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Renekton · Sep 21, 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVyKC_okPW8

A video covering the entirety of the attuning process for the various raids and dungeons in the Burning Crusade expansion.

So TBC was the last WoW expansion with so many gating mechanics to separate the hardcore players. I remember pre-patch Gruul and Magtheridon were nearly impossible for raiders fresh out of Karazhan so people couldn't get it done. As a resto druid, doing heroics was a right pain due to having no regular resurrections, so teammates who died have to walk back from the graveyard far far away (jumper cables ftw)

Vincent Grayson · Sep 21, 2017

Oh yeah, *now* I remember why I didn't like WoW that much until Wrath of the Lich King.

AnathemicOne · Sep 21, 2017

There's a reason why BC is only remembered for nostalgia. Convoluted gating fucking sucks, Wildstar attempt at doing something similar can attest to this.

HarryDemeanor · Sep 21, 2017

It was pretty insane back in TBC. Only raids I did when they were relevant during that era was Karazhan and Gruul's. Didn't step foot into anything else from TBC until Wrath or later.

border · Sep 21, 2017

That chart kind of nonsense though, isn't it? Like, they're just trying to make it look more convoluted than it actually was.

IIRC, you don't need several of those keys. You just need someone in your party to have them.

Drazgul · Sep 21, 2017

It was all downhill from there, I liked the gating mechanics.

Poppy · Sep 21, 2017

border said:
That chart kind of nonsense though, isn't it? Like, they're just trying to make it look more convoluted than it actually was.

IIRC, you don't need several of those keys. You just need someone in your party to have them.

to actually do most of those instances other than hyjal ssc and tempest keep yeah i don't think you actually needed to do shit, someone else could get you in. i could be misremembering of course

like, hardly anyone i know was seriously hampered by the attunement for any of the 25 man raids in BC (other than hyjal maybe), usually the only problem was being in a good enough guild

terencecah · Sep 21, 2017

wow nostaglia topic part 2

karazhan was ran a billion times back in the day.

Renekton · Sep 21, 2017

border said:
That chart kind of nonsense though, isn't it? Like, they're just trying to make it look more convoluted than it actually was.

IIRC, you don't need several of those keys. You just need someone in your party to have them.

From my experience, having a key was the only way for some classes to get invited into pugs in the first place. This is because content was difficult enough that people only took mage, priest or pallies.

grimmiq · Sep 21, 2017

I loved Burning Crusade, went from several years of FFXI to WoW a month before it hit, so I missed the Hellfire Peninsula rush.

My raid progression was basically guild progression. Was with a social guild all the way to cap, but no one took it seriously and we barely managed to clear Attumen and Moroes was impossible for us.

After a couple of months of banging my head against the wall I finally moved my main forward to a small raid guild, cleared Kara/Gruul/Mag but couldn't down the 1st boss in SSC, guild imploded. Forced to swap from Feral to Resto Druid as I joined a progression raiding guild, they'd already cleared BT a couple of times, Sunwell wasn't out yet, so had time to gear up.

That guild then imploded on Felmyst and we lost our MT/OT/2 Healers, our best Mage and 2 double warglaive rogues. Fortunately this let me go back to being bear, unfortunately we couldn't beat M'uru before the WoTLK boss nerf, then steamrolled the raid the day after that patch.

That was a long, challenging road. I tried going back for Legion, seems the mindset has completely changed with people outright saying they'll leave the guild and find a better one if we didn't clear the raid in 1-2 days, right after it went live.

Poppy · Sep 21, 2017

if wrath had heroics that weren't facerolly and boring, and didnt bog my ass down with ToC, i bet i would have never stopped playing wow. BC heroics were so awesome, you just would go into slave pens and pull 4 makrura and die like idiots

border · Sep 21, 2017

Poppy said:
to actually do most of those instances other than hyjal ssc and tempest keep yeah i don't think you actually needed to do shit, someone else could get you in. i could be misremembering of course

I'm pretty certain you could just have someone open the gate to Karazhan for you. I don't recall needing a key for Serpentshrine or Tempest Keep, but my memory of that is a little hazy.

