Fall of the Lich King - Patch 3.3

[Darmalus]

I'm having too much fun running low level instances to really worry about endgame. I haven't run these with a proper group in almost 4 years! With this change, I may actually make an alliance character for the first time, and see what is going on over there.

[Ghost Rider]

I'm having too much fun running low level instances to really worry about endgame. I haven't run these with a proper group in almost 4 years! With this change, I may actually make an alliance character for the first time, and see what is going on over there.

So far with my hordie priest...it's been loads of fun on my server. I can get a group in the low end shit in at most five minutes and BAM! No more wondering about will I just grind yet another character. I'd recommend to make a level 17-19 tank/healer and give it a shot.

I love the fact that it transports you there. No more summon stone, no more ganking on PvP servers before a dungeon.

[Crown]

I love the fact that it transports you there. No more summon stone, no more ganking on PvP servers before a dungeon.

Camping the daily dungeon summoning stone was a well honored tradition on my server. Our guild and the other prominent Horde PvP guild would camp out that stone, and extra marks was given for scalping a particular ubiquitous and gutless Ally guild. The /w from level 1 alts made it all worthwhile.

Sucked if you were on the receiving end though!

Seriously though, summoning in is a big improvement. But it will kill world pvp even more (yeah, yeah, I know).

[Ghost Rider]

I love the fact that it transports you there. No more summon stone, no more ganking on PvP servers before a dungeon.

Camping the daily dungeon summoning stone was a well honored tradition on my server. Our guild and the other prominent Horde PvP guild would camp out that stone, and extra marks was given for scalping a particular ubiquitous and gutless Ally guild. The /w from level 1 alts made it all worthwhile.

Sucked if you were on the receiving end though!

Seriously though, summoning in is a big improvement. But it will kill world pvp even more (yeah, yeah, I know).

Way back in Vanilla my guild used to do that. Ah, MC runs were hilarious.

The saddest result of World PvP is that never made a reason to do it for enough people. Dueling in a box until your eyes bleed is the only way to get decent gear...and even then you need to raid. And even if you enjoy PvP? The scaling can get to you on a level that's disturbing, and I've tried with a fresh mage, only to be greeted with an idiot warrior with full Arena level gear? Sure I can kite the fucker, but one good set of swings and BAM, dead as a doornail.

Though please don't take this as wanting old school PvP back, because I was a warrior in full T3 level gear and one shot everything but a Bear Druid. That took 2 hits.

[Darmalus]

From what I have heard (I think it was a Blizzcast, but I could be misremembering) in Cata, health pools will scale much, much faster than both healing and damage, allowing more tactical fights over crit-crit-dead.

Also, just ran a few randoms on my mage, and I must say, (this was Heroic Pit of Saron) all the gear in the world can't teach you situational awareness. We effectively 3 manned the entire place, because the Rogue and Boomkin got smoked at the beginning of every fight.

My first ever tank is level 29, and loving it, I am actually starting to learn the layout of Gnomerigan. My 62 druid is healing her leaves off, but in a fun way. All those years of being pure DPS, I was missing out.

[Ghost Rider]

Yeah I read the whole "More health, lower healy!!!" yabbering they are touting for more...tactical thoughts. But really it's pretty delusional given that PvP is still ruled by who can pump out damage and have said other party stand there with mouths dangling. Stuns are still king, and with some of the new levels of armor penetration, this season for Arena from a few who have gotten gladiator every season are going "Kill warrior, if he Bladestorms and proc Armor Pen we're dead.".

Large pools and less healing with just favor a warrior or rogue since they never need to worry about any other resource...but this is Blizzard. And yes, I know armor penetration are out the window in the next expansion because their math experts can't do basic calc. Still doesn't make the warrior or rogue less deadly since they have an effectively unlimited resource AND healing nullifier.

As for tanking, I still think it's freaking boring...but I do it because ques are fast and I dictate the speed of the dungeon if the healer is capable.

[Minischoles]

PvP right now is plain retarded. Warriors especially, and not just arms, but prot is pretty stupid as well.

