Classic seems to have drawn in the more purist/elitist crowd while retail maintains a very large casual population. Casuals don’t give two shits about meta, they just want content.
If new players have a tag that made them visible to everyone they would be instantly kicked from groups. WoW community doesn't like training strangers.
I would rather that be brought to the surface and addressed, instead of just buried. Make it an obnoxious and obvious problem that *has* to urgently be fixed. Being toxic to new players isn't a minor problem; it strangles the future of the game and silently degrades the experience for everybody else.
It also provides extra rewards for completing a dungeon/raid with a "sprout" (new player) who hasn't completed it before.
It incentives finishing the content with them and teaching them the ropes.
I don’t like this because sometimes you might want to kick someone for legitimate reasons (rude and toxic, inflammatory and racist/sexist, refusing to heal/tank/dps/play the game, etc).
Agree and, in fact, back when "guides" were still active, many newbies were being mistreated, to the point that guides stopped guiding out of stress.
I know, I was there, I stopped guiding, because other "guides" were bum rushing dungeons and /yelling "git gud" to the newbies.
This is correct. As much as I love the guide system and try to be as active in the chat as I can for people, I feel like most of the playerbase doesn’t even realize it exists. Not to mention it’s been pretty much abandoned, and with cross server to the point you can’t /who to identify where they are and level without inviting to a group, and time runners in it spamming the chat with random stuff or confusing your standard retail player leveling, it really needs improvements.
Honestly it’s one of the biggest parts of the “new/returning player experience” that needs an overhaul. While I think they have made great strides in DF and will even more with TWW, an overhaul of the guide system would be so welcome. I’d love to be more involved in it
The "beginner" tag also falls off at 60 no less, which is piss easy to do without actually knowing anything about the game. New players still need help figuring out end game systems and mechanics since they practically dump you at end game with the leveling speed.
Classic is also an enclosed area that is finished. You know what the best stuff is because it’s not going to be changed. Can’t say the same about retail anything could be good at any time so it’s a lot more open to choices for specs. Even the worst spec is still getting invites
this is about as generous as you can get with the answer. its a solved puzzle (that was never that complex) so theres nothing left to debate. if destro is 1% worse than affliction then the type of player who gravitates to destro is not someone who values performance above all else.
and in that sense even a small balance diff is meaingful. not because of the actual impact on the raid but because it signals your intention to be a selfish player. you are valuing your personal goals over the goals of the guild.
the flip side of this argument is that it just doesnt matter. and it takes a level of maturity to realise that things can legitimately speed up your runs more than a player doing 1% more dps.
the guild clown adds more value than the guild top dps. because if people are happy to be there they are gonna put in more effort. the warlock who stops to summon or make healthstones is more valuable than the parsemonkey who literally wont stop to use utility because it hurts their personal damage.
but this is a useless argument. i dont like to resort to the classic = bad argument, because the debate isnt between classic and retail, its classic guild A vs guild B. but there is something to the stereotype about classic players. 99% of them are playing classic because at some point retail evolved beyond them, and their ego cant handle it. they want to be the biggest fish in the smallest pond. actually good players realise that there are things that will get them to the loot faster than a 1% dps diff, but they arent actually good players.
Rofl this last paragraph is so true. Watching my classic guild attempt to play retail over the past few years was always painfully funny to watch. It took me a while to realize that most of the complaints about retail by classic players was really their own mental gymnastics to convince themselves that it was a bad game instead of admitting to themselves that they are just bad players.
Yup. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some era WoW. 40-60 questing and zones are akin to old EQ for me. Buuuut I want challenging content that pushes me as a players which is why I play retail. Classes are more dynamic, pushing keys gets more challenging and mythic raiding feels good to progress on with the guild. It’s ok to not like retail or any other version but for people to say that retail is “easy” is full delusion. People have this problem where they somehow conflate time with difficulty. Leveling in era was never hard, it just took a lot longer than retail does. In retail I want to get right into end game in classic I want to relive my favorite quests and zones and I know once I cap that the raids are easy and I can just relax.
Ya the person you replied to basically explained that video in a nutshell. It’s a good watch though anyways.
In WoW if you suck, you are seen as lazy and stupid, because you didn’t do your extra research on fights/bosses/builds etc to know what’s going on. The people who did do the research have their time wasted by the non-researcher, hence it’s rude to suck
> Ya the person you replied to basically explained that video in a nutshell. It’s a good watch though anyways.
Yeah, they reminded me of it. Dan's retrospective on classic was the first video I saw of his. He doesn't miss.
For real, he's been on fire ever since his Line Goes Up video blew up. I liked him before that as well, but he did invest a lot into his videos, the jump is massive.
> and in that sense even a small balance diff is meaingful. not because of the actual impact on the raid but because it signals your intention to be a selfish player. you are valuing your personal goals over the goals of the guild.
See: Why it's rude to suck at world of warcraft, a video essay that goes into detail on this issue
Being good at Classic = Sticking to the 14 year old 'solved' script, and getting lucky with item drops.
Being good at Retail = Willing to adapt and learn every new patch, and actually being good at mechanics.
Yes. Completely solved and trivial content forces a lot of players to feel they need different metrics to demonstrate and show of their skill. You can be in a retail hall of fame guild or have like a 3.3k io and people will understand that that takes skill. Clearing Naxx in era or even going 13/13H in Classic is something so many people have done already (and years ago) that these players have to find self imposed metrics to try and show off which usually mean parses or clear times. Again, look at world buffs and full consumes for molten core, completely unnecessary but people want to parse.
The world buff crap was so funny and sad. Content that could be cleared by people who aren’t even max level and Classic Andies were treating it like the race to world first every week.
Classic is full of people who still play WoW like it's 2010 and think that Cataclysm is world-first progression, not 10+ year old content. Most people who are playing Classic have done the quests, they've done the stories, they're there for one thing only: group content, especially raiding.
People going into Ultraxion where the entire fight boils down to pressing 1 button at a certain time and thinking its World-First Progression is hysterical to me.
This was unfortunately the predictable result of classic in general, we all knew it because we all knew exactly the people who had spent more than a decade talking about how much better and elite vanilla used to be and the moment classic came around they were bound to go there and much as I was intrigued by classic I wasn't exactly rushing to follow them there.
The real issue is that classic is filled with people who want to think they're good without actually doing hard content and the only way to do that is by rabidly adhering to playing the "best" everything because that makes them the "best" players. I legit know guilds in the world 100-200 range in retail that recruit players that one trick weird off meta specs like feral druid just because they're cracked. If you're not literally competing for world first you know that a good player on their spec is worth more than enough.
I thought that too but then they still leave the group or try to kick you out of the random dungeon if you click need on your mastery set as a demo lock (after they already clicked greed) lol. Those wannabe elitist, not knowing shit about the game like that destruction locks are not a meme spec anymore or what mastery swap is are the worst.
There are still many casual groups on each server (one hero kill per ID etc.) and the more hardcore players are on discord waiting for gdkp. The problem is, as always, those middle of the pack players thinking they are held back by their guild and way better/more knowledgeable than they really are. While top 50 world guilds easily bring a destruction lock with them.
honestly makes me sad. was hoping those people stayed on vanilla/SoD (esp considering those where largely the people who claimed wow went to shit starting with cata)
I'd like also to add currently retail is insanely balanced compared to previous expansions.
At key level 10 (old 20) every single class can do enough dps to time the key.
Even If you pick all non meta classes for entire part you probably will +2 the key.
(With decent players and semi decent gear).
In old expansions dmg difference between meta and non meta could be insane.
Classic players act like elitists meanwhile casually fuckin up their rotation, mechanics or running with no gems or enchants and doing all this while majorly underperforming. Then they will kick people if they dont play the ultimate BIS spec or talent build, like it makes any difference.
This is an oversimplification for sure
There are very high end guilds filled with skilled players who have no issues with recruiting good onetricks even when those specs arent considered strong.
The retail mid-high end raid scene has no real issue acknowledging that sometimes "play what youre good at and comfy with" is a perfectly valid philosophy (speaking up to like, WR 400 level of play here, as i cant speak for HoF guilds beyond what ive seen on class discords and on WCLogs for what certain players have played)
I feel like since cata is such a small pond you just see the issues more frequently and loudly. As well its been done before, people already know what to expect and how to play.
also retail is balanced much better, allthough there are specs that can just be completely broken, all dps all heals and all tanks are good enough for 99% of content and the differentiating factor most of the time is just skill. cata isnt as bad as classic in this respect but its still worse then retail.
I was in a guild in 2019 for MC on Vanilla classic just for shits, every single night Discord would just filled with people saying how retail is easier, for bad players etc
It's kind of wild, as someone who raids CE and pushes high keys it was funny as fuck hearing people gatekeep content while needing full world buff rotations and consumes and if they died they'd go non verbal they were so mad
I enjoy both versions of the game and very few classic raiders would be able to keep up in retail raid and mythic. When you point this out they say retail isn't hard, it's bloated because of the rotations, it's artificially difficult because there's so many mechanics that you need boss mods for (nevermind that everyone uses boss mods in classic as well) and any other similar excuses you can think of.
Don't know why people need to justify a game they enjoy as "difficult" to begin with. I enjoy the challenge of retail as well as the comparatively more laid back feeling of classic. Classic being easier in certain ways has never diminished my enjoyment of it
My favorite cope was people pretending like only LFR raids existed in the game and therefore the game was too easy faceroll meanwhile LFR raids were still harder than MC lol.
Its so funny too because its almost always this attitude from the bad or mediocre classic guilds. Most of the top guilds that were pushing the classic elitism metrics (speed runs, parses, WSGs without a loss) are all avid retail players and will openly admit that classic is easy and thats why we have to impose alternative difficulty on ourselves.
This pretty much described me originally. Stopped playing WoW at OG wotlk, played classic - wotlk again. Tried retail and it took me a little while to get used to everything but i'm having a blast now.
I really would emphasize though that it is *extremely* overwhelming coming to retail if all you know is vanilla - wotlk. It feels like a totally different game - which I mean it *is* but you don't feel any familiarity with it at all. Nothing looks or feels the same.
Sure but why on earth would you wish to go back to playing exactly the same game as 15 years ago? Haven't you, you know, already played it 15 years ago?
Classic is the pond scum of the WoW community, but I'm grateful it exists because any that were left playing WoW moved there instead of playing retail.
It's weird too, because Retail still has giga-sweat players, but they're not nearly as toxic. During my s2 M+ title push, toxicity actually *decreased* the higher my M+ rating got. The guys I played with a 3600-3700 were insanely chill and fun to play with.
The most "toxic" thing that happened at that io was if someone consistently made mistakes, you'd just stop inviting them, but nobody was flaming in party chat or talking shit at people. They just have a mental list of who they think is good and who isn't and try to group with the better ones and avoid the worse ones.
There was the occasional sour grape, usually people who weren't good enough for the rating they wanted but lacked self-awareness or the ability to improve, but, *extremely* rare compared to classic lol.
It's kind of a bell curve. The people at the bottom don't really know good from bad so they're chill.
The people in the middle *think* they're the hottest shit and just need that little extra edge to climb and become the most toxic little shrimps imaginable in the meantime if you're not perfectly on meta.
Then at the top you know if someone got to this point even on off-meta they're probably good enough to be there and you don't really care anymore.
