Wrath, Your Honest Opinion.Follow

Wrath, I felt, was handled as best as could be hoped for the magnitude of changes they put into the game.

Leveling through Northrend was a blast. The zones were beautiful, the questlines had me actually caring, and the music was amazing. But still, leveling is leveling, and I don't look forward to doing it again unless it involves chains I had skipped before.

Many talent specs deserved and were reworked to everyone's benefit. People now have multiple options for the roll they chose. While elitists will always claim, rightfully, that if you want to squeeze out those last 5% of damage or something, you have to be x spec, with y glyphs, and use z rotation. There is some validity to that statement, and you certainly have to know your class, but there were options now. Instead of being shoved into the cookie-cutter specs, you can make individual choices to suit your own playstyle. I'm talking Fire vs Arcane, or Affliction vs Destruction. Or hell, even Discipline vs Holy. While the difference in output in there, what really shines is how unique and varied all the trees feel from one another. Back in TBC most priests were Holy, and now it seems to be about evenly split between the trees. What I'm saying is that it's now possible to find the tree that fits your playstyle and roll with it.

Once you hit 80, it was pretty much pick-up and play as far as initial endgame content went. While you certainly wouldn't be the best, it was possible to do passably in Naxx the moment you got your final talent point. Heroics became more of a grind than something you actually had to think about, and were very easy to faceroll your way through. While I'm not a fan of the amount of vehicle fights, and vehicle fights in general (I'm looking at you, Oculus and EoE), they certainly added variety.

Patch 3.1 brought Dual-Spec, a much, much needed addition, and Ulduar. Ulduar is both beautiful and fun. It catered to both those wanting a challenge, and those just wanting to see the end of an Old God. I really don't have anything to complain about with Ulduar. My only complaint about the tier itself would be that I wish there was a side dungeon, something like Gruul/Magtheridon's Lair where we could pop in for a break in the monotony.

3.2 brought the completed Argent Tournament, my least favorite part of the entire expansion. Many have criticized it, and some with good reason. ToC in general felt like a waste of a Tier to me. It seemed like it was hurried together to buy time to finish off 3.3 before players started foaming at the mouth. Well, foaming at the mouth more than usual. The Argent Tournament itself strikes me as something that would be one of those good side dungeons mentioned above. Maybe with one or two fewer bosses, it could be an easy night of raiding for some tier gear. Something to go hand in hand with another major raid that together made Tier 9. It just seems too... well, mediocre.

I'm hoping 3.3 and Icecrown will be amazing.

The gear. Where do I begin? Oh yeah, it was bad. Really bad this time around. While leveling, sure, all my stuff matched. If you call the same drab muted browns piece after piece matching. I didn't look like a psychotic clown, but at least Pennywise kept things interesting. And the tier gear started off using good (well, for some classes) artwork from old Tier 3, and only went downhill from there. Tier 8 is debatable. Some like it, some don't. But most agree Tier 9 is crap from an art perspective, and Tier 10 is shaping up to be the same for a lot of classes. *cough*Death Knight*cough*

Ahem.

Despite all my complaints, I enjoyed this expansion. I think they struck as good a balance as can be hoped with the difficulty of content. There will always be those complaining that it is too easy, and they will always be a vocal minority. But as Blizz becomes more experienced with something like this, and let's face it, they're really the first to do something like this, we will see better and more tuned encounters that can be accessible and fun. This expansion pack is the best, by far. No questioning that. They certainly could have done some things better, but they did a lot more things excellently.

In short, they did as well as could be hoped, and better in a lot of cases. It's my favorite expansion pack, and the future looks bright.

Things I hated: Borean Tundra, Garrosh, art on the Tier gear, Garrosh, Varian Wrynn, Garrosh, Sylvanas's voice, and Garrosh.

Quite arguable about the crafting things. In TBC the crafters had BoP items (spellfire/frozen shadoweave/primal mooncloth or whatever it was called) that was BiS throughout the Tier 4 content and lasted for some classes well into T5 and for Spriests even T6 because of the itemization. Then (as you noted) in the next instances there were more BoE and BoP items to be made (generally one of each) (T5 BoE belt, BoP boots) (T6 BoE Bracers, BoP Shoulders), etc. It benefitted the crafter that they can make very very good BoE items and quite good BoP items for themselves -- come wotlk all of them were BoE (for better or worse).

That and the homogenization of the crafting tradeskills (all granting relatively the same level of bonus) made it less good for item crafters, but better to re-usable crafters (enchanters, jcers, and inscriptionists)

I am going to agree with this section 99% and your previous section 98%.

