What Wrath players need to know to not suck at Cata!

[Sharaki]

Topic should be more like "WoW: How To", but guess this one gets more attention from desired targetgroup

[Legendairee]

M'uru and KJ got killed within 4 days of the gates being released. Paragon, the only guild in the world to kill LK at 5% originally said it was the hardest fight ever released. As someone who has done most of the hardest fights ever released, LK HM is the hardest one I have ever fought. Most, if not all top guilds consider it the hardest fight blizzard has ever released.

LK wasn't bugged by the way, so I don't know what you're smoking.

just stop talking...the only reason it was the "hardest" is because of limited attempts. If you think about it, the longer you have to dwell on things the more difficult they seemingly feel. you have to realize that of those 4 days it took to kill muru and kj, i would bet that there were more overall hours spent than on h lk. while 30-50 attempts feel like a lot...its not. and yes lk is/was bugged as others have posted

[Sharaki]

of those 4 days it took to kill muru and kj, i would bet that there were more overall hours spent than on h lk.

What I recall from M'uru, it was 1-3min fight, wipe, repeat. Doing that for days straight ment pretty many attempts. Had it been limited system like in ICC, that would have been loooong "4 days"

[Boffher]

To OP: nice post, its common sense but very good to re-hit those points.

To everyone who hates: Some of the playerbase are high school drop outs who work 10-12 hours a day and have half a 6-pack down before they log on. They play so that their wife and kids leave them alone with the computer. This post would be like the holy grail and explain why they always get called noob and everyone ragequits their group. Talking to old co-workers about the game would just show me how ignorant many people who play regularly are.

I mean come on when 4.0.3a dropped how many of YOUR guildies were suprised and bitching about the Dal portal removal. Some people are just less aware of the mechanics/point of the game.

TD;LR - Stop being asshats + Don't be bad

[SIlmarillion]

First of all very nice post.

Second, i have played on the beta and geared my lock up (havent made a premade yet then) and did all dungeons on normal and hc. I got some awesome groups who took the time and learn the mechanics of the bosses and the mobs (pulling, cc, healing). BUT I got also into groups with ppl who think oke were doing UK hc GOGOGO and nuke. What happend? Wiped, got saved to an hc couldnt get in anymore bc ppl just left due to impatience. It has nothing to do if ur a Vanilla player, TBC player or a Wrath player. It has to do with ppl who are patient enough to learn the mechanics. And i have to agree there are less players now who are patient. Which resolves in wiping and leaving in groups in Cata. But I will see how it goes. Im in an cool guild with nice players so hc's only with guildies.

Third and most Important ppl: PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE.

Attaque, Burning Steppes EU

[sambu]

It's a good post, but the arrogance and the whole 'wrath' players thing makes me really want to disregard it. Seriously, was it needed?

I don't know too many people who'd disagree that the majority of players who only played in WotLK, wil really have to re-learn the mechanics of the game. Daetur's right; dps will need to cc, kite and off-heal.., tanks will have to take it easy and pop cd's.., and healers will have to watch their mana and heal efficiently. Those are all things that no one's had to do the past 18 months. If you were to throw most "wrath only players" into sunwell, with the gear, talents and stats we had when we first got there, it'd most likely be a trainwreck. This is a great post and it doesn't really come across as arrogant, it's more blunt and matter of fact. I was very excited, playing on the beta, because it was like playing vanilla WoW again. People had to take turns regenning mana, there was cc'ing, decursing, planning, coordinating.., I LOVED IT! No more AoE pull the instance in 10minutes!

[Tornado]

All quite true ^^

[big deal]

if all players think like that, wow will be THE BEST thing ever created in this world, along with blow up sex dolls....but sadly it isnt..

[Deleted]

Wrath has never been hard. A friend of mine was healing HC Wrath dungeons in full T6, long before we got T10 given out like candy.

[Brakthir]

Cause dungeons is a barometer instead of raids right?

[Manna]

I am astounded at all of the people who think this post was unnecessary.

Have any of you ever stepped foot into Wrath dungeons? Ever?

Nobody ever uses Crowd Control. In fact, if you do-- people will think you're stupid. Did you just drop a freeze trap, hunter? OMG L2PLAY. Are you a mage NOT using Blizzard? OMG NOOB.