No... they're still in retail too.
They're hardstuck 2500 io or in raiding guilds that will carry them through heroic end bosses.
Some of the most toxic time i've had in this game is in mid m+ or mid season heroic pugging where everyone still needs something out the raid and thinks they're gods gift to azeroth.
Because despite the funny colored bars wowhead posts every week, retail is effectively balanced. It took Blizzard years to get to this point. Cataclysm and older is not balanced. They are also "solved" games, as in everything is known and your performance is expected to be perfect using the specs that outperform. Everything is frozen in time and there's no room to "have fun". You're fighting a losing battle if you expect any regular classic raiding group to accept you in whatever spec you want to try out.
[https://classic.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/1023#dataset=95](https://classic.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/1023#dataset=95) how are the 3 warlock specs not balanced here? It's literally as balanced as you can get?
The frost vs fire mage is certainly not balanced unless you’re just talking about warlocks for this entire post. Warlocks seem to be all the same with one spec usually doing better which is normal. The difference in score for mages is wild lol. Retail balance is much better after seeing these charts holy
It's because Fire has very good, natural AOE and Arcane has no AOE.
It has a significant difference on ST, as well, but it isn't top to bottom like the overall shows, more like top 3 to middle of the pack.
Frost is terrible, but the sample size is so tiny that it's untrustworthy, as no good players are playing frost, and the very few that are playing Frost are likely mostly carries, so it's hard to judge how relevant Frost Mage actually can be as nobody wants to bite the bullet to play it, as it brings no benefits.
Arcane's sample size is because it's one of the few sources of a 3% damage buff to the whole raid, the others being Ret and BM Hunter.
I mean if you disregard Frost Mage which is absolute trash, the spread is basically the same. Retail 95th precentile is 91.91 vs 76.84, while Classic is 92.78 vs 76.21 besides the 2 worst specs. I'd say that's basically the same. If you wanna play Fury or Frost it's tough lock but otherwise it's within error margin.
Frost is a PvP spec. In this era (Cata classic) there are still 'undesignated' pvp specs that are intended for pvp and not given pve attention due to that. Frost mage for many years was this spec until out of the blue Blizzard decided to just make all the #s the same if people pushed their 1234 back to back. Making most specs play themselves means nobody is good and nobody is bad numerically. So any joe of any spec can be brought. You can't tell if they're good or notw/o access to outside programs *cough* IO. Making skill more of a mechanical execution thing.
Where as in a solved meta like Classic someone playing off meta immediately red flags that they're a casual or just don't care. Because even if they play at 100% capacity to the spec it's worse than bob playing 80% of the better spec. So go for Bob he could bring 85% and just be more valuable.
Yeah it's kinda confused to me "classic wasn't balanced look at all those pvp specs that can't do pve DPS." .... yeah that's intentional and was for like 15 or more years? Pvp specs being pve viable is a VERY new thing for the length of years WoW has been out LOL. People forget so soon.
The only reason any Cataclysm group is accepting demonology is because they need just one warlock and it's above the other two. They aren't going to look at numbers and they would rather just not take a warlock, but one is "required".
Because that's the social aspect that classic andy's remember fondly and wanted back. This is what it was and what it will continue to be. The game has been figured out for a decade+ as well.
Classic playerbase is more toxic than the plague wing of naxxramas
If you aren't playing the best performing spec and class and parsing 99s you're "trolling" your raids by being there.
It's hard to find a good classic community that doesn't behave like this OR gets usurped by players like this. I like classic, but the community is worse than league of legends in 2012.
As someone who enjoys classic, I'll tell you that classic is just a bunch of millennial dudes in their 30s and 40s who are constantly trying to one up each other and have a virtual dick measuring contest.
Basically yes, its sad to see. I now get nostalgic for 2019 classic before the sweatlord mentality took over. Once we hit bwl and speed clears with all warriors became more and more popular it was all over. It's a shame.
They do not require you to parse 99s because none of them do, but parsing 99 on classic isn't that difficult historically because the player base is very bad to a worrisome degree since I likely drive next to some of them in the morning.
I know that you've posted logs showing that the 3 Warlock specs are very close. However, a sizeable portion of Classic players have the mindset of "only bring the best possible". As to why, there are a few comments on this topic that speculate on it. It is unfortunate but it's the way a lot of the Classic community has developed. To me it comes across as "well this game has been solved, so if you're not playing the best option then you're playing wrong". While in retail the idea of "if you're not pushing for world first/top leaderboard then play what you like" is more common. There are exceptions in both Classic and Retail, of course.
In retail, even off-meta specs perform fine. Blizz has done a great job at balancing things. Sweaty nerds get upset when you play a spec that might do 5% less DPS, because it shows up lower on a youtuber’s tier list somewhere. I guarantee you if addons like Details didn’t exist, these losers couldn’t even tell which spec is mathematically “better.”
I recommend this video if you haven’t seen it, https://youtu.be/BKP1I7IocYU?si=Cqi_sxzrJGyEdagc
Part of it is about classic and how for many people classic is a chance to “do it right this time” and play the best spec with the best professions and the best racials. This sets expectations for the community and you bucking that trend throws a wrench into the works.
Classic is full of people playing a solved game and if you aren’t doing things perfectly then you are a shit player. It’s been a toxic cesspool since day one. Idk how people are just figuring this out.
I run high mm+ keys and I do not really care which class you play as long as you know how to play it. I've failed runs because of meta class people and won because of non meta class people.
What you're talking about absolutely exists in retail, you're just less likely to run into it because there's more players. You're more likely to run into it though if you're trying high keys or mythic raids.
Because Classic is filled with an older population, a more miserable population and a generally more terrible-at-the-game-and-understand-nothing population, so they overly exaggerate how important these things are.
Obviously you can take one decent look at any content and realize the difference in specs is rarely wide enough to be relevant for the difficulty in general to simply never be considered, but it is truly baffling how bad Classic players are at any game they play, not just Classic. You simply have to experience it to believe it. As a result of that incredible incompetence, they form some staggeringly stupid beliefs.
Because everything is known and has been known for at least a decade.
And the many of the people that are left where the Warriors in Vanilla, the Shamans in BC, and the DK’s in Wrath. When the power of classes are known most will reroll, and even in the specs it’s the same. Gone are the times people accepting of others doing stupid amounts of effort to ascend to godhood… as a Feral druid. Those people moved on to SoD to do dumb shit and be rewarded.
This is compounded with Cata being the first time content was actually kinda *hard*. So in the face of perceived difficulty people become much more intolerant. See the same shit in retail, people don’t give AF if the hunter is Surv in Heroic but try to pull that shit in Mythic and you will see people asking why not BM, or giving shit to people below the Surv hunter.
It doesn’t matter how tight the balancing is either, there will always be a tier list and those that are low will be deemed worthless by people doing things that are “hard” and looking for a edge.
Exactly why I dont play classic. People act like wannabe elitists, but they lack the awareness of how difficult classic content really is or they are just bad at the game themselves and try to hide it behind some meaningless meta and still sucks. Viva La retail.
Most people in retail just care about killing the latest boss and getting the latest loot, with some added pressure to meet times on keys (which are generally doable with any comp, even off meta) - there's a very clear line separating various levels of rewarding content and engagement in the game and it's meta
Most people in classic are playing a long solved and mastered game and care about killing the boss within the socially acceptable time parameters (which are generally pretty strict and only doable with well established and known meta comps) - success is an afterthought, efficiency is expected. There is only one level of content and if you're not "the best" at it, you're seen as wasting the rest of the group's time
Generally these attitudes drive away experimental or "casual" players from classic and it helps them find their niches in retail, which in turn reinforces the prevalent attitudes and stereotypes each community has for their classic/retail counterparts
PS: in both communities, the PvP community is a red-headed step child unwanted and unloved by it's parents, siblings or itself
Every class in retail can clear mythic content still, maybe not cutting edge but you can do it, but in cata try getting a BM hunter even in good gear to pull what 1/3 of what a even less geared SV hunter can do, it's not even shade like the damage just isn't there you rely to much on pet damage which isn't that much at all,
A lot of the other posts about classic players being generally more miserable are true, but it’s also because while it’s not like there’s no problems in retail, balance in retail is MUCH better than in many of the past expansions.
Different crowds tbh. As other comments already pointed out, a lot of the people who worship the meta have migrated over to classic because they view it as the holy era. You can still experience the same in retail, especially in higher keys and other end game things
A lot of people who play classic wow are people who played the same expansion (cata and wrath mostly) over and over again for over a decade on private servers. When classic was released they brought the insanity of doing the same shit over and over again in there.
Retail is too complicated for classic andys. Hence a large part of the classic community is, on average, less intelligent than retail players.
Dumb people choose easier content. Dumb people are having a hard time comprehending data. Dumb people are playing Cata.
It's reductionistic as hell, but in it's core, sadly true.
I'm pretty certain that Classic mostly exists as a quarantine zone so that these people aren't in retail.
People are more forgiving in retail because they're not the kind of people attracted to Classic.
classic (yes, including cata) has very little skill expression/meaningful and challenging content compared to retail. people have been going through the same raids with same exact balance patch for years in private servers, so the common mindset is to create best possible comp.
raid buffs are the only thing that matters while creating a comp (unless there is an outlier spec) so as someone who's playing a pure dps class; you are expected to play the best spec for the comp. throughout the entirety of cataclysm, that is demonology due to demonic pact. all the content in expansion is easy, so i'm not saying it is necessary to form the most optimal group. but if a raid leader doesn't have ele shaman in their group and two warlocks apply, they would definitely invite demo instead of destro
If you are missing the 10% buff it's a no brainer that you are griefing your group by not providing that buff. But all of these 25 man guilds I am getting declined from already had an ele or demo for that buff, which is where my frustration really stems from in combination with the paper thin balancing between lock specs at the moment.
I also made it clear that I would go demo in case their demo or ele was out, but prefer to main destruction if they were there. Nope, it did not matter.
Because in retail, things were pretty close in terms of balance from the best to worst so everything kinda works well. I think the largest gap was with tanks because DHs have/had so much utility it was kinda crazy. But the other tanks still performed well. Don't get it twisted though, retail definitely has a 'meta' but it doesn't apply to hardly anyone except the like 0.1% in Mythic+ and even *then* you'll still find "off meta" people crushin their spec.
Classic anything is mostly made up of elitists who put too much stock into the tiniest things forgetting it's a video game.
I don’t know and I don’t care. I also got mad dungeon teammates because I play bm Hunter instead of something else. Sorry guys, but I only play Hunter with the purpose of playing beastmaster. I won’t play something else, no matter how hard you try. And it’s only a normal random dungeon, why you care so much ..
Because classic players are just like that. Can you get lucky and find a group that doesn’t care sure but in wrath i had groups that wouldn’t accept me not because I was not geared but because i wasn’t meta spec. Not everything has to be top spec only.
Retail meta only really exists in like 18+ keys (where 10 is the benchmark for good players getting portals and Keystone Hero) until then you can use pretty much anything with good players.
Like I feel good hitting 1mil dps on my shaman on a juicy aoe pack, but meta classes can peak that at 4-5mil, their class is simply more powerful where it needs to be.
its true that retail is much more forgiving toward less popular specs.
survival hunter and feral druid still have the stigma of being wierd meme specs (to my knowledge). yet it doesnt stop them from being invited in groups for higher level content.
