WoW revenue down 54% in seven months

[Grooveriding]

You only needed FR in MC for Rag, and there were plenty of ways around that for those lacking. Greater fire resist pots along with MCing those mobs in UBRS to cast the FR buff on the raid.

Poaching was bad though. I stuck it out with my original guild as long as possible, but after extensive Naxx 40 fail I gave up when friends who had already left for Lightbringer and a great guild told me they needed DPS and got me a spot in Eternal Reign. Best move ever as I got to clear Naxx and all of TBC with them. Best times I have had gaming.

LFR was a cancer to WoW's raiding community. It removed the carrot that would catalyse players to improve and get better to see content and get better loot. They are not necessarily all failboats in LFR, many are, but why bother putting in any effort when you can AFK once a week to see the raids and get easy loot. I understand it has its merits and players enjoy it, but it's a good indicator of what WoW is mostly about now; collecting pets, playing dress up with transmogrify and facerolling raid content that is vastly easier than 5 man dungeon difficulty used to be in the game....

 

[railven]

You only needed FR in MC for Rag, and there were plenty of ways around that for those lacking. Greater fire resist pots along with MCing those mobs in UBRS to cast the FR buff on the raid.

That still implies you needed fire resist. You can get to Rag (possibly a few dead on some pulls) without it, but Good luck downing Rag without FR, and no not just the tanks need it.

Poaching was bad though. I stuck it out with my original guild as long as possible, but after extensive Naxx 40 fail I gave up when friends who had already left for Lightbringer and a great guild told me they needed DPS and got me a spot in Eternal Reign. Best move ever as I got to clear Naxx and all of TBC with them. Best times I have had gaming.

My AQ guild didn't make into TBC. (Thinking back at my WoW history, so many guilds barely survived...I still know people who are on the 5th or 6th rebirth of a guild, haha I guess everyone had their own idea of what was right.)

I'm happy to say my guild is going strong, gonna hit 4 years soon

LFR was a cancer to WoW's raiding community. It removed the carrot that would catalyse players to improve and get better to see content and get better loot. They are not necessarily all failboats in LFR, many are, but why bother putting in any effort when you can AFK once a week to see the raids and get easy loot. I understand it has its merits and players enjoy it, but it's a good indicator of what WoW is mostly about now; collecting pets, playing dress up with transmogrify and facerolling raid content that is vastly easier than 5 man dungeon difficulty used to be in the game....

This is sort of a two sided issue. If someone wants to get better, they will, if someone only cares to AFK they don't show the desire to improve.

I've come across countless "yeah I want to raid" they show 100% effort, we get them geared, then suddenly "sorry, I can't do this anymore" only 3-4 weeks into the raid rotation. These people are good players, but they don't have commitment, and thankfully they have something now to satisfy their "urge" to raid instead of wasting my time.

I like it inside my garden, sucks so many of you guys are having issues :/

EDIT: At the part in bold, thinking about it throughout all of WoW if you weren't a raider (this applies mostly to Vanilla/TBC since to be a raider then required a lot of commitment and was still <10% of the total population) what were you doing? Seems WoW hasn't really changed much. Haha.

 

[chalmers]

damn dude, you're like...really really really really really really really really into world of warcraft.

 

[Anubis]

I know it wasn't on trash because I was one of those afk guys auto attacking trash. >_>

Maybe I was at 17k rather than 37k, but I remember a 37k in there somewhere, and it damn sure wasn't 3700 >_>

17k is likely depending on class in ICC

rogues were hitting that on death bringer before they nerfed something which didn't bring it down much (this was pre ICC buff)

most top guilds DPS ran in the 10-15k range depending on class and fight assuming normal raid setups and non silly DPS increaseing mechanics like Blood queens buff and whatnot

 

[Chiropteran]

I hope you didn't damage anything. If you think only tanks needed fire resistance...well...I don't know what to say to you (and remember, I was a tank ).

Had some incidental resists from felheart or whatever I was wearing, and mark of the wild and/or paladin resist aura, but that was it. Maybe I had the dire maul trinket equipped, which also had fire resist. However, I had no farmed or crafted fire resist, so the idea that progress was held up because of lack of fire resist is laughable to me.

We killed him dozens of times with no problem.

When did ZG come out...actually let me check...

9/2005. That's a year after WoW launched. When did BWL launch... OH, that's right BEFORE ZG (05/2005).

