Does anyone else see Cataclysm as The End?

[genocyde]

I gotta say, all you guys complaining that WoW is too easy confuse me. If you're done then why keep playing? If you're all out of challenges ... suspend your accounts until they come out with content that IS challenging. Or try 5 boxing Naxx-ICC and see the challenges there.

Facerolling ilvl 200 content with 232+gear is of course going to be easy.

However, if you really do want a challenge - toss your gear in the bank and strap on blue i187's (Superior!). Go to those same heroics... and see how you do.

I don't see any difference between putting on blue gear to clear heroics now than when Wotlk was released.

The big problem was is that normals were a joke. There was NEVER a reason to run them. 90% of people skipped them even at release. All heroics AND Naxx 10/25 were clearable with lvl 70 epic gear or 80 blues. Ya, they started with more difficulty toward the end of the expansion but having that large of a chunk of the content released in the expansion be trivial was a very bad decision.

People act like this content was only recently trivialized with the addition of emblem gear from heroics and other freebie gear (VoA) and that simply isn't the case. The world first lvl 80 naxx clears included people that hadn't even hit lvl 80 yet and some were in a mix of blues and greens. Thats just sad.

[Ualaa]

I don't see any difference between putting on blue gear to clear heroics now than when Wotlk was released.

The big problem was is that normals were a joke. There was NEVER a reason to run them. 90% of people skipped them even at release. All heroics AND Naxx 10/25 were clearable with lvl 70 epic gear or 80 blues. Ya, they started with more difficulty toward the end of the expansion but having that large of a chunk of the content released in the expansion be trivial was a very bad decision.

People act like this content was only recently trivialized with the addition of emblem gear from heroics and other freebie gear (VoA) and that simply isn't the case. The world first lvl 80 naxx clears included people that hadn't even hit lvl 80 yet and some were in a mix of blues and greens. Thats just sad.

When Burning Crusade came out, we needed to run a lot of normals to have the gear for heroics. And heroics were much harder, on an order of magnitude, then the normal versions of the instances.

In Wrath, the normals are a complete push over, aside from the newest instances from 3.3, which aren't that hard. I've seen the majority of 80's in my guild receive both the instance and heroic instance achievement at once.

Naxx 25 was totally cleared in the first week of the expansion. That is pathetically easy for any raid content.

[Iceorbz]

I think that there are ways to make new content that is challenging, even for those who have decent gear. I think Heroic Halls of Reflection is a perfect example of that. My guys were in full EoT/EoF gear (my Paladin in ICC 10/25 gear) and that place was STILL hard as hell for me.

Yes, with the gear that is available now, you can sleep through 95% of the Heroics, but when I first started running heroics with a fresh team of 80s, it was challenging, and at times, downright impossible. I can recall many a nights yelling and cursing at my screen because I couldnt kill one boss or another, or kept wiping on trash in Old Kingdom. But over time, as I started grinding out Emblems of Heroism and getting better gear, it got a little easier, but still fun as hell.

Then after I was able to clear all the Heroics, there was 'Glory of the Hero' staring me in the face, which took me several more months.

So basically, I think the challenge should be in the content, not making classes weaker.

Even with raids. In the beginning we had Naxx, but then came Ulduar. So we had a raid that could be PUG'ed, and then a raid that was hard as f**k! Though I never set foot into Ulduar myself until after ICC was already out, I didnt mind the fact that they created raid content for the hardcore nerds. I was more than happy to continue hitting Naxx and running Heroics.

Basically, I think they may be catering towards the hardcore audience a little too much. But like everyone has been saying, we wont really know until the content is actually out.

And I'm sure if they do something drastic that alienates a majority of players, they'll be quick to go back and fix it.

I spent 1500 gold in repairs doing Heroic ToC when it first came out. So I know the feeling of some shit being hard... I spent another 2000 and some change in Heroic PoS and Heroic HoR when they also first came out.

[mrmcgee21]

BC heroics got progressively nerfed throughout the xpac, and the people who ran 5 shamans through them were in full epic pvp gear ( that was way over budgeted for the content ). If you did the original BC heroics you would definitely not say they were easier than LK ones, yes after they nerfed the shit out of them and started handing out epics like candy people facerolled them just like in LK. I'm sure you can 5 shaman LK heroics now as well due to epics being much more available.

