My Thoughts on Blackwing Lair, Pugging, and Min/Max Culture

[@TipsOutBaby]

Do you think minmaxing is hurting the Classic experience?

[@VS666]

yeah, as soon as they announced classic i knew immediately modern gaming would basically ruin the experience (as in, not like how it truly was)

[@Riley-hc9et]

Min maxing is fine if you want to play that way but I don't like when it harms the experience for others. For example premade vs pug in battlegrounds or phase 2 flight path farming meta. Would be nice to see pug v pug and premade v premade soon.

[@SeaterIdle]

I think "The Classic experience" is very personal to each and every person. I think min-maxing can definitely hurt the experience for some, but also save it for others. I know a lot of people that really enjoy pushing parses and improving their individual performance every week, and the game would be far less exciting for those people if the min-maxing aspect of the game was removed. The raids are already trivial without you making it harder with some arbitrary restrictions, so min-maxing can give them another layer of progression, since the raids don't really give that. Really glad you're back to enjoying the game again though, and that you've found a way of playing that you enjoy.

[@PantzJr]

Just play off meta and it's fun. Min/maxing does work when you're already playing meta. You'll down the boss with anything and people need to remember that

[@ItSaHeAdEr]

i dont mind if it doesnt ruin the other players experience. I literally quit Classic during the wPvP zergfest on behalf of my own sanity.

[@tska8473]

Someone in world chat the other day said something that stuck in my mind, "I spend 5 hours a week to get buffs and consumables to clear MC in 35 minutes instead on 55 minutes." Lol

[@Frog89mad]

thats 20minutes off from 40 people :) but yeah ikr

[@clarkh3314]

@@Frog89mad 20min

[@aaaak4]

@@Frog89mad but only if they are all getting it and in that case noone is saving time.

[@tska8473]

He for sure was implying everyone in the raid doing it, cuz no way only one person buffing would have that much of an impact xD

[@robbytherob]

In the corporate world there are formulas that calculate manpower hours for certain functions in operations. A time savings of 20 minutes for 40 people in operations actually translates to 800 minutes or a whopping of 13 hours. Before some of you reply, I mean in the sense of completing a certain task. In this example the task is completing the raid. This is not to be confused with prepping for the raid, which is a separate task.

[@booshandorkakow64]

The endgame-centric, Min/Max, parse obsessed mentality has ruined the entire MMO genre.

[@M4Production]

Boom, what ever happened to game feel?

[@TomJakobW]

True, real joy was in leveling slowly, exploring the world, doing instances with other people, bonding with random people who enjoy the same game as you. And then super endgame raiding, but as in actually a challenge; wiping often, finding out mechanics etc. Now the joy is numbers and results - NUMBERS and RESULTS, imagine! It's like 20yr olds enjoying an office job at their home computer in their spare time.

[@veganbanditgames2625]

I think this mentality holds its place. Races to world first for end game content and competitive raiding is amazing, and wouldn't exist in the same way without the min/max mentality. But I agree that it's become expected even for casual players.

[@simplyrin210]

So true :/ and so sad

[@Lastninjaxoxoxoxox]

zoomer mentality. It's not their fault they were raised like this.

[@sosusavage04]

I think this is one of the most truthful/honest videos I’ve seen lately on wow. I am so thankful they found an awesome guild that does not require world buffs flasks heck I don’t even have Insurance on any of my on any of my gear and we still downed 5/7 bosses in the first attempt in BWL. And I can honestly say I’m having more fun on this game then I’ve had in years in fact since Skyrim came out for the first time.

[@Imchanman]

pugging = vanilla experience

[@TipsOutBaby]

The ironic part is pugging wasnt very popular till the end of Vanilla, and usually it was just Ony/MC. In today's Classic, pugging helps preserve the challenge of the game while encouraging new social interactions. Essentially, pugging is the Vanilla experience, but its also not lol

[@Imchanman]

@@TipsOutBaby I agree lol. I'd have to say I don't even remember "PUG" becoming common vernacular in WOW untill BC but even in a PUG players are better prepared than a good amount of the guilds in vanilla. But hey its as close as you can get lol. 11 hours in MC is a long time but its better than 6-7 days and still not clearing lol.

[@Kornn66]

When i started WoW in 2006 the first MC i went was in pug. Later we went there with guild group.

[@싸넬동지-7성담배]

We did pug, we just called it "arrangements between guilds"

[@akhsdenlew1861]

@@TipsOutBaby Pugging is not happening cus of the vanila experience.. it's happening so u can reserve ur loot and the mats for money. "LFM BWL, neltharion tear res ofc" Don't fool urself and us about pugging for the experience. You, payo, soda.. everyone pugged for only 1 reason.. to get the loot u want with 100% chance. What a vanila experience

[@lv100Alice]

me: midmaxing is stupid also me: rolls a human rogue in sword spec

[@KVPMD]

I don't think that is a problem per se. It is easpecially no problem if it just eases the choice of race + you just save the potion you don't need to compare anymore. IT's only a problem if you hate human and just picked "sword spec". If you use it only to still get every potion and buff but due to human you are 0.1% higher in DPS than that stupid dwarf rogues.

