Breakfast Topic: I miss trash
by Matthew Rossi 
Sep 18th 2009 at 8:00AM
In fact, what the trashless boss gauntlet that is Trial of the Crusader/Grand Crusader has done for me is to show me that I've been missing trash, real trash, since after we moved out of Mount Hyjal, and even then it was in slow decline. No, I hate to admit it, but in a blazing moment of honest to Murgatroyd old fogeyism, I came to realize that what I miss was the brutal, punishing trash pulls in Blackwing Lair. Blackwing Spellbinders were harder to deal with than some of the bosses that followed them! You could wipe multiple times before you even had the room cleared enough to pull a drake!
Yeah, it sounds ridiculous that I'm nostalgic for that. And to be honest, it's a nostalgia tinged with a certain amount of relief that I don't have to go clear it again any time soon (and if I did, well, I'm level 80 now). But what I miss, and what I feel like we've been moving away from since Hyjal (which may have taken trash pulls to a height so ridiculous that the pendulum had to swing back this way) is trash with personality. Trash that sets the story, that makes you really feel like you're actually raiding an ancient lair of evil. That being said, I'm glad TotC is trashless. Just please, let Icecrown bring back trash that counts.
How about you? Never want to see it again? Looking forward to its return? Where do you stand on trash?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Breakfast Topics, Instances, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
Rakah Sep 18th 2009 8:08AM
i conccur, the aoe fests are just dull.
bushkanaka86 Sep 18th 2009 9:46AM
Anyone else remember the good old days when AQ first openned? Pug groups formed to go in a take a look at AQ20 and no one could get past the first trash duo.
Even after we had downed them a few times, if we didn't have a druid in the group, we headed to ZG instead because without roots, those big guys were impossible.
Now THAT was real trash. Trash that had to be CC'd, that's what I miss. Right now it is pull everything, everyone AoE and we win. Bring CC back and I will be happy. Shattered Halls without CC....unless you had a topped out group with a pally tank, that place was terrible.
Jacob Sep 18th 2009 11:34AM
I miss the Anubisath, in particular, the Sentinels. Blizz, please bring back challenging trash in Icecrown! Give people a workout in their knowledge of their class. don't downvote me, but honestly, I miss encounters where you need specific classes, or just specific abilities like CC. We have it, so please make us use it!
SuperBox Sep 18th 2009 11:48AM
Replying to the top poster just to say this because it needs to be heard:
We are getting Heroic SFK & VC in Cata, so the awesome trash is BACK!!!
I mean come on, what felt more awesome than: Arugal must Die!, going in to the instance to kill him, just to see him standing over a murdered deathstalker.
You not only wanted him dead for all the freaking werewolves he's let loose on the place, now it was personal.
So you would climb his evil old tower (with really good, actual raiding-style music btw) and fight off a whole mess of wolves, worgen and ghosts that haunt the castle.
You don't get more epic than that, and I don't know the amount of times as a lowbie I've downed the ghost paladin boss, only to be sorting out the loot while everyone continues, just to get instagibbed with the werewolf pack comes running in the room behind you, that has physically scared me on several occasions. ^_^
And lastly, deadmines, the perilous smelting room with the careful pulls, the tight corners filled with loads of weakling miners and strong defias, and the pack of ALL-STAR trash that spawns behind you and comes after you whenever you down a boss?
Its things like that and the werewolf pack in SFK that makes an instance feel alive, with the mobs adapting and changing as you progressed. (Although they did the same thing every run, it still wasn't generic)
I'm hoping we'll be seeing a lot more "Avast ye swabs, we're under attack, repel the invaders!!"
tim Sep 18th 2009 3:53PM
I dream of a WoW where my hunter is asked whether he can trap rather than what his gear is when pugging 10 man Naxx because the group wants to faceroll everything as tank 'n' spank.
Plastic Rat Sep 20th 2009 11:24PM
@Tim
You and me both buddy, you and me both.
Thyen Sep 18th 2009 8:10AM
Yes... I do hope for trash pulls, as long as they're not horribly placed, nigh-on impossible pulls. It wouldn't be fun if they were as hard as some of the bosses.
Peacebone Sep 18th 2009 8:10AM
I didn't start raiding until Wrath, so my experience with trash is pretty much limited to "DON'T STAND IN WHIRLWINDZ OMG".
Erin Sep 18th 2009 1:21PM
That was my experience too, until Ulduar. I was raiding in there the first week it was out and taking down those two giant fire guardians outside of furnace area was, dare I say, challenging. They applied a debuff that, as far as we could figure out, couldn't be cleansed unless you made it down to the water at the bottom of the ramp, so you had to do the next couple of pulls while the whole raid was taking damage from these debuffs.
A few weeks later we went in and that debuff had been taken out... I was very disappointed. It was so much fun trying to figure out a way to get down to those pools while not dying. It took really strategy and skill. Sure, it was a rude awakening for those people who had only ever raided Naxx, but that was what was so great about it.
On a similar note, I think that trash can make a place feel epic... I think that trash has a much bigger impact on the epic feel of the place than the bosses. The first time I ventured into Molten Core (as a lvl 70), I was struck by how awesome it was to see giant flaming monsters trudging around inside of a volcano. I really felt like I was heading deep into the Black Rock Mountain and the trash played a big part in setting the scene.