Arms is an insanely powerful pvp spec, anyone who defends it is beyond help. Its practically an auto win for a warrior team if the healer on the other team is a priest, since that priest will not get away from the warrior, and Bladestorm has a shorter CD than any defensive CD the priest can pop to stay alive. Add a 75% MS and 100% armor pen and its unwinnable.
But prot. Goddamn prot has become the bane of my mages pvp life. You will literally get one window of casting that lasts maybe 2-3 seconds against a smart warrior, otherwise the rest of the time you're being stunned, silenced and on top of it all you get improved spell reflect and the best mobility in the game. It's almost at a point where a prot warrior flat out hard counters every caster, let alone the mauling they give to melee.

The saddest result of World PvP is that never made a reason to do it for enough people. Dueling in a box until your eyes bleed is the only way to get decent gear...and even then you need to raid. And even if you enjoy PvP? The scaling can get to you on a level that's disturbing, and I've tried with a fresh mage, only to be greeted with an idiot warrior with full Arena level gear? Sure I can kite the fucker, but one good set of swings and BAM, dead as a doornail.

Part of this was because of the ease of pvp gear in TBC that led to people using pvp gear in raiding, so this time around they went completely the opposite direction and went 'well we'll make pvp fucking retardedly dependent on gear, but to get that gear you're going to spend the next month being bent over by everyone'.

Like the basic 5 piece pvp gear, costs 212,000 honor and that only gives 371 resilience. So for grinding your arse off for a good week or two - and i'm talking proper grinding, as in constantly going into BGs all freaking day every day, being ass fucked by everyone who so much as fucking glances at you - and you're in no better place than before. And this is a set 2 fucking seasons behind what some people in BGs and arenas will be wearing. So the stats are vastly lower.

So you need to keep grinding, and you've got 2 ways here. Offset pieces from honor, or WG offset pieces. And of course you need the trinkets from WG marks as well, since they're pretty much mandatory if you want to even stand a chance in arena. And then rings of course.
Honor cost of 3 offset pieces - 130,800
WG mark cost - 45 marks or 15 wins (roughly 4 hours between attacking matches, you're looking at 60 hours just to get this, and thats assuming you don't sleep)
And that only gives you of around 130-150 resilience.

So now you're at a grand total of either 342, 800 honor, or 212,000 and 45 marks. So now you're at about 500 resilience, and you're still the bitch of any melee or well geared caster that looks at you. You know need a ring, a neck and a cloak, all of which cost 38,000 so another 114,000 honor right there. And thats only another 126 resilience.
Then you need the 2 trinkets from WG, but thats only 50 marks, so 17 wins or 68 hours.

So to get even 600 odd resilience - and bear in mind most cloth wearers and healers need to wear 1000+ resilience in pvp - you already need between 326,000 and 456,800 honor and at least 50 marks from WG. And thats just to be marginally less squishy than when you began. You certainly won't do well in arena with only 600 resilience, you'll be the chew toy of most teams that you face.

[Edward Yee]

Just make sure to leave it for when you're actually auctioning; I'd say have both the core and Suite versions. It was crucial to me having as much gold now as I do, but also partially explains my months of horrid lag. Moreover, in general the Informant portion of Auctioneer will be one of the most memory-hogging add-ons out there, at about 6 MB. At one point I had maybe 70+ MB of add-ons running at once. Unfortunately, it seems I'll either need a 22" monitor (I want 1920x1080 max res and HDMI input, but I'm told that 22" is too big considering how close I sit) or the living room's 40" HDTV for the UI layout I want, and that TV's shared by both the "regular TV channels" and the PStwo/Xbox 360.

I'd also say that Addon Control Panel ("ACP") is a generally good addon to have running since it adds to the Escape menu an Addons option from which you can toggle an addon and/or its individual modules on or off without relogging. So get to the AH, use ACP to enable Auctioneer, reload UI, use Auctioneer, use ACP disable, reload UI.

[Darth Yan]

They have an end cinematic for the Lich King's death. It's surprisingly moving. And the rise of the new king is awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA29HFLO ... r_embedded

The final battle is also pretty epic. Spoiler

After an intense battle, the Lich King one shots the players, revealling that everything was a ruse to get the strongest fighting force- the players. Tirion breaks free and shatters frostmourne, the spirits break free, terenas rezs the players, and he and the others hold the lich king down for the players to finish Arthas off.

