WotLK Overall WotLK raiding on Lordaeron

[Xanhast]

I've recently had enough of WoD on retail, and have decided to back off until Legion comes. I've cleared all the raids and had my share of the game. Most of it, negative. What do I need? I did not know until I stumpled upon a review of your private server, and I knew then, that it was to "go back" to when I really fell in love with the game and raiding overall. The WotLK expanssion.

Previously when I played back then, I was playing a Blood DK all the way until Ulduar, where in my old old guild back on Bronzebeard EU (can't remember the guild name) was lead by a guy named Thariel on his shadow priest. Him and his guild made me adventure through Naxx 25, later on Ulduar, I picked up PvP and neclected Ruby Sanctum, not TotC raid, yet didnt complete it sadly, but had done a few bosses in Ulduar on hardmode, including Mimiron (absolute chaotic back then).

So now, I sit here as I type this, with questions. How far into the WotLK expanssion is the server currently, is it Naxx patch only, Ulduar, or even ICC? And whatever the answer is, are DK's bugged like they are on soooooo many other servers? If not, then that's what I'll play. Do I need a lv 55 char to make one to start with, or?
And finally: Are any Naxx and so forth, raiding guilds, looking for what back then was considered the realms best DK dps throughout most of Wrath? If so, let me know, as I really really miss the WotLK raids and its total content and all its enviroments included.

I wish you a pleasant day, or evening, whatever your timezone might be when reading this.

Best regards! :)

[Deathmastered]

Hello!

Lordaeron is a progression realm, atm in Ulduar stage afaik.
If you mean starting zone, I haven't found any bugs (altho I play on Icecrown, the core is the same)
On Icecrown you wouldn't need if you are premium member, on Lordaeron though I believe you do.

.... and welcome to Warmane!

[MaxBlack1]

Hey there,
short about Lordaeron:
- great leveling time if questing
- hard leveling if looking for dungeon group
- very hard if leveling profession that require limited supply patterns (i.e. Enchanting, Engineering)
- average end game heroic dungeons gearing up
- most raid bosses are from 200% to 400% harder than on retail (imagine retail ICC as LFR diff, and Warmane ICC as Mythic diff)
- good end game if you will find guild raiding 25man
- extremely hard raiding if you try with pick-up-gruops
- currently at Ulduar stage (no ToGC, ICC, RS)
- no direct benefits from donating
- you need to lvl any character to 55 in order to create DK

Icecrown
- faceroll leveling (7 times faster than on retail)
- zero chances for low lvl dungeons - it is waste of time
- easy professions (5 points for each created item) untill you face limited supply pattern
- working RDF with instant queue for tanks (i.e. DK)
- all raids open including ICC and RC in heroics
- toons of guild raids doing Light of Dawn weekly
- insane prices on AH (compared to retail) but farming gold is x5 faster than on retail
- direct benefits from donating (10E gives you queue skip for lifetime)
- you can buy instant lvl 80 (not sure if you can create DK without other char at at least lvl55)

Choose whatever you like more.
Lordaeraon - for strict hardcore player
Icecrown - for more casual player

I never bought WoD. Instead I came here. I'm playing both Lord (leveling chars) and Ice (raiding).
I do not regret beeing here for several years since Molten (old Warmane name) has only 1 server and only boss in ICC was Marry :)

[Funkymusic]

Lordaeraon - for strict hardcore player
Icecrown - for more casual player

LOL

3.3.5 talents at patch 3.1 is totally hardcore. buffing naxx 250% is hardcore...please stop.

some of us just play higher rates because we did all this crap in retail and dont want to spend time we dont have leveling reps, toons, and professions.

it is still the same crap on both realms. just icecrown is at end game content at the correct talents. lord is halfway through wotlk with end game talents and super buffed instances. nothing hardcore about it unless you like grinding on a 1x realm and feel its more retail like grinding out professions and your levels.

drop rates are the same. bosses are the same. there is nothing "hardcore" on lord other than the professions and leveling. dont let anyone tell you any different.

[Gruum]

dont want to spend time we dont have

and that's exactly what he meant by 'icecrown is for players who want to play more casually and achieve the same as lordaeron players who put in twice as much time and effort into the game'

there is nothing "hardcore" on lord other than the professions and leveling

You obviously haven't raided on Lordaeron. Actually I wouldn't call it hardcore either, at least not to my definition of hardcore, but just A LOT more difficult than what retail wotlk raids were like which is the same on Icecrown here. But there is definitely something "hardcore" -like about raiding on lordaeron when you see these new posts popping up every single day about how difficult even the starting raids are and even just the time it takes to get into them, whether it's because people don't have much time like yourself Funky and they just expect too much for the effort they put into it or it could be because people are simply not good enough at the game. Yet, those raids are doable, they aren't easy, you're not gonna faceroll 15 naxx bosses in an hour or so, but it can be done if you're raiding with a group of players who are dedicated enough to spend the hours needed to do it. Because if there was nothing hardcore-like about raiding on lordaeron, then there would be no raiding guilds at all; all of us, the raiding guilds, would simply switch to icecrown to have it easier when leveling alts, professions, farming gold etc. if those were the only things that made playing on lordaeron more difficult when all we play for is raiding. But no, not really..

