Now, you might think this is odd, as I think it’s obvious that I’ve been a pretty big Wrath fanboy. Still, as time goes by, and I see more and more of the content, and reach many more individual goals, I’ve come across a few big changes that bother me. I love what Blizzard did overall with this expansion, I’m having a blast and still playing as much as I can, but it isn’t perfect. Perhaps it’s the curmudgeon in me, but there are a few things that are just plain sticking in my craw. Let’s take a look!
1) The Death of CC
Somewhere along the way, CC died. I didn’t even really notice it for awhile, I just figured we were flat out bludgeoning the content. I recall it often got like this when we seriously outgeared certain instances, and I didn’t realize how serious the problem was anymore.
Nobody CCs anymore, not anywhere. I can’t think of a single encounter where a group I was in had to bother marking targets for sheeping or frost traps or anything. Heck, people laughed when I first began my forays into tanking, and asked for CC from mages or hunters. It seems every tank has a way to hold several mobs without really breaking a sweat. And the DPS is so through the roof, even for players in crap gear, that CC isn’t even necessary anymore. And I’m not just talking about in heroics, I mean in any situation. Not even Naxx requires anything other than a little Mind Control for a single boss fight.
Remember that nasty old 6 pull towards the end of Magisters’ Terrace? And how with the right CC you made strategic, quick work of it? I do. I remember what a bastard of a pull it was without any CC. Frantic, edge of your seat, let’s hope we get through this alive type excitement. Well, nowadays I guess all we’d need is a Warrior’s TC to grab everyone, eh?
What happened? I remember that one Druid change I was quite excited about was the fact that they were going to allow roots to be used indoors. Wow, I thought, I could actually contribute to CC in a pinch.
Boy was I wrong. Bye bye CC, it seems we left you somewhere in Magisters’ Terrace.
2) No Rare Patterns
Here’s another one. Tradeskill recipes. Remember when people used to grind for rare drop enchanting recipes, and then were able to make a nice profit off them for quite some time? Well, those days are long gone, too. Is it just me, or is everything too easy to get now? Sure, you have your patterns only available at exalted rep, or the couple tailoring patterns tied to achievements, but that’s not all that difficult. It’s just a matter of time.
In the end, though so many good patterns are BoE, pretty much everyone can make them. The AH, for even good epics, is a pure undercut fest. Unless, of course, you have a Nobles card to sell. There’s no profit! Boo!
It seems maybe I’d be better off going to straight mat farming to make money. But of course I’ve always been terrible at making money. I’ve played since beta and only have one stinking epic flyer, and even that seemed to take forever.
PTD is just too dang spendy.
3) OP DKs are Everywhere
And they embarrass me with their easy cheesy DPS. DKs are the locks of Wrath, crazy DPS with crap gear. Insane DPS with great gear. To top it all off, they’re competing directly with my for my tasty DPS plate drops. Doh! Yes, yes, I know they are fairly complex to play, but I’ve yet to see one doing under 2k DPS, and most I’ve seen are closer to 3k if not well over. Hell, even as tanks they put a sizable dent in the DPS meters, it can be disheartening!
And I thought for sure they would have gotten a sizable nerf by now, but I don’t see it yet. My new precious TG warrior is getting a nerf, and DKs everywhere are now laughing at me.
In that ultra-cool evil sounding maniacal laugh. It just ain’t fair!
4) PUGing Heroics is Now an Option
I mean, it used to be an option before, but now it’s almost too easy. The only PUG heroic I’ve seen fail is in one instance: Azjol Nerub. Every other PUG heroic I’ve been in, and I’ve been in a lot, has blasted whatever heroic we chose to tangle with.
I NEVER used to PUG heroics. Never.
Now I have no real fear of doing so, and the curmudgeon in my doesn’t like it. "In my day you NEVER PUGed heroics, and you used CC too!"
Really though, all these complaints are fairly minor, and not really complaints at all. The fact is that WoW has changed, just as it did when BC was released. It’s just that this time everything became easier. It makes me glad I’m not a hardcore player, as I’m sure I’d be incredibly bored by now. I do hope that Ulduar is a solid upgrade in difficulty, though.
