Breakfast Topic: What did you miss?
by Matthew Rossi 
Sep 8th 2009 at 8:00AM
I've been playing WoW for almost the entire length of its existence at this point. As a result, I often take some things for granted. So last night, when a friend asked me if I wanted to try and 2 man some BC raid content, I decided to go along on my DK, who (of course) has never really gotten to see any of it. The instance we chose ended up being Zul'Aman, an instance we raided frequently from the moment it was released until it was no longer relevant with the launch of Wrath of the Lich King. We remember some of the fights being insanely difficult for a group of 10 raiders in Kara gear and the slow feeling of progress as we geared up in ZA itself, SSC, TK and then moved on to BT and Hyjal.
What we didn't really expect is how much different the place would feel 10 levels later, both of us geared in Ulduar/ToTC 10/25 gear, and playing possibly the strongest tank and healer combination possible. To say we destroyed the place would not be inaccurate: only Hex Lord Malacrass was a significant challenge due to his ability to use Soul Siphon to acquire healing abilities that a DK/Druid combo just couldn't purge off of him. (Trust me, Hex Lord with Mark of Blood? Extremely nasty. Follow that up with him spamming Rejuvenation on himself and he can get to full health from almost dead. It took us 10 minutes to kill him.)
What we didn't really expect is how much different the place would feel 10 levels later, both of us geared in Ulduar/ToTC 10/25 gear, and playing possibly the strongest tank and healer combination possible. To say we destroyed the place would not be inaccurate: only Hex Lord Malacrass was a significant challenge due to his ability to use Soul Siphon to acquire healing abilities that a DK/Druid combo just couldn't purge off of him. (Trust me, Hex Lord with Mark of Blood? Extremely nasty. Follow that up with him spamming Rejuvenation on himself and he can get to full health from almost dead. It took us 10 minutes to kill him.)
Still, despite the fights not being nearly as hard, they weren't pushovers either: several times on Nalorakk I came very close to death, and Halazzi still hits very hard with his Sabre Lash, which we couldn't really split (taking 12k as a 33k tank isn't nearly as bad as when you're lucky to have 20k, however). It was illuminating to see all the fights again from the perspective of a class that would never have been able to do them. The fact that Malacrass has a Soul Siphon ability for DK's never even occurred to me.
Since we know that Azeroth is due for some big changes, it's kind of my mission to run as much of this older content as possible before it might well vanish entirely. I want to get my DK all of the achievements that my Shaman and Warrior already have, run all the old world and BC instances and raids, maybe even get Loremaster before it's gone. Even more important than that, to me, is to get to see how much stuff I can do stripped down. How few players can we bring to Hyjal and still clear it in a reasonable time? Can we do it with two, or will we need four? (We're going to try with four first and if that goes well, maybe pare down to two for the next attempt.) I've already solo'd MC and Onyxia, can I do BWL? My guess is no. Razorgore and Vael will probably trip me up. But I'm willing to try. But for other things, like Sunwell, I went back primarily just to get to see the old fights again, and the fact that we had 10 players didn't really even enter into it.
To be honest, Sunwell was still reasonably hard even with 10 level 80 raiders in full Ulduar/ToTC gear. We weren't there to see how few you could bring, we were more there just for players who'd started late in BC or in Wrath to get a chance to see what they'd missed. Frankly, I'm really glad I went along, as the fights are still crazy epic to watch unfold even if you're significantly over the gear curve, and frankly we wiped more than once: this content's not a joke and some of it is still some of the best designed encounters yet in the game.
Also, and I'll admit it, part of the reason I go to see the old content is to try and collect the loot that defied me. Yes, that's right, I finally have a Spinal Reaper in my DK's bank. Wouldn't drop in seemingly thousands of runs on my warrior, but I finally got it. And I will be darned to heck if I don't keep running BWL until he gets an Ashkandi.
So, basically what I'm asking is two fold: what have you missed, and what do you miss in older content? What did you never get to see, or are suddenly realizing you might never get to see again? Are you putting together a group of level 60's to raid classic content with the XP turned off, or doing a fun run stampede running through Black Temple to zerg Illidan down? Are you looking to see what you never saw, relive old raids of your past, or collect some cool loot you missed one way or another?
Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Instances, Expansions, Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
The Artist formally known as Jesus Sep 8th 2009 8:08AM
To be honest I'd love to run Karazhan just to get Prince's cape which has eluded me for so many months.
Seaborn Sep 8th 2009 8:40AM
Epic name by the way. Makes me laugh everytime i see it.
Brouck Sep 8th 2009 9:00PM
I need to drag my sorry tail back in there and finally pickup Mongoose recipe now that they nerfed the drop rate so much.
JLocke Sep 8th 2009 8:11AM
I'd like to see Sunwell, but everyone was either busy taking down Black Temple that we didn't really try it :p
Jamesisgreat Sep 8th 2009 10:24AM
As as a feral druid I'd love to run a lot of these old raids solo as well, just to see the places. I just wish that Blizzard would change the requirement to be in a raid group to enter them - I play in the middle of the night, and getting someone to group up with me for an hour or so while I run Kara, for example, can be tricky.