So, if you were in a guild scoring >ilvl70 gear in MC and then BWL dropped so you move now working on >ilvl80 gear, why would you work BACKWARDS to ZG for <ilvl70 gear?

This whole thread of discussion started when you wrote something like "what happens if you are stuck and can't progress in molten core?". A guild that has finished farming molten core and moved on to BWL obviously isn't stuck in molten core, try to think logically.

Also, molten core wasn't open at launch, so measuring time from launch is wrong. A minor detail, but just another point in favor of the theory that you really don't remember vanilla WoW accurately, at all.

 

[Aikouka]

ZG didn't accelerate you clearing MC. For starters, you still needed the right resistance gear, which ZG didn't provide. If anything, ZG made it harder for some guilds to get into MC since, well, they had to start clearing ZG first.

ZG felt almost out of place since if you were doing MC properly, ZG barely offered you anything.

Woah, this is absolutely not true. ZG may have been considered a step up to get to 40-man raiding, but there was definitely good gear in that raid. Almost every class wanted the Heart of Hakkar to get their trinket. Don't you remember ToEP + ZHC? That combination was the reason why trinkets place a temporary cooldown on other trinkets, and the Zandalari Hero Charm came from the Heart of Hakkar!

Also, most good resistance gear was crafted and required items from Molten Core that dropped off the Lava Surgers and Core Hounds.

Oh they most certainly did.

Nah. You really have to read the original post to see what I mean by "lesser guilds." He started talking about guilds that are doing anything but Naxx, which is why I said that the Naxx progression guilds probably wouldn't care about them as the tanks wouldn't have any Dreadnaught.

Nobody except tanks needed fire resist in MC. And even tanks only need it for Rag iirc, although I didn't tank myself so I am not positive. I can say for sure though as a raiding warlock I wore 0 fire resists through all of MC and never had any problems.

We used FR against Ragnaros for the first few kills. I actually got seated for the first kill because another Rogue had something like 10 more FR than me, and they were only taking people with the most resistance. :| (Of course, that's not really how resistance works....) During our many Rangaros kills, I would usually cheat and gradually remove FR gear because I knew it wasn't really needed. Eventually, the leaders also recognized this, and had us stop wearing it.

You only needed FR in MC for Rag, and there were plenty of ways around that for those lacking. Greater fire resist pots along with MCing those mobs in UBRS to cast the FR buff on the raid.

Heh, I remember spending all that time getting the FR buff off the Spellbinder to only wipe and do it all over again.

 

[yottabit]

Sort of the same thing with Prot Paladins. I was having so much fun and they decided to nerf the shit out of us

100K+ DPS
50K+ HPS
65% DMG reduction with 65% uptime

Sigh...then they took it away because DK/Warriors/Druids were getting benched for Paladins/Monks. But monks, not even a scratch.

Even as a Blood DK I'm not exactly a big fan of the changes. Though I was one of the people that missed out on raids sometimes.

My survivability, threat generation, and single-target (non-tanking) DPS all seem to be a up a little bit, but AoE DPS is pretty much demolished now. I used to be able to regularly pull 500k+ on raid trash and now I'm lucky to get 250k or so.

The threat change is just weird IMO. It did seem like threat was becoming a little gear dependent but I didn't think that was a bad thing. I mean if there was a really geared tank and a really undergeared tank, the geared one could probably pull aggro off by accident pre-5.4. So I'd have to dial back my DPS sometimes with undergeared tanks and step it up with geared tanks. This was kind of fun because it forced me to increase my DPS output.

Now with the new change to taunt, there's absolutely positively no way I could lose aggro. I think threat generation should be something you have to think about a little bit in an MMO as a tank, and not just something you have to hit one button for.

 

[Slammy1]

Isn't there a WoW thread to discuss dps and such? Unless people are saying that bad dps has lead to a drop in subs, in which case I'm wrong and apologize.

EDIT: I remember at the end of wrath I quit for a while because, in no small part, of tank threat on my DK. I didn't even have an alternate spec, just a PvP spec. It was really frustrating that the only threat I had were some crappy taunts. It was more frustration with Bliz in that they refused to fix it unless I bought the expac.

 

[railven]

Had some incidental resists from felheart or whatever I was wearing, and mark of the wild and/or paladin resist aura, but that was it. Maybe I had the dire maul trinket equipped, which also had fire resist. However, I had no farmed or crafted fire resist, so the idea that progress was held up because of lack of fire resist is laughable to me.

We killed him dozens of times with no problem.