And a lot of those "attunements" are just stuff you got by doing Heroic dungeons as you normally would. Many of them were really straightforward quest chains that could be done solo or in normal groups......this wasn't the convoluted attunement of vanilla WoW. Yeah it looks rough when you put it in a ridiculous flowchart, but these were all normal activities you kinda wanted to do. It wasn't a bunch of time-wastey bullshit.

Giolon · Sep 21, 2017

Renekton said:
From my experience, having a key was the only way for some classes to get invited into pugs in the first place. This is because content was difficult enough that people only took mage, priest or pallies.

Nobody took mages. They always took Warlocks over mages bc Soulstone.

Poppy · Sep 21, 2017

border said:
I'm pretty certain you could just have someone open the gate to Karazhan for you. I don't recall needing a key for Serpentshrine or Tempest Keep, but my memory of that is a little hazy.

And a lot of those "attunements" are just stuff you got by doing Heroic dungeons as you normally would. Many of them were really straightforward quest chains that could be done solo or in normal groups......this wasn't the convoluted attunement of vanilla WoW.

i feel like the only convoluted attunement in vanilla was onyxia and the rest were like one stage turn ins though?

unless you count AQ as a server wide attunement in which case that was the greatest thing of all time

idk. i am almost positive that serpentshrine cavern required you to have done the quest line and hyjal had all sorts of fucky rep requirements, it really was a long time ago. like a decade, god

Balphon · Sep 21, 2017

It's not like vanilla was any less cumbersome.

Hydraxian waterlords rep grinding, 15+ Onyxia kills to gear a guild for Nefarian, etc.

Miletius · Sep 21, 2017

Yeah, the graph makes it look difficult but only one person had to do it for most of those steps. It was kind of cool to have these quests there too, I mean, they sorta told the story of how you got into these places and all.

Gruul was not that difficult either, all things consiered. Mags was kinda hard for people sometimes, especially if you didn't have reliable cube clickers.

TBC remains one of my favorite expansions because it did actually improved on the best parts of WoW (raiding) for me. Fights have, since then, increased in complexity but I'll still remember my first Vashj kill.

traveler · Sep 21, 2017

You left out the hardest attunement, OP. Players had to do all of this to open up the black temple:

This was actually an April Fools joke done by Blizzard themselves to poke fun at the ridiculous requirements of the day. They got much better at it later.

Poppy · Sep 21, 2017

Miletius said:
Yeah, the graph makes it look difficult but only one person had to do it for most of those steps. It was kind of cool to have these quests there too, I mean, they sorta told the story of how you got into these places and all.

Gruul was not that difficult either, all things consiered. Mags was kinda hard for people sometimes, especially if you didn't have reliable cube clickers.

TBC remains one of my favorite expansions because it did actually improved on the best parts of WoW (raiding) for me. Fights have, since then, increased in complexity but I'll still remember my first Vashj kill.

gruul wasnt difficult unless you were in a guild full of people that want to hug you after he smashes the ground and kills you

or you had a guild full of fuckin marshmallow peeps that cant meet a relatively simple dps check

border · Sep 21, 2017

Poppy said:
i feel like the only convoluted attunement in vanilla was onyxia and the rest were like one stage turn ins though?

I remember hating the quest for the UBRS key in Vanilla. At some point I was pretty much forced to do it because often you could put together 10 people willing to run UBRS and have it turn out that none of them had the key. Or the guy with the key disconnected before everyone even got to the dungeon.

Renekton · Sep 21, 2017

Giolon said:
Nobody took mages. They always took Warlocks over mages bc Soulstone.

Simply not true, my dude

Sheep was the most reliable CC, and CC was mandatory early on.

Gentleman Jack · Sep 21, 2017

Kael/Vashj only dropped 4 vials each and both fights, particularly Vashj were considered unwinnable by the top guilds in their 1.0 incarnation due to overtuned mechanics and outright bugs. Blizzard put out broken content and hoped nobody would notice lol.

Kalnoky · Sep 21, 2017

Arcatraz heroic was annoying as shit.

arhra · Sep 21, 2017

border said:
I'm pretty certain you could just have someone open the gate to Karazhan for you. I don't recall needing a key for Serpentshrine or Tempest Keep, but my memory of that is a little hazy.

