just like on retail).

3.1 Armor Penetration Rating: All classes now receive 25% more benefit from Armor Penetration Rating.
Haste Rating: shamans, paladins, druids, and death knights now receive 30% more melee haste from Haste Rating.

3.2 Block rating: The amount of bonus block value on all items has been doubled.
Mana Regeneration: All items that provide "X mana per five seconds" have had the amount of mana they regenerate increased by approximately 25%.
Parry Rating: The amount of parry rating required per percentage of parry has been reduced by 8%.
[Silence], [Strangulate], [Silencing Shot], and [Arcane Torrent]: These abilities will also apply a 3 second interrupt effect against non-player controlled targets, making them more versatile against creatures immune to silencing effects.
Prot Paladins got 10% more stamina from BoS. Prot Warriors got a lot stronger too.

3.3 Battle res got a 10 minute cooldown instead of 20.

Rogues got massive buffs. Mages and Warlocks also got a lot stronger.

In fact the only class that seems to have suffered any significant nerfs is Death Knight.

I'd say classes as a whole are much stronger in 3.3 than 3.0.

[hulkgor]

Extremely easy.

The only one that might be obnoxious to run will be Occulus, since it relies more on knowing the drakes mechanics, but even still.

[Kalisandra]

Doing them today, as a long time player of retail WoW? They'll be dead-easy if you pay any attention at all and your tank doesn't over-pull for their and their healer's gear.

Back in the day, with LK a new release? Easier than BC and Cata heroics were upon their release, but not nearly as easy as most people claim. Three of the four bosses in Gundrak could wipe groups. Two of the bosses in Halls of Lightning could wipe groups (Loken was especially challenging to heal on newly-80 Paladins in anyone was a fraction slow), and the trash leading up to Loken took finesse. Halls of Stone had a couple of tricky bosses. The bug dungeons had some tricky pulls in them.

The thing is, the mechanics were fairly simple and screwing them up meant tons of damage in most cases, rather than outright death, so they could be out-geared. They also tended to be hard in that lacking gear meant long fights and thus healer mana problems, and this is also something that's very gear-sensitive. So they got easy very quickly and people remember being able to speed run them with a Ret Pally or Fury Warrior doing the tanking and the 'healer' being an Elemental Shaman or Boomkin.

[Nitros14]

Doing them today, as a long time player of retail WoW? They'll be dead-easy if you pay any attention at all and your tank doesn't over-pull for their and their healer's gear.

Back in the day, with LK a new release? Easier than BC and Cata heroics were upon their release, but not nearly as easy as most people claim. Three of the four bosses in Gundrak could wipe groups. Two of the bosses in Halls of Lightning could wipe groups (Loken was especially challenging to heal on newly-80 Paladins in anyone was a fraction slow), and the trash leading up to Loken took finesse. Halls of Stone had a couple of tricky bosses. The bug dungeons had some tricky pulls in them.

The thing is, the mechanics were fairly simple and screwing them up meant tons of damage in most cases, rather than outright death, so they could be out-geared. They also tended to be hard in that lacking gear meant long fights and thus healer mana problems, and this is also something that's very gear-sensitive. So they got easy very quickly and people remember being able to speed run them with a Ret Pally or Fury Warrior doing the tanking and the 'healer' being an Elemental Shaman or Boomkin.

The tank damage is absurdly noticeable from TBC to WOTLK.

Example

Base melee damage Shattered Hand Heathen in Shattered Halls heroic is 8154-8483 (8x normal)



Base melee damage of a Ymirjar Berserker in Utgarde Pinnacle heroic is 5480-7905 (2x normal)




Base melee damage of an Underbog Lord in heroic Underbog is 10,029 - 11,911.

Base melee damage of a Stormforged Giant in heroic Halls of Lightning is.. 5480-7905.

You'll see that number come up a lot, Blizzard didn't care about tuning in WOTLK heroics almost all the mobs hit for the same damage. The Underbog Lord also has more HP than the Stormforged Giant! For players 10 levels lower.

You'll also find it's symptomatic of a wider lack of care about mobs. Every non-elite level 80 mob in Northrend has 12,600 HP for example.

[Kithelle]

They were easy enough as long as you didn't half ass them...hate the Lich King three, ran them EVERY day almost and damn never seen a single hilt even drop

[xenogear3]

They were easy enough as long as you didn't half ass them...hate the Lich King three, ran them EVERY day almost and damn never seen a single hilt even drop

I saw 2 or 3, and win one.

[Aurabolt]

As long as everyone knows the mechanics or are not just "GOGOGO" you shouldn't have too much trouble. More so since the majority of them do have hard checks if you ignore the mechanics. I did Wrath when it was current from start to finish. Ran Heroics mostly as a Tank. All are 100% puggable as long as everyone pulls their weight.

[Kalisandra]

You'll also find it's symptomatic of a wider lack of care about mobs. Every non-elite level 80 mob in Northrend has 12,600 HP for example.

There's some variation when you're levelling. The Borean Tundra mobs tend to be a bit weaker and hit less hard than the ones in Howling Fjord, for example. Back in the day most of my guild starting in BT, but I went for HF (good choice - fewer people and that amazing intro trip up the fjord). They were saying in chat things like "Wow, this is easy!" and levelling pretty fast. Meanwhile I was thinking "Damn but these guys hit hard!" and "Man I'm glad I'm a Pally and have bubble and heals!". I even went over to BT to check, and they really were weaker and you really did get XP faster there (HF was still prettier and more fun, though). I think the teams doing the zones must've been working off different versions of their mob design guidelines.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

2 or 3 in your scale.



You are stronger on 76 with Sunwell gear than with same gear on 80.
Anyway - entering HCs do not work anymore before 80 afaik.

Yeah you got to be 80 now. But its just an example of if you can do them at 76 in TBC gear then they probably aren't some monster challenge. Even if some mathematics bend in your favor. Because they just didn't go into them at 76 and then leave. They did them to 80. But I also don't think it should be discounted that a lot of those groups were very very try hard and probably in the higher percentile of skill when it comes to WotLK/TBC play too.

I think where it is easier then say TBC once is TBC heroics were very tank just go splat. Where WotLK is a lot more.. if you just do the mechanics then most the problems can be literally "dodged" if you know what I mean.

[SinR]

speaking of mob damage, playing smart, my Prot Paladin managed to clear up to first boss in N UK last night. First boss hit like a truck with his shadow bolts and still did his stun.

On Topic: as I said before they're pretty easy once you get people that know what the hell to do.