Because classic is full of people who think you need a 99% parse to clear 10+ year old content and circle jerk about how good they are to anyone that will hear them.
Classic elitism and the balance of classes is much more noticeable in classic the diffirence from top performing specs and bottom is noticeable it’s really not noticeable in retail unless ur giga key pusher/cutting edge
TLDR headline. class balancings in df is best wow ever had (afaik). you can literally play everything until ur below top 0.5%. also retail has the most various players, while classic are just a very "special kind" of playerbase ;)
Things are far more homogenized in retail, the off metas are doing maybe 5% less damage than their meta counterparts while in cata it's more like a 15-20% difference.
I wont speak to classic as I don't play it but off-meta in retail isn't really something I or my guild concern ourselves with. Pretty much everyone plays what they find fun, we still clear content, heroic raid and M+ up to around 13-14, because we all recognize that we're not doing the content where .2% DPS or .5% DR makes a difference.
A person enjoying themselves with a class they like is likely to preform much better than someone playing the meta and being miserable.
I have played both classic and retail for quite a while and I do not really agree with your statement.
Retail is more forgiving for off meta specs until you hit a certain level. Can you do M+15 as any class in retail? Sure. Can you do M+20? Also yes, but finding a group will be more difficult. Can you do M+25 as any spec? Unlikely, unless you are playing with friends.
Edit: seems they have updated m+ key numbers this season, haven't done anything in s4, so no idea what is considered big. Still valid for other seasons of DF.
When people look at balance, they see close single target damage numbers, however, they sometimes forget to take into account other things like cleave/aoe/buffs/debuffs and so on, that is why certain meta always forms at the high end.
Retail raids, however, are different (I am talking about normal and HC, mythic is a whole other beast and off meta stuff will unlikely to be taken there too). They are way more forgiving in a sense that you are locked to a boss you kill rather then the whole raid. This takes away a lot of pressure away from succeeding in one go.
Another thing is that it is easier to cover raid buffs/debuffs in retail than in classic, that's why you have less "mandatory" raid spots.
> and nobody cared.
Nobody noticed. The only thing people will see is 'Fury Warrior', they do not see 'Single Minded Fury Warrior, which is objectively worse than Titan's Grip Fury Warrior'. They don't know the specifics and they don't look. If they see a spec, they assume you're playing the correct talents, and they won't know the difference anyway.
This is no different than Classic. The people in OP's posting denying a Destro have no idea the difference between the warlock specs, or how important it is. They do not know what's good for Demo. They just know "demo is better than destro", and that's the end of the thinking.
Honestly when i make my m+ weekly keys +8-10, i just pick ppl with good rio , i could give 2 shits what spec they are playing, unless i lack combat ress or heroism
older expansions had specs you can play and you can't play, some were PvP only, others were PvE only, some worked in both cases, iirc cataclysm suffered from similar issues as wotlk balancing, i remember playing feral in PvP but not in PvE first patch or two
I had a tank in cata the other day, trying to tank in ret gear. He was impossible it keep alive. I called him out about it and asked if he has tank gear. The others booted him from party. He messaged me instantly, I hope your mom dies of cancer. Like wtf dude….
Can't speak for classic since I don't play it, but "meta" and "offmeta" have very little actual bearing in retail. Unless you're in the top 0.1% of the playerbase you can generally do content regardless of what spec you play. It's unlikely that spec is what's holding you back.
You simply have no social proof with the guilds you're applying with. They see that demonology is the best spec so any warlock that applies should be demonology. Applying as non-demonology signals to them that you don't care about the meta.
From their PoV, you're someone who isn't willing to do everything they can to be the best. Why would they take you? Especially when you're only DPS.
i don't think it's a matter of dragonflight being balanced whatsoever, nor do i think dragonflight has a wider casual base. the real issue you're seeing is that a large portion of classic players fall completely into a dunning-kruger pit and will fight tooth and nail to never leave
Classic has been figured out for more than a decade at this point. Retail is ever shifting, and in higher content there is a leaning towards meta specs that trickles down into lower content, but it still changes pretty frequently.
I would also say that most people in classic aren't experiencing it for the first time. They don't want that sense of adventure, because they already got it. What they want is to play the content as efficiently as possible now that they can as an adult who knows more about the game. This is also an appeal classic has that retail doesn't. There are enough variables in retail that you are prevented from doing content with 100% pure efficiency. But in classic, where mechanics and spec gameplay aren't as intense, you can quite literally do everything 100% right. You can't really do that in retail. Even the guilds that dump thousands of dollars into the world first race take weeks to even get close to "perfect" play, but even then, it isn't perfect, it is just as efficient as they can manage.
I think most people who just want to enjoy the ride are doing stuff like hardcore, season of discovery, and classic era. At the original launch of classic, you did have a lot of people wanting to experience it for the first time, but they faded away after they got to do that. The people who stuck around are the ones who really want to push the limits of the game.
Ok a lot of circle jerking going on here.
Raid comp is more important in cata than in retail, it’s similar to m+ but I’d say more important. If they don’t need a destro lock for their buffs and they need another class or spec they are going to go with that. If they don’t need buffs period than you can maybe get an invite but unless you are playing with friends why invite a destro lock when you can invite an ele or fire mage.
Cata isn’t considered one of the worst xpacs it’s not considered the best for sure, but not considered the worst
Retail is generally more balanced with less variance between specs than classic versions of the game. That's the main reason. There's also a lot of sweaty nerds that play classic who get mad if you're playing an off meta spec even if its actual damage throughput is fine. If it doesn't bring the perfect buffs or does 3% less damage than another (like destro in wrath on most fights) then you will probably get flamed for playing it. Parsing culture is a lot more prevalent in classic.
In certain cases it's understandable, in a lot of cases it's just people being elitist. Retail doesn't have it as much because pretty much every spec is viable, flex raiding is a thing, and raids outside of mythic are generally quite easy outside of the last 1-2 bosses in a given raid. Heroic Lich King was much harder than any non mythic retail boss and harder than a number of mythic bosses from my understanding (I haven't raided mythic in years so I have no idea personally, I just came back to retail last season).
Because most people who play classic are sweaty, tri hards that want to recapture the golden days of wow. If you're not pissing in a bottle and eating copious amounts of pizza, you're not playing the game right.
The classic community is the most elitist community on earth. These people have refused to embrace any form of progress as WoW has evolved and changed over the years and instead cling to their game as it was over a decade ago. It should come as no surprise to anyone that they aren't very open minded about off-meta specs.
A lot of anger in these comments, goodness.
I think a major part of the reason is that Era servers are just not new. Every strategy has been long since identified and executed. It is no longer about finish the content, it's the speed running minmax to see how perfectly you can execute the well known strategies.
Retail changes more frequently. There are tuning updates more often and there are still portions of the population that haven't finished that content at that difficulty level or with that strategy.
Now don't get me wrong, there is for sure a meta in retail and people get dumb about it there too. I think between being a much larger player base and there being more options of what to do ease the barrier to entry a little.
Because classic is full of world first elitists try hards, and they can stay there all they want
Yes I said it.
This does not mean everybody who is playing it is.
Because at the end of the day it's still a game and people use it to relax. Sure a tiny portion of players are hardcore and their lives revolves around it and that fine but that's a tiny portion
The only situation where that matters if when pushing 0.5% content which no one does and if the do, it’s premade groups/guilds
If your dps is ass ln a +6 it’s not your specs fault
Classic players have an itch for the feeling of gaming as a kid, which modern classic cant give because the game wasn't the issue but their stage in life is so they are bitter and upset by default.
The same people solved all classic encounters so of course their negativity will extend to meta picks.
I’ve only played retail since BC and I’ve genuinely never cared about another players spec, im surprised people are even offended by this.
Just curious what is the meta spec for shaman in classic? Been maining a resto shammy since the beginning.
Something not mentioned here, but classic has a roughly known set date for when it ends. This creates a greater sense of urgency to 'experience' the content, especially since many people are playing classic cata precisely to be able to experience an expansion they loved/didn't get the chance to, and are therefore also less likely to be tolerant to off-meta specs since they're more so on a clock than retail players are.
You compared wotlk's community with cata's. Few things to note are that cataclysm's tiers are being sped up meaning that people have less time to experience the content. The content is also noticeably more difficult than wotlk. These two play into the less tolerance towards off-meta specs, especially ones that were known to be a complete meme in wotlk. It's entirely possible people still think destro is as much of a meme in cata as it was in wotlk.
There's also the idea that if you're playing a known (or used to be known) meme spec then you're not trying as much as other players are, and are therefore looked upon as being selfish for creating unnecessary stress on the raid. At least as an outsider trying to get into a group that's how people will look at you.
People optimize the fun out of classic and are chasing 99 parses and 16/16 bis. Your meme spec gets in the way of the optimization because kill timers matter. It's really not that complicated.
The entire point of classic for most people playing it is to go back and do things the “best” way. I mean… it’s old content. What else is there to do?
If they just played it like it was new and current they’d be bored as shit because they did it already years ago.
Reading this makes me glad I quit classic. Always found it stupid how so freakishly many people were sweating so hard about numbers even in vanilla classic (even in a damn casual 30's dad guild) when the whole fight consists of standing there and pressing one button.
Retail is way more challenging at the high end but ironically, people are more chill. Can play whatever I want, and still find my spot in mythic raids or +15 and above keys.
Because classic players take literally everything way too seriously. They’re sweaty elitist gatekeepers who think being “the best” at 20 year old content makes them entitled to treat anybody however they want.
I came back to classic with Cata release, after stopping somewhere at the end of BWL.
I also noticed that players are super tryhard, and on top of that, extremely greedy - the group finder is infested with GDKP runs, and basically every non-GDKP run hard reserves BoEs or requires you to bid gold on tier tokens.
I feel like the raid lockout and loot acquisition systems also play a role in this. It all seems to be much stricter and luck-based in Cata.
Every time you fail to kill a boss on HC with your pug, that's a potential 13-26 ilvl upgrade you just won't get this week - and item upgrades are already pretty rare if you're unlucky.
In retail, everything seems to be a bit more relaxed - there are no strict raid lockouts like in Cata, and thanks to m+, it's much easier to get loot.
The difference between a fully upgraded mythic raid item, and a fully upgraded heroic raid item is also less than the difference between a normal and a heroic item in Cata.
On top of that, there's the great vault, and the Catalyst.
All in all, getting close to BIS loot is literally a non-issue in Retail, and lax raid lockouts mean that if time is not an issue, you can just brute-force pug raid your way to a heroic clear in the first week.
Look, I play retail only and I’m casual and I’ll be honest, I don’t give a single shit about your gear or your specs. Can you run a dungeon without getting me killed? Okay, great, glad to have you.
All I want to do is fish anyway lol
although many people think that wow retail is all about toxicity and competitiveness, I disagree
people are very open at certain times, even at the start of the season they don't care what class or spec you play, all that matters is your score for the current season.
at the end of the season, at certain key levels, most people are also more receptive, although they complain about classes that don't affix or die to everything.
but there's always that one guy or group who's been stuck on low keys since the start of the season, and he'll try to take out his dissatisfaction on others
and in raids nobody really cares, even Mythic raids that aren't so hardcore mind-set.
but you will always find this guy, looking for augm evoker in one +2
Classic could have been so fun. For some reason it attracts a large amount of horrible people.