Ever try him with absolutely zero FR? You went from "I had zero Fire Resistance" to naming a few things that gave you fire resistance. How much of your raid (exclude tanks) went in with, as you claim, zero fire resistance?

This whole thread of discussion started when you wrote something like "what happens if you are stuck and can't progress in molten core?". A guild that has finished farming molten core and moved on to BWL obviously isn't stuck in molten core, try to think logically.

Think logically? Here is the logic: ZG wasn't a catch up mechanism. If you think guilds blew threw ZG that weren't already having MC on farm status, you are sadly mistaken. Most guilds that moved on to BWL didn't bother back tracking. Most guilds that did ZG didn't have the roster for MC. There was no progression. Unless you moved to a bigger guild that was already beyond that point you were stuck.

Also, molten core wasn't open at launch, so measuring time from launch is wrong. A minor detail, but just another point in favor of the theory that you really don't remember vanilla WoW accurately, at all.

Oh really?
http://www.wowwiki.com/Molten_Core

The Molten Core is a level 60 raid dungeon located within Blackrock Mountain, home to Ragnaros the Firelord. It was one of two forty (40) player raid dungeons available upon release of World of Warcraft,

Patch 1.1 predates the release of WoW:
http://wowpedia.org/Patch_1.1.0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Warcraft

World of Warcraft Client Patch 1.1.0
Release date (US) 7 November 2004
Version 4044

New Raid Encounters
Discovered in the heart of Blackrock Mountain beyond the Depths, lies the Molten Core. Within the Molten Core lives a multitude of ancient and powerful evil. Adventurers be ware, for the dangers found within the Molten Core are many and takes many forms.
** Raid loot is being worked on and temporary loot has been placed in raid encounters

The game was released on November 23, 2004, on the 10th anniversary of the Warcraft franchise.

So tell me again who "really don't remember vanilla WoW accurately, at all"?

Woah, this is absolutely not true. ZG may have been considered a step up to get to 40-man raiding, but there was definitely good gear in that raid. Almost every class wanted the Heart of Hakkar to get their trinket. Don't you remember ToEP + ZHC? That combination was the reason why trinkets place a temporary cooldown on other trinkets, and the Zandalari Hero Charm came from the Heart of Hakkar!

There was good gear in ZG, but it wasn't a focal point for people who were already progressing through BWL. I don't know how your guild worked, if you guys were alreadye knee deep in BWL, but our guild wasn't willing to sacrifice the resources to get one BiS for a few people. It was a step backwards as a whole.

ZG essentially was a raid tier for smaller guilds, but it did nothing to help those guild get into MC because of the roster difference. If anything, most guilds that were running ZG once their people were geared those people would jump to a larger guild already in MC or BWL.

AQ20 ended up in a similar situation, except those guys were getting poached for AQ40/Naxx guilds.

Also, most good resistance gear was crafted and required items from Molten Core that dropped off the Lava Surgers and Core Hounds.

Yes, and you used it as you got. The claim that Molten Core required zero fire resistance is a farse.

Nah. You really have to read the original post to see what I mean by "lesser guilds." He started talking about guilds that are doing anything but Naxx, which is why I said that the Naxx progression guilds probably wouldn't care about them as the tanks wouldn't have any Dreadnaught.

You think they made zero offers? I disagree, but at this point there is really nothing either of us can do to prove our point. Not all tanks were warriors.

We used FR against Ragnaros for the first few kills. I actually got seated for the first kill because another Rogue had something like 10 more FR than me, and they were only taking people with the most resistance. :| (Of course, that's not really how resistance works....) During our many Rangaros kills, I would usually cheat and gradually remove FR gear because I knew it wasn't really needed. Eventually, the leaders also recognized this, and had us stop wearing it.

Exactly, it was required. As you get progressively better gear of course you can lax on some requirements, but one can't sit here and tell me you can kill Rag with zero fire resistance. If you were waiting for gear to overpower that mechanic you were killing Rag months after people who were using every advantage they could get (ie using FR gear.)

Even as a Blood DK I'm not exactly a big fan of the changes. Though I was one of the people that missed out on raids sometimes.

My survivability, threat generation, and single-target (non-tanking) DPS all seem to be a up a little bit, but AoE DPS is pretty much demolished now. I used to be able to regularly pull 500k+ on raid trash and now I'm lucky to get 250k or so.

