Ever wondered how to conquer the toughest Mythic+ challenges or felt lost on your journey to becoming a top-tier tank? This episode of Pig and Whistle Tales from Azeroth promises invaluable insights and practical tips for new and returning World of Warcraft players. We kick off with the latest WoW news, spotlighting the week's world bosses, Mythic+ affixes like fortified and bolstering, and the nostalgic chaos of Southshore vs. Tarren Mill. Whether you're intrigued by the technicalities of Mythic+ affixes or looking to perfect your tanking skills, we cover it all.
Why does the WoW community keep demanding fresh Vanilla servers? In this thought-provoking discussion, we dissect the practicality and implications of these requests. Despite the existence of Classic Era servers, many players are clamoring for a fresh start. We explore the potential solutions and community impact, shedding light on why replaying old content may not be the answer. If you’ve ever pondered the highs and lows of WoW's ever-evolving landscape, this segment is a must-listen.
Finally, we critique the dungeon designs from Classic to Cataclysm, diving deep into what makes a dungeon truly memorable. From the beloved Deadmines to the intricate City of Tol'vir, we compare fan favorites and discuss the changes brought by different expansions. We also tackle the controversial views on expansions like Cataclysm and Warlords of Draenor, emphasizing the multifaceted nature of each. Tune in to hear our balanced take and share your thoughts on social media!
Hope you all enjoy and hope you relate to any of these stories. And I will speak to you all in the next episode!
Ever wondered how to conquer the toughest Mythic+ challenges or felt lost on your journey to becoming a top-tier tank? This episode of Pig and Whistle Tales from Azeroth promises invaluable insights and practical tips for new and returning World of Warcraft players. We kick off with the latest WoW news, spotlighting the week's world bosses, Mythic+ affixes like fortified and bolstering, and the nostalgic chaos of Southshore vs. Tarren Mill. Whether you're intrigued by the technicalities of Mythic+ affixes or looking to perfect your tanking skills, we cover it all.
Why does the WoW community keep demanding fresh Vanilla servers? In this thought-provoking discussion, we dissect the practicality and implications of these requests. Despite the existence of Classic Era servers, many players are clamoring for a fresh start. We explore the potential solutions and community impact, shedding light on why replaying old content may not be the answer. If you’ve ever pondered the highs and lows of WoW's ever-evolving landscape, this segment is a must-listen.
Finally, we critique the dungeon designs from Classic to Cataclysm, diving deep into what makes a dungeon truly memorable. From the beloved Deadmines to the intricate City of Tol'vir, we compare fan favorites and discuss the changes brought by different expansions. We also tackle the controversial views on expansions like Cataclysm and Warlords of Draenor, emphasizing the multifaceted nature of each. Tune in to hear our balanced take and share your thoughts on social media!
Hope you all enjoy and hope you relate to any of these stories. And I will speak to you all in the next episode!
Thank you, hello and welcome to the Pig and Whistle Tales from Azeroth. As always here at the Pig and Whistle Inn in Stormwind, I go for a variety of subjects with regards to World of Warcraft. Pick up a bottle or a pint, sit back and enjoy this episode. We'll be looking at a few things. It's going to be a variety of things, but they're going to be mainly points that I disagree with on the forums. They're going to be going over Cataclysm, vanilla WoW, well, classic Era WoW and a few sort of you know, advice bits and pieces here for those who are newer to the game.
Speaker 1:
But, as always, we have the weekly news. We have basil's, carly elders and aerostar as your world bosses for the week, aerostar and amir drasil being your awakened or dreaming um raid slash world boss. This means that if you want any gear that is, the current item level gear you want to be doing these raids and this world boss for the week. World quests are your bonus event for the week as well as so, uh, south shore versus tarot mill as your brawl world quests. You simply get more reputation by doing them. South shore versus tarot mill, it's 40 versus 40 in the Hillsbrad Foothills zone. This will crash your PC if you do not have a good PC, or turn your graphics down. This will probably make your PC run very, very slowly. So please, if you're going to do this, take caution, turn your graphics down or, you know, unless you've got a NASA sort of computer, then don't worry about it.