[MaxBlack1]

OP wants to try out Warmane before Legion come.
Lordaeron will be overkill for him whatever you call it hardcore or not. he might be unable to raid Ulduar before he would like / would like not come back to retail new expansion.

Lordaeron raids reminds me clearly Mythic raid level from retail. doable but only for dedicated guilds.

@Funkymusic - why so fanboy defending? I didnt said Lordaeron is bad. actually i play on Lord quite often.
i waste same amount of time on both realms and clearly see differences between them.

[Lynea]

some of us just play higher rates because we did all this crap in retail and dont want to spend time we dont have leveling reps, toons, and professions.

^ This.
Some others don't have the time, true, but I do. Which is besides the point anyway. I've leveled countless characters on retail. CBF'ed doing that **** again. I leveled 2 characters past 60 on Lordaeron because I wanted to level for a bit. That was more than enough for me. BESIDES, I'm an old member here, I have my characters on Icecrown (which are essentially replacements that I had on the old molten realms). For what reason should I want to switch to Lord?

it is still the same crap on both realms. just icecrown is at end game content at the correct talents. lord is halfway through wotlk with end game talents and super buffed instances. nothing hardcore about it unless you like grinding on a 1x realm and feel its more retail like grinding out professions and your levels.

drop rates are the same. bosses are the same. there is nothing "hardcore" on lord other than the professions and leveling. dont let anyone tell you any different.

People consider walking to dungeons "hardcore" though! :D

You obviously haven't raided on Lordaeron.

Don't know if you know this, but we got Lord's buffed raid **** on Icecrown too, whether we liked it or not.

Actually I wouldn't call it hardcore either, at least not to my definition of hardcore, but just A LOT more difficult than what retail wotlk raids were like which is the same on Icecrown here. But there is definitely something "hardcore" -like about raiding on lordaeron when you see these new posts popping up every single day about how difficult even the starting raids are and even just the time it takes to get into them, whether it's because people don't have much time like yourself Funky and they just expect too much for the effort they put into it or it could be because people are simply not good enough at the game. Yet, those raids are doable, they aren't easy, you're not gonna faceroll 15 naxx bosses in an hour or so, but it can be done if you're raiding with a group of players who are dedicated enough to spend the hours needed to do it. Because if there was nothing hardcore-like about raiding on lordaeron, then there would be no raiding guilds at all; all of us, the raiding guilds, would simply switch to icecrown to have it easier when leveling alts, professions, farming gold etc. if those were the only things that made playing on lordaeron more difficult when all we play for is raiding. But no, not really..

These "hardcore boss buffs" you talk about... you do realize that to the usual elite player who cleared the vast majority of content immediately on retail, the difference for them is that the bosses live just a little bit longer, right?
The fact that pugs and bads can't clear the content doesn't make it hardcore. Especially when these raids don't have any "heroic modes" (hard mode is an entirely different concept and not a requirement for the loot pinata).
For competent players (I could go and include myself and Funky here in this), this content isn't even hard. The hardest part about it is finding the rare competent people amongst the zerg of dip****s and managing to coordinate them properly.

@Funkymusic - why so fanboy defending? I didnt said Lordaeron is bad. actually i play on Lord quite often.
i waste same amount of time on both realms and clearly see differences between them.

He's not defending. He's pointing out that trying to generalize the realms is a bad idea.

[Funkymusic]

@Funkymusic - why so fanboy defending? I didnt said Lordaeron is bad. actually i play on Lord quite often.
i waste same amount of time on both realms and clearly see differences between them.

dude lol are u srs? u pretty mush straight up bashed on icecrown for no good reason. just because you dont like it dont mean u gotta skew the facts about things.

there is nothing hardcore about raiding buffed instances. i did retail wotlk and its a joke everywhere from icecrown to lord when you try to compare this to retail.

Lets indulge for a moment here and lets pretend that everything works like retail, i promise you it would be nearly impossible for players of this caliber on this server to down HLK. Even in BiS gear. No one here fully understands the importance of setting up the correct raid composition and what that would even require except for maybe a handful of us ex wotlk players who are old and have grey hair. Look both my guilds back in the day where top 50 US and only 1 of the two i played in got HLK and that was a huge struggle it literally took months to down it and thats with players doing stuff like prepotting, min maxing all gears as in no gathering specs, the entire raid rolling engineering for rocket boots, no one does that here but thats what was needed to do it then. here its just faceroll to kill most of the time. Sorry im not bashing the community because i love the community for the most part minus a few toxic players but lets face it: most people here cant play this game worth a damn. Not to mention the comparison between retail and any private server is a joke. Until someone finds a way to fully script everything correctly you cannot compare the two at all.