[@mattk38918]

Guild leaders hate him, find out how Tips has fun in classic with this ONE trick! Fully agree with you Tips. Glad you’re having fun again!

[@3dbadboy1]

Guild leaders HATE Tips??? Dafuq.

[@jslaughter95]

@@3dbadboy1 he's making a joke about those stupid click bait ads

[@IShallCallHimTaders]

Meanwhile a video he made 1 week ago *15 Tips to DESTROY Blackwing Lair Week 1 in Classic WoW!* You really think that still? haha

[@bjmw93]

It sounds like you're getting to a good place with the game now Tips, and I'm happy to hear it. I've been following you and the ClassicCast guys since you started that show. I thought it was so weird how in the build up to Classic, all these content creators were talking about how great Classic was for the exploration, RPG elements, and more "sandbox" style game, yet then when this game you guys had been waiting for finally came, you robbed yourselves of that Classic WoW experience with min-maxing and the whole dungeon AoE spam meta. And a lot of players have done the same. For my part, I took my time leveling, doing all the quests, exploring, reading quest logs, no pre-planned optimized route, and doing dungeons when I had quests for them or felt like it. I'm not on the bleeding edge of content or speed runs with flasks and world buffs, but I'm clearing MC and Ony every week, doing some PvP, and most importantly having fun with the game. Keep it up buddy!

[@Brickinasock]

Hey what's up Tips, it's guys.

[@hirumaredx]

While I 100% agree with this concept, I will say lots of people get mad when you tell them they ruin the game for themselves by min maxing. Mainly because there is a line to draw. People consider learning your basic rotation and stat priority as min maxing so its a pretty broad concept. But I enjoy to play games in gimmicky ways and its always been so much more fun imo.

[@Ryan_hey]

This was an excellent video, from start...to finish. I can see you're doing well and excited, it's great to hear and to learn.

[@averwill324]

It just takes time for casual people to realize that. If you're casual dont bother doing any minmax stuff at least until aq40 since the game is a joke. People that are used to playing private servers are not gonna get tired of getting world buffs and all consumables for any raid regardless of its difficulty because that is the way they always play and they enjoy it.

[@deckerfranks7098]

@@charlieosstyn But what if you find fun in the work to get to the point of trivializing it? Raiding for our guild is the everything from the prep through the kill. The drive to do it better week over week is where we find the most enjoyment. But given that the median age of our team is >32, I suppose that would put us as a little older than the millennial generation.

[@stormeeds8119]

Decker Franks agreed, this argument by OP assumes we don’t want to do it.. my Warrior has a decent set of gear, we killed Nef last night and I won’t get tired of worldbuffs. I wanna see how high my DPS can get - thats something I enjoy doing. At this same time its hard to listen to people tell me my style of gameplay is toxic or not fun when: a) noone is forcing players to get world buffs, find a guild on your level that don’t care. b) i’m about to hit my 4th 60, I can comfortably have 3 of them slamming through MC each week for gear but i’m only able to put them in guilds that can clear MC in under 1.5h

[@Nesbitt33]

Even just being in a real casual guild makes it great. Our raids are a party with everyone drinking, smoking and laughing the whole time. We had to pause right in the middle of a suppression room attempt because people wanted to grab beers right before pulling Broodlord. It's a new meme in the guild now

[@sanjayw9878]

Wow what realm and faction os that man that sounds amazing. Ive always wanted to toke with some fellow wowers

[@fredriksvard2603]

Alexander S i cringed

[@teamlabam]

Take the break before suppression room the mobs respawn lol

[@cjseelig8827]

Thank you! I've been saying this since day one. The streamer experience vs the normal player is vastly different. If you're min/maxing you're shorting yourself in the experience of classic.

[@cuttersan449]

I just pugged MC for my first time yesterday and it was the greatest also 5 epics drops for me. 😃

[@colerogers6816]

who logs out 5 days before a raid to conserve world buffs?

[@sanjayw9878]

Tons of people lol

[@Burlehmangus]

Seriously. Nobody does this. Multiple ony heads and wcb’s drop every day. Especially since you can reset rallying cry cooldown. And everything else takes 10 min to get lol. Dm buffs either have a hunter, a guild hunter, or buy for 5g. Felwood plants take a couple min.....you could get all buffs 2 hours pre raid lol....5 days. Again, just tips covering for his failed attempt and guild and raid leading.