Speaker 1:
Fortified entangling and bolstering are your mythic fixes for the week. Fortified the non-boss enemies have more health and damage. Entangling essentially if you stay stood or stay still for too long, there are roots that start to entangle you and you simply want to just move a little bit. And bolstering when a mob dies, it shouts and gives the extra mobs around it health and damage increase. So kill everything at the exact same time and you'll be good to go. Bring talent builds that can accommodate for all of these.
Speaker 1:
So let's start off with something a bit light. I'm going to start it off with a like new slash returning player question, and here's how it reads. I'm going to start with the questions Is it okay to start learning tank as a solo player? So let me first address this. Yes, it is completely fine to start learning tank as a solo player. You can learn healer as a solo player. So let me first address this. Yes, it is completely fine to start learning tank as a solo player. You can learn healer as a solo player. You can learn dps, you can do whatever you want.
Speaker 1:
The best way to do it now that they've introduced the follower dungeons is via that method, in my honest opinion, and then you slowly work your way up through the dungeons, so follow a dungeon and then you do a normal dungeon and then heroic and then mythic. That's the best way to do it in my honest opinion. And if you can start learning tanking earlier on, the better, because you're getting a bit more familiar with your buttons and your rotations, your spell rotations. But if you are too afraid and you're still learning the game at a fundamental level, then you can obviously learn the fundamentals of the game first and then, at max level, start to look to do your tanking experience. But yes, essentially you can start learning it as a solo player, although it does help if you have some friends to queue some dungeons with, as you will be a lot more comfortable in that regard.
Speaker 1:
And the second question any suggestions what I can do to remember dungeon routes, shortcuts etc. Since I always forget, despite playing certain dungeons while leveling thousands of times, the you don't really know. It's tough because the way that you learn dungeon routes is via repetitiveness, so if you do it long enough, you will know them off by heart. But if you are struggling with that, what you can do is every dungeon has a map now, so lower level dungeons, you can kind of see where you need to go. If you're looking for mythics, though, what you're wanting to do is use mythic dungeon tools. This is something that you can use, and you can plan your route ahead of time, and essentially you can bring it up every now and again to just remind yourself on what packs that you want to pull within the dungeon. It's very, very useful. It's mythic dungeon tool I believe it's by method or echo, or whatever it is but essentially it's very useful for mythic dungeons.
Speaker 1:
Um, but apart from that, just take your time. Honestly, there is no rush, and no one should be rushing you in lower level content dungeons. Also, some advice, be it tips or add-ons, will be greatly appreciated. Thank you a lot in advance. So what I can suggest is find people that you are comfortable playing with, and this will help you gradually learn tanking and be a bit more comfortable tanking wise.
Speaker 1:
You need to be confident in yourself. If a tank is not confident in themselves, the group will not have, will not be confident as well. Okay, if you pull too many mobs and you wipe the group, you simply take it on the chin and be like sorry guys, that's my fault, I'll just put a little bit less next time. That's fine. Mistakes can happen and these mistakes help you learn the sort of what is it? Not pressure points, but the limitate limitations of your character. So maybe you were just about like not surviving in this group. But if you were to pull one group less, you would be completely fine. And it's still a big enough pool to warrant, like, some cool downs and stuff. So you're still making good time in your dungeon, but you're not dying in the process.
Speaker 1:
Now, you know it's a trial and error thing and you've just got to keep going at it. Essentially, um, that's my honest advice for you You've got to keep going with your like tanking. Essentially, you want to be the most confident person there. You want to have some sort of ego in your group. Obviously don't have the big enough ego that you get kicked from your group. Um, but yeah, like you need to own everything. Okay it. It's like, this is what I'm going to pull. You guys will kill it and we will like survive this. Okay, I trust in us and I trust in my ability, as the tank, to hold aggro, keep myself alive, understand the mechanics of the packs that I'm pulling so that I don't get one shot. You know all of them, different things, and that just comes with time, but I really cannot stress this enough. Confidence is key when it comes to tanking. Okay, that is the one thing that you want to be doing. It's the most important thing. By far.