Tier 7 was arguably, and agreeably, far too easy. I understand why it was made easy, but it being too easy just makes it a recipe for disaster now that we're approaching Tier 10 in terms of running it for the extra badges and specific loot, or to help gear a new toon.
Naxx is OK. Granted it was the best Blizzard had to offer during classic WoW and hardly anyone got to run it, they did give it new life by moving it to Northrend.
Obsidian Sanctum is great. Scalable difficulty but still an easy fight. Perhaps this could be expanded later on.
Malygos was OK. The fight is not difficult at all, simple and straightforward. What I did not like at all, especially in 25-man, is the drake phase of the encounter. The biggest complaint I have with the drake phase, especially in 25-man, was not being able to see much of anything through 25 drakes and their wings.

Tier 8 is good, but it doesn't quite hit the sweet spot in terms of difficulty. The fights are relatively simple and straight forward. The hard modes are hard, normal modes are... normal difficulty.

Tier 9 is OK. I like that there is no trash and that the instance can be comfortably cleared in one session. I do NOT like having to learn the PvP capabilities and defenses of my class/spec in order to PvE. Other than that, the encounters are still relatively simple and straight forward. Hard mode is certainly hard.

To keep me entertained through the next expansion, I would like to see two levels of hard mode, 'hard' and 'heroic'. 'Heroic' could be tuned exactly like current hard modes are, where 'hard' could be tuned, on a scale of 0-100 with 100 being Trial of the Grand Crusader for difficulty, a 75. Granted, I understand that there were 600 some items introduced with Ulduar between normal and hard modes and 10/25 man modes, but with the resources available to Blizzard, that shouldn't be terribly difficult.

It is an OK expansion.

Leveling, questing, lore is great.

PvP has slipped. The Cataclysm BG ladder changes should have happened in November of last year, arena point changes etc as well as how spikey it was and the gutting of 2v2 were meh.

Raiding has its ups and downs. Dps rotations are more intricate, class balance is much better, itemization is better, there are some neat boss mechanics, easy vs hard is nice. Then you have ToC and Naxxramas which were both filler content with very little effort put in. Ulduar and IC are big and pretty though.


Blizzard has made it pretty clear that nothing is sacred at this point and classes changes that would have been shocking in TBC are now happening every patch.

Funny, because I see it the other way. To me, each expansion is more like a new game in a series with a "clear data bonus" from the previous ones. Reason being that each expansion makes 99% of earlier content obsolete when not leveling. The only things that stay relevant are BGs, achievements and... Ummm... that seems to be about it, unless you want to consider useless and long rep grinds that won't give you anything but mounts, pets or achievements content.

I don't really have any major complaints related specifically to the expansion. Most of my complaints/disappointments tend to revolve around the players, not the content

I wasn't around for the original incarnation of Naxx so tier 7 didn't bother me as far as content goes. Spending 3 months worth of 10-12 hours/week in Naxx25 and still not being able to meet what I would consider the baseline standards to declare content as being on farm status bothered me.

Anything/everything that happened with regards to PvP didn't bother me at all. I don't PvP. I don't even participate in WG battles...if anything, I'll park myself o my flyer on one of the ridges surrounding WG if a match is coming to a close so I can fly in if we have possession after the battle for a better shot at a VoA PUG once/week.

The behicles, phased areas in different zones, accessibility of content, and dramatically improved incorporation of lore into the overall expansion were great.

I'm just hoping that we get a beta announcement for Cataclysm within 3 months of 3.3 or it's going to get awfully old :P

Why in the world would you say that? It's extremely profitable on most servers. It offers a completely knew, and decent, customization option. Scribes get great self-enchants. You can make scrolls. Etc.

I think the profession was VERY well filled out.

Umm, I think you mis-understood their post. They were referring to the Tier9 raid, not the ToC 5man. I was pretty confused when you said there was jousting, as there definitely isn't in the TotC raid.

I never really found the 5man to be difficult at all, I tanked it on my (At the time) fresh 80DK (with a few crafted ilvl 200 pieces) but had a good healer.

If you think these classes got the shaft imagine being an Engineer. Our purpose used to be to bring repair bots to a raid...No need anymore with the development of the Traveler's Tundra Mammoth or that there is a repair vendor within 5 feet of every major raid entrance. In BC we had our Turbo-Charged Flying Machine which distinguished our mark as making the max level of engineering. Nowadays anyone can drive around a Chopper if they find an engineer to build it. Finally, our beloved goggles...So very good in comparison to the other head slot items in BC was completely wasted and is usually replaced by a 78 Blue in Wrath. I personally would like to see them bolster the engineering profession by adding some more gadgets and gizmos that would be effective in a PvE enviroment. Hell, Id even be impressed if they gave us the 310% Airplane that was rumored several months ago to be Engineer Only to finally be released.