I believe that was changed in a later patch. At release, I'm pretty sure that everyone had to have their own keys/have completed the attunements, even for Karazhan.

Kalnoky · Sep 21, 2017

I definitely remember SSC/TK having personal attunement requirements for sure. SSC had that waterfall door that wouldn't disappear unless you were attuned.

Poppy · Sep 21, 2017

Kalnoky said:
Arcatraz heroic was annoying as shit.

i mostly remembered h shattered halls being an interminable slog of 5 pulls with strict cc requirements or else you die until druids got big enough to just swipe tank the world

and i remember a thousand runs of h shadow labyrinth dying on that big room full of demons and the room with the ogre guy boss next to it

Madventure · Sep 21, 2017

For BC my main Rogue was attuned for everything up to Black Temple and Hyjal in the Caverns of time while raiding it currently in one of few guilds at the time but I also had my Alt Warrior attuned as well (Which was basically unheard of at the time) but I was good at tanking and DPSing so yeah for the time I felt like a superstar for my guild being able to always help

B-Dubs · Sep 21, 2017

Poppy said:
i mostly remembered h shattered halls being an interminable slog of 5 pulls with strict cc requirements or else you die until druids got big enough to just swipe tank the world

and i remember a thousand runs of h shadow labyrinth dying on that big room full of demons and the room with the ogre guy boss next to it

H Shattered Halls was hard simply because only Pallies had proper AOE tanking abilities. TBC still had the vanilla problem of Blizzard designing fights they didn't give you the proper tools to beat.

Chris R · Sep 21, 2017

Only parts that were bad were the rep grinds. Dungeons were fun

Heroic Shattered Halls was the hardest content in the game with non-raid gear groups.

Stabby McSter · Sep 21, 2017

hahaha this thread is a nostalgia trip

i loved my time with bc, but i definitely wouldn't reconsider going back

Poppy · Sep 21, 2017

B-Dubs said:
H Shattered Halls was hard simply because only Pallies had proper AOE tanking abilities. TBC still had the vanilla problem of Blizzard designing fights they didn't give you the proper tools to beat.

well they gave you the tools, the tools were polymorph, sap, freezing trap, roots etc

it's just that setting up simultaneous CC and fighting 5 enemies in a row then doing it again 20 times is kind of a pain in the ass

Anjin M · Sep 21, 2017

Poppy said:
well they gave you the tools, the tools were polymorph, sap, freezing trap, roots etc

it's just that setting up simultaneous CC and fighting 5 enemies in a row then doing it again 20 times is kind of a pain in the ass

I remember my primary job in many instances was to "Sheep Moon".

B-Dubs · Sep 21, 2017

Poppy said:
well they gave you the tools, the tools were polymorph, sap, freezing trap, roots etc

it's just that setting up simultaneous CC and fighting 5 enemies in a row then doing it again 20 times is kind of a pain in the ass

Part of the problem is that not every dps class had those tools. So if you took both a ret pally and a fury warrior, like my friends were at the time, you were shit out of luck. Back then not every class had a CC option that worked on everything.

Anjin M said:
I remember my primary job in many instances was to "Sheep Moon".

I definitely remember having to assign those roles a lot.

The instance was 1000x easier once I started using a mouse-over sunder/devastate macro so I could just tank everything at once.

Poppy · Sep 21, 2017

Anjin M said:
I remember my primary job in many instances was to "Sheep Moon".

skull = target
x = second target
moon = sheep
triangle = sap
orange circle/condom = whatever other cc

then purple diamond i just put over myself to feel pretty and yellow thing is for god knows that

Frumix · Sep 21, 2017

I think having an overall progression scheme is overall healthy for this type of game simply because it preserves the continuity and somewhat keeps old stuff alive. Right now you can log into Legion after a few months and... Oh, Argus is here now, even though you didn't do anything. While I understand the need for accessibility and how difficult it could be to catch up late in a loop, systems like this (well, maybe not exactly like this) could add thickness to the endgame that's lacking nowadays when you can go and do whatever you want just by showing up.

jipewithin · Sep 21, 2017

I don't really remember it being that complicated. You just had to do all dungeons and heroic dungeons once. It really wasn't that bad. You also got those reputations pretty much the same time, you had those capes also which gave reputation to faction when doing dungeons if i remember correctly.