Speaker 1:
As for other bits and bobs for tanking, what I've learned is that if you ever want to do raiding and you're obviously going to need a tanking partner Now, if you do this via guilds or anything else like pugs, make sure you're interacting with the other tank. If it's a pug, you want to just be simple and straight with the tank and be like OK, I have no idea what I'm'm doing here. Do you want to give me the rundown or do you understand what we're doing here? If not, then I can let you know. Or do you want me to tank this and you tank that you know? Be very clear with what you want to do.
Speaker 1:
If you're tanking in a guild, you want good synergy with the other tank. Okay, I tanked in my classic guild for over a year, like probably oh god, actually it's probably a lot longer than that. It's probably around like a year and a half now two years and the tank that I was tanking with as I've known them for a few years, and the synergy that we have as tanks, was really really good and it actually helped a lot because the way that I could give instructions, they would understand very quickly what they needed to do and I understood what their weaknesses were and my strengths were and we sort of balanced it out, if makes any sense, like we had each other's backs in certain situations and we knew that if shit was hitting the fan, that someone would have to pick this up and run it away or someone would have to, you know, just aoe torn or like use all their cooldowns because someone fucked up, which is usually what happens. Someone did fuck up, um, but yeah, there's many different things. But try and build a relationship with a tank partner or someone who knows tanking and you can share your advice with them essentially and they can do the same for you. Moving on to the next one, this one's really intriguing, so I I don't know what to say to these sort of people, so I'm going to be as brutally honest as I can.
Speaker 1:
This post is called Not Vanilla Wow. Okay, I wonder what you can guess. Why can we not have a fresh vanilla slash classic server? It has been five years now when classic no changes came out, and it was great. You have made some changes to classic era that should be implemented on a phase one server. We've been asking for it and would play tomorrow. Why are you just ignoring us? Nothing feels like vanilla wow anymore. Okay, they, they do go into this, but classic era is a literally vanilla world of warcraft. Okay, it is vanilla wow, that's well, that is classic wow. Okay, the fact that they're going to bring up that I I read through this to make sure, to make sure that I wanted to discuss it um, but they're going to bring up something that's just going to annoy me and probably everyone else, so I'll carry on.
Speaker 1:
Classic Era is a complete joke. They don't go into any specifics with that, by the way. They just say that and leave it there. You know that not everyone likes Cataclysm and Season of Discovery, because it is not vanilla. I personally cannot understand why we got given classic but no fresh for five years. It is going to happen, yes or no. It is some sort of top classified military information that no one is allowed to know.
Speaker 1:
I can answer this for you no, you're never going to get fresh vanilla servers. You're just not. You have classic era servers, that is, vanilla WoW. That is where vanilla vanilla wow will stay forever. Now, all right, you're not going to get brand new, fresh servers. It's ridiculous to do that. Why would they do that? Because all you'd want to do is have the nostalgic value of oh my god, it's a fresh server for one or two months and then it would just die again. You know it will go back into the same state as what the classic era servers are now.
Speaker 1:
The reason you want the servers is because of that sort of you know, injection of nostalgia or whatever you want. You know that hit of classic World of Warcraft, but it's ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous. There are literally servers that are vanilla World of Warcraft and they need to understand that that is where vanilla WoW will stay. You have these servers and these servers obviously aren't doing great. There's some guilds on them and there's a couple servers that are alive and have the hustle and bustle of a classic server, that are alive and, you know, have the hustle and bustle of a classic server, but ultimately there's not enough interest in it to warrant scrapping classic era servers and going back to a fresh classic.
Speaker 1:
It makes no sense, because the numbers are not there, the demand is not there, whereas before 2019 came out and Classic WoW was re-released, the demand was there by the player base and the player base was waiting. How long? How long? 12 years, I think, yeah, from TBC coming out, about 12 years for that to happen. So it's absolutely ridiculous trying to ask for Classic when there are literal Classic servers up All right, do you not understand how stupid that sounds? Yeah, it's, it's absolutely ridiculous. Um, they give no reason as to why classic era is a joke, because classic era was the og classic. They were the classic servers. That's where all of our characters originated from. It is that's the sad thing. It is because when they went to TBC Classic, what happened was you were allowed to choose to copy your character onto a Classic Era server, which is what they are now, or you could progress your character. A lot of people progressed it. Some people wanted to keep their characters enough, but classic era is where your classic characters grew up in. Okay, they are still there. Them servers are still there.