[petesampras]

It might have been an epic ending, if it weren't for the fact that the Arthas/Lich King turned out to be such a lame threat.

After spending years biding his time and building up his power for a big attack on Azeroth, he scores no significant victories, is quickly put on the defensive, and then gets killed.

[Darth Yan]

he admits that he Spoiler

deliberately let his men get killed to see if the heroes had the potential.

Plus after the douchebaggery of ROC and TFT, watching him loose it all was kind of satisfying.

[petesampras]

he admits that he Spoiler

deliberately let his men get killed to see if the heroes had the potential.

Plus after the douchebaggery of ROC and TFT, watching him loose it all was kind of satisfying.

I'm not suggesting he shouldn't have lost in the end, but he should have a least represented a significant threat prior to that. It's hard to have a climatic ending when the good guys have been kicking the bad guys ass for almost the entire story. Whatever plans Arthas had, the fact remains that failed to achieve anything as Lich King.

[Sinewmire]

It might have been an epic ending, if it weren't for the fact that the Arthas/Lich King turned out to be such a lame threat.

I totally agree. Arthas was certainly my favourite character of the Warcraft series. Him and Thrall.
Arthas shook up the very generic lore we had from Warcraft II. He also had some fantastic lines.

Always knew he was going to go out somehow, but they've even robbed him of killing a main character, if Spoiler

bolvar is still 'alive' - who cares about Saurfang the younger?

After spending years biding his time and building up his power for a big attack on Azeroth, he scores no significant victories, is quickly put on the defensive, and then gets killed.

This. Very. Lazy writing, they just wanted to get him out of the way so they could do cataclysm. Does he score any victories? At all? Urgh.

I'll admit, that was a pretty cool cutscene, however. Would have been too easy to have the game metaphorically teabagging the fallen Lich King, instead they gave him some dignity and compassion.

[Oskuro]

Spoiler

Feels like they were trying to appease Arthas fanboys through a dignified death scene. Oh well.

As for the continuation of the throne, the whole "what happened here must never be known" is so cliched I almost strained my eyes when rolling. At least it means Ner'zul is still kicking in the helmet, I really didn't like that nonsense about Arthas taking him over completely or something.

[White Haven]

It might be cliche, but it's still valid. If it became common knowledge that there was a Lich King still on the throne, waaay too many people would either A) not be able to accept the necessity and keep trying to kill it, or B) try to become the new LK themselves. Having it believed that the Lich King is dead for good is best for everyone who isn't Bolvar.

[Darmalus]

The problem is there is no need for a Lich King. As has been said, the Lich King in WotLK has been nothing but one failure after another, he was such a non-threat by the end we were more concerned with who got the glory of killing him than we were about the final fight at all. The Scourge aren't like the Silithid, which will keep reproducing even without a leader. You need to build undead, and judging from the horde side quests, the Lich King was down to his castle and last few facilities (the ICC 5 mans, which we destroyed).
Spoiler

A Bolevar was a completely lame plot device that felt like it came from nowhere. We see him at Wrathgate, and then.... he has a completely normal voice at the beginning of ICC, then he's the burning man. Lame.

[Ghost Rider]

To be honest, hopefully that is the end of this expansion. Last couple times we had what, for those who have some rose colored glasses of threats.And by the way...NO ONE has made any forward movement.

- Ragnaros. He was...well...the Dark Iron dwarves were built up only for the Alliance and failed when you beat their emperor.

- Onxyia. Possibly the only other credible threat and reason she was killed in lore.

- Nefarion. He actually did shit, should've been the finale of Vanilla.

- C'Thun. Loot bitch

-Kel-Thuzad. If you were part of the elite 1% you saw the fucker, died constantly all to get....a trinket. And a pat on the head that you pretty much broke a good part of your social life. Oh wait...his effect on the landscape! He did shit. Naxx sat up there like a bloated whale fucking the sky. What did he do? All WC3 crap.