However it was somewhat of on issue if new member came to guild and had to run TK and SSC for that person. Those "basic" attunements however wasn't anything outrageous.

Best expansion by far in my opinion, went downhill especially after wotlk.

SteveWD40 · Sep 21, 2017

I remember getting attuned for BT nearly killed my guild, once people had downed KT and LV they usually didnt want to have to do it again to help the rest get it (as it was a major PITA).

B-Dubs · Sep 21, 2017

Frumix said:
I think having an overall progression scheme is overall healthy for this type of game simply because it preserves the continuity and somewhat keeps old stuff alive. Right now you can log into Legion after a few months and... Oh, Argus is here now, even though you didn't do anything. While I understand the need for accessibility and how difficult it could be to catch up late in a loop, systems like this (well, maybe not exactly like this) could add thickness to the endgame that's lacking nowadays when you can go and do whatever you want just by showing up.

The idea is fine by itself, but they also need catch-up mechanics for newer players. Shortened ways to attune to shit.

Fularu · Sep 21, 2017

border said:
I'm pretty certain you could just have someone open the gate to Karazhan for you. I don't recall needing a key for Serpentshrine or Tempest Keep, but my memory of that is a little hazy.

And a lot of those "attunements" are just stuff you got by doing Heroic dungeons as you normally would. Many of them were really straightforward quest chains that could be done solo or in normal groups......this wasn't the convoluted attunement of vanilla WoW. Yeah it looks rough when you put it in a ridiculous flowchart, but these were all normal activities you kinda wanted to do. It wasn't a bunch of time-wastey bullshit.

You had to be attuned to get into :

- SSC
- TK
- MH

You needed someone with a key for Karazhan

You needed to be revered to do heroics and purchase the heroic key.

Thoraxes · Sep 21, 2017

I remember how excited people were when they got rid of the vials requirements for BT. Tonnnnnns of guilds stuck on KT were super-happy on my server.

jipewithin · Sep 21, 2017

Thoraxes said:
I remember how excited people were when they got rid of the vials requirements for BT. Tonnnnnns of guilds stuck on KT were super-happy on my server.

It was a good change, but I think there should be attunements for each raid. However just a quest chain and could be done without a guild. So no raid gating like having to do previous raids, just 5man dungeons should be enough.

When new raid comes, adding a quest chain for it would be fun.

Fularu · Sep 21, 2017

Thoraxes said:
I remember how excited people were when they got rid of the vials requirements for BT. Tonnnnnns of guilds stuck on KT were super-happy on my server.

AFAIK the vials were for MH and not BT. I don't remember needing any attunement for it (beside the questline to get the medallion)

Dinjooh · Sep 21, 2017

I enjoyed the requirements tbh. Gave you a nice little goal to work towards at a time and most of it was great to do with guildies.

Wibblewozzer · Sep 21, 2017

I know in previous WoW OTs I've brought up my love for attunement and how said I am that it's not really much of a thing anymore. But I also play much, much less in recent years so I doubt I'd get close to being attuned for everything.

I started playing more seriously somewhere around five months before the end of Burning Crusade and aside from gearing up to attempt heroics and raids as a pally tank (being uncrushable took some work) I loved going and collecting every key and working on attunements back then. Keymaster is still one of my favorite achievements and I continue to be annoyed that they completely removed the achievement instead of making it a legacy achievement or whatever. It should have given a title with it!

Since I started late into Burning Crusade and didn't do much of a guild thing I mostly PUG'd everything which meant that I only got up to off-tanking Kara, Gruul's, and Mag before Wrath came out. I did go back and complete all the attunement quests and requirements after leveling in Wrath just because I liked the idea of being completely attuned (even with most the requirements not needed I looked them up and followed through on all the quests).

I think if they wanted to try to bring it back in some way they just need to use it for stuff like optional bosses in a raid. And I guess in a way some achievement stuff just takes the place of dungeon attunement as you can still earn rewards for going through some specific challenges (all heroic dungeons in an expansion, specific challenges give mounts, etc.) but I do miss the larger quest side of it where it felt like completing it all lead to some major lore event.