This list literally goes on and on. Wrath or no Wrath, new players like to try out their sweet new moves (read: Sap for rogues, Freeze Trap for hunters, and this list goes on forever), and in lowbie instances get shot down and made fun of for it. "Oh, come on guys, nobody uses those!" If you don't pull fast enough as a low-leveled tank, your DPS will always pull for you. Having recently leveled a baby paladin from 15-70 almost exclusively through the LFD tool, I had to constantly say, "Guys, let me do my job." On a shammy healer, leveling of course through the LFD, I had to chide people, "Let the tank do their job."

"BUT BESS, IT'S SO SLOW," they say. "DO WE HAVE TO?"

And my answer to that is: No, you don't have to. You can instead choose to let all low-leveled or new tanks feel that that's how things are supposed to be at level 20, at level 40, at level 60, and at level 80. A baby tank thinks, Oh, so my job isn't to get aggro and hold it? My job isn't to pull for the group? And then WoW really will be full of bads. Bad healers, bad tanks, and bad DPS-- like having bad DPS isn't already super commonplace.

C'mon folks. You've seen that heirloom-geared B-Elf hunter pulling everything. "LOLOL I DON'T CARE THAT I'M PULLING FOR THE TANK SHUT UP I HAVE *sparkle* HEIRLOOM GEAR!!11one." <--I would like to punch these people in the face. If you have heirloom gear, you should know how the game works. Why in the world would you, seeing that new paladin/warrior/bear/DK in gear that obviously states they don't have an 80, and teach them the ABSOLUTE WORST, MOST WRONG way to play the game that you can?

I think it would do all of us, from level 1 to 80, RIGHT NOW, a lot of good to sit back and think, Hey, when was the last time I used Freeze Trap? When was the last time the priest Mind-Controlled? When was the last time someone had to kite something around? Or sheep something?

I think the original post was absolutely necessary. Absolutely.

Even to those who are all, "LOL DUN EVERY1 KNO DIS ALREADY?" have to admit that, no, most people who play WoW right now DON'T think about CC, or healing priorities, or interrupting. This is evident by how many people failed hardcore at Ghaz'rilla as an elemental boss. ONE spell with a long cast time to interrupt, and I was ALWAYS the ONLY one to do that. ALWAYS. If I didn't do it-- it didn't get done. And I was a MM hunter.

Obviously it didn't matter against that silly elemental boss, but in Cataclysm, it'll matter on trash packs. Props to you, OP, for reminding us of all the things most of us have put out of our minds because we haven't had to use them.

(And for what it's worth, I have noo problem with lowbies pulling big groups and Blizzarding them down. But it's worth remembering that because people can do that from level 15 to at least level 70, when they get into Cataclysm...that mindset will be the only one they have. How will they know any better? Seriously, folks, how? Because all they've ever known, all that most of us have seen for the last couple of years, is GRAB 20 GUYS AND USE AN AOE!!1one" I love that you can plow through old instances that way, but when newer players see nothing else, they won't know anything else.

And yes, they can come here to MMO Champion and read up on things, but will all of them? No, they won't. But you can kind of give them a gentle push in the right direction, and that has to at least count for something.)

[Gleem]

I'm afraid everything in your post is pointing out the obvious. As such people who realize the obvious didn't need to read this, and people who don't grasp the obvious will read this and still not do anything listed. In other words, good post, but it's pointless.

[sunsmoon]

If you were to throw most "wrath only players" into sunwell, with the gear, talents and stats we had when we first got there, it'd most likely be a trainwreck.

If you take most wrath-only players and put them into current Sunwell, at 80, with ICC gear, they still will have difficulty getting past Felmyst (anything past Felmyst can be zerged by 80s). Hop into some Sunwell pugs and you'll see.

Cause dungeons is a barometer instead of raids right?

Naxx isn't a good barometer either, but I was able to full-clear Naxx 25 with most of my raid in T6 (mixed with random dungeon drops/crafted stuff, but mostly T6). We did H UP, H UK, and H HOS with our tank still wearing 4pc.

[Clethius]

It's a good post, but the arrogance and the whole 'wrath' players thing makes me really want to disregard it. Seriously, was it needed?

didnt think it would be this easy to spot the players who started when lich king came out

[Brakthir]

If you take most wrath-only players and put them into current Sunwell, at 80, with ICC gear, they still will have difficulty getting past Felmyst (anything past Felmyst can be zerged by 80s). Hop into some Sunwell pugs and you'll see.