The threat change is just weird IMO. It did seem like threat was becoming a little gear dependent but I didn't think that was a bad thing. I mean if there was a really geared tank and a really undergeared tank, the geared one could probably pull aggro off by accident pre-5.4. So I'd have to dial back my DPS sometimes with undergeared tanks and step it up with geared tanks. This was kind of fun because it forced me to increase my DPS output.

Now with the new change to taunt, there's absolutely positively no way I could lose aggro. I think threat generation should be something you have to think about a little bit in an MMO as a tank, and not just something you have to hit one button for.

The tank swap change, in my opinion, was stupid because most tanks (not sure about druid, haven't touched mine since WOTLK for tanking) have the means to turn off their threat generator. Paladins turn off Righteous, Warriors switch to Arms, DKs switch to Unholy, Monks jump out of Sturdy OX, shoot I guess Druids can get out of bear form. I never pulled threat off my Warrior OT because once we tanked swapped I'd drop Righteous.

The vengeance nerf to me is just a response to DPS complaining they were behind tanks in certain situations.

After the redesign of threat, all a tank had to do was get close to hit cap, and ideally some expertise, and they'd never have a threat issue. If all their hits land, and they generate 300% threat per hit, it should never be an issue. But most tanks in dungeons/LFR don't bother to itemize right so instead they retweaked taunt/threat and now it's (in my opinion) worse. Mistaunt and you're boned because now the target is immune to taunt for 3 seconds and you are generating 500% more threat during that period.

 

[Chiropteran]

Oh really?
http://www.wowwiki.com/Molten_Core

Interesting point, but I am still correct. You could do MoP raids on the day of release, you could not do Molten Core- open or not, level requirements to actually handle the content meant that nobody even tried molten core until months later.

20th January 2005 - world first lucifron kill, 2.5 months after "opening"

 

[railven]

Interesting point, but I am still correct. You could do MoP raids on the day of release, you could not do Molten Core- open or not, level requirements to actually handle the content meant that nobody even tried molten core until months later.

At this point I can't even carry this conversation with you any longer since you clearly don't remember things correctly.

Neither of the new raids were available at launch. They all opened at different times with different release schedules.

MOP Release Date:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Warcraft:_Mists_of_Pandaria

Release date(s) NA September 25, 2012

Mogu'Shan Vault release schedule:
http://wowpedia.org/Mogu'shan_Vaults

Normal mode opened on October 2, 2012. First part of Raid Finder and heroic difficulties opened on October 9, and second part of Raid Finder opened on October 16.[2] Raid Finder difficulty requires an average item level of 460.

Hear of Fear:
http://wowpedia.org/Heart_of_Fear

Normal mode opened October 30, 2012, first Raid Finder part and Heroic modes opened on November 6, 2012, and second Raid Finder part opened on November 13, 2012. Raid Finder difficulty requires an average item level of 470.

Terrance of Endless Springs:
http://wowpedia.org/Terrace_of_Endless_Spring

Normal mode opened November 13, 2012. Raid Finder and Heroic modes open on November 20, 2012. Raid Finder difficulty will require an average item level of 470. You must clear the Heart of Fear raid before you can access Terrace of Endless Spring.

Care to make any more corrections?

20th January 2005 - world first lucifron kill, 2.5 months after "opening"

And this means what? You've pretty much changed everything you said, were wrong on many points, and this proves what? That vanilla was harder than MoP? That was never even a question.

 

[Anteaus]

Based on everything I've read in this thread so far and in spite of all the arguments that you people have had over the most mundane details, I've come to the conclusion that you have all gotten your money's worth out of this game.

I know people who climb mountains and jump out of airplanes for fun and are less committed to their hobbies than you guys are when it comes to wow.

 

[cuafpr]

vanilla raids also weren't tested for months on a PTR.... that is where the progression begins for most top tier guilds now, they already know the fights b4 they go live now.

 

[techie81]

Got a 7 day free pass and so far 5.4 has been fun. Timeless isle is pretty cool.

 

[Chiropteran]

At this point I can't even carry this conversation with you any longer since you clearly don't remember things correctly.

Neither of the new raids were available at launch. They all opened at different times with different release schedules.

MOP Release Date:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Warcraft:_Mists_of_Pandaria

Mogu'Shan Vault release schedule:
http://wowpedia.org/Mogu'shan_Vaults

Okay, one week, big deal. That just gave enough time to cap out at max level and collect sufficient dungeon gear.


In the case of Molten Core, while I made an error if it was open at release of WoW, in reality it was unavailable even if it was open.