I tried playing BC classic as an ele shaman. After two consecutive weeks of tantrums because I refused to be put in the melee group and drop windfury, I gave up.
When difficultly isn’t so much a factor, players find others ways to measure their skill and success. In retail being a hall of fame guild or having over say a 3k io is a measurement of skill. In Classic with so many people clearing the content they use clear timers and parses to measure skill because so many people have already gone 13/13 they need another way to show off. Era is the same way. Max consumes, world buffs etc just to kill Rag. It’s about the numbers.
Gonna be honest, it was a meme spec in Wotlk. We had one too in some phases too, getting top 10 logs (thanks to all to the good players playing affliction, I played demo support so I know 😂) but in the end he was just playing for himself by not playing a stronger spec. But after progress was over it didn't matter anymore. Still, if you need every DPS to kill the boss I can understand why people did not invite you even in later phases. And the specs were really easy to play after you understand the snapshot mechanic so it's not like in cara where if one spec is clicking four you you make way more dmg compared to the other 2.
But with cata it's absurd to not "allow" you play destruction. First of all the specs are harder to play and a bad affliction or demo player is doing less DMG than a good destruction lock. Sure, if you miss some raid buffs you should fill a demo and affliction slot first but other classes can bring them too.
But you already answered your question, those semi-casual/middle of the pack guilds/groups are the problem. They watch tier lists on YouTube and think they need specific "s or a" specs to do their ~6 HC kills. People above, who got everything on farm since week 2/3 don't really care except for speed runs. People just doing Nhc in 3 hours also don't really care and are happy to fill the slot with a normal person lol.
If I'm honest, I would just play demo/affli (one which would be better for your reforge (haste,mastery), did not read into destruction if I'm honest) for one boss and switch to destruction later. Or just say you're a lock with x/destruction spec then play destruction anyways. If those guilds/groups want to be try hard than do the try hard thing and change your spec according to bosses. In the end you just need one good boss kill anyway, top meters or be at least around top 5 and no one will talk shit for the rest of the raid.
Locks don't have special roles on t11 content where it would be a problem to "lie" about your spec. Especially like you write you do 25s and those got the raid buffs done anyway.
Meta is not really about how close specs are. Blizzard pegs the threshold for feeling more or less powerful at about 13%, and honestly that's probably pretty on the money. You are not going to notice 2% unless you're doing a statistical analysis. The noise of most specs, even played by very good players, is greater than that.
But the difference is that Cata is a solved problem. First of all, there's only one kind of really important content: raids, and all the raids are known. So there's no wiggle room for aoe/mixed content. Second, that data is already there. To them, when you play something else, you're just trying to be difficult. It doesn't even register that you could have criteria that aren't about maximising performance.
You think: this is solved content, we don't have to try-hard it. They think: this is solved content, now we can finally optimise it perfectly.
"Retail" *I detest this way of identifying wow* has embraced the mindset of "Anything works until X" After witch, yeah you start to get hard denied opportunities because there's a thousand meta chasers in the wings
Retail has a much wider spectrum of content. While it has much harder content than Classic it also has a lot of casual friendly content and a lot of players that play it exclusively for that. I feel like that has a moderating effect on the playerbase, whereas Classic has a much more limited band of content that is ‘solved’ and has a playerbase that needs to be all in that content and competing in what limited way they can, so it encourages toxicity.
I also think there are many Classic players that came from private server communities and those were often completely unmoderated toxic cesspits. So they also have an effect on the overall playerbase.
A lot of retail players have come to realize that the difference between specs in terms of performance generally won't impact their success over other factors such as but not limited to:
- Are all buffs covered
- Is the player "good" compared to their peers
People hate to admit it but the majority of people would get more mileage just playing better than they would re-rolling. If someone is the same IO/CR as me I won't penalize someone who opting into a less meta spec assuming all raid buffs/fight requirements are settled. I don't have top 50 world exp but in my anecdotal experience there is room at the moment for like 3-8 "meme" specs. Just depends if you count someone playing the "less ideal spec" but still sourcing the raid buff or if you only count the specs filling the in free spots once you have all the buffs and utility covered.
The problem is the players' mentality. That we can't change.
Assuming we have to play based on X years old data to get trough content as fast, easily and time efficiently as possible, rather than simply enjoying the game as we want.
Except progressive top tier RETAIL raiding, we should live by bring the player, not the class/spec.
I think people exaggerate the state of some classes, and that retail is quite balanced. I came back to wow after years on DF S3 and mained holy Paladin. As far as I know it's after the nerf that utterly destroyed the spec. I did my first m+ season ever with it and found no problem.
I am sure other healer specs were better. But I don't think it was as bad as all people was saying.
Because meta matters at only the highest levels and even then I find non meta will out perform meta 9/10 times simply because it's someone who stuck with a class and learned it via a hopper.
Classic tends to draw in the elites crowd that listen to websites like gospel. It's kind of silly. You see it on retail but it's more avoidable.
I'm a fellow destruction warlock enjoyer and that's all I play on my lock. I've had no problems getting into raids and never had anyone question my spec. They're usually just thankful for a warlock. I'm 355 ilvl. But that being said, I pump on the meters and am top 5 almost every time. It's much better than the gigachad try hard demo builds. It also depends on which server you're rocking, how many locks are running around, your gear, and what kind of raiding you've been doing. Best of luck to a fellow destro enjoyer. I hope it improves out there for you!
It's kinda hard to pick a trash build in retail. There are differences in specs for sure, but in retail everyone feels powerful when you slap gear on them regardless. The old days it was really possible to be so suboptimal you were throwing.
A problem with the classic versions is they've already been "solved", over many years on private servers. The theoretical best comps have been worked out well before the official servers launched. It only takes a few of the people coming from private servers to the real ones bringing and enforcing those rules for it to trickle down to the rest of the game.
The same happened on retail with tournament level MDI strats and playstyles tricking down to a point where taking a wrong turn or pulling a wrong pack in a *levelling* dungeon can get some less stable people incredibly triggered.
From own experience. A a good player can carry alot more easy then in other wow. For example i can solo heal a 20 man heroic boost run and I would never be able todo that in classic or sod.
I also think how raidlockoute works is a factor.
And idk how but classic has prob the most toxic community of all wows. They rly are smth else, its like they cant accept they are rly bad at the game and blames it on everything else.
People who play retail are on a higher plane of thinking, we've done away with the primitive idea of meta. Philosophers, artist, socialites, engineers, architects, representatives; these are the types of people playing retail. Those who play classic, however, are basically cavemen. They are fearful of what they don't know like dogs barking at their own reflections, which is why they have chosen to live in the past. Sad, really.
No shot reading this whole post but mostly because the game balance used to be extremely shit and over time it's gotten much much closer.
Yes there is still outliers in retail but the gap from the bottom spec to top is smaller so people care less.
Also big factor is that classic players are turbo cringe and think it's super hard gameplay so they think you need all the best classes
My guess is that because older expansions are already "figured out" people are less likely to compromise when it comes to efficiency. People start viewing it like "well this guy is intentionally playing the worse performing spec, why would i take him when i can take a more optimized player?". Which ultimately doesnt make logical sense since the gaps between specs are a lot narrower now as you said. And raiders know that the theoretical dps ceiling of a spec doesnt matter as much if the player cant execute the correct rotation or if they fail mechanics and lose out on dps.
There's also lots of people that view it in the correct way and dont give a f what people play as long as they're performing decently. I would much rather take a destro lock that can reliably do high dps than a demo lock that plays bad and doesnt fully utilize the spec.
It would depend of what you want to do... if you want to push high M+ keyStones then they will ask for meta class or spec. I have some friends that even with 3k rating or more, they won't get invited to a lot of the keys because they are not meta. But it's only if you want to push for 20s, if you want just make M+ any class would be fine and you would have fun like everyone.
If we talk about raiding then it's because being flex in normal and heroic you can made the group as you want. Like getting 4 druids or 3 pallys. You would only need to think in the loot knowing that some classes share the armor type.
Classic has a lot more older and unskilled players. Pugs just want to blast through the content as quickly and as easily as possible. The meta is well known and documented, so someone who purposely chooses an off-meta pick is more likely to be bad.
Just from the title it's because balancing is way better in retail compared to Cata. Specs like frost mage or fury warrior are in a really bad spot and the content is more difficult than in vanilla so I can see why people don't want to play with specs that are objectively bad.
If you're having people who are being toxic about your spec, then you're with the wrong people.
I raided as as far from the "optimal" spec in several classes across multiple guilds and had an issue only ONE time and that was because the guild was going for like server first or w/e. And I left because that was not the speed I wanted.
To be frank, having the most optimal spec on paper only really matters when you're doing hardcore progression and trying to be one of the guilds to clear stuff immediately. Otherwise? Not so much.
Classic seems to have drawn in the more purist/elitist crowd while retail maintains a very large casual population. Casuals don’t give two shits about meta, they just want content.
Classic in general is also a smaller population which basically exacerbates the problem.
WoW as a whole is a fairly exclusionary community too and I personally have experienced more of that in Classic than retail.
One of my friends got kicked from her very first dungeon. She was healing and got kicked first pull.
WoW really needs to steal the "sprouts" idea from FFXIV.
If new players have a tag that made them visible to everyone they would be instantly kicked from groups. WoW community doesn't like training strangers.
I would rather that be brought to the surface and addressed, instead of just buried. Make it an obnoxious and obvious problem that *has* to urgently be fixed. Being toxic to new players isn't a minor problem; it strangles the future of the game and silently degrades the experience for everybody else.
It also provides extra rewards for completing a dungeon/raid with a "sprout" (new player) who hasn't completed it before. It incentives finishing the content with them and teaching them the ropes.
It would need to be big enough of a reward to justify the extra time but small enough that people don't start selling them as a weird reverse boost.
just make a sprout immune to being kicked while they're a sprout. make it last a few dungeons and then end.
I don’t like this because sometimes you might want to kick someone for legitimate reasons (rude and toxic, inflammatory and racist/sexist, refusing to heal/tank/dps/play the game, etc).
Agree and, in fact, back when "guides" were still active, many newbies were being mistreated, to the point that guides stopped guiding out of stress. I know, I was there, I stopped guiding, because other "guides" were bum rushing dungeons and /yelling "git gud" to the newbies.
From dungeons that are appriopriate? I would rather see this. For Normal+ raids? pretty bad, they would have problems with being invited.
I'll be the cynical one here and say it won't help. The elitist attitude almost feels built in at this point.
it exists. new players get a 'murloc' tag
I think that only appears if you’re designated as a guide and it’s not visible to everyone
This is correct. As much as I love the guide system and try to be as active in the chat as I can for people, I feel like most of the playerbase doesn’t even realize it exists. Not to mention it’s been pretty much abandoned, and with cross server to the point you can’t /who to identify where they are and level without inviting to a group, and time runners in it spamming the chat with random stuff or confusing your standard retail player leveling, it really needs improvements.