I still find myself logging in at any opportunity, and enjoying my time running Naxx or Heroics or whatever. Whether they are "easier" or not, I’m having a good time. Hell, I even busted out the Druid the other night to heal a 10 man Naxx run, and I found that I’ve still got it. I intend to keep him dusted off, too, and will continue to pull him out whenever I hear the cry for a healer.
So, now that the honeymoon is over, what do you think about Wrath?
Entries (RSS)
The ability to PUG this stuff has made guilds less important. The downside to this is that when trying to field a team for anything 25 man, we usually bring in 7 – 10 non guildies. It isn’t that our guild isn’t big enough, it’s that others PUG’ed it earlier in the week and are now saved.
The content is laughable, classes have been homogenized so much. Promises of those rare patterns and more challenging content are out there in the 3.1 patch notes. I hope that’s true, facerolling all content regardless of class is less than fun.
Elements of the game that made you unique are gone, from class differences, to working your way up in a good guild, to recipes you can create with your professions.
I thought it was bad enough when TBC came out and everything you had grinded and worked for could now be bought off a vendor. Wrath hasn’t changed the course here.
Hey mate,
Been reading your blog for a few months now and firstly I’d have to say I’m impressed, I’m a bit of a part time player as well and find your insite to be refreshing. I originally found your blog when I coxed back into playing after an 8 month absence and decided to respec my feral druid to resto. Ive since respect to balance since resto is SO hard to lvl with but am really enjoying it again.
Anyway enough about that, I agree with all the topics above and I was even looking at recipies today for leatherworking, firstly most of the top recipies are now bought from vendors rather then grinded for and the items that are actually used are far less and easier to obtain!!!!
I only really noticed about CC the other night as it seams all classes (tank, DPS and Heals) have their “Oh Shit” buttons that they can press in a tight spot and usually come out of a bad situation alive!!
However, I have to admit that only being able to give WoW a few hours a week I’m finding this much more enjoyable as I can achieve something in this time rather then think its to damn hard with what I can put into it… Hence why I stopped all that time ago.
peace out dude.
Hi,
I’m quite happy that even those who can’t afford to go into Raids can actually stuff themselves thanks to no “super mega rare loot drop that you can only get if you are playing 8h a day every day, or raiding 5 evenings a week”.
Yet I have to admit that once you PUG-clear all heroics, you have NO possible evolution. You want to arena (the most casual-friendly stuff-rewarding activity ?) = now you should pug-raid archa, or other 25, else you are doomed to reach 1650+ team rating dressed in blue pvp or purple pve gear.
Death of CC is pretty pretty annoying. Even in bg/arena it’s nearly dead from the smallest I see.
There is no sign of Magister Terrasse-like instances in 3.1 either
. 10-man Uldar raid will only grant Naxx-25 badges.
Are Part Time Players restricted to go collecting pets and replaying low level instances for achievements ? Luckily you can PUG a Raid, yet it still mean you must be online in the evening for a few hours in a row.
On a positive note, I like what they made to weapon enchantments : easy to get, easy to pay for a moderate enchant (e.g. +50 spellpower), but hard to get, expensive to buy for a top end enchant (e.g. +63 sp). Difference is so small it won’t matter to a non-top-hardcore raider, and yet best enchants are still way harder to reach.
Gronyon’s last blog post..Naxxramas : Introduction
I’m incredibly torn by these issues. I’m a part time player, and many of these things are supposedly DESIGNED for people like me. Well, part of me is glad that I can PUG heroics or even Naxx if I like, but the other part of me misses the challenge.
You know what I miss? SSC, pre nerf, when it was a real challenge for the group I was running it with. We still only ever managed to take Leo down maybe 4 times, and we NEVER got Lady V down. I’m sure if we could have kept going we would have!
Well, here’s to hoping a lot of the “ease” of Wrath was just for the early stuff.
No CC… I miss CC so much… I know it wasn’t “everything” about a Mage. but I was always proud of the fact that I would keep a mob under control until it was ready… Even if I went down early in the fight, I knew that the party had another 30 seconds to clean up… and I would be there telling them when there was 5 sec’s to go… I miss CC.