Speaker 1:
You can go on right now onto firemore or pyrewood, I believe are the two in eu that you would want to uh log on to and make a new classic character. You, you can, nothing's stopping you and it will be classic. There's no season of discovery, so there's no runes, there's no cataclysm, there is just old, classic World of Warcraft. That's it, nothing crazy. I don't get it. I really don't get it. Why people just spout utter nonsense. Because why would we make any new phase one like classic realm? Because then they've got to do a phase two and a phase three.
Speaker 1:
I don't want to go through molten core the same like what I did in 2019, 2020. I don't want to do black wing lair in 2020 and 2021. I don't want to do uncourage again. I don't want to do nax Lair in 2020 and 2021. I don't want to do Uncarriage again. I don't want to do Naxx. I've done Naxx already, both in Classic and Wrath. I don't want to do that. No one wants to do that. It's the same raid. It's the same mechanics. It's so stupid to even consider doing that.
Speaker 1:
In my opinion, like another fresh Classic server. That makes no sense, makes absolutely. In my opinion, like another fresh classic server. That makes no sense, makes absolutely no sense and I don't understand it at all. In my opinion, they need to reduce the number of classic era servers down to two, down to two, and then every now and again, they release a fresh server. That way people will stop complaining and they will kind of get what they want. Okay, they get their fresh, you know classic server and that's what it is. It's just a fresh server and you know. Once they do that five or 10 times, then they reduce it again, they reduce the amount of servers, but that's no fun for people because some people might like their server. You know, there's many different people that are going to complain about all of this and they just need to get over themselves. They really do, they really really do. It is crazy. And the final one Now this one's quite funny Cataclysm Classic is they don't give anything but they go straight into it.
Speaker 1:
The worst expansion yet. Didn't play it back in the days, but oh man, it's a bad expansion in many ways. Okay, please take. Bear in mind. He says yet so out of tbc, um, wrath and cataclysm, because classic isn't an expansion, okay, so in. So in my honest opinion I would say Wrath of the Lich King is the best, cataclysm's the second, and TBC honestly the worst. I'm not keen on TBC trying to play it, but it just was gruelling. It really really was. I don't know why. So con.
Speaker 1:
Bad levelling experience, bad and forgettable levelling zones, besides the water one, for obvious reasons. I know little to nothing about the other levelling zones. I do not understand that. But let's address these two. Bad levelling experience why? Why is it a bad levelling? Because of the zones. Mount hyger is very iconic in lore, it's steeped in lore with night elves. Oldham is very cool, it's well. It's not personally one of my favorites, but the indiana jones stuff very cool. The old sort of architecture very cool. You know it has its moments. Okay. Twilight highlands, okay, a bit forgettable.
Speaker 1:
But it's somewhat like different experience with the wild hammer clan, deepholm, maelstrom that one's very cool, that one has a lot of lore behind it and if you actually read the quest it's actually very engaging and very simple in the way that it's. You know the landscape of it. You're just questing in a big circle, which makes it very nice and easy for sort of my I don't know, it just feels right in my mind. I don't really know how to describe it. Then you have Vashir the underwater or the water one, as he describes it, and, honestly, vashir the underwater or the water one, as he describes it, and, honestly, vashir is growing on me. I think that it's becoming a better and better zone the more that I play it, and I'm not too upset about it, because you get the seahorse very quickly, so that makes travel a lot easier in the zone itself. And then you have actually, I think that's it Farland, deepholm, oldham yeah, I think that's it. Front harlands, deep home, uh, oldham, yeah, I think that's it. So they aren't forgettable zones, um, and the leveling experience isn't too bad. It's the same as everything. The leveling experience is certainly not as bad as uh tbc in my honest opinion, bad story. I have no idea what is going on. Besides, a dragon has messed up the world. Firstly, do you read the quests? Secondly, do you understand the lore Behind the zones that you're playing in? You know these things matter and, from what I'm gathering, he doesn't read the quests. Not many people do. So I'm not going to flame him for that, but you can't give your opinion like that if you don't read the quest and actually try and make an effort to understand the lore. That's happening.