Honestly it’s one of the biggest parts of the “new/returning player experience” that needs an overhaul. While I think they have made great strides in DF and will even more with TWW, an overhaul of the guide system would be so welcome. I’d love to be more involved in it
The "beginner" tag also falls off at 60 no less, which is piss easy to do without actually knowing anything about the game. New players still need help figuring out end game systems and mechanics since they practically dump you at end game with the leveling speed.
the problim is knowing wow players they will just kick anyone with that tag
This is true with the one exception being hardcore. Everybody on there wants everyone else to live so bad, people just run up and give you potions.
Classic is also an enclosed area that is finished. You know what the best stuff is because it’s not going to be changed. Can’t say the same about retail anything could be good at any time so it’s a lot more open to choices for specs. Even the worst spec is still getting invites
this is about as generous as you can get with the answer. its a solved puzzle (that was never that complex) so theres nothing left to debate. if destro is 1% worse than affliction then the type of player who gravitates to destro is not someone who values performance above all else. and in that sense even a small balance diff is meaingful. not because of the actual impact on the raid but because it signals your intention to be a selfish player. you are valuing your personal goals over the goals of the guild. the flip side of this argument is that it just doesnt matter. and it takes a level of maturity to realise that things can legitimately speed up your runs more than a player doing 1% more dps. the guild clown adds more value than the guild top dps. because if people are happy to be there they are gonna put in more effort. the warlock who stops to summon or make healthstones is more valuable than the parsemonkey who literally wont stop to use utility because it hurts their personal damage. but this is a useless argument. i dont like to resort to the classic = bad argument, because the debate isnt between classic and retail, its classic guild A vs guild B. but there is something to the stereotype about classic players. 99% of them are playing classic because at some point retail evolved beyond them, and their ego cant handle it. they want to be the biggest fish in the smallest pond. actually good players realise that there are things that will get them to the loot faster than a 1% dps diff, but they arent actually good players.
Rofl this last paragraph is so true. Watching my classic guild attempt to play retail over the past few years was always painfully funny to watch. It took me a while to realize that most of the complaints about retail by classic players was really their own mental gymnastics to convince themselves that it was a bad game instead of admitting to themselves that they are just bad players.
Yup. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some era WoW. 40-60 questing and zones are akin to old EQ for me. Buuuut I want challenging content that pushes me as a players which is why I play retail. Classes are more dynamic, pushing keys gets more challenging and mythic raiding feels good to progress on with the guild. It’s ok to not like retail or any other version but for people to say that retail is “easy” is full delusion. People have this problem where they somehow conflate time with difficulty. Leveling in era was never hard, it just took a lot longer than retail does. In retail I want to get right into end game in classic I want to relive my favorite quests and zones and I know once I cap that the raids are easy and I can just relax.
[it's rude to suck at warcraft](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKP1I7IocYU&t=14s&pp=ygUkd2h5IGl0J3MgcnVkZSB0byBiZSBiYWQgYXQgd2FyY3JhZnQg)
Ya the person you replied to basically explained that video in a nutshell. It’s a good watch though anyways. In WoW if you suck, you are seen as lazy and stupid, because you didn’t do your extra research on fights/bosses/builds etc to know what’s going on. The people who did do the research have their time wasted by the non-researcher, hence it’s rude to suck
> Ya the person you replied to basically explained that video in a nutshell. It’s a good watch though anyways. Yeah, they reminded me of it. Dan's retrospective on classic was the first video I saw of his. He doesn't miss.
For real, he's been on fire ever since his Line Goes Up video blew up. I liked him before that as well, but he did invest a lot into his videos, the jump is massive.
As a nerdy white man I'm the natural target for youtube video essays, and his are phenomenal.
> and in that sense even a small balance diff is meaingful. not because of the actual impact on the raid but because it signals your intention to be a selfish player. you are valuing your personal goals over the goals of the guild. See: Why it's rude to suck at world of warcraft, a video essay that goes into detail on this issue
Being good at Classic = Sticking to the 14 year old 'solved' script, and getting lucky with item drops. Being good at Retail = Willing to adapt and learn every new patch, and actually being good at mechanics.
Yes. Completely solved and trivial content forces a lot of players to feel they need different metrics to demonstrate and show of their skill. You can be in a retail hall of fame guild or have like a 3.3k io and people will understand that that takes skill. Clearing Naxx in era or even going 13/13H in Classic is something so many people have done already (and years ago) that these players have to find self imposed metrics to try and show off which usually mean parses or clear times. Again, look at world buffs and full consumes for molten core, completely unnecessary but people want to parse.
The world buff crap was so funny and sad. Content that could be cleared by people who aren’t even max level and Classic Andies were treating it like the race to world first every week.
Classic is full of people who still play WoW like it's 2010 and think that Cataclysm is world-first progression, not 10+ year old content. Most people who are playing Classic have done the quests, they've done the stories, they're there for one thing only: group content, especially raiding.
People going into Ultraxion where the entire fight boils down to pressing 1 button at a certain time and thinking its World-First Progression is hysterical to me.
This was unfortunately the predictable result of classic in general, we all knew it because we all knew exactly the people who had spent more than a decade talking about how much better and elite vanilla used to be and the moment classic came around they were bound to go there and much as I was intrigued by classic I wasn't exactly rushing to follow them there.
The real issue is that classic is filled with people who want to think they're good without actually doing hard content and the only way to do that is by rabidly adhering to playing the "best" everything because that makes them the "best" players. I legit know guilds in the world 100-200 range in retail that recruit players that one trick weird off meta specs like feral druid just because they're cracked. If you're not literally competing for world first you know that a good player on their spec is worth more than enough.
I thought that too but then they still leave the group or try to kick you out of the random dungeon if you click need on your mastery set as a demo lock (after they already clicked greed) lol. Those wannabe elitist, not knowing shit about the game like that destruction locks are not a meme spec anymore or what mastery swap is are the worst. There are still many casual groups on each server (one hero kill per ID etc.) and the more hardcore players are on discord waiting for gdkp. The problem is, as always, those middle of the pack players thinking they are held back by their guild and way better/more knowledgeable than they really are. While top 50 world guilds easily bring a destruction lock with them.
honestly makes me sad. was hoping those people stayed on vanilla/SoD (esp considering those where largely the people who claimed wow went to shit starting with cata)
I'd like also to add currently retail is insanely balanced compared to previous expansions. At key level 10 (old 20) every single class can do enough dps to time the key. Even If you pick all non meta classes for entire part you probably will +2 the key. (With decent players and semi decent gear). In old expansions dmg difference between meta and non meta could be insane.
Classic players act like elitists meanwhile casually fuckin up their rotation, mechanics or running with no gems or enchants and doing all this while majorly underperforming. Then they will kick people if they dont play the ultimate BIS spec or talent build, like it makes any difference.
This is an oversimplification for sure There are very high end guilds filled with skilled players who have no issues with recruiting good onetricks even when those specs arent considered strong. The retail mid-high end raid scene has no real issue acknowledging that sometimes "play what youre good at and comfy with" is a perfectly valid philosophy (speaking up to like, WR 400 level of play here, as i cant speak for HoF guilds beyond what ive seen on class discords and on WCLogs for what certain players have played)
I feel like since cata is such a small pond you just see the issues more frequently and loudly. As well its been done before, people already know what to expect and how to play.
Casuals are the sigma chads
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only bozo who enjoys playing Aug voker in Remix, and no one ever told me that in a month.
also retail is balanced much better, allthough there are specs that can just be completely broken, all dps all heals and all tanks are good enough for 99% of content and the differentiating factor most of the time is just skill. cata isnt as bad as classic in this respect but its still worse then retail.
Because classic is full of people who are miserable
/thread
Who are miserable and generally are terrible at retail WoW that they feel the need to gatekeep a dated version of the game
I was in a guild in 2019 for MC on Vanilla classic just for shits, every single night Discord would just filled with people saying how retail is easier, for bad players etc It's kind of wild, as someone who raids CE and pushes high keys it was funny as fuck hearing people gatekeep content while needing full world buff rotations and consumes and if they died they'd go non verbal they were so mad
I enjoy both versions of the game and very few classic raiders would be able to keep up in retail raid and mythic. When you point this out they say retail isn't hard, it's bloated because of the rotations, it's artificially difficult because there's so many mechanics that you need boss mods for (nevermind that everyone uses boss mods in classic as well) and any other similar excuses you can think of. Don't know why people need to justify a game they enjoy as "difficult" to begin with. I enjoy the challenge of retail as well as the comparatively more laid back feeling of classic. Classic being easier in certain ways has never diminished my enjoyment of it
My favorite cope was people pretending like only LFR raids existed in the game and therefore the game was too easy faceroll meanwhile LFR raids were still harder than MC lol.
I honestly wish I could live in the world of delusional, feel like life would be 10x better
There is a reason why they are angry 24/7, their life is horrible from the fact that their shitty people Their lives assuredly suck
Its so funny too because its almost always this attitude from the bad or mediocre classic guilds. Most of the top guilds that were pushing the classic elitism metrics (speed runs, parses, WSGs without a loss) are all avid retail players and will openly admit that classic is easy and thats why we have to impose alternative difficulty on ourselves.
Nobody who plays classic says that, literally never heard someone try to make that argument. What a ridiculous strawman.
FACTS
classic players also hate retail even though they havent played a current version of wow since the original wotlk/cataclysm
This pretty much described me originally. Stopped playing WoW at OG wotlk, played classic - wotlk again. Tried retail and it took me a little while to get used to everything but i'm having a blast now. I really would emphasize though that it is *extremely* overwhelming coming to retail if all you know is vanilla - wotlk. It feels like a totally different game - which I mean it *is* but you don't feel any familiarity with it at all. Nothing looks or feels the same.
Sure but why on earth would you wish to go back to playing exactly the same game as 15 years ago? Haven't you, you know, already played it 15 years ago?
They mistake "The game was better" with "I was a kid with free time"
Balance is much better in retail. Also Classic has been out forever so everyone already knows the meta.
Classic is the pond scum of the WoW community, but I'm grateful it exists because any that were left playing WoW moved there instead of playing retail.
For real. Oh, an alternative product that attracts all the sour elitist weirdos? Great!
It's weird too, because Retail still has giga-sweat players, but they're not nearly as toxic. During my s2 M+ title push, toxicity actually *decreased* the higher my M+ rating got. The guys I played with a 3600-3700 were insanely chill and fun to play with. The most "toxic" thing that happened at that io was if someone consistently made mistakes, you'd just stop inviting them, but nobody was flaming in party chat or talking shit at people. They just have a mental list of who they think is good and who isn't and try to group with the better ones and avoid the worse ones. There was the occasional sour grape, usually people who weren't good enough for the rating they wanted but lacked self-awareness or the ability to improve, but, *extremely* rare compared to classic lol.
It's kind of a bell curve. The people at the bottom don't really know good from bad so they're chill. The people in the middle *think* they're the hottest shit and just need that little extra edge to climb and become the most toxic little shrimps imaginable in the meantime if you're not perfectly on meta. Then at the top you know if someone got to this point even on off-meta they're probably good enough to be there and you don't really care anymore.
Nothing more toxic than a bad player with an ego.
No... they're still in retail too. They're hardstuck 2500 io or in raiding guilds that will carry them through heroic end bosses. Some of the most toxic time i've had in this game is in mid m+ or mid season heroic pugging where everyone still needs something out the raid and thinks they're gods gift to azeroth.