You must level to 60. This took weeks for most players, and even a top guild when you need a full 40 man rooster you need to wait for the slowest levelers.

Even at 60 you couldn't just walk into Molten Core, you had to nearly complete Blackrock Depths and zone through the raid portal.

You yourself claimed that the big hold up was fire resist gear. Suddenly you have changed your story and seem to think that players can walk into Molten Core on release day and do it?

I admit I made an error, I thought patch 1.1 was after release, but even given that error you literally could not do Molten Core upon release, because you had to do a number of other time consuming things first. In comparison, reaching max level and raid readiness in MoP took a small fraction of the time.

And this means what? You've pretty much changed everything you said, were wrong on many points, and this proves what? That vanilla was harder than MoP? That was never even a question.

Changed everything I said? Excuse me, I made one error because I didn't remember the timing of patch 1.1 correctly. Nothing else has changed, and nothing else was wrong.

The question was about gaps between content. If nobody has even killed the first boss of Molten Core, it's incorrect to start counting time between it and the next raid. The content isn't consumed at that point.

 

[Tweak155]

Got a 7 day free pass and so far 5.4 has been fun. Timeless isle is pretty cool.

I've thought about checking the game out again although I'm nowhere near raiding gear and that's what I'd like to get into. I received the same invitation.

When MoP came out, I leveled to 90 and quit. The quests were super fun I thought.

 

[Chiropteran]

Ever try him with absolutely zero FR? You went from "I had zero Fire Resistance" to naming a few things that gave you fire resistance. How much of your raid (exclude tanks) went in with, as you claim, zero fire resistance?

Yes. I made zero effort to increase my fire resist, but I had incidental resists because some gear I had may have had it.

All I know is the raid leader said fire resist is unnecessary for non-tanks, some members may have worn FR gear on their own accord, I really didn't care that much about the rest of the raid as long as I did my part.

Think logically? Here is the logic: ZG wasn't a catch up mechanism. If you think guilds blew threw ZG that weren't already having MC on farm status, you are sadly mistaken. Most guilds that moved on to BWL didn't bother back tracking. Most guilds that did ZG didn't have the roster for MC. There was no progression. Unless you moved to a bigger guild that was already beyond that point you were stuck.

The problem with your theory is that in reality it's false. I was in a guild that did what you think is impossible- we blew threw ZG every week with no issue, before we ever set foot in MC. We didn't have 40 members, but what we did have were good players and ZG wasn't a problem at all.

There was good gear in ZG, but it wasn't a focal point for people who were already progressing through BWL. I don't know how your guild worked, if you guys were alreadye knee deep in BWL, but our guild wasn't willing to sacrifice the resources to get one BiS for a few people. It was a step backwards as a whole.

How does this fit in with "ZG doesn't help if you are stuck in MC"? The fact is it does help, and offers a lot of nice upgrades. If you are not stuck, then who cares? I din't say ZG offers full set upgrades over BWL. In fact, if it did, I would have had the same issues with it as I have with the new joke LFR raids.

ZG essentially was a raid tier for smaller guilds, but it did nothing to help those guild get into MC because of the roster difference. If anything, most guilds that were running ZG once their people were geared those people would jump to a larger guild already in MC or BWL.

Very incorrect to say it "did nothing", when we stepped into Molten Core for the first time we had very well-geared tanks and DPS because of ZG gear, much better than guilds who went into MC with only dungeon blue gear.

AQ20 ended up in a similar situation, except those guys were getting poached for AQ40/Naxx guilds.

AQ20 dropped upgrades for EVERYBODY, no matter how geared.

http://www.wowwiki.com/Grimoire_of_Shadow_Bolt_X

Ring a bell?

If you weren't running it with your BWL+ guild and missed out on all the upgraded spells, you were throwing away a lot of potential DPS.

Yes, and you used it as you got. The claim that Molten Core required zero fire resistance is a farse.

It's one of those urban myths. Yes, you take more damage without high FR, but you also do a lot more damage since you are wearing your real DPS gear. By killing the boss faster, the raid takes less damage overall, and doesn't NEED the resists.

You think they made zero offers? I disagree, but at this point there is really nothing either of us can do to prove our point. Not all tanks were warriors.

Haha, funny. You don't really remember vanilla well at all if you think there were serious feral or protection paladin tanks.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

It's one of those urban myths. Yes, you take more damage without high FR, but you also do a lot more damage since you are wearing your real DPS gear. By killing the boss faster, the raid takes less damage overall, and doesn't NEED the resists.