So two bosses out of Vanilla.

TBC!

- Prince Malac! Ummmm.....he sat there? Loot bitch

- Gruul. Who is he wagain? Oh wait, guilds did him for attunement and trinket

- Magtheridon. Other then WC3, he was just sitting there.

- Lady Vashj! Ummmm...yeah

- Kael'thas. Other then coming back...nothing.

- Illidan. RETREATING. He made no advances whatsoever. Basically your entire time in TBC you were hunting HIM.

-KilJaeden. You are not pre....wait, you mean he's not the guy they were constantly pushing forward? Who the fuck? Illi's master? Well, at least the sequence was pretty cool with the bright shiny and talking, and fitting kinda of like a triangle in a square hole. His accomplishments? ...uh yeah. He ummmm...he.....told legendary loot bitch to....wait.

Most part, you actually did interact with Arthas and the expansion actually built up to him, with only Ulduar being a side affair, with Yogg Saron....the other built up threat when the Lich King wasn't involved. Blizzard has done some shit jobs, but this expansion at least had a confirmed goal and set up material for why the raids exist and why the fuck you are going there. Because you were pursuing the Lich King, destroying his plans and furthering your side regardless of things he did to prevent you.

So did you read all the quest up until ICC? Or just simply push forward for Shadowmourne.

[Darmalus]

I'm not arguing that WotLK wasn't well designed over all, but this last minute "You're utterly dominating!" to "Nope, you lose without a deus ex machina." switch that bothers me.

I know in BC, I actually forgot who the last boss was supposed to be. After the intro cinematic, did we even see him until his BT fight?

[Ghost Rider]

I'm not arguing that WotLK wasn't well designed over all, but this last minute "You're utterly dominating!" to "Nope, you lose without a deus ex machina." switch that bothers me.

You mean like in the last two finales? You don't defeat Kil-Ja. You win because the Sunwell rejects him. Vanilla? You take dorko's life vessel to be destroyed....only it doesn't.

I know in BC, I actually forgot who the last boss was supposed to be. After the intro cinematic, did we even see him until his BT fight?

Says a lot about the expansion then, doesn't it.

[Sinewmire]

Most part, you actually did interact with Arthas and the expansion actually built up to him, with only Ulduar being a side affair, with Yogg Saron....the other built up threat when the Lich King wasn't involved. Blizzard has done some shit jobs, but this expansion at least had a confirmed goal and set up material for why the raids exist and why the fuck you are going there. Because you were pursuing the Lich King, destroying his plans and furthering your side regardless of things he did to prevent you.

So did you read all the quest up until ICC? Or just simply push forward for Shadowmourne.

Yeah, I read all the quests in Icecrown. They mostly served to remind me how cool Arthas used to be. you know, when he actally did stuff. I'm one of those Arthas Fanboys LordOsukuro thinks needed appeasing, so I wanted to see if he'd do anything. At all.
Spoiler

You know who were the most dangerous faction WotLK? The Forsaken. Varimathras' rebellion killed a bunch of people, and nearly took over the Undercity. Orgrimmar and Stormwind or War footing. Plot advancing.

Whilst Wrath had excellent dungeons and raids, and yes, a narrative stringing them together, that's exactly what it felt like, I was disappointed by the way the Scourge were no threat whatsoever.

Arthas did nothing. Illidan doing nothing I can understand - he's a spent force by the time of BC, having retreated to outland with the remains of his forces after a catastrophic defeat. He's also being besieged by the Burning Legion, as I understand it. At least Kael attacked Silvermoon and drove the Shattered Sun Offensive plot! The Lich King just sat there and took it. I understand the need to pander to the ego of the average player (who wants to lose in a computer game?) but could they really not have had Arthas do SOMETHING cool? Counter-attacks, a bit more competition in Icecrown - maybe even the scourge pushing the Crusade back midway through the quests, using the new phasing technology. They showed with the Wrathgate that they weren't afraid to kill major characters and radically change the status quo, so why not let Arthas have his moment? It'd only make the final victory all the sweeter.

It felt like we just walked up and knocked. I know that's how WoW has worked in the past, but seriously.