Not only the trash though... now-a-day you can just walk right up to the raid entrance and hop in. No need to get attuned or complete a giant questline. Look at Molten Core and Blackwing Lair... the amount of effort it takes to actually get to the entrance of either of these raids for the first time is immense. Granted that did limit the amount of people who would raid endgame, and that's not what Blizz wants to do right now, but come on, don't just stick the entrance to Icecrown right where everyone can get to it... make us work for it at least a little bit.
Zanathos Sep 18th 2009 2:02PM
As a healer in Ulduar, I was not sad to see the hopping flame debuff go bye bye. Once the giants were killed, the challenge the debuff provided was largely in keeping the healers from tabbing it. It was very annoying but not especially hard to deal with.
Andrew R. Sep 18th 2009 8:10AM
Just as long as Icecrown isn't Sunwell 2.0 I'm content with bringing trash back. If anything it will keep people from complaining how everything is too easy. At least for a few weeks.
I will admit that I too miss trash to an extent. Crowd control set those who knew how to sap, freeze or sheep a mob and those who didn't. I don't want to see trash that we wipe on for hours but trash that can wipe the raid if you go in thinking you can faceroll to Arthas.
Make trash a challenge but don't drive us insane while doing it.
Eamara Sep 18th 2009 8:15AM
Some trash is good. Trash that is interesting, makes you think, makes you use a certain tactic to succeed. So far in WotLK we haven't had that (or we did in Ulduar before it was nerfed). Examples of good trash are the big female multi-armed demons before Mother Shahraz in Black Temple (can't remember their names, the ones that create copies of themselves); the 2 naga, 1 hydra trask packs in the sewers leading up to Naj'entus, again in Black Temple; the huge underbog giants in Serpentshrine Cavern, that can do several abilities but you don't know what it'll do until it does it, then you have to react appropriately; plus many more.
However, bad trash is when if the pull goes wrong or a CC is resisted then the raid wipes. One simple mistake that kills the raid is very bad on trash. Examples of this were the trash packs before Void Reaver in Tempest Keep; the large trash packs of naga, water elementals and turtles in the sewers up to Naj'entus in Black Temple; plus some more that I can't remember right now.
Essentially, I don't want faceroll trash. But I don't want insta-raid wipe trash if something goes wrong at the pull. Make trash interesting, with random abilities that you have to adapt to quickly to survive, or with a certain tactic that needs to be performed to mix things up a little.
nyctef Sep 18th 2009 8:28AM
The problem is, the area between insta-wipe and faceroll trash is different for everybody, because of the many different skill levels or raid comps that are going to be brought. I'm fairly sure it's impossible to please everybody in the way that you would like.
Rob Sep 18th 2009 8:43AM
Pretty much all the trash in TK and BT were interesting, to me. Yet they considerably lengthen raid times, and you needed to bring the right class. Only sap/sheep worked reliably enough there to be useful (oh and banish). But its kinda funny to see 'oh its just trash' wipe wipe wipe, 'oh i guess we should read the strat'. I imagine IC will be like BT with lots of trash pulls, TOC was an abnormality.
Nick S Sep 18th 2009 11:11AM
BT trash was some of the best, in my opinion. Not insanely hard, but a reasonable challenge. And it dropped good stuff. :-D
BooMsx Sep 18th 2009 11:49AM
Pre-nerf Ignis trash was pretty cool and challenging for our semi-casual guild ^_^
Eisengel Sep 20th 2009 8:10PM
I agree. I liked the Auchinal instances' trash. The first half of the Sethekk trash was particularly good; the controllers up front, the casters with the patrolling fear-casting demons, the big packs with different mobs you had to prioritize were all pretty good, although the spectres and the last super-tight room was a tad too rough and random IMHO.
Intelligent use of MC was also very effective... for instance the healers and Spriests in Sethekk, the rain-of-fire casters in ramps, the DnD casters and the casters at the beginning with the insane magic buff in botanica, the summoners leading up to Murmur... while MC wasn't necessary, judiciously applying it was incredibly useful.
warigami Sep 18th 2009 8:19AM
Actually, I think trash is pretty well done in Ulduar. It slows things a bit, offering moderate difficulty and coordination, but it's not overdone and doesn't take hours to deal with. What I don't want to see is the heavy CC trash pulls like SSC and TK used to be, where one sheep being resisted or trap breaking early meant a wipe. It's just not fun and doesn't add to the immersion, just the frustration. Remember, nostalgia is just that, nostalgia. We often tend to miss things we no longer have to deal with but I'm sure a week back in BWL as a level 60 would make that nostalgia go away pretty quickly and also add appreciation to the way Blizzard has changed and modified the game.
outlier Sep 18th 2009 8:42AM
TK trash was itself almost as complex to handle as some bosses in WOTLK's raids. They were awesomely designed and made you feel like you were actually strategically raiding a fortified stronghold.
sephirah Sep 18th 2009 8:18AM
Trash can be funny/interesting during progression.
When you've a raid on farm, it's only an annoyance between you and phat lewt.