Speaker 1:
Very bad dungeon design. Do I need to get into this? Yeah, I do. Okay, what's bad about the dungeon design? So let's okay, let's go with this.
Speaker 1:
Deadmines why is Deadmines a bad dungeon design? I mean it's the same sort of length as Classic, so is that it? Is it the bosses? The bosses in Classic literally don't do any mechanics, so it can't be that right. Or is it? You know, just the nostalgia of classic dungeons that sort of feel better and have a better design? You know that's ridiculous.
Speaker 1:
Shadowfang Keep you know that's redesigned in classic or Cataclysm. What's bad about that? Everyone seemed to love that in classic, didn't they? Is it the again the like size of the dungeon? Is the bosses? Because bosses in shadowfang keep didn't do anything. If anything, shadowfang keeps better because there were uh things within the like instance itself that would stay on you for five minutes. These curses, and these curses would reduce a random attribute. If you were a warrior and you had this curse on you and it reduced your sword skill by 50, you would be missing everything for a very long time and that's not fun, is it? It's only 30 seconds in classic, like Cataclysm Classic. So you know it still punishes you, but not for five minutes. You're not depressed for five minutes trying to hit something that you can't hit.
Speaker 1:
You know it's ridiculous, but I suppose you know bad game design or bad dungeon design. Let's see what's. Another one City of Tol Vyr. Okay, city of Tol Vyr is one of them things where you can skip a lot of the ads, but you also need to clear a decent amount of trash. Still, why is that a bad design? Because it's very simple. It's a shorter dungeon, it's very quick, you get good loot. But why is that good? Why is whaling caverns a good dungeon? Why is that not a bad dungeon design? People literally get lost in whaling caverns. It's too long whaling caverns and yet it's got some of the best gear for that level. So why is that not a bad dungeon design? You know there's many different things, but what is he considering a good dungeon design? No one knows. He doesn't give examples, so it's a ridiculous comment to make.
Speaker 1:
Um, the next point he has is is a hub game. All you do is sit in stormwind queue for dungeons and that's literally it before you say, but but it was like that in wrath of the lich king. Well, no, yes, it was kinda. After they added the worst feature of them all random dungeon finder. Ah, yes, the worst feature of them all. Instead, you would sit in Dalaran and spam looking for more, like Gundrak, need one healer, one DPS, and then you would sit in Dalaran some more and spam that more, you know. So it's sitting in Dalaran some more and spam that more, you know. So it's sitting in Dalaran with extra steps. That's, that's essentially it. That was essentially the gameplay. And then what you moved to the dungeon. You press num lock and you flew in a direction to the dungeon. Ok, that's it. How crazy is that? But you, you know that's a hub game.
Speaker 1:
If, if you tell me that you didn't spend about 80 of your time in dalaran after you hit level 80, I would say you're bullshitting me and lying to me. That's straight up what I'd think, because you spent so much time in dalaran and you wouldn't even know it. Then he does list some pros, or, yeah, pros. For this I have leveled four characters to 85, even though he said the leveling is bad. Uh, two tanks and two healers almost insta-queue. Lol, like you get insta-queues.
Speaker 1:
If classic had a dungeon, instant queues If Classic had a dungeon finder, if TBC had a dungeon finder. And Wrath, like early Wrath tank and healers always get instant queues no matter what World of Warcraft they're on. Even in Classic when it was like, oh, looking for more, stratholme need one tank last spot, if you whispered you'd get an instant invite. That's essentially the same. Nothing changes there.
Speaker 1:
No, not because I've enjoyed it, but because I've seen the boots with emblems sell for very good, at least in the first week and the second one. So I made around 100k in two weeks. And what did I did with the cold? The cold bought nine times 30 days tokens best decision ever. I can't argue with that. It is one of the better decisions to buy the tokens when it was, um, the early stages of cataclysm, because the tokens are now skyrocketing. They have gone up about 6k in total. So it's kind of rough. I'm not gonna lie, um, but look, he leveled four characters within the space of a week or two. Hmm, seems a bit weird that. Then that bad leveling uh made him do that. You know it's crazy.