Cheb Sep 8th 2009 12:19PM
@jamesisgreat
Just do what I do - ask someone to raid group with you for a few minutes, give them lead, log in an alt, have the alt invited, hop back to your main, get lead back, and let the other person go on their merry way. You're in a raid group and no one is sitting around unable to do anything but farm while you do your thing. Depending on how fast you log in, the whole thing takes maybe 5 minutes.
Holly Sep 8th 2009 12:50PM
@jamesisgreat - you only have to be in a raid group when you go in, not while you're doing the content. My bf is a feral druid who has decided to solo ZG [I think - could be ZA], and we'll group up into a raid group until he's in the instance, and then I drop group and go run dailies or something, while he stealths around until he finds the bosses and tears them down. He's not been booted from the raid yet.
Dharmabhum Sep 8th 2009 2:10PM
@jamesisgreat:
this works well, but to be clear, if you die at any point in the instance after having dropped the raid group, you won't be able to enter. you'll spawn on the other (outside) of the instance portal and will have to work your way back in again through the same raidgroup means.
i've done this for ZG and its worked well though, and i recommend using an offline alt in your raid group just in case you do die inside.
m_kir Sep 8th 2009 3:34PM
just group with someone about to go offline. They'll still be in the raid, albeit disconnected.
Jamesisgreat Sep 8th 2009 9:09PM
Thanks for all the replies folks - I'm going to give them a go next chance I get.
Not being in a raid group was merely a setback.....
Knob Sep 8th 2009 8:11AM
I missed almost all of Classic raiding content. :( I started late (Sep '05) and this being my first real MMO (only Guild Wars before this and I don't consider that a true MMO to begin with), I had no real concept of raiding and what it entailed. My true raiding experience started in TBC and I did get to experience the very early versions of Karazhan/Magtheridon and I was hooked.
To be honest, hearing/reading about what Classic raiding was like, I'm glad I didn't get into it then. Sure it meant I didn't get to experience BWL, C'thun, Naxx40 when they were the pinnacle of the game, but I'm sure that if I had gotten into raiding then I would have hated it due to the amount of farming/preparation needed just to be competitive. Don't get me wrong, I like being prepared and hate people who show up at the last minute to raids and don't have any consumable just as much as the next guy, but I don't think I could have handled Felwood running for flowers, Maraudon runs for NR gear and the like. I would probably have quit raiding altogether.
I did get to see the places I missed though at 70 and although it wasn't the same, at least I could imagine how challenging some of the content would have been at the intended level range. All in all, I'm glad I started relatively late.
WoWie Zowie Sep 8th 2009 8:15AM
i'm currently on the last phase of completing the T2 mage dungeon set. I have to farm UBRS until that darn magisters robes drops so i can trade it in for sorcerers robes.
i'd also like to get the last piece of my classic raider achievement: AQ40
Finnicks Sep 8th 2009 2:59PM
I feel you there! For some reason even in TBC it was harder to get a group together for AQ40 than it was to get a group for Naxx40!
AQ40 is the just the one old-world instance that no one seems to want to do, and it's the one I want to try the most! I've done the whole place up through Twin Emps (I was around level 72 at the time) but the group wasn't staying coordinated and the Emps kept moving together and healing to full.
Sev Sep 8th 2009 8:17AM
Really what I miss is the good old days when DPS wasn't always there to DPS, they were sometimes there to crowd control and do other things. While others may not like it I found is fun how almost any class with a cc ability could do it. Nowadays theres hardly any fights that require crowd control. Closest thing is probably Gluth but the requires either a hunter or frost mage, and I hate bring the class no the player.
While I do understand they almost entirely got rid of it to make raiding simpler, I do wish I could do something other than just DPS once in awhile. (I did start up a druid healer mind you, having a blast on it as well)
Bel Sep 8th 2009 9:12AM
"Closest thing is probably Gluth but the requires either a hunter or frost mage, and I hate bring the class no the player."
It doesn't require a hunter or frost mage at all, I've seen it done by an offtank, and done it personally as a rogue without a problem (no anesthetic poison). Of course, knowing when to use cooldowns helps, as does other classes (shamen, hunters, druids, etc) using aoe slows and CC.
One fight I'd love to see (minus the insane consumable usage) is the original Loatheb fight on my priest. One heal a minute would definitely be a bigger challenge then three second windows. If you time it right, it's easy to fit in an AoE heal and a big heal on the tank. One heal per second however, you need to decide whether or not the tank will last another minute without a heal, whether you need to keep one really low player up, or just do an AoE. It's the challenge and judgement calls needed that makes me wish I could try it.
I missed Vanilla altogether, only hit 70 at the end of TBC, but have cleared everything but TK, SSC, Mags, and ZA. I would love to see mechanics like Essence of the Red, where doing damage isn't the most important thing. Or Chromaggus, minus the class dependancy, with multiple debuffs needing to be cleansed, as well as the changing vulnrability to keep it interesting. Jin'do the Hexxer is still a challenge for 10 80s who don't know what to do, the brainwash totems definitely make it interesting.