AoE CC in fun by any stretch… we all love to see the screen go up in damage, but occasionally please… I would prefer strategy to napalm.
As for trade skills… I just wrote about my frustrations with tradeskills as a casual.. not so much the lack of purple, but the “hardcore” nature of acquiring the patterns.
I used to *love* using Hibernate to CC aminals. I remember doing it in ZA with Malacrass, and sleeping the snake. I have yet to use ANY CC, anywhere, in a raiding environment.
Sigh.
Here’s hoping for more CC in Ulduar…
Averna’s last blog post..3.1 Lifebloom wrap-up.
“Nobody CCs anymore, not anywhere. I can?t think of a single encounter where a group I was in had to bother marking targets for sheeping or frost traps or anything. Heck, people laughed when I first began my forays into tanking, and asked for CC from mages or hunters.”
Yeah, after coming back for the Wrath trial, I noticed that myself. I figured we (not me, though) were overgeared and that I was running with too many ‘locks. At least nobody yelled when I pulled roots in instances, but you’ve nailed that one. Or not nailed it, in that everyone’s running around CCless. Or some other overly stretch metaphor. Sorry.
Jal’s last blog post..Hello, theorycrafting your balance
I lament the death of CC myself, and its completely killed my motivation to level my hunter and mage to 80. I loved CCing with both of them, and ended up being one of the few hunters on our sever to be as reliable for CC as a mage. I’ve been working on my shaman lately, and we got the same deal druids did: We held our breaths waiting for Wrath so we could FINALLY get a CC-like move and FINALLY be more useful other than a totem whore.
I’ve never yet used it in an instance -_-
I miss the days of marking mobs. I refuse to lvl my tank anymore since people just laught at you for marking.
Ok I have a friend who is totally hardcore and he came over to my house one day and we were talking wrath and he ended his summation with, ‘…I just feel like someting’s missing, you know? */shrug*’ And here I am floundering on my 80 BM hunter wondering why the heck my dps sucks when I have pretty excellent blues with a few purples. I’ve overcome that problem with just adding a bunch of glyphs because I actually FORGOT about the fact they were there. I’m wary of joining any Battlegrounds because of the overflow of DKs. As a jewelcrafter I have actually found random rare patterns dropping all over the place in Storm Peaks so I don’t really have a complaint about patterns dropping.
I hardly play my Feral druid since wrath, she’s all decked out in her Kara tanking epics and when I go to pug (which is something I usually do) a DK joins the party and I’m in nelf form just standing around and the healer asks, who’s the tank and all of a sudden the DK says ‘I am!’ And for the rerst of the pug I watch the healer have diffuculty healing the DK and die while doing a normal pull. I mean wtf DK’s should not be able to tank as well as someone who has worked harder than they have.
I didn’t really notice the death of CC either because as you said I thought we were just beating the crap out of the instance. But I ‘m sitting here on my hunters not waiting for marks and shooting a frost arrow in the path of a mob before they reach the group and what happens after they freeze? It’s immediately broken. And by what? OH I know! Either Consecrate or Death and Decay. Blizz has totally dumped Beartanks and Prot Warriors into a garbage can when it comes to tanking because its an AoE fest. So CC hasn’t really died, the ignorance of the tanks MURDERED it. I mean seriously, call me whatever you like but Aoe just isn’t classy. I only use Volley on non-elites anyway.
Threat. As one of the higher dpsing of the groups I run with I somehow manage to pull whatever I’m hitting away from the DK/pally I either think the tank ain’t doing his job or the aoe just isnt enough. So what do I do? I feign and as expected the threat goes to the healer and I have to distract him back to me and turn growl on my pet so I don’t die. So now I find myself using misdirect on every stinking pull just so I don’t have to go through that crap. Once again, messy, not classy.
And to answer the plight of my friend…How many raids did we have with BC? Kara, BT, SSC, Hyjal, Eye, Sunwell, Naxx. Wrath gives us Oh look a repeat! Naxx, Vault, OS….Malygos? I mean seriously theres a huge chunk of what were missing, actual raid content. We got maybe three NEW encounters oooooh….So end’s my rant I guess, Girl gamer out.