Naxx isn't a good barometer either, but I was able to full-clear Naxx 25 with most of my raid in T6 (mixed with random dungeon drops/crafted stuff, but mostly T6). We did H UP, H UK, and H HOS with our tank still wearing 4pc.

Naxx was deliberately made easy by Blizz. Ulduar wasn't.

[Deleted]

Cause dungeons is a barometer instead of raids right?

I'd be listening to you if you weren't an arrogant douche.


Wrath is not hard. I cleared a few HC modes in ICC with my guild and we are a *casual* raiding guild. I've seen PuGs clear HC modes. That's not hard. LK isn't hard if you have people who have a clue and are coordinated. Nothing is hard with the right amount of communication, the fights are just sometimes complex.

And yeah, I've seen many an 80 t10 group fail at Felmyst.

[Borigrad]

ok, wrath did not breed a large number of bad players as some people like to think, it just breed more players of the same quality. BC and Vanilla had just as many bad players, the problem was those instances were so over tuned if you weren't in full tier before you even got into the raid you were useless.

Guides like this only address a small margin of the community, and that margin is the part that doesn't care. Most raiders i know today, will take the time to learn their class and the fight and take orders well. It's most of the "hardcore" players who do rush instances and expect higher numbers. There are a lot of guilds who won't take a dps who isn't pulling at least 14k DpS.

The truth of the matter is, cataclysm will be like WotLK, CC in the beginning and then when you out gear it AOE everything down, don't bother cleansing and who cares who gets hit. Anyone in here who did Wotlk heroics in Sunwell or Blue gear, i mean actually did it, knows how hard some places were.

i will list them to remind people

Azjol-Nerub: so much high ticking poison damage, it was a hassle for most healers to have to cleanse and heal at the same time(very easy for shamans)
Old kingdom: the mobs in here did so much magical damage near the end, that was unresistable and could burst a fresh 80 tank down in 3 seconds.
Halls of lighting: high damage, with intense poisons mobs that healed and damage debuffs.
Occulus: the vehicle parts were difficult when they didn't scale with gear
Utgarde Pinnacle: one of the hardest heroic fights in the game, Skadi the ruthless, he did intense damage as soon as whirlwind hit, it could kill non tanks in three seconds.

there are other things that made places hard, but those were straight up the hardest to do in blues and sunwell gear.

but what happens when you out gear them, we start needing guides like these to remind us what we did in starter gear. If anyone says these places didn't have difficulty clearly wasn't there, or tanking and healing them. Because the places i listed were hard to do in starter gear.

Wrath is not hard. I cleared a few HC modes in ICC with my guild and we are a *casual* raiding guild. I've seen PuGs clear HC modes. That's not hard. LK isn't hard if you have people who have a clue and are coordinated. Nothing is hard with the right amount of communication, the fights are just sometimes complex.

did you piggy back onto your guild when it was already on farm, did you do this hard mode fights at 0% buff?

You can't compare tier 10 80's going back to sunwell to difficulty of now, no one is going there for a challenge they are going there to zerg it.
unless you've honestly attempted all fights in ICC on at least normal with 0% buff and done them, and did heroics without at least 15% i don't think you are aloud to say content is to easy.

so there is another point, i don't think a lot of people who complain about difficulty actually did content when it was fresh, without it being nerfed or out gearing it.

[Brakthir]

I'd be listening to you if you weren't an arrogant douche.


Wrath is not hard. I cleared a few HC modes in ICC with my guild and we are a *casual* raiding guild. I've seen PuGs clear HC modes. That's not hard. LK isn't hard if you have people who have a clue and are coordinated. Nothing is hard with the right amount of communication, the fights are just sometimes complex.

And yeah, I've seen many an 80 t10 group fail at Felmyst.

I may be an arrogant douche but atleast I know what I'm talking about.

[Brashen42]

Fantastic post - yes it's all common sense, but thats all that was ever needed in this game to start moving forward. Indeed alot of players will already have most of this info stamped inside their eyelids and baked into their mentality.

However i will be posting a link to this topic on our guild forums and requesting that EVERYONE read it, also if i meet anyone that requires a little info/advice then i will be sending them to read this as well.

Shattered Halls in BC as a tank was sooo much fun, it was an all round test for everyone - if we can get something similar in Cata then i will be pleased.

[Deleted]

Really good post very good read even for those of us that remember the days of old WOTLK has got us all stuck in some bad habits just hope i can get rid of the last of mine by cata :P