WoW: Dramas, records, crunchy instances - the first weeks of TBC Classic1
. WoW: TBC Classic - The records of the professional guilds2. WoW: TBC Classic for normal mortals3. WoW: TBC Classic - Dramas like 20074. WoW: TBC Classic - My conclusion so farUpdate from August 23:
It's been just under two months since my experience report for the first few weeks with Burning Crusade Classic. In terms of kill times, a lot has happened since the launch weeks, of course:
- A Russian guild was able to send Raufgar down in just nine seconds and defeat Gruul in just 1:53 minutes.
- A few days ago, a Chinese guild beat Magtheridon in 2:05 minutes (which is possible if you channel the ban phases one right after the other: the banished boss takes a lot more damage).
- And how fast can you clear Karazhan? Well, the US guild SPACEFORCE currently holds the speed record at 45:22 minutes (with Nightbane and Nethergroll).
I could also tell you a lot of news from the drama front, which reminds me a lot of 2007 and which has shown me once again how fragile a guild community that is running well on the outside is, and how quickly it can happen that such a social framework falls apart. The good news is that we're still very early in the content, and there's still plenty of time to prepare the squad for the raid challenges of Phase 2.
Despite increasing character numbers in the raid (here are the stats from the last ID / and here are the numbers from early August), I'm also noticing more and more each day that many players are logging in less frequently. The main character is certainly not only with me long ready for phase 2, also the one or other Twink could immediately start in the Fortress of Storms and the Serpentshrine. For all I care, Blizzard could start giving the upcoming update a release date.
What has been your experience with TBC Classic lately? Are you still having fun playing? Do you only log in to raids anymore? Did you end your TBC career early? Tell us in the comments!
Original post from June 21:
Today is my first day back at work after two weeks off. Two weeks in which I spent an hour or two playing WoW: Burning Crusade Classic. Exactly how many is hard to say. On my main character Creep, the speedometer for "time played at this level (70)" stands at 4 days, 1 hour, and 49 minutes. In the meantime, though, I've been leveling my priest on and off, and spending a bit of time with my profession twinks as well.
I was there back in 2007, when the Dark Portal opened for the first time. And thanks to the beta and my work on the countless guides for TBC Classic, I was able to refresh or even correct many memories from back then in advance. So in part, I knew pretty well what to expect. But partly I was also surprised. About my personal findings from the first weeks with WoW (buy now 14,99 € ): Burning Crusade Classic it should go in the following.
WoW: TBC Classic - The records of the professional guilds
Even before my vacation, on June 3rd, I was able to report that the entire raid content of TBC Classic Phase 1 has already been mastered. The first level 70 character was already there after 13 hours. Meanwhile, ambitious guilds are outdoing each other almost daily with their remarkable speed kill times. Kill High King Maulgar in just 16 seconds? The EU guild Resist did just that on June 17th (see log).
WoW: TBC Classic - Knock out High King Maulgar in 16 seconds? Can be done ... Oo
Source: buffed
Magtheridon currently takes the best guilds just under four minutes. The record for Gruul is currently 2:48 minutes. And for all the bosses in Karazhan, the best guilds need less than 70 minutes. Those are some pretty big numbers, and some of them take a lot more time and effort than some people think. The amount of time and energy that Progress players have invested to get as many players to 70 as quickly as possible and secure the firstkills in TBC Classic is incredible.
WoW: TBC Classic for normal mortals
However, the above times and achievements have little to do with how most guilds experience TBC Classic. If I take my guild as an example, even now we have isolated players who are just getting or have gotten their first character to level 70. If you level normally, with quests and semi-regular dungeon visits, it just takes time to reach the new max level.
There are also differences in endgame experience. Our four Karazhan groups were able to knock out the Prince across the board, but Nightbane is still standing almost everywhere. Some of us are still on the quest line to even summon the dragon, and some of us have been getting pounded in the face by the Nightbane with setups that allowed us to beat all the other bosses without a problem (two healers, several melee fighters).
WoW: TBC Classic - Nightbane is especially challenging for the healers of the raid.
Source: Blizzard
We already talked about this in the buffedCast: Already the beta showed that Nightbane is a very different caliber than the rest of the Karazhan bosses. Especially in the flight phase a lot of damage hits the raid. This is also because the skeletons have an aura of damage that can kill melee fighters in a short amount of time. A similar challenge awaits guilds in the 25-player range. The optimal setup for Gruul's Lair is completely different than the optimal setup for Magtheridon's Chamber. For the latter demon, you usually pack a lot more healers, and depending on your tactics, one or two more tanks won't hurt.
All of which I was already expecting thanks to the beta. I was surprised at how tough some of the heroic dungeons turned out to be. The first time I visited Arkatraz on Heroic was particularly memorable. How hard some of the trash enemies hit the tank. How deadly it is when an unplanned invisible succubus joins in a fight. And how hard the mind flaying from the end boss ticks on the victim. As soon as our druid healer was targeted, it was a wipe because he couldn't survive the spell attack even with full HoT range. As frustrating as that one run was, it's great that TBC Classic is already offering noticeably greater challenge than WoW Classic, in Phase 1.
WoW: TBC Classic - Even some dungeons like Arkatraz are no walk in the park on Heroic.
Source: buffed
WoW: TBC Classic - Dramas like 2007
Do you remember my special on the special challenges for guild leaders in TBC Classic? I already addressed one point from that article above: the different raid challenge requirements for the raid setup. But another point has also come to fruition. Going from 40- and 20-player raids to 25- and 10-player raids can be just as taxing on guilds in 2021 as it was in 2007, at least if they're normal guilds that don't want to kick or kick out of raid teams to get the perfect squad size, or where players don't need to get multiple characters through the attunement process in record time to switch from damage expert to healer or tank.
Being a raid and guild leader back in 2007, I remember all the complaints that came my way back then. Sometimes they complained about the guild being divided into small groups and not being able to connect, sometimes they complained that no one ever answered when they were looking for people for a dungeon or a group quest. And there are plenty of group quests in Outland.
Even the first raid nights caused problems back then. Why am I in the Karazhan group? I'd rather play with them! Why do I have to be benched and not them? And yes, I could read all these things again now, in 2021. Occasionally players have left guilds or thought about switching guilds because of this. The transition from Classic to TBC remains a huge challenge for all guild and raid leaders, but also for every normal member.
WoW: TBC Classic - The bottom line is that Karsten has had a lot of fun in Outland so far.
Source: Blizzard
WoW: TBC Classic - My conclusion so far
Personally, I've had a lot of fun in Outland so far. It's just fun to tackle the (sometimes quite tough) dungeon and raid bosses with the guild, to master the attunement process together with everyone, or to play a few arena games just for fun. The fact that all this is fun is also due to the fact that Blizzard has the servers under control most of the time. Even the launch was surprisingly smooth. After that, there were one or two days where the developers lowered the number of layers on the server too early in my opinion, which made questing in the open world pretty sucky for a while. But the situation improved noticeably over time.
I didn't stick slavishly to the "dungeon grind to benevolent" rule myself, but kept interspersing quests, which made leveling never boring, and even with the second character I'm now leveling up to level 70 quite comfortably. In general, you can already tell that TBC is an era in which you should play up a second or third character. Once you've done the reputation grind and the attunement procedure (which will keep you busy for a while), there's not much to do apart from the raids and daily dungeons, at least if you're not a big arena fan or want to farm thousands of gold.
I, for one, am already looking forward to the coming weeks and months, because one thing is for sure: the most exciting challenges of Outland are still ahead of us.
How have you experienced the first few weeks of TBC Classic? Tell us in the comments!
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