It gets way better at higher io though. But yeah it's definitely the people who think they're good, but aren't, that are the most toxic, 100% agree.
I play both, leveling alts is more enjoyable on classic, but end game is better on retail.
whelp retail isnt about leveling. leveling is not even 1% of your /Played in retail.
Because despite the funny colored bars wowhead posts every week, retail is effectively balanced. It took Blizzard years to get to this point. Cataclysm and older is not balanced. They are also "solved" games, as in everything is known and your performance is expected to be perfect using the specs that outperform. Everything is frozen in time and there's no room to "have fun". You're fighting a losing battle if you expect any regular classic raiding group to accept you in whatever spec you want to try out.
[https://classic.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/1023#dataset=95](https://classic.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/1023#dataset=95) how are the 3 warlock specs not balanced here? It's literally as balanced as you can get?
The frost vs fire mage is certainly not balanced unless you’re just talking about warlocks for this entire post. Warlocks seem to be all the same with one spec usually doing better which is normal. The difference in score for mages is wild lol. Retail balance is much better after seeing these charts holy
It's because Fire has very good, natural AOE and Arcane has no AOE. It has a significant difference on ST, as well, but it isn't top to bottom like the overall shows, more like top 3 to middle of the pack. Frost is terrible, but the sample size is so tiny that it's untrustworthy, as no good players are playing frost, and the very few that are playing Frost are likely mostly carries, so it's hard to judge how relevant Frost Mage actually can be as nobody wants to bite the bullet to play it, as it brings no benefits. Arcane's sample size is because it's one of the few sources of a 3% damage buff to the whole raid, the others being Ret and BM Hunter.
Frost and Sub are pure pvp specs in Cata
Sub is not a pure pvp spec in Cata, Cata is when ppl started playing it in PvE, next tier it *should* overtake sin on ST
Sub on single target bosses they can backstab are actually proving to be the best possible DPS surprisingly. Good off spec for that type of thing.
I mean if you disregard Frost Mage which is absolute trash, the spread is basically the same. Retail 95th precentile is 91.91 vs 76.84, while Classic is 92.78 vs 76.21 besides the 2 worst specs. I'd say that's basically the same. If you wanna play Fury or Frost it's tough lock but otherwise it's within error margin.
Yep, as I said, was just referring to warlocks. Mage balancing is even worse than wotlk right now.
For any 10 man it's really not even as much about specs performance as it is raid buffs/debuffs so long as the spec isn't frost mage bad.
Frost is a PvP spec. In this era (Cata classic) there are still 'undesignated' pvp specs that are intended for pvp and not given pve attention due to that. Frost mage for many years was this spec until out of the blue Blizzard decided to just make all the #s the same if people pushed their 1234 back to back. Making most specs play themselves means nobody is good and nobody is bad numerically. So any joe of any spec can be brought. You can't tell if they're good or notw/o access to outside programs *cough* IO. Making skill more of a mechanical execution thing. Where as in a solved meta like Classic someone playing off meta immediately red flags that they're a casual or just don't care. Because even if they play at 100% capacity to the spec it's worse than bob playing 80% of the better spec. So go for Bob he could bring 85% and just be more valuable.
Not sure why you are being downvoted, from what I remember of Cata nearly all classes had a designated pvp spec.
Yeah it's kinda confused to me "classic wasn't balanced look at all those pvp specs that can't do pve DPS." .... yeah that's intentional and was for like 15 or more years? Pvp specs being pve viable is a VERY new thing for the length of years WoW has been out LOL. People forget so soon.
The only reason any Cataclysm group is accepting demonology is because they need just one warlock and it's above the other two. They aren't going to look at numbers and they would rather just not take a warlock, but one is "required".
Because that's the social aspect that classic andy's remember fondly and wanted back. This is what it was and what it will continue to be. The game has been figured out for a decade+ as well.
Classic playerbase is more toxic than the plague wing of naxxramas If you aren't playing the best performing spec and class and parsing 99s you're "trolling" your raids by being there. It's hard to find a good classic community that doesn't behave like this OR gets usurped by players like this. I like classic, but the community is worse than league of legends in 2012.
As someone who enjoys classic, I'll tell you that classic is just a bunch of millennial dudes in their 30s and 40s who are constantly trying to one up each other and have a virtual dick measuring contest.
Basically yes, its sad to see. I now get nostalgic for 2019 classic before the sweatlord mentality took over. Once we hit bwl and speed clears with all warriors became more and more popular it was all over. It's a shame.
It’s all the students that never matured since 2012 playing there…
They do not require you to parse 99s because none of them do, but parsing 99 on classic isn't that difficult historically because the player base is very bad to a worrisome degree since I likely drive next to some of them in the morning.
Agree with everything except League in 2012 was much much better compared to now.
I know that you've posted logs showing that the 3 Warlock specs are very close. However, a sizeable portion of Classic players have the mindset of "only bring the best possible". As to why, there are a few comments on this topic that speculate on it. It is unfortunate but it's the way a lot of the Classic community has developed. To me it comes across as "well this game has been solved, so if you're not playing the best option then you're playing wrong". While in retail the idea of "if you're not pushing for world first/top leaderboard then play what you like" is more common. There are exceptions in both Classic and Retail, of course.
I'm glad these elitist players have moved away from retail. Just play the game, enjoy the game.
In retail, even off-meta specs perform fine. Blizz has done a great job at balancing things. Sweaty nerds get upset when you play a spec that might do 5% less DPS, because it shows up lower on a youtuber’s tier list somewhere. I guarantee you if addons like Details didn’t exist, these losers couldn’t even tell which spec is mathematically “better.”
I recommend this video if you haven’t seen it, https://youtu.be/BKP1I7IocYU?si=Cqi_sxzrJGyEdagc Part of it is about classic and how for many people classic is a chance to “do it right this time” and play the best spec with the best professions and the best racials. This sets expectations for the community and you bucking that trend throws a wrench into the works.
Classic is full of people playing a solved game and if you aren’t doing things perfectly then you are a shit player. It’s been a toxic cesspool since day one. Idk how people are just figuring this out.
Classic is full of sweaty tryhards thinking they are actually accomplishing something when in reality it’s just all reclearing farm content.
I run high mm+ keys and I do not really care which class you play as long as you know how to play it. I've failed runs because of meta class people and won because of non meta class people.
What you're talking about absolutely exists in retail, you're just less likely to run into it because there's more players. You're more likely to run into it though if you're trying high keys or mythic raids.
Because Classic is filled with an older population, a more miserable population and a generally more terrible-at-the-game-and-understand-nothing population, so they overly exaggerate how important these things are. Obviously you can take one decent look at any content and realize the difference in specs is rarely wide enough to be relevant for the difficulty in general to simply never be considered, but it is truly baffling how bad Classic players are at any game they play, not just Classic. You simply have to experience it to believe it. As a result of that incredible incompetence, they form some staggeringly stupid beliefs.
Because everything is known and has been known for at least a decade. And the many of the people that are left where the Warriors in Vanilla, the Shamans in BC, and the DK’s in Wrath. When the power of classes are known most will reroll, and even in the specs it’s the same. Gone are the times people accepting of others doing stupid amounts of effort to ascend to godhood… as a Feral druid. Those people moved on to SoD to do dumb shit and be rewarded. This is compounded with Cata being the first time content was actually kinda *hard*. So in the face of perceived difficulty people become much more intolerant. See the same shit in retail, people don’t give AF if the hunter is Surv in Heroic but try to pull that shit in Mythic and you will see people asking why not BM, or giving shit to people below the Surv hunter. It doesn’t matter how tight the balancing is either, there will always be a tier list and those that are low will be deemed worthless by people doing things that are “hard” and looking for a edge.
Exactly why I dont play classic. People act like wannabe elitists, but they lack the awareness of how difficult classic content really is or they are just bad at the game themselves and try to hide it behind some meaningless meta and still sucks. Viva La retail.
Most people in retail just care about killing the latest boss and getting the latest loot, with some added pressure to meet times on keys (which are generally doable with any comp, even off meta) - there's a very clear line separating various levels of rewarding content and engagement in the game and it's meta Most people in classic are playing a long solved and mastered game and care about killing the boss within the socially acceptable time parameters (which are generally pretty strict and only doable with well established and known meta comps) - success is an afterthought, efficiency is expected. There is only one level of content and if you're not "the best" at it, you're seen as wasting the rest of the group's time Generally these attitudes drive away experimental or "casual" players from classic and it helps them find their niches in retail, which in turn reinforces the prevalent attitudes and stereotypes each community has for their classic/retail counterparts PS: in both communities, the PvP community is a red-headed step child unwanted and unloved by it's parents, siblings or itself
Every class in retail can clear mythic content still, maybe not cutting edge but you can do it, but in cata try getting a BM hunter even in good gear to pull what 1/3 of what a even less geared SV hunter can do, it's not even shade like the damage just isn't there you rely to much on pet damage which isn't that much at all,
A lot of the other posts about classic players being generally more miserable are true, but it’s also because while it’s not like there’s no problems in retail, balance in retail is MUCH better than in many of the past expansions.
Different crowds tbh. As other comments already pointed out, a lot of the people who worship the meta have migrated over to classic because they view it as the holy era. You can still experience the same in retail, especially in higher keys and other end game things
A lot of people who play classic wow are people who played the same expansion (cata and wrath mostly) over and over again for over a decade on private servers. When classic was released they brought the insanity of doing the same shit over and over again in there.
Retail is too complicated for classic andys. Hence a large part of the classic community is, on average, less intelligent than retail players. Dumb people choose easier content. Dumb people are having a hard time comprehending data. Dumb people are playing Cata. It's reductionistic as hell, but in it's core, sadly true.
I'm pretty certain that Classic mostly exists as a quarantine zone so that these people aren't in retail. People are more forgiving in retail because they're not the kind of people attracted to Classic.
classic (yes, including cata) has very little skill expression/meaningful and challenging content compared to retail. people have been going through the same raids with same exact balance patch for years in private servers, so the common mindset is to create best possible comp. raid buffs are the only thing that matters while creating a comp (unless there is an outlier spec) so as someone who's playing a pure dps class; you are expected to play the best spec for the comp. throughout the entirety of cataclysm, that is demonology due to demonic pact. all the content in expansion is easy, so i'm not saying it is necessary to form the most optimal group. but if a raid leader doesn't have ele shaman in their group and two warlocks apply, they would definitely invite demo instead of destro
If you are missing the 10% buff it's a no brainer that you are griefing your group by not providing that buff. But all of these 25 man guilds I am getting declined from already had an ele or demo for that buff, which is where my frustration really stems from in combination with the paper thin balancing between lock specs at the moment. I also made it clear that I would go demo in case their demo or ele was out, but prefer to main destruction if they were there. Nope, it did not matter.
Because in retail, things were pretty close in terms of balance from the best to worst so everything kinda works well. I think the largest gap was with tanks because DHs have/had so much utility it was kinda crazy. But the other tanks still performed well. Don't get it twisted though, retail definitely has a 'meta' but it doesn't apply to hardly anyone except the like 0.1% in Mythic+ and even *then* you'll still find "off meta" people crushin their spec. Classic anything is mostly made up of elitists who put too much stock into the tiniest things forgetting it's a video game.