The difference is, LK heroics were never a challenge right from the start. Bc heroics got turned into what Lk heroics are, which I guess is just their general 5 man content design now which really makes me sad, the only challenging content in the game now are 10-25 man hard mode raids and high end pvp. I love running 5 man dungeons but when they are this easy ( even on "hard mode" ) its really disappointing and gets boring much faster.

[Tdog]

BC heroics got progressively nerfed throughout the xpac, and the people who ran 5 shamans through them were in full epic pvp gear ( that was way over budgeted for the content ). If you did the original BC heroics you would definitely not say they were easier than LK ones, yes after they nerfed the shit out of them and started handing out epics like candy people facerolled them just like in LK. I'm sure you can 5 shaman LK heroics now as well due to epics being much more available.

The difference is, LK heroics were never a challenge right from the start. Bc heroics got turned into what Lk heroics are, which I guess is just their general 5 man content design now which really makes me sad, the only challenging content in the game now are 10-25 man hard mode raids and high end pvp. I love running 5 man dungeons but when they are this easy ( even on "hard mode" ) its really disappointing and gets boring much faster.

Agreed. I actually remember comparing the orignal BC Heroics to "5 man raiding" as you had to have a plan to the pulls, not just run through them blindly w/o thinking about it. But by the middle of BC's exsistence that changed pretty drastically.

[thefunk]

durp durp durp

[Ughmahedhurtz]

durp durp durp

OMG MACRO HAX!1

Regarding the "nerfs" in the pre-beta posts by blues, consider this: In BC, 5-sham teams could basically faceroll certain content and, once geared up a bit, faceroll the rest of it and blow things up like mad. 4-sham + healer teams were nigh unstoppable in arenas and 5-sham teams in BGs were crazy. Then LK hit. Now, 5-sham heroic faceroll teams aren't easy until you way outgear the content, tank+4sham heroic teams are the new faceroll PvE team, 4-sham + healer teams still do well in arenas, 5-sham teams still do well in BGs and DK+4ret teams are now viable for just about everything the shaman teams were doing, when they most obviously were not during BC.

I expect things will change again but they won't change in a vacuum. Boxers will always have better synergy than randoms because we can stack things just the way we like to play. That won't change except to say that you might have to stack things a bit differently to cover the new gaps in abilities.

Overall, I expect things will go through a few months of WTF? and then settle down to a new discussion of what's awesome about Cataclysm.

/shrug

Change is good, especially in MMOs. My advice: stop watching the news (aka Forum Whiners [Note: not here, mostly on general and other wow-related forums]); they can only see the negatives (if it bleeds, it leads; aka more nerfs lol) and things never turn out as bad as they like to envision.

[Powerwar]

The day the next expansion goes released the following things will happen... all at the same time and not in that exact order:

1 ) The universe will implode
2 ) The world will explode
3 ) The sky will fall
4 ) Fire will rain from down to upside
5 ) Your brain will flip out of your head
6 ) A gnome will shit a black hole that will crit everyone with a stink ray

[crowdx]

I think for me on my server in Dalaran nearly every toon I see has a 5.5k or higher GS, to me that tells me something is really wrong. In the BC only raiders of high end content had the epics, now if you farm enough you can get fully decked out in frost badge gear without ever setting foot in a real raid (I am excluding the weekly etc where people are requiring 5k + GS so that they can face roll the run).
I think going back to a mid way between BC and WotLK would work fine for me. Whether I would continue to multibox would depend on what was fun.
I think the game should be more tiered than what it is now, giving everyone from the casual to the hardcore something to work for and then able to show off in the game, maybe more titles for achievements?
Change can be good

[mrmcgee21]

I have run every heroic in blues, including ICC 5 mans. I'm really disappointed at the lack of challenge from the 5 man content in the game. In BC you had heroics for the people who really wanted an extra challenge until blizz thought it was a great idea to turn heroics into normals and basically remove that extra lair of challenge. I have literally never had to run any 5 man on normal in LK since I hit 80, that doesn't seem right to me. The fact is there is no amount of challenge that they can add to 5 man content that would keep me out and not keep out 90% of the player base as well, so let them do whatever they want .. people will 5 box it as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow. Go watch some of the old movies of scarlett 5 boxing BC heroics when they were actually hard, that guy was as efficient as most normal groups I've seen.

Why you think people should quit because they have a complaint about difficulty is beyond me, theres still a lot of areas of this game I enjoy that doesn't mean I'm not going to advocate improvements I think I would enjoy.