I liked the expansion on the whole, but I was disappointed with the way they neutered the Lich King. He's the guy who burned Silvermoon and scourged Lordaeron, and now he won't even break a siege on his own castle or attempt to retake the Shadow Vault?

[Minischoles]

The dungeon i've liked the most this expansion has been Ulduar, not just lore wise but game wise.

Lore wise, it is a side quest almost, but (on horde side at least) the quests concerning Ulduar stretch back into the starting zones, and all throughout the next zones, you see little hints, little clues something is up. Then you've got Storm Peaks, where almost the entire quest line (barring the stupid Sons of Hodir bullshit) feeds directly into Ulduar, through Halls of Lightning. Inside was great, especially the whole Algalon unlocking quest line, when you learn it was your (the heroes) actions that possibly caused the end of the world, and as hard and cockblocky as Algalon was, the boss emotes for that fight are some of the best, right up there along with Ragnaros and Kil'jaeden.

Game wise, it's also the one that has had the perfect blend of some very tough fights, some very easy fights, but overall the Hard Modes are some of the best fights Blizzard has done. I don't know how many of you are hardcore raiders, but Mimiron HM, Freya HM, Iron Council HM - all were absolutely brilliant fights designed to test your raid to the absolute limit. Finally getting Mimiron HM down, as the whole room started exploding and the paladins bubbled, just that sense of accomplishment was great.

Hopefully ICC lives up to Ulduar, because ToC was an utter failure of a raid. A boring bland room, where bosses were spawned in on you, and the hardmodes were nothing special until you got to Anub, and even then Anub 25 HC is just about the gimmick of having a block tank. Once you've got a block tank on that fight, you're pretty much most of the way there.

To be honest, hopefully that is the end of this expansion. Last couple times we had what, for those who have some rose colored glasses of threats.And by the way...NO ONE has made any forward movement.

- Ragnaros. He was...well...the Dark Iron dwarves were built up only for the Alliance and failed when you beat their emperor.

- Onxyia. Possibly the only other credible threat and reason she was killed in lore.

- Nefarion. He actually did shit, should've been the finale of Vanilla.

- C'Thun. Loot bitch

-Kel-Thuzad. If you were part of the elite 1% you saw the fucker, died constantly all to get....a trinket. And a pat on the head that you pretty much broke a good part of your social life. Oh wait...his effect on the landscape! He did shit. Naxx sat up there like a bloated whale fucking the sky. What did he do? All WC3 crap.

So two bosses out of Vanilla.

Vanilla was fine and all, but as one of the few people that did ever see KT die, it wasn't fun, it wasn't special. It really was just awful. I agree on Nefarion as well, pretty much my favourite fight of Vanilla.

TBC!

- Prince Malac! Ummmm.....he sat there? Loot bitch

- Gruul. Who is he wagain? Oh wait, guilds did him for attunement and trinket

Don't even talk to me about that goddamn fucking trinket. Most of the way into Sunwell, and each week we were still going back to fucking Gruul to get DST.

- Magtheridon. Other then WC3, he was just sitting there.

- Lady Vashj! Ummmm...yeah

- Kael'thas. Other then coming back...nothing.

Fuck knows what happened with Vashj, because there was a story being set up in Zangarmarsh (something about all the fucking water being stolen or god knows what) but they never went through with it.

- Illidan. RETREATING. He made no advances whatsoever. Basically your entire time in TBC you were hunting HIM.

-KilJaeden. You are not pre....wait, you mean he's not the guy they were constantly pushing forward? Who the fuck? Illi's master? Well, at least the sequence was pretty cool with the bright shiny and talking, and fitting kinda of like a triangle in a square hole. His accomplishments? ...uh yeah. He ummmm...he.....told legendary loot bitch to....wait.

KJ was a very cool fight, very tough, and the lore part of it (especially the bit afterwards with the Sunwell being brought back) was very good.

