As the “classic” saga nears to an end what were the aspects that you did like and did not like about Cataclysm? (Systems, lore, revamp, talents etc.)
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Retribution was awful to play at launch, it’s probably the longest break I’ve ever taken from the game.
I have heard it improved a lot later in the expansion but I’d long given up by then.
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Beginning of timegating with the molten front
Extreme content draught
LFR with need/greed on loots
Big no no
Not much I know about it.
Mainly this is when they started to take out the reliance on resources like mana so you could last the whole fight without OOM.
They say reforging was added here. That’s a good thing imo, as you can use any ilvl upgrade you get and then tinker with the secondaries as you see it fit.
Talents were compressed (were too big by Wrath) and hybrid tree choices were nerfed. (Such as SL/SL warlocks from TBC)
And of course, old zones updated. I do miss them a lot, even if leveling was ineffecient, but time goes on and they cannot please everyone.
Lorewise, I liked it. So many dragons!
Liked the 10-man raiding, that’s the last time I actually I did raiding with a guild on a level higher than logging in and being asked to come to the raid and being “You need healer you say? I can come I guess”, this level took place in hellfire citadel and that’s the last raid I did in a guild. I pugged nyalotha on heroic though but that place was a joke.
My main in TBC and Wrath was my Pally (prot in TBC, did some tanking) but ret in Wrath. I liked how it played. I’ve been a Shammy since then though as I just didn’t like how paladin played since then. I still level my pally and play it a bit but not as a main.
Cata was a long break for me, my second big break in the game (the first being in Vanilla where it was just too slow to level).
Cata brought some great things to the game but they’re mixed blessings.
Transmog, added mog farming as a thing but also undermined current gear as a way to show off.
LFR (although I didn’t try that until MOP), allows access to content in raids but it’s quite toxic in there.
Revamp, brough the graphics of older zones up to date but the stories are very cata specific and that makes those zone less timeless.
Bads:
The new zones were quite disconnected and scattered all over the world. Rather like SL with is disjointed zones.
Vashir the underwater zone. Sounded like a good idea and it did look lovely. But it was horrible to play in. Mobs would go out of line of sight because they swam 1 yard above you. Navigating there was slow and annoying. I think if the mechanics of Vashir had worked better than we’d have had more under water areas.
There was no central city like Dalaran to focus players and have cooking / fishing dailies.
Deathwing wasn’t as good a villain as the Lich King. You hardly ever saw him.
Main problem Cata had is similar to the issues with WoD (my next and last break from wow) was a lack of end game. I dinged max level I had little to do. My guild had gone really quiet, in Wrath we did some raiding (Naxx). There was no Argent Tournament. There was no Kalakuk fishing faction.
There was Molten Front but I didn’t really engage with it at the time, have done it since. This wasn’t a great end game zone.
There was still no legacy buff so farming old raids for mount (mogs were barely a thing yet) hadn’t really become a thing.
LFR only came with Dragon Soul and from what I heard it wasn’t yet for the masses, it was still tough.
A Cata classic might do ok as most classic players are likely there for the raids and dungeons, to experience those as they were back then. As you can still do most of the other things in retail now (as in Molten Front or the stories in the zones).
Actually, Cataclysm and WOTLK were the expansions in which I enjoyed most farming old raids precisely because there wasn’t a legacy buff.
Back them solo, most old raids were possible for me as a Paladin, but it was challenging. You had to actually play the encounter, avoiding things that kill you instead of one-shot the boss. Of course, some bosses were easier than others, and some were impossible, but I had so much fun solo parts of Karazhan, Zul’Gurub, Zul’aman, Onixya 60, Molten Core, and AQ during WOTLK and parts of Ulduar, ICC, Onixya 80, and Naxxramax 80 during Cataclysm that is one of the things I am eager to do again during Classic WOTLK and a hypothetic Classic Cataclysm.
During MOP before the item level squish, there was still some fun soloing content, but once the squish happened, everything changed. From that moment on legacy content was impossible or pathetically easy with no in-between that required you to play the encounter.
Was it Cataclysm that invented the “your specialization is your class” BS?