TL;DR: I miss interesting mechanics that aren't just "run away from x", "dont stand in y", "burn x down fast".
Kyle Sep 8th 2009 9:59AM
i remember back in the day when our guild did our raids through kara and za we brought two tanks, three healers, 3 dps, and 2 dedicated ccers. no joke, i was the sv hunter that chain trapped the crap out of everything for almost the entire raid. i got to dps on boss encounters... sometimes.
Redpostit Sep 8th 2009 6:08PM
Vael not being about dps? You mean it not being about resource management. The fact that you have infinite mana, infinite rage, infinite energy (I was and am a rogue, i still have orgasms thinking about it), only make it a more dps centric fight, just that you could go wild with it, with the only limiting factor being your global cooldown (or cast time for those "caster" people). Vael was perhaps the most insane dps race fight i can think of, considering how exhilarating it was to keep your mind solely on the dps (and the threat, although that wasn't such an issue for rogues if you played your vanish right and threw som feints in now and then), and the fact that the time you had to kill him was basically the time it took for all the tanks to blow up one by one...
Now when I think about it, that fight was very interesting but for a whole different range of reasons in addition of just "essence of red". You had to make the choice of how much you trusted your group healer, and thus how much fire resist gear you would wear, which then affected how much dps you did. Tank threat was also crucial. As vael couldn't be taunted all tanks had to build up threat, but since you always tried to have a specific tank order so the healers could get ready for their new tank, threat was a very very crucial part of the fight... The raid members continiously blowing up and the totally random way they were marked for death by burning adrenaline... Oh man, that fight was THE frantic dps race. As I wasn't a caster i never got to experience the instacast lolcrits of burning adrenaline, but infinite energy was amazing in it's own right (incidentally, rogues were THE class to stack for that fight. Wouldn't get blown up, had great threat management, and could top the dps meter by hitting the "1" button with a hammer).
Also, the chromaggus dispelling seems like it would be challenging if you don't account for the existence of a little addon with the name of a "decursive", an addon that automatically cleansed a debuff that you could cleanse of someone in the raid. This basically boiled all forms of cleansing in early vanilla to pressing a button repeatedly. The same button, often hotkeyed, to hotkey number 1, pressed in conjunction with drinking a beer, and annoying me, who was sitting concentrating on being #1 dps, what were we talking about again?
Point was that, chromaggus basically boiled down, for casters, to cast spells on him, hide behind a wall, and then cast on him again, maybe switch spells around when he changed vulnerability. For meele, it was the same, without the spell vulnerability thing. In fact i don't really remember why i did the things that i did on that fight... Meele stood behind him, so why did we hide from his breath? Did it come out of his ass too? Now i'm confused, i was just doing as i was told.
On loatheb however, it was another story, that WAS a complicated fight for the healers, however that was really late tier. Not many more did that fight then people have done yogg+1, and that is a really interesting fight with alot more to it then the criterias you mention.
Point is, well i'm not sure what the point is :D Just clearing up some inacuracies that leads to excessive infused nostalgia :P It's easy to get the impression that the mechanics of fights you haven't really experienced in their time were more interesting then they actually were. BWL was the first instance that really went way beyond the "tank and spank" concept, and made raiding truly interesting (not to mention hard). But there has been plenty of fights since then that haven't been any less interesting then those in BWL, they just don't seem that way because you know them so well.
jealouspirate Sep 8th 2009 8:18AM
I didn't start playing WoW until mid-BC, and didn't start raiding until a few months after Wrath launched.
I'd really like to see some of the BC raids, though I suppose I have time since they wont be going anywhere when Cataclysm comes. But coming from the Warcraft RTS roots, never having faced Illidan is a little shameful to me.
I'm not overly concerned with doing vanilla raids, though I've seen a couple of them briefly when I was bored.
millsam2 Sep 8th 2009 8:22AM
My boyfriend and I have been into running old content with our two 80 shaman for mounts and pets. I'm enhancement and he's elemental, so I just instant chain heal with my Maelstroms and we just dps like crazy. It's pretty fun but also a little sad to take down old content so easily, but we've had a lot of success. So far we've both gotten the White Hawkstrider, I got the ZG pet raptor, and I'm working on getting my druid epic flying so we can try for Anzu. We also spent one day getting almost every key in the game, since I didn't have the Kara key for when we wanted to do Attumen.
As for the coming expansion, I'm not too worried about doing every old instance. I've done most of the ones I've been interested in seeing. I don't find it as fun to do things you never did now at 80--you don't get the real experience of how that place was. Reliving stuff you used to run is fun though. I always love going back to places like ZA that remind me of all the crazy times I used to have there.
Knyle2 Sep 8th 2009 8:23AM
I have been bummed since the launch of wrath that there is no troll themed raid yet.
ZF ZG and ZA were all AWESOME instances. Both creative, beautiful, fun and challenging ( at appropriate lvls)
Especially since there is so much lore in wrath related to trolls, and barely any with the argent crusade, ulduar or nax by comparison.
Those quests in Zul'Drak up near gundrak go on forever, and theres a whole "city" up there thats being completely wasted.