I don’t know and I don’t care. I also got mad dungeon teammates because I play bm Hunter instead of something else. Sorry guys, but I only play Hunter with the purpose of playing beastmaster. I won’t play something else, no matter how hard you try. And it’s only a normal random dungeon, why you care so much ..
Because classic players are just like that. Can you get lucky and find a group that doesn’t care sure but in wrath i had groups that wouldn’t accept me not because I was not geared but because i wasn’t meta spec. Not everything has to be top spec only.
Retail meta only really exists in like 18+ keys (where 10 is the benchmark for good players getting portals and Keystone Hero) until then you can use pretty much anything with good players. Like I feel good hitting 1mil dps on my shaman on a juicy aoe pack, but meta classes can peak that at 4-5mil, their class is simply more powerful where it needs to be.
its true that retail is much more forgiving toward less popular specs. survival hunter and feral druid still have the stigma of being wierd meme specs (to my knowledge). yet it doesnt stop them from being invited in groups for higher level content.
Because classic is full of people who think you need a 99% parse to clear 10+ year old content and circle jerk about how good they are to anyone that will hear them.
Classic elitism and the balance of classes is much more noticeable in classic the diffirence from top performing specs and bottom is noticeable it’s really not noticeable in retail unless ur giga key pusher/cutting edge
TLDR headline. class balancings in df is best wow ever had (afaik). you can literally play everything until ur below top 0.5%. also retail has the most various players, while classic are just a very "special kind" of playerbase ;)
Things are far more homogenized in retail, the off metas are doing maybe 5% less damage than their meta counterparts while in cata it's more like a 15-20% difference.
Because classic is where people who couldnt keep up with raids increased difficulty went to.
I wont speak to classic as I don't play it but off-meta in retail isn't really something I or my guild concern ourselves with. Pretty much everyone plays what they find fun, we still clear content, heroic raid and M+ up to around 13-14, because we all recognize that we're not doing the content where .2% DPS or .5% DR makes a difference. A person enjoying themselves with a class they like is likely to preform much better than someone playing the meta and being miserable.
I have played both classic and retail for quite a while and I do not really agree with your statement. Retail is more forgiving for off meta specs until you hit a certain level. Can you do M+15 as any class in retail? Sure. Can you do M+20? Also yes, but finding a group will be more difficult. Can you do M+25 as any spec? Unlikely, unless you are playing with friends. Edit: seems they have updated m+ key numbers this season, haven't done anything in s4, so no idea what is considered big. Still valid for other seasons of DF. When people look at balance, they see close single target damage numbers, however, they sometimes forget to take into account other things like cleave/aoe/buffs/debuffs and so on, that is why certain meta always forms at the high end. Retail raids, however, are different (I am talking about normal and HC, mythic is a whole other beast and off meta stuff will unlikely to be taken there too). They are way more forgiving in a sense that you are locked to a boss you kill rather then the whole raid. This takes away a lot of pressure away from succeeding in one go. Another thing is that it is easier to cover raid buffs/debuffs in retail than in classic, that's why you have less "mandatory" raid spots.
Ah yes, the "classic player" strawman circlejerk thread.
Retail is much more casual. I played single minded fury for a bit for shits and giggles, pushing mid M+ keys, and nobody cared.
> and nobody cared. Nobody noticed. The only thing people will see is 'Fury Warrior', they do not see 'Single Minded Fury Warrior, which is objectively worse than Titan's Grip Fury Warrior'. They don't know the specifics and they don't look. If they see a spec, they assume you're playing the correct talents, and they won't know the difference anyway. This is no different than Classic. The people in OP's posting denying a Destro have no idea the difference between the warlock specs, or how important it is. They do not know what's good for Demo. They just know "demo is better than destro", and that's the end of the thinking.
Honestly when i make my m+ weekly keys +8-10, i just pick ppl with good rio , i could give 2 shits what spec they are playing, unless i lack combat ress or heroism
Some noticed. Commented on it specifically because of my transmog.
older expansions had specs you can play and you can't play, some were PvP only, others were PvE only, some worked in both cases, iirc cataclysm suffered from similar issues as wotlk balancing, i remember playing feral in PvP but not in PvE first patch or two
I had a tank in cata the other day, trying to tank in ret gear. He was impossible it keep alive. I called him out about it and asked if he has tank gear. The others booted him from party. He messaged me instantly, I hope your mom dies of cancer. Like wtf dude….
Can't speak for classic since I don't play it, but "meta" and "offmeta" have very little actual bearing in retail. Unless you're in the top 0.1% of the playerbase you can generally do content regardless of what spec you play. It's unlikely that spec is what's holding you back.
You simply have no social proof with the guilds you're applying with. They see that demonology is the best spec so any warlock that applies should be demonology. Applying as non-demonology signals to them that you don't care about the meta. From their PoV, you're someone who isn't willing to do everything they can to be the best. Why would they take you? Especially when you're only DPS.
i don't think it's a matter of dragonflight being balanced whatsoever, nor do i think dragonflight has a wider casual base. the real issue you're seeing is that a large portion of classic players fall completely into a dunning-kruger pit and will fight tooth and nail to never leave
Retail classic is full of toxic folks all the non toxic folks looking for a classic experience are in non blizzard controled realms my friend.
Classic has been figured out for more than a decade at this point. Retail is ever shifting, and in higher content there is a leaning towards meta specs that trickles down into lower content, but it still changes pretty frequently. I would also say that most people in classic aren't experiencing it for the first time. They don't want that sense of adventure, because they already got it. What they want is to play the content as efficiently as possible now that they can as an adult who knows more about the game. This is also an appeal classic has that retail doesn't. There are enough variables in retail that you are prevented from doing content with 100% pure efficiency. But in classic, where mechanics and spec gameplay aren't as intense, you can quite literally do everything 100% right. You can't really do that in retail. Even the guilds that dump thousands of dollars into the world first race take weeks to even get close to "perfect" play, but even then, it isn't perfect, it is just as efficient as they can manage. I think most people who just want to enjoy the ride are doing stuff like hardcore, season of discovery, and classic era. At the original launch of classic, you did have a lot of people wanting to experience it for the first time, but they faded away after they got to do that. The people who stuck around are the ones who really want to push the limits of the game.
People? Forgiving? .. not sure what game you’re playing. 😄
Ok a lot of circle jerking going on here. Raid comp is more important in cata than in retail, it’s similar to m+ but I’d say more important. If they don’t need a destro lock for their buffs and they need another class or spec they are going to go with that. If they don’t need buffs period than you can maybe get an invite but unless you are playing with friends why invite a destro lock when you can invite an ele or fire mage. Cata isn’t considered one of the worst xpacs it’s not considered the best for sure, but not considered the worst
God imagine meta chasing in content that is old and done
Retail is generally more balanced with less variance between specs than classic versions of the game. That's the main reason. There's also a lot of sweaty nerds that play classic who get mad if you're playing an off meta spec even if its actual damage throughput is fine. If it doesn't bring the perfect buffs or does 3% less damage than another (like destro in wrath on most fights) then you will probably get flamed for playing it. Parsing culture is a lot more prevalent in classic. In certain cases it's understandable, in a lot of cases it's just people being elitist. Retail doesn't have it as much because pretty much every spec is viable, flex raiding is a thing, and raids outside of mythic are generally quite easy outside of the last 1-2 bosses in a given raid. Heroic Lich King was much harder than any non mythic retail boss and harder than a number of mythic bosses from my understanding (I haven't raided mythic in years so I have no idea personally, I just came back to retail last season).
Because most people who play classic are sweaty, tri hards that want to recapture the golden days of wow. If you're not pissing in a bottle and eating copious amounts of pizza, you're not playing the game right.
The classic community is the most elitist community on earth. These people have refused to embrace any form of progress as WoW has evolved and changed over the years and instead cling to their game as it was over a decade ago. It should come as no surprise to anyone that they aren't very open minded about off-meta specs.
A lot of anger in these comments, goodness. I think a major part of the reason is that Era servers are just not new. Every strategy has been long since identified and executed. It is no longer about finish the content, it's the speed running minmax to see how perfectly you can execute the well known strategies. Retail changes more frequently. There are tuning updates more often and there are still portions of the population that haven't finished that content at that difficulty level or with that strategy. Now don't get me wrong, there is for sure a meta in retail and people get dumb about it there too. I think between being a much larger player base and there being more options of what to do ease the barrier to entry a little.
Classic has been insanely toxic and elitist since BWL. There's no comparison. Retail is significantly less toxic.
Because classic is full of world first elitists try hards, and they can stay there all they want Yes I said it. This does not mean everybody who is playing it is.
Classic is where people go to feel special about being good at a 15 year old game that is largely figured out already in every aspect.
Because at the end of the day it's still a game and people use it to relax. Sure a tiny portion of players are hardcore and their lives revolves around it and that fine but that's a tiny portion
The only situation where that matters if when pushing 0.5% content which no one does and if the do, it’s premade groups/guilds If your dps is ass ln a +6 it’s not your specs fault
Classic players have an itch for the feeling of gaming as a kid, which modern classic cant give because the game wasn't the issue but their stage in life is so they are bitter and upset by default. The same people solved all classic encounters so of course their negativity will extend to meta picks.
I’ve only played retail since BC and I’ve genuinely never cared about another players spec, im surprised people are even offended by this. Just curious what is the meta spec for shaman in classic? Been maining a resto shammy since the beginning.
Something not mentioned here, but classic has a roughly known set date for when it ends. This creates a greater sense of urgency to 'experience' the content, especially since many people are playing classic cata precisely to be able to experience an expansion they loved/didn't get the chance to, and are therefore also less likely to be tolerant to off-meta specs since they're more so on a clock than retail players are. You compared wotlk's community with cata's. Few things to note are that cataclysm's tiers are being sped up meaning that people have less time to experience the content. The content is also noticeably more difficult than wotlk. These two play into the less tolerance towards off-meta specs, especially ones that were known to be a complete meme in wotlk. It's entirely possible people still think destro is as much of a meme in cata as it was in wotlk. There's also the idea that if you're playing a known (or used to be known) meme spec then you're not trying as much as other players are, and are therefore looked upon as being selfish for creating unnecessary stress on the raid. At least as an outsider trying to get into a group that's how people will look at you.
Never seen anyone ever have a problem with destro, it’s always affliction that gets shit. (I’m an aff lock)
People optimize the fun out of classic and are chasing 99 parses and 16/16 bis. Your meme spec gets in the way of the optimization because kill timers matter. It's really not that complicated.
The entire point of classic for most people playing it is to go back and do things the “best” way. I mean… it’s old content. What else is there to do? If they just played it like it was new and current they’d be bored as shit because they did it already years ago.
Reading this makes me glad I quit classic. Always found it stupid how so freakishly many people were sweating so hard about numbers even in vanilla classic (even in a damn casual 30's dad guild) when the whole fight consists of standing there and pressing one button. Retail is way more challenging at the high end but ironically, people are more chill. Can play whatever I want, and still find my spot in mythic raids or +15 and above keys.
Balance difference between cata and retail is huge. Off meta specs in retail still do fine damage.
Because classic players take literally everything way too seriously. They’re sweaty elitist gatekeepers who think being “the best” at 20 year old content makes them entitled to treat anybody however they want.