[Oskuro]

I'm one of those Arthas Fanboys LordOsukuro thinks needed appeasing

I was actually referring even more to the Arthas fanboys within Blizzard itself. I personally began to like Arthas when he became the Lich King, particularly how he was portrayed during the DK introduction, I find it troublesome that they tried to build him up as this final evil to be vanquished, yet they need to give him a dignified way out. And I find it troublesome because it happens a lot with my own characters, I build them up, get to like them, and then never want to actually kill them off, even if they were meant to (we could call this the Sylar effect).

Actually, I am kind of a Sauron fanboy, I loved him in the books and particularly in the movies, and he gets killed off properly (even more so in the book, where he even gets to raise an ineffectual fist at the good guys before being blown away by the wind). Arthas, being as close to Sauron as you can get without taking Jewelcrafting, had to have his murdered father come to say nice things to him, even when he was already doing horrible things before Frostmourne even entered the picture. Meh.


As for the bad guys being ineffectual, I guess it's a side effect of the MMO architecture. Having the enemy factions have an actual impact would have called for a radically different game design, not to mention that for the average WoW player (who is, by the way, around 13 years old) the point is to win and be the hero, rather than suffer actual defeat. I raised an eyebrow at Blizzard's attempts at a cohesive narrative in an MMO precisely because you can't have that and still have a persistent world. But of course, back then I still believed they were trying to create a gameworld, rather than a glorified campaign game.

Now, don't think I'm saying what they've done is awful, despite its weaknesses, WoW is a solid game, and has a decent storyline wich feels quite epic at times, but it still has to deal with MMO limitations in game design.

[Civil War Man]

I was personally satisfied with the unsatisfying ending. The Alliance and Horde bust their collective asses across the entire continent sustaining massive casualties from Scourge, Old Gods, and infighting. Thousands are killed, including two respected Generals, destablizing the political balance of the entire world as it allows two warmongers to take control of the Alliance/Horde dialogue.

Somehow we manage to hold everything together long enough to mount the final offensive, and with all of the sacrifices made, we finally succeed in...changing the Lich King's eye color.

For an expansion that has reveled in grimdark, you can't really get a better ending than the bitter one, looking back on all our hard work and wondering if we should have even bothered. Ulduar and Malygos are pretty much the only fights that was unquestionably worth the sacrifice, since both threats would have blown up the planet if we didn't stop them. Good thing, too. Now we can sit back and wait for Deathwing to blow up the planet for the next expansion.

I also totally blew the mind of one of my guildies who was complaining about how grimdark Wrath is. She blamed the Death Knights, until I showed her that most the grimdark was really coming from the Paladins. The Tournament designed to weed out the unworthy through a series of blood sport gladiator matches? Run by Paladins, with minimal participation from the Death Knights. Matthias Lehner questline? Basically an assassination attempt by Paladins, with the Death Knights being the heroic cavalry riding to the rescue when the plan goes tits-up. Final Lich King cinematic? One Death Knight having a quiet conversation with his father, followed by two Paladins trying to out-emo each other.

[Sinewmire]

Actually, I am kind of a Sauron fanboy, I loved him in the books and particularly in the movies, and he gets killed off properly (even more so in the book, where he even gets to raise an ineffectual fist at the good guys before being blown away by the wind). Arthas, being as close to Sauron as you can get without taking Jewelcrafting, had to have his murdered father come to say nice things to him, even when he was already doing horrible things before Frostmourne even entered the picture. Meh.

Heh, don't get me started on Sauron. I learned to read on the The Hobbit, and yes, I'm a big fan of him. Didn't much like the way they portrayed him in Return Of The King. The big eye on Barad-dur is not Sauron himself. Urgh.

Well, the horrible things he did were neccesary. Talk to Chromie, she knows it. Everyone hates Arthas for the purge of Stratholme, but the other option was let an army of undead overrun Lordaeron. You know, earlier. Without anyone escaping to Kalimdor, resulting in pretty much the annihilation of the human race. I can't help but feel the real villain of that piece was Jaina - she knew it had to be done and didn't argue against doing it, but she wasn't prepared to watch the dirty work being done. Utter moral cowardice.