Haha, funny. You don't really remember vanilla well at all if you think there were serious feral or protection paladin tanks.

You could do it with a good guild and good gear (it's how my guild did it), but it wasn't for the faint of heart and was risky.

Yea, there were no non-warrior tanks... especially raid-wise.

 

[smackababy]

You could do it with a good guild and good gear (it's how my guild did it), but it wasn't for the faint of heart and was risky.

Yea, there were no non-warrior tanks... especially raid-wise.

Not all tanks were warriors! Just the ones people wanted to play with.

 

[Aikouka]

You could do it with a good guild and good gear (it's how my guild did it), but it wasn't for the faint of heart and was risky.

Yea, there were no non-warrior tanks... especially raid-wise.

Back when we were trying to figure out Razorgore, we tried to use a Pally tank to help pick up adds via Consecrate. It sort of worked, but it was pretty hard on them and it required two of them to adequately pick up the adds. Although, the idea was that they mostly just kept aggro, but really had to outrun all the adds or they would die. Like usual, we killed the caster adds. Man, I remember how elated we were once we found out that dropping your control on Razorgore transferred all aggro to the controller. We actually used Rogues to help kite.

Anyway, yeah... Paladins were healers, Druids were healers, Shamans were healers and Warriors were tanks. Although, those silly Shamans always wanted Sulfuras. My roommate in college managed to get one eventually, and he just PVP'd with it as Enhancement. On that note, man... I hated Shamans with a beastly 1H. A good windfury crit could instant kill my Rogue if they caught me at a bad time. :|

 

[railven]

Yes. I made zero effort to increase my fire resist, but I had incidental resists because some gear I had may have had it.

This tells me more about your desire to help your guild out than anything else.

All I know is the raid leader said fire resist is unnecessary for non-tanks, some members may have worn FR gear on their own accord, I really didn't care that much about the rest of the raid as long as I did my part.

And this supports it some more.

The problem with your theory is that in reality it's false. I was in a guild that did what you think is impossible- we blew threw ZG every week with no issue, before we ever set foot in MC. We didn't have 40 members, but what we did have were good players and ZG wasn't a problem at all.

Impossible? Where did I say it was? And now I understand how you did MC without Fire Resist gear, you out geared it. Grats, you're the same thing in this thread you argue against.

So you cleared MC perhaps 9 months after me, and by then I was already 2/3 the day done with BWL.

How does this fit in with "ZG doesn't help if you are stuck in MC"? The fact is it does help, and offers a lot of nice upgrades. If you are not stuck, then who cares? I din't say ZG offers full set upgrades over BWL. In fact, if it did, I would have had the same issues with it as I have with the new joke LFR raids.

Okay...at this point we were two different people in Vanilla. You were clearly far more casual than I. So of course our experiences are different. It seems you went into MC wearing ZG Epics. Of course it was easier for you, grats.

So you used one of the intended catch-up mechanics and now you're all entirely against them? Let me ask then, if ZG was never in place - would you have gotten into MC? Just curious.

Did you jump guilds? How did your ZG Guild make it into MC? Did you partner up with another guild?

Very incorrect to say it "did nothing", when we stepped into Molten Core for the first time we had very well-geared tanks and DPS because of ZG gear, much better than guilds who went into MC with only dungeon blue gear.

/facepalm

It's amazing how contradictive your stance has been through all this. You openly said you don't like catch up mechanisms, but clearly you used ZG as a spring board to get into MC.

AQ20 dropped upgrades for EVERYBODY, no matter how geared.

http://www.wowwiki.com/Grimoire_of_Shadow_Bolt_X

Ring a bell?

If you weren't running it with your BWL+ guild and missed out on all the upgraded spells, you were throwing away a lot of potential DPS.

I didn't say we weren't run AQ20, I said AQ20 focused guilds had the same issue ZG guilds had, ie they didn't have much means to move forward.

If you couldn't sustain a roster of 40+ (since you would need back ups) you were stuck with ZG and AQ20s unless you guild merged or you jumped ship. AQ20 was not intended as a filler, it was progressive, ZG was a filler since it launched AFTER the next tier.

It's one of those urban myths. Yes, you take more damage without high FR, but you also do a lot more damage since you are wearing your real DPS gear. By killing the boss faster, the raid takes less damage overall, and doesn't NEED the resists.

Try doing MC correctly, ie not waiting over a year for to gear up through ZG. These are two completely different experiences and you come off misleading saying MC is clearable without Fire Resist. I wrongly assumed by how you present yourself that you were more hardcore, clearly you weren't - rather explains why you are wrong on so many points.