1x or 7x makes zero difference. in fact its actually easier thus why they had to buff things. 3.3.5 talents where not available at the launch of wrath (3.0)

[DarkenedHue]

If you're only planning on playing for only a couple of months go with Icecrown. You get to the end-game a lot quicker, and there are a lot more pugs going too, and 10-mans are much more accessible and pug-friendly than their 25-man counterparts, just as Blizzard designed them to be. Imo, Lordaeron isn't worth raiding on unless it's with a guild.

[Gruum]

Don't know if you know this, but we got Lord's buffed raid **** on Icecrown too, whether we liked it or not.

I did not know that you got the same buffs as Lordaeron does. I have heard that after core from lordaeron was applied to other wotlk realms, the same buffs were in effect but that they were tuned down shortly after, tho if i remember correctly bosses are still slightly buffed compared to the retail numbers but still nowhere near the lordaeron level.

you do realize that to the usual elite player who cleared the vast majority of content immediately on retail, the difference for them is that the bosses live just a little bit longer, right?

Especially when these raids don't have any "heroic modes" (hard mode is an entirely different concept and not a requirement for the loot pinata).

Yeah, i'll go ahead and include myself in there but i have to tell you that you're wrong. That's not exactly how it is. Sure for normal modes it is true that for the most part the buffs that all the bosses in Ulduar have mean that they will simply live a bit longer. They can still be an obstacle for some mediocre guilds or guilds that haven't farmed t7 for too long and are still undergeared, but for the most part the hp/dmg buffs for normal modes only make up for some broken mechanics cause without them the bosses on normal modes would be free loot for anyone at lvl80 with dungeon gear, even tho they are still easy as they are with the buffs.

But since you decided to put in those elite players in there, you'd assume that those type of players or guilds would not just satisfy themselves with farming normal modes, but would instead spend some time attempting hardmodes too. That's what my post is mostly referring to - hardmodes. And even if they still may not be that hard for you or me to complete, the buffs applied to those make the boss hardmodes more than just 'living for a little longer', even if it's just the hp value of the boss and it's adds that's been increased by 200-300%, the damage they do a bit increased or the scripting of some mechanics is changed so to make it slightly more difficult to deal with than you'd remember them on retail. So for us, "elite players" (lol), it's may be just that it takes a bit more time and dedication to minmax our characters or to put in some more attempts compared to what it would take on Icecrown, but the difficulty of raiding on lordaeron doesn't lie only in the increased difficulty of the bosses itself. It is also that the increased difficulty of PvE content brings in other factors, like struggling to recruit competent players for example which you mentioned in your post too. Because let's be real, majority of the players on lordaeron aren't like you or funky or me, they aren't used to stricter requirements, as in having to minmax your character's equipment, the need of perfect raid setup for specific bosses which is what the few top guilds are doing here. But that is too much for THEM to handle and by them i mean majority of players who aren't interested in taking pve to a more serious level which is totally fine, and since they are the majority so the general opinion of lordaeron's population is that the server is a hardcore server, despite what the minority like me and you think.

[Lynea]

You took what I said about hard modes a little too far. It was an additional note. It is not a deciding factor in whether what I said is accurate or otherwise. The fact that anyone thinks any of this content, from Naxx to ICC (or anything else, for that matter), is hard is absurd. Them being too green to know better is not an excuse. The game is not difficult. It never has been.

[Orendil]

As a player who tanked Naxx and Uld farming so much rep and gold to afford gear to even be able to offtank for those raids...
The fights there come down to a few things on Lorda.
1) Can your tank survive a hit from the boss? (You need a lot of gear, and have to stack stamina to hit this...)
2) Can you beat the enrage timer with the bosses buffed health?

I'll be honest here. I played for months on Lorda (Character Orendil) and unless you have a guild with regular core people who run with you all the time.. You will get no where. You can't pug the bosses (Excluding Flame lev and some Naxx bosses) and... It's basically equal to Mythic raiding I guess in retail except the entree to Naxx without some Naxx gear is ROUGH like almost impossible without no one making a mistake and getting lucky.

Just if you want to have fun and get right into the action play Icecrown. If you want to work hard to take on bosses that are buffed pretty crazily then play on Lorda. (Important to note that last time I played on Lorda it seems they were nerfing bosses quite a bit. Not sure how they are now)

[maroon56]

I don't see anything "hardcore" buffing raids and dungeons to 250%, and disabling dungeon finder. This isn't hardcore, but "fun server".