Edited, Nov 17th 2009 9:15am by GavilrainOfGaruda

But the thing is, the basic principle of the game stays pretty much the same. Priests are still priests. Warlocks are still warlocks. PvE is still PvE, PvP still PvP. The content that 'becomes obsolete' as you call it is content that can change without changing the basic premises of the game anyway (zones, namely). You can argue that Priests, Warlocks, PvE and PvP all got buffs, but that's exactly my point; playing a priest is still similar to how it was in vanilla. Sure, things have changed, but it's still the same class that has been updated rather than a completely new class.

I can understand your way of looking at it, though.

I see your point. But, on the other hand, many classes have radically changed since Vanilla (Paladins, Shaman and Druids, for instance).

Plus, a Warlock remaining a Warlock doesn't bother me. I mean, when you play Halo 1 and Halo 3, Master-Chief is still Master-Chief. The core game-play is the same. MANY of the weapons haven't changed at all. The only difference is that nothing about having played game 1 influences game 3, apart from development.

So, even though you can go to the old world (in an easier and more-connected fashion than plugging in your original xbox), it really has nothing to do with the current game beyond story and development influence.

And, take Cata for instance. It'll actually destroy a ton of the old world content. It's gonna be hard to consider Vanilla and it the same game, when the former will barely even exist anymore.

I think you can rate expansions in WoW just fine. Because, let's face it, if NR had an AH, you could use it as its own game in the first place. How often do you go to OL or Azeroth for any reason other than trainers when leveling, the AH or CoS?

It's definitely not rational... And they were not OP for anywhere near a year (you realize that Wrath has been out for only a year and four days, right?) They got nerfed pretty damn hard with Ulduar, back when I took my break in May. That's only 5 months, with them constantly being toned down in the mean time.

Plus, it's just stupid to complain about them not having to level from 1-55. That's the point of them being the "hero" class. They have a requirement to unlock, and thus start off higher. That's the ONLY bonus they get. And it makes no difference, really, with the exception of them being extremely powerful in the 59 bracket of PvP. All the gear is replaced halfway through OL and they're just the same as any other class in NR.

And I don't get how the "composition" has been shifted. For a long time, there were 3 classes that wore cloth, 2 that wore leather, 2 that wore mail and 2 that wore Plate. Now there's 3 plate wearers. And Fury/Arms Warriors aren't that popular. So most plate DpSers are Ret Pallies or DKs. It isn't like half the game wears plate now. And, hell, the DK class didn't even cause specific gear to be made like Shaman did. They use the same exact tanking/DpS gear as other classes. Only Shaman use SP Mail.

So, I can only assume we are talking about PvP? I still don't get what the issue is with skewing the composition, but I can see how it might be annoying. But the class and Blizzard isn't at fault for there being a large initial population of the class. It was the same with Paladins/Shaman in BC. Things balance as players return to/decide on a main. This will be the case with EVERY expansion, even if Blizz doesn't add any new races or classes. It's an excellent time to level a new main, since raiding/PvP is just beginning. So, the whole skew of things will change according to fads/what new talents look pretty.

Plus, adding a new class was a good learning experience for Blizzard. They likely learned a lot about balance (in their own words, they've seen the problems with giving a single class too many tools for different situations).

You're looking more towards the zones rather than the actual content. If you solely want to rate WOTLK, try and imagine everything that existed in WoW isn't there. That simply can't be done. WoW vanilla lay the base in terms of quests, the way your character advances (experience and gear), and the way classes work. No class changed so radically that it's really more or less a 'new class' when compared to vanilla. Your 'use it as its own game' argument works, but only in the case of zones - which are, like I mentioned earlier, the kind of content that can radically change without impacting the way the game works anyway (northrend questing is exactly the same as [insert random zone-name] questing). You can't "erase" the vanilla/tbc warlock from your mind, take all the changes that happened to the class in WOTLK and use that as 'a new class'. It just doesn't work.

Which basically is why I refuse to 'rate' an expansion like WOTLK; it isn't a whole new game. It's more of the same old deal. It's the spikes on a fence. You can't 'forget' about the fence and rate the spikes.

Maybe *you* can rate expansions in WoW just fine, but I won't =P. Your rating is based more on the things WOTLK actually added to the game (Northrend, instances, new professions) whereas mine would be based on what it changed - and you can't rate a change if you forget about the original object.