My progression was MC > ZG > BWL

It seems yours was ZG > MC > BWL

Haha, funny. You don't really remember vanilla well at all if you think there were serious feral or protection paladin tanks.

Wow...at this point after being wrong on so many different points, I don't even know if I have the care to correct you anymore.

You could do it with a good guild and good gear (it's how my guild did it), but it wasn't for the faint of heart and was risky.

It seems here the key word is good gear since he admits to clearing MC after farming ZG. At that point I'd just smile and say "good job."

Yea, there were no non-warrior tanks... especially raid-wise.

I'm glad someone else remembers WoW vanilla better. Warriors were preferred main tanks, but Vanilla raiding wasn't all about just main tanks.

 

[railven]

Ooops, sorry missed this post.

Okay, one week, big deal. That just gave enough time to cap out at max level and collect sufficient dungeon gear.

In the case of Molten Core, while I made an error if it was open at release of WoW, in reality it was unavailable even if it was open.

No, it was always available. These are two different statements you are trying to make. MC was available the day you got 40 people level 60 and attuned. There was no other requirement.

You could go in there and start wiping on trash or farming crafting material, which many guilds did.

You must level to 60. This took weeks for most players, and even a top guild when you need a full 40 man rooster you need to wait for the slowest levelers.

Even at 60 you couldn't just walk into Molten Core, you had to nearly complete Blackrock Depths and zone through the raid portal.

You yourself claimed that the big hold up was fire resist gear. Suddenly you have changed your story and seem to think that players can walk into Molten Core on release day and do it?

I never said release date. At this point you've recited my arguments as if you presented them first. I already listed all the things you've said as a road block to raiding. And I said I'm glad that's all gone.

I admit I made an error, I thought patch 1.1 was after release, but even given that error you literally could not do Molten Core upon release, because you had to do a number of other time consuming things first. In comparison, reaching max level and raid readiness in MoP took a small fraction of the time.

Again, you are trying to make two statements equal:

"Molten Core was not available at launch" != "you couldn't clear/run Molten Core at launch due to <x-list of reasons not pertaining to availability>." The first is false, the second is obvious.

"You don't need fire resister gear for MC!" != "You can clear MC with ZG gear."

The first is false, the second is again obvious. If you had said the second statements at any point during our conversation I would have said you were right.

Changed everything I said? Excuse me, I made one error because I didn't remember the timing of patch 1.1 correctly. Nothing else has changed, and nothing else was wrong.

"You don't need fire resist gear" turned into "I had the following fire resist items" now turns out to be "I had ZG gear.' Those are changing statements that each carry different weight.

"Molten Core wasn't even out at launch" is more of a you keep stating I don't remember Vanilla WoW but you were wrong, it's more a question of your credibility.

You've already said you didn't like catch-up mechanisms, but you now reveal you didn't do the content as intended (using ZG to "catch up" your gear since your skill level was inadequate).

Further more you even question that there were other tanks than warriors, there was lots of trash in MC and you could use any viable tank to clear it, and considering tanks weren't a dime a dozen like DPS, you took whatever you could get (and grow from it) if you were a guild that focused on progression.

The question was about gaps between content. If nobody has even killed the first boss of Molten Core, it's incorrect to start counting time between it and the next raid. The content isn't consumed at that point.

And now you're trying to change the definition of time releases? Are you seriously going to say now "just because no one was running molten core on release, technically it wasn't available?" Okay, so basically once you lose an argument you resort to changing facts until you're right?

Holy cow, this issue has gone almost first circle. You are clearly more casual than I and some how are complaining that those more casual than both of us shouldn't have any advantage. How many hours did you raid a week? Just curious.

 

[KaOTiK]

I remember doing MC all to well in vanilla. I was in the first raid party on our server (that was made up of people from all guilds that were the best geared on the server). Back before there were strategy guides/videos etc for anything in that place. Was a total walk in blind situation. I still remember the first Firelord (think that is what they were called) we pulled and we ignored the add spawn thinking, kill the big one first. By the end of killing that big one there was a giant ass line of baby ones that kept spawning from one another LOL

You needed FR in MC. We would run Strat/Scholo/UBRS/LBRS/BRD so damn much getting the right gear for everyone in our raid. Hell just getting the key to UBRS was a big deal as so few people had it on the server. Yeah, we cleared MC wearing gear from those dungeons, if you had an epic of any kind back then you were hot shit (I had the only Krol Blade on my rogue for awhile, got it the first run on the first day of joining my guild at the time in LBRS off an Orc).

