With the upcoming Mists of Pandaria expansion people are kicking around the “What’s Happening to WoW” set of questions. Such as, “Is it failing,” “Did Cataclysm fail,” “Are Pandas an attempt to break into the Pokemon market,” and other deep stuff like that.
So I’m going to focus on one of those. World of Matticus has a post on the question, “Did Cataclysm Fail?” In his article he covers healing, raiding, guilds, and a couple of other topics.
So, in this regard did Cataclysm succeed or fail? Well to me the answer here is two fold. They both succeeded and failed at the same time. At the start of the expansion healing was definitely harder, mana consumption was much more of a concern and shaman healing really was the model when it came to triage healing. Note how I said at the start of the expansion. There was a bit of a problem though, once you started getting a pretty good head of steam going and gathered your gear the “model” started to fall apart. Spirit levels and regen abilities after heroic dungeon gearing were enough that some healing classes could just completely ignore the healing model. I’m casually whistling in innocence as I look at Mana Tide Totem from a year ago, I assure you. The problem exacerbated itself when some healing classes’ masteries got tweaked, and raid gear started circulating.
Original post: Did Cataclysm fail?
I’ll add my 2 coppers worth, here.
Guilds: I like and dislike the new guild system. Overall, I think it’s a plus, but as he points out, it makes it a bit tougher to recruit new people. Few will want to leave their perks and guild rep for a new guild. But… some guilds just don’t jell. For example, I’m not into gangsta culture, but if half your guild is (and it was) then you either have to join in, ignore it, argue with it, or leave. Guild drama is another well-known issue.(Absolutely Nails becomes Broken Promises due to the drama. Ugh.)
If you’re a dedicated PvE type and the most your guild will ever be interested in doing is Firelands trash… Or it turns out that most of them are PvP fans.
Is it worth it to you to give up the perks to move to a “better” guild? Or from your level 25 guild with Revered rep to a new level 2 guild and start the rep grind all over?
PvP: Well, world PvP died a long time ago, but Cata put nails in the coffin. On the other hand, the battleground tiers are now 5 levels wide instead of 10, which means everyone can compete to some extent. At least to participate. It also means that at 77 you should start loading up on your Cata greens. So organized PvP is improved, I think, and world PvP was already dead (though it can and does happen in the Cata zones, where it’s a lot more fair.)
Each expansion brings new PvP areas which don’t obsolete the old. People will still be doing Warsong Gulch and all the Arenas even with the new Mists stuff.
Grouping with buddies: The instanced zones and quests have certainly changed that, haven’t they? Used to be that a pal could hop in and help out. Now, it’s a bit more… interesting. Basically your pal has to be in the same part of the quest chain, which is part of what makes the zones seem deserted.
Of course, this changes at 85 when you start your dalies. And an 85 druid running around ganking 85s is a whole more more fair (and potentially fun) than the same druid ganking 30s. Of course, if he better geared and just better than you, that’s another issue. Still it IS a PvP server, so I shouldn’t complain too much.
Bottom line?
I like Cataclysm and, as far as I’m concerned, it’s a success. I think Bliz thinks so too, though maybe not the “double subscriptions” type of success. So I’m in it for the long haul and will be looking forward to what comes next.
(I posted some similar remarks on the FB page.)
What do you think?