Wrath, I felt, was the designerd trying to strike back at the Arthas Fanboys in Blizzard. practically everything Arthas achieved is undone by the time you've finished Icecrown citadel. Even Muradin is miraculously alive again. And you can't convince me that they in any way intended Illidan to be alive after TFT. They resurrected him so they could kill him again.

[Ghost Rider]

The dungeon i've liked the most this expansion has been Ulduar, not just lore wise but game wise.

Lore wise, it is a side quest almost, but (on horde side at least) the quests concerning Ulduar stretch back into the starting zones, and all throughout the next zones, you see little hints, little clues something is up. Then you've got Storm Peaks, where almost the entire quest line (barring the stupid Sons of Hodir bullshit) feeds directly into Ulduar, through Halls of Lightning. Inside was great, especially the whole Algalon unlocking quest line, when you learn it was your (the heroes) actions that possibly caused the end of the world, and as hard and cockblocky as Algalon was, the boss emotes for that fight are some of the best, right up there along with Ragnaros and Kil'jaeden.

Ulduar at least has some build up through out Wrath. You do see Thorim, Freya and what not. You do even remember their dumb little efforts elsewhere with both Horde/Alliance. It was, lorewise, a huge step forward versus most of their previous efforts.

Game wise, it's also the one that has had the perfect blend of some very tough fights, some very easy fights, but overall the Hard Modes are some of the best fights Blizzard has done. I don't know how many of you are hardcore raiders, but Mimiron HM, Freya HM, Iron Council HM - all were absolutely brilliant fights designed to test your raid to the absolute limit. Finally getting Mimiron HM down, as the whole room started exploding and the paladins bubbled, just that sense of accomplishment was great.

Raid wise, Mimiron-HM and Yogg-0 are easily better then anything they have done. And Yogg-0 is far harder then anything they did.

Hopefully ICC lives up to Ulduar, because ToC was an utter failure of a raid. A boring bland room, where bosses were spawned in on you, and the hardmodes were nothing special until you got to Anub, and even then Anub 25 HC is just about the gimmick of having a block tank. Once you've got a block tank on that fight, you're pretty much most of the way there.

ToC25 Hardmode I liked a bit better since it at least was there without having some retard screw it up. Early Ulduar we had that trouble.

But the negatives of ToGC were many.

1. Beasts were a far larger step in DPS and healing then Lord Jaxx was.

2. Lord Jaxx's new mechanic BARELY made it anything different. In fact DPS kinda wondered.

3. Faction Champs were only more cheesy in that they had an aggro train rather then running around.

4. The valk'r were different?!

5. Anub was radically changed for the worst. Not as hard as some of the worst of Ulduar, but the first times learning the new mode was not fucking fun. A single disconnect fucked you over.

Vanilla was fine and all, but as one of the few people that did ever see KT die, it wasn't fun, it wasn't special. It really was just awful. I agree on Nefarion as well, pretty much my favourite fight of Vanilla.

Nef actually had a fun mechanic for a boss. KT as a tanking fight....blew donkey cock. Painful, long, and shit got wrong far too easily.

Don't even talk to me about that goddamn fucking trinket. Most of the way into Sunwell, and each week we were still going back to fucking Gruul to get DST.

Yeah...god fucking dammit....yeah. And we had a shitload of people needing it.

Fuck knows what happened with Vashj, because there was a story being set up in Zangarmarsh (something about all the fucking water being stolen or god knows what) but they never went through with it.

LOL, yes. Zangamarsh had this huge build up of something between her and Cenarion faction......and nothing. She sputters something and all of that dungeon was "Look NAGAS!"

KJ was a very cool fight, very tough, and the lore part of it (especially the bit afterwards with the Sunwell being brought back) was very good.

He was, but for all his coolness...he was tacked on. It was as if Blizzard went "Shit, people beat Illidan....and are farming him? But Wrath isn't out. Fuck, fuck, fuck...oh let's do...". I'm amazed they remembered M'Uru.

Though Civil War Man makes the best point. This entire expansion is a bleak one. Every thing that you do to advance is lined with hundreds of failures. And to cap it off....it ends with a stalemate against a foe that is eternal. To be honest Deathwing fucking over the world is more like just a natural progression given what was gained from Wrath.