You needed FR for awhile till the raid got geared up and you were able to slowly lower the amount needed. But it was essential to have. Not just to survive, but to learn the mechanics of a boss fight, like I said we didn't have no help when it was new and it is probably the single worse thing that has happened to MMO's now, nothing is new or learned unless you are in that top % that does world first now, no more mystery or learning.

By the time ZG came out, BWL had already been out for a couple of months and part of it was cleared already, MC was on farm status. ZG was a joke and made raid progression into 40 mans incredibly easy. There was a few things in ZG that were for people even in MC/BWL gear but as a whole it was something raiding guilds did on their non raid/progression nights.

So yeah, if you went in with ZG gear to MC, I can see how you would think FR isn't so critical, because you were already geared way above what it was originally designed around.

 

[railven]

I remember doing MC all to well in vanilla. I was in the first raid party on our server (that was made up of people from all guilds that were the best geared on the server). Back before there were strategy guides/videos etc for anything in that place. Was a total walk in blind situation. I still remember the first Firelord (think that is what they were called) we pulled and we ignored the add spawn thinking, kill the big one first. By the end of killing that big one there was a giant ass line of baby ones that kept spawning from one another LOL

You needed FR in MC. We would run Strat/Scholo/UBRS/LBRS/BRD so damn much getting the right gear for everyone in our raid. Hell just getting the key to UBRS was a big deal as so few people had it on the server. Yeah, we cleared MC wearing gear from those dungeons, if you had an epic of any kind back then you were hot shit (I had the only Krol Blade on my rogue for awhile, got it the first run on the first day of joining my guild at the time in LBRS off an Orc).

You needed FR for awhile till the raid got geared up and you were able to slowly lower the amount needed. But it was essential to have. Not just to survive, but to learn the mechanics of a boss fight, like I said we didn't have no help when it was new and it is probably the single worse thing that has happened to MMO's now, nothing is new or learned unless you are in that top % that does world first now, no more mystery or learning.

By the time ZG came out, BWL had already been out for a couple of months and part of it was cleared already, MC was on farm status. ZG was a joke and made raid progression into 40 mans incredibly easy. There was a few things in ZG that were for people even in MC/BWL gear but as a whole it was something raiding guilds did on their non raid/progression nights.

So yeah, if you went in with ZG gear to MC, I can see how you would think FR isn't so critical, because you were already geared way above what it was originally designed around.

Thank you. This is essentially how I remember Vanilla (well, and lots of yelling...I always laugh at that Onyxia video but I know...that shit was real for some of us haha.)

 

[Aikouka]

Hell just getting the key to UBRS was a big deal as so few people had it on the server.

I was one of the few Alliance rogues on my server with the UBRS key, and people would actually pay me to open the door for them (as long as I wasn't busy when they asked, I wouldn't accept the payment). It was pretty easy for a rogue as I could stealth up, distract the patrol, walk up the stairs, and activate the orb thing without aggroing anyone.

I feel kind of bad, because I'm having trouble remembering how I even got the UBRS key. Wasn't it some quest line that started in the Burning Steppes at Maxwell's Refuge (for Alliance)?

if you had an epic of any kind back then you were hot shit (I had the only Krol Blade on my rogue for awhile, got it the first run on the first day of joining my guild at the time in LBRS off an Orc).

Selling the prismatic hide off The Beast was how I bought my epic mount. :$ I was going to use it for the pants on my rogue, but I ended up getting Nightstalker before I finished the mats.

There was a few things in ZG that were for people even in MC/BWL gear but as a whole it was something raiding guilds did on their non raid/progression nights.

Like I mentioned, people definitely went into there for their trinkets (good trinkets weren't that common) and some other various items. Honestly, for those that had been raiding, it just served as another source to help people finally get to a suitable gear level. When you're playing with 40 people, sometimes it can be hard to get gear!

EDIT:

Not just to survive, but to learn the mechanics of a boss fight, like I said we didn't have no help when it was new and it is probably the single worse thing that has happened to MMO's now, nothing is new or learned unless you are in that top % that does world first now, no more mystery or learning.

Actually, all strats are pretty much disseminated prior to a dungeon's release because of the PTR. Although, that is only normal mode, but in some cases, hard modes simply require some smaller adjustments to the strategy.