Speaker 1:
The skill rework is okay, the rotation rotation is somewhat better, but that's basically it. The rotation is miles better. It's not somehow better. It's miles better. Shamans aren't pressing Chain Heal as a Resto Shaman. You aren't pressing Rejuve only as a Resto Druid. You're not spamming Lightning Bolt as an Elemental Shaman. You're not spamming Star bolt as a elemental shaman. You're not spamming starfire as a boomkin. You know there is actually buttons that you press In a rotation and it's funny to think that. You know A more fleshed out rotation Would be more enjoyable. Who would have thought? And then he ends it with so there you have it, folks.
Speaker 1:
Yes, cataclysm is the worst yet versus vanilla tbc and wrath of the lich king. Yes, yes, you may like it more, but no, that doesn't make it a good expansion. I will mess around for a bit, I guess, but it is very mere expansion than Cataclysm. Prove to me how, without saying anything about nostalgic purposes, okay, because don't get me wrong TBC has some good zones, good levelling zones. But Hellfire Peninsula very good, nagrand very good. Nagrand very good. That's kind of it, in my honest opinion. You can argue like Netherstorm and Terokkar Forest maybe, but the reason Nagrand and Hellfire are so good is because they have iconic quests. So Hellfire being like the first zone, it's very iconic.
Speaker 1:
Moving into an expansion, you see it as the first zone and it is very it in cap or it captures you, essentially nagrand for the ring of blood and all of the quests are very together and it is just go out and kill a lot of things. With hemit Nessunwari in this zone, it's very simple, okay. Whereas Bladesedge Mountains very annoying zone to quest in Zangamarsh not too bad, but very annoying towards the end of it. Shuddermoon Valley very, very annoying. The Hemet quests and Netherstorm hit or miss, really. And you're telling me that the bad levelling design is just in Cataclysm. Um, I would say Vashj is better than most of the zones in TBC. I would argue that Deepholm is better than all the zones in TBC. I would argue that Deepholm is better than all the zones in TBC. I would argue that Oldham has the potential to be better as well. You could definitely argue with it because of the lore and the other bits and bobs that you have to go along with it. But honestly, hyjal, it beats all of them in tbc.
Speaker 1:
As for reputation farms, you simply throw on a tabard and do some dungeons into in uh cataclysm in tbc you had to go back to the same dungeon on normal until you got to honored and then you had to do a heroic dungeon. How was that fun, killing the same mobs over and over again, only going to the dungeon just to get the reputation, nothing else. You didn't need gear from it, you were just killing mobs, that's it. You're killing mobs to get reputation. But I suppose that was fun in TPC, wasn't it? Killing the same mobs over and over again. How many times did everyone run Shadow Labyrinth For the reputation? How many times? Because I can tell you that wasn't fun.
Speaker 1:
I didn't enjoy doing that and I highly doubt a lot of people did Because it wasn't fun and people need to realise that TBC is baked in nostalgia as well. It's absolutely bonkers to me. I I don't understand it. But yeah, this one, I don't know. I, I really don't know.
Speaker 1:
I think there is a massive agenda when it comes to cataclysm and it being.
Speaker 1:
Oh my god, this is when everything turned shit in world of warcraft. No, it't, it never did turn shit after one expansion. The expansions bring different, various levels of shit. So Cataclysm like you don't have to like the world revamp, but some people might not like it. The quest might still be good, but some people might just like the older world better, which is fineets of draenor. People might not like the amount of content that they released, because they released none, but the content they did was really good. So there's different parts to expansions that people like and hate.
Speaker 1:
But you can't just say, oh yeah, this expansion is why it was shit like this is why, wow, shit, because there's one expansion, it ruined the entire franchise. It's ridiculous, it's absolutely ridiculous to say so and you need to get over yourselves if you think that. But that is where I will end it for this episode. Thank you all very much for listening. Do check out all of the socials down below constant stuff happening over there and check the top of the description, as you can leave your criticisms, your praises, your ideas for next podcast episodes there and I'll get on them as soon as possible. But thank you all very much once again and go avala, friend. Goodbye, all. Thank you.