I miss attunements.

neurosisxeno · Sep 21, 2017

Fularu said:
AFAIK the vials were for MH and not BT. I don't remember needing any attunement for it (beside the questline to get the medallion)

They removed it later on, but the original attunement required you do MH and kill Rage Winterchill--the first boss of Hyjal.

jipewithin said:
I don't really remember it being that complicated. You just had to do all dungeons and heroic dungeons once. It really wasn't that bad. You also got those reputations pretty much the same time, you had those capes also which gave reputation to faction when doing dungeons if i remember correctly.

However it was somewhat of on issue if new member came to guild and had to run TK and SSC for that person. Those "basic" attunements however wasn't anything outrageous.

Best expansion by far in my opinion, went downhill especially after wotlk.

See, when you explain it like that it sounds easy. The problem was you got all the quests at various rates, including some that were from random world drops. You had to do specific quests at specific times, and some of the basic dungeons were gated behind quite lengthy quest lines which the chart inadequately represents. I believe it was Arcatraz had like a 15 quest chain to get into, that required you doing other normal dungeons, that you would later have to do again anyway for other quests further down the line that also required doing Arcatraz. You also got rep for each faction at different rates, so it wasn't uncommon to get the Heroic keys for places in SSC well before you got the ones for places like Auchindoun. Ask anyone how much "fun" it was to get to CoT before they added that direct port in Lower City. When you had to take a portal to Teldrassil and fly literally across the entire continent of Kalimdor, and then run from Gadgetzhan to CoT. It was like a 30 minute trip, on top of the fact that both the CoT dungeons were complete ass and nobody liked doing them.

On top of that this was Pre-LFG so if you didn't have an active group of friends or an active guild you were pretty much screwed. I started playing just after TBC launched and I had to really scratch and claw to get into a top tier guild to raid BT before SWP came out.

Thoraxes · Sep 21, 2017

Fularu said:
AFAIK the vials were for MH and not BT. I don't remember needing any attunement for it (beside the questline to get the medallion)

I think you're right, but iirc you needed the drop off the Lich MH boss to get the storming the Black Temple quest to get inside? IDK it's been a long time.

EDIT: Yeah, what neurosisxeno said.

Nokterian · Sep 21, 2017

Thank god we don't have that shit anymore, attunements where the cumber stone for doing dungeons and raids.

Wildstar took it even further than TBC, can someone bring that table up please?

bugulu · Sep 21, 2017

Memories.

H Shattered Halls and H Arcatraz must be one of the hardest dungeons ever created for WoW. Harbinger Skyriss was a major pain in the ass.
I don't remember being the attunements being that ridiculous, but when you look at the chart as it is, it's quite daunting.

The days when you had to reroll your entire class to be optimal (or should I say, viable) for raiding. Is that still a thing in WoW?

Wibblewozzer · Sep 21, 2017

neurosisxeno said:
It was like a 30 minute trip, on top of the fact that both the CoT dungeons were complete ass and nobody liked doing them.

Black Morass was my favorite dungeon to do during Burning Crusade. I think it's because it always felt fairly frantic to me and it was active for me as a tank since it required rushing to the next spot and then picking up the adds from the portals. It just always seemed really fun and exciting to me.

That style always remained a favorite with stuff like Violet Hold in Wrath, too.

Cindres · Sep 21, 2017

I never remember it being that bad... quite enjoyed attunements.
I'm not saying they should go back to attunements to this extreme, but I do dislike now that you jump in and just go do whatever the latest raid it, one thing that's annoyed me with WoW over the more recent years is not only do they just make everything from previous expansions invalid and worthless, everything (well, raids) that previously happened in the current expansion is now pointless too 'cause you just go do the latest raid.

StayDead · Sep 21, 2017

Giolon said:
Nobody took mages. They always took Warlocks over mages bc Soulstone.

That and seed of corruption instantly made Mages AOE pointless.

I remember getting most of these attunements. I also remember trying to find stamina gear so I could mage tank!

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