I liked the added races though. Particularily goblins.
I got this mog set during MOP and I needed help with some bosses (patchwerk for one).
I do vaguely remember helping a friend in AQ for rep, I did that on my prot pally some must have been in Wrath times but I think we stuck to trash.
It was fun two-manning old Naxx then but not sure I’d have stuck at ICC for all the mogs and Incincible without some kind of buff though.
During WOTLK I was able to solo AQ40 up until the Twin Emperors, those two I wasn’t able to solo until Cataclysm or Pandaria in which my DPS was bigger than their self heals for being together. The same happens with Molten Core, I could solo all bosses except the one that has many adds that heal the boss if they are together, so I couldn’t even try Ragnaros.
ICC during Cataclysm was impossible because it was required to have one player at your boat or else the encounter reset. So, only the first 2 bosses could be solo during Cataclysm.
The thing about soloing during WOTLK and Cataclysm is that soloing was easier on many bosses with retribution spec because ret self-heal was enough to keep you alive and DPS is higher than in tank spec. I only used protection for bosses that hit very hard.
In general I remember solo bosses from all raids but on every raid there was at least one boss impossible to solo. I think the only raid I could solo all the bosses was The Eye for the Phoenix (but only bugging the encounter) and maybe AQ20 (I don’t remember).
vaguly remember enjoying it tho i only started playing a few month before this tho it was my main since then other then in bfa
I really didn’t like it that much. I won’t play it as Classic, that is sure.
Cata was very nice at the start. The zones were all very different from the previous expansions. It can be said that the storylines were too much of a parody at times, to which I agree. Uldum is beautiful zone but one of the quest chains is just a ripoff from Indiana Jones.
Molten front was tedious but the rewards were okay. Firelands was a great raid.
Transmog is one of the best things they added to wow imo. It’s literally a new goal to have. To this day I like to do old stuff just to collect the mogs.
This is where the good stuff ends imo. The entire expansion felt “off”. It didn’t feel like WoW anymore, but a funnier watered down version. All the systems like talents etc became too simple. All the leveling zones felt lighter and not in a good way.
For example Westfall. Before it was a dreary place with a very bleak and mysterious storyline that got revealed slowly. Now it was a parody of CSI. Yeah someone got murdered but they still managed to make it feel like a joke. Only good thing was the timevision in the Deadmines.
The last year of cata was dreadful. They added the first “pay in advance and get a mount”- plan, for a full year (the mount was nice), which was a bad sign.
LFR is just a bad add to the game imo, raiding should not be mindless button mashing, esp with 25 strangers who have no clue about any mechanics.
The story was not good, esp after Arthas. We barely saw Deathwing after he was hyped up so much during blizzcon and the opening cinematic. In the end he was just a big angry dragon who did not do much and felt more like a mindless being “Big dragon go raaahhhhhh”, just because he could.
All the focus on Thrall who suddenly was all about shamanism and was the hero of the entire expansion (while he didn’t even fought with us on bosses) was very anti- climactic.
I didn’t like the way that they blew up the world. It ruined some of my favourite zones, like Loch Modan, and much of the questing felt like it was on rails.
I did like hunters and how they moved from mana to focus. And being able to throw snake traps in people’s faces. That never got old for me. I was very sad when it was completely removed in Legion. 
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Pro’s: More race/class combo’s.
Con’s: Yes.
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omg yes it did suck! I mained Ret in Wrath and had to reroll to Mage 
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Puny… Are you me? It was the exact same for me
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I think rip off is a little harsh, it was a reference / homage. The plots weren’t the same in any way just some themes and stylistic features referenced Indianna Jones. The guy’s name was Harrison Jones, so it’s not like they were trying to pretend otherwise…
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Isle of Quel’Danas had time gating.
Gates of Ahn’qiraj had time gating under a huge realm-wide grind.
Nice try.
The thing I didn’t like about Cataclysm was all of Cataclysm.
Yeah ok, good point. I liked the Uldum part. I love Indiana Jones and adventure movies/series/games in general. So yeahhhhh. Damnit… I wanted to hate all of Cata.