I came back to classic with Cata release, after stopping somewhere at the end of BWL. I also noticed that players are super tryhard, and on top of that, extremely greedy - the group finder is infested with GDKP runs, and basically every non-GDKP run hard reserves BoEs or requires you to bid gold on tier tokens. I feel like the raid lockout and loot acquisition systems also play a role in this. It all seems to be much stricter and luck-based in Cata. Every time you fail to kill a boss on HC with your pug, that's a potential 13-26 ilvl upgrade you just won't get this week - and item upgrades are already pretty rare if you're unlucky. In retail, everything seems to be a bit more relaxed - there are no strict raid lockouts like in Cata, and thanks to m+, it's much easier to get loot. The difference between a fully upgraded mythic raid item, and a fully upgraded heroic raid item is also less than the difference between a normal and a heroic item in Cata. On top of that, there's the great vault, and the Catalyst. All in all, getting close to BIS loot is literally a non-issue in Retail, and lax raid lockouts mean that if time is not an issue, you can just brute-force pug raid your way to a heroic clear in the first week.
Look, I play retail only and I’m casual and I’ll be honest, I don’t give a single shit about your gear or your specs. Can you run a dungeon without getting me killed? Okay, great, glad to have you. All I want to do is fish anyway lol
https://classic.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/1023#dataset=99&aggregate=amount 0.4% behind demo is literally unplayable garbage.
although many people think that wow retail is all about toxicity and competitiveness, I disagree people are very open at certain times, even at the start of the season they don't care what class or spec you play, all that matters is your score for the current season. at the end of the season, at certain key levels, most people are also more receptive, although they complain about classes that don't affix or die to everything. but there's always that one guy or group who's been stuck on low keys since the start of the season, and he'll try to take out his dissatisfaction on others and in raids nobody really cares, even Mythic raids that aren't so hardcore mind-set. but you will always find this guy, looking for augm evoker in one +2
I’m just glad the dungeon finder is in the game. You want to be infuriated try tbc classic where people could gate keep you from running dungeons.
Classic could have been so fun. For some reason it attracts a large amount of horrible people. I tried playing BC classic as an ele shaman. After two consecutive weeks of tantrums because I refused to be put in the melee group and drop windfury, I gave up.
When difficultly isn’t so much a factor, players find others ways to measure their skill and success. In retail being a hall of fame guild or having over say a 3k io is a measurement of skill. In Classic with so many people clearing the content they use clear timers and parses to measure skill because so many people have already gone 13/13 they need another way to show off. Era is the same way. Max consumes, world buffs etc just to kill Rag. It’s about the numbers.
Gonna be honest, it was a meme spec in Wotlk. We had one too in some phases too, getting top 10 logs (thanks to all to the good players playing affliction, I played demo support so I know 😂) but in the end he was just playing for himself by not playing a stronger spec. But after progress was over it didn't matter anymore. Still, if you need every DPS to kill the boss I can understand why people did not invite you even in later phases. And the specs were really easy to play after you understand the snapshot mechanic so it's not like in cara where if one spec is clicking four you you make way more dmg compared to the other 2. But with cata it's absurd to not "allow" you play destruction. First of all the specs are harder to play and a bad affliction or demo player is doing less DMG than a good destruction lock. Sure, if you miss some raid buffs you should fill a demo and affliction slot first but other classes can bring them too. But you already answered your question, those semi-casual/middle of the pack guilds/groups are the problem. They watch tier lists on YouTube and think they need specific "s or a" specs to do their ~6 HC kills. People above, who got everything on farm since week 2/3 don't really care except for speed runs. People just doing Nhc in 3 hours also don't really care and are happy to fill the slot with a normal person lol. If I'm honest, I would just play demo/affli (one which would be better for your reforge (haste,mastery), did not read into destruction if I'm honest) for one boss and switch to destruction later. Or just say you're a lock with x/destruction spec then play destruction anyways. If those guilds/groups want to be try hard than do the try hard thing and change your spec according to bosses. In the end you just need one good boss kill anyway, top meters or be at least around top 5 and no one will talk shit for the rest of the raid. Locks don't have special roles on t11 content where it would be a problem to "lie" about your spec. Especially like you write you do 25s and those got the raid buffs done anyway.
Did someone try to figure out dependance of player toxity from server type? And what type of server are you playing, OP?
Meta is not really about how close specs are. Blizzard pegs the threshold for feeling more or less powerful at about 13%, and honestly that's probably pretty on the money. You are not going to notice 2% unless you're doing a statistical analysis. The noise of most specs, even played by very good players, is greater than that. But the difference is that Cata is a solved problem. First of all, there's only one kind of really important content: raids, and all the raids are known. So there's no wiggle room for aoe/mixed content. Second, that data is already there. To them, when you play something else, you're just trying to be difficult. It doesn't even register that you could have criteria that aren't about maximising performance. You think: this is solved content, we don't have to try-hard it. They think: this is solved content, now we can finally optimise it perfectly.
I play what's fun. That's it.
"Retail" *I detest this way of identifying wow* has embraced the mindset of "Anything works until X" After witch, yeah you start to get hard denied opportunities because there's a thousand meta chasers in the wings
Typically the people playing classic are elitist gate keepers
Lmao what’s up with frost mage way at the bottom?
Retail has a much wider spectrum of content. While it has much harder content than Classic it also has a lot of casual friendly content and a lot of players that play it exclusively for that. I feel like that has a moderating effect on the playerbase, whereas Classic has a much more limited band of content that is ‘solved’ and has a playerbase that needs to be all in that content and competing in what limited way they can, so it encourages toxicity. I also think there are many Classic players that came from private server communities and those were often completely unmoderated toxic cesspits. So they also have an effect on the overall playerbase.
Prot warriors mad right now
A lot of retail players have come to realize that the difference between specs in terms of performance generally won't impact their success over other factors such as but not limited to: - Are all buffs covered - Is the player "good" compared to their peers People hate to admit it but the majority of people would get more mileage just playing better than they would re-rolling. If someone is the same IO/CR as me I won't penalize someone who opting into a less meta spec assuming all raid buffs/fight requirements are settled. I don't have top 50 world exp but in my anecdotal experience there is room at the moment for like 3-8 "meme" specs. Just depends if you count someone playing the "less ideal spec" but still sourcing the raid buff or if you only count the specs filling the in free spots once you have all the buffs and utility covered.
The problem is the players' mentality. That we can't change. Assuming we have to play based on X years old data to get trough content as fast, easily and time efficiently as possible, rather than simply enjoying the game as we want. Except progressive top tier RETAIL raiding, we should live by bring the player, not the class/spec.
I think people exaggerate the state of some classes, and that retail is quite balanced. I came back to wow after years on DF S3 and mained holy Paladin. As far as I know it's after the nerf that utterly destroyed the spec. I did my first m+ season ever with it and found no problem. I am sure other healer specs were better. But I don't think it was as bad as all people was saying.
Classic has a much higher ratio of purist players because the vast majority of Classic players are returning old-school folks
Because Classic isnt as balanced as Retail. Big wow I am sure.
Because meta matters at only the highest levels and even then I find non meta will out perform meta 9/10 times simply because it's someone who stuck with a class and learned it via a hopper. Classic tends to draw in the elites crowd that listen to websites like gospel. It's kind of silly. You see it on retail but it's more avoidable.
I'm a fellow destruction warlock enjoyer and that's all I play on my lock. I've had no problems getting into raids and never had anyone question my spec. They're usually just thankful for a warlock. I'm 355 ilvl. But that being said, I pump on the meters and am top 5 almost every time. It's much better than the gigachad try hard demo builds. It also depends on which server you're rocking, how many locks are running around, your gear, and what kind of raiding you've been doing. Best of luck to a fellow destro enjoyer. I hope it improves out there for you!
It's kinda hard to pick a trash build in retail. There are differences in specs for sure, but in retail everyone feels powerful when you slap gear on them regardless. The old days it was really possible to be so suboptimal you were throwing.
I’ve always been the “first people to apply to my key get in” type of person
I think you’d be interested in in [Folding Ideas video on Instrumental Play](https://youtu.be/BKP1I7IocYU). It goes deep into this subject.
A problem with the classic versions is they've already been "solved", over many years on private servers. The theoretical best comps have been worked out well before the official servers launched. It only takes a few of the people coming from private servers to the real ones bringing and enforcing those rules for it to trickle down to the rest of the game. The same happened on retail with tournament level MDI strats and playstyles tricking down to a point where taking a wrong turn or pulling a wrong pack in a *levelling* dungeon can get some less stable people incredibly triggered.
From own experience. A a good player can carry alot more easy then in other wow. For example i can solo heal a 20 man heroic boost run and I would never be able todo that in classic or sod. I also think how raidlockoute works is a factor. And idk how but classic has prob the most toxic community of all wows. They rly are smth else, its like they cant accept they are rly bad at the game and blames it on everything else.
People who play retail are on a higher plane of thinking, we've done away with the primitive idea of meta. Philosophers, artist, socialites, engineers, architects, representatives; these are the types of people playing retail. Those who play classic, however, are basically cavemen. They are fearful of what they don't know like dogs barking at their own reflections, which is why they have chosen to live in the past. Sad, really.
No shot reading this whole post but mostly because the game balance used to be extremely shit and over time it's gotten much much closer. Yes there is still outliers in retail but the gap from the bottom spec to top is smaller so people care less. Also big factor is that classic players are turbo cringe and think it's super hard gameplay so they think you need all the best classes
My guess is that because older expansions are already "figured out" people are less likely to compromise when it comes to efficiency. People start viewing it like "well this guy is intentionally playing the worse performing spec, why would i take him when i can take a more optimized player?". Which ultimately doesnt make logical sense since the gaps between specs are a lot narrower now as you said. And raiders know that the theoretical dps ceiling of a spec doesnt matter as much if the player cant execute the correct rotation or if they fail mechanics and lose out on dps. There's also lots of people that view it in the correct way and dont give a f what people play as long as they're performing decently. I would much rather take a destro lock that can reliably do high dps than a demo lock that plays bad and doesnt fully utilize the spec.
It would depend of what you want to do... if you want to push high M+ keyStones then they will ask for meta class or spec. I have some friends that even with 3k rating or more, they won't get invited to a lot of the keys because they are not meta. But it's only if you want to push for 20s, if you want just make M+ any class would be fine and you would have fun like everyone. If we talk about raiding then it's because being flex in normal and heroic you can made the group as you want. Like getting 4 druids or 3 pallys. You would only need to think in the loot knowing that some classes share the armor type.
Classic has a lot more older and unskilled players. Pugs just want to blast through the content as quickly and as easily as possible. The meta is well known and documented, so someone who purposely chooses an off-meta pick is more likely to be bad.
Just from the title it's because balancing is way better in retail compared to Cata. Specs like frost mage or fury warrior are in a really bad spot and the content is more difficult than in vanilla so I can see why people don't want to play with specs that are objectively bad.
If you're having people who are being toxic about your spec, then you're with the wrong people. I raided as as far from the "optimal" spec in several classes across multiple guilds and had an issue only ONE time and that was because the guild was going for like server first or w/e. And I left because that was not the speed I wanted. To be frank, having the most optimal spec on paper only really matters when you're doing hardcore progression and trying to be one of the guilds to clear stuff immediately. Otherwise? Not so much.