[@FerrisZzZzZ]

Michael Clark You’re absolutely wrong, my entire guild does this. Right now we all logged out on Sunday morning with the Darkmoon Faire buff (10% damage) because the Faire is unavailable after 6am on Sunday. We won’t log back in to raid until Thursday night. A lot of people do this. We’re a top 30 worldwide guild (Fusion-Incendius). Some people enjoy playing like this and play alts while buff logged. Some people hate this style of play. But to say it isn’t happening is just flat out wrong.

[@user-wc3ez4kw4l]

@@FerrisZzZzZ I guess your guild really needs that 10% dmg amp pretty bad.

[@Burlehmangus]

MsnT exactly my thoughts....it’s fucking mc and bwl man. We’re not talkin naxx here

[@johnward4017]

I really like your viewpoint and priorities! Having fun and enjoying your time is definitely what matters most!

[@mtdewramen]

You have come over to the "fun" side and i commend you.

[@CondorWoW]

I just got my first level 40 mount and it was the most satisfying feeling I have had since starting classic.

[@RTfollower]

Loved this video! I never comment but felt compelled to after watching this vid and ur health scare one. Ur enthusiasm seems genuine and is contagious. Love this style of video. Take care and God bless

[@Fubaries]

I appreciate all the effort, definitely winning me over with this new mentality going on

[@Greg-bs5jw]

Most min max statement is "CLEAR COMMS"

[@fairweathertrains3029]

Got a lot of great points here mate nice one hope you’re getting better health wise. I was worried!

[@radaro.9682]

Hey, Tips, I was in a similar situation a few years and again months ago. I came back to Classic last week and NEEDED to hear this. Thanks.

[@nestorasbellas6604]

Still 47, 46, 32, 27, 22, 14 and 7 :P On my level 47 warrior got the boon of onyxia in stormwind by accident and kept auctioning, but had a lot of fun watching so many ppl, gathered in trade district's square to get it! Having my fun, for few hours a week, sometimes a bit more, sometimes taking 2-3 weeks of break (staying subbed while doing so no worries) and always having my fun! Glad to see you turning around towards more casual game style, and that you keep enjoying yourself online!

[@Kebobmeister]

funny! On your tweet there's a guy saying u should do MC and bwl with 25 man.. my guild is a 30 man raid guild, and we are having a BLAST ! it's really challenging to heal BWL with only 8 healers ! We are getting way more loot than any other guild roster wise. People are happy loot wise. We are having a blast clearing the content with less players. it was a massive challenge in BWL, but we beat it ! :D

[@Kittensinabox]

Your excitement is contagious. Been having a great time with classic, finally found a raiding guild that fits my weird work schedule and have stumbled into the funniest, friendliest group of gamers I've ever met. So glad you're finding the same thing

[@0mr0z0]

Was raid loging in classic (40 min queue for bg's, gold farming the same content 9999 times, throwing 9999 frost bolt)!! Guild was asking for world buffs/consumables/min-max/etc... Quit and whent back to retail. (8:20 is mainly the way i think) Having fun min/maxing in retail 8.3...i know it's not everyone's cup of tea but am liking it more then classic atm(more mechanics to follow in pve and pvp ranking) . gl hf all what ever version you playing

[@ZakalweDisenfranchised]

GOOD. GO BACK TO RETAIL

[@robertAnthonyColon]

@@ZakalweDisenfranchised shit come join us. Classic half way in the grave.

[@sebbe0611]

Really reminds me of the skyrim days, when i found out i could boost my enchanting, with alchemy, and boost my alchemy with enchanting etc.. ending up 1 shotting everything. Never have i killed a game so fast. Ofc its not the same scale as the minmax you can do in classic, but when a boss takes under 40 seconds, you often don't even meet the same fightmechanics, as the slow dps-raids does..

[@ulvfdfgtmk]

My first exposure to you has been in the Pilav video where he was mocking a lot of content creators for advocating for the classic experience and then only rushing through the game asap. He also showed clips of you getting mad at people while running MC and I thought "wow this man is horrible". Since then I´ve been recommended 3 of your videos by the youtube algorythm and I have enjoyed them thoroughly. They are interesting, entertaining and honest and I love it! This has to be one of the biggest 180 turns I have seem, BIG props to you man!

[@mikeekim007007]

My guild just acquired a new mage. He was in a hardcore guild that required full buffs, consumables, and flasks every single raid. He decided he wanted to actually have fun, and we had a great raid last night. We're serious about the game but we have a good time while doing it.

[@Rohirn]

Thanks for this video I've been debating coming back just for classic and the min/ max culture has been a big thing that been keeping me from pulling the trigger

[@gbaeck]

I was minmaxing on my priest very hard, we even did Rangnaros on day 6. I was really obsessed with World buffs and getting gear to have the most plus heal anyone could imagine. And it was fun fr some time, but it also but me physically and emotionally under enormous stress. So i decided to switch server and roll a meme spec, it has been fun and relaxing so far.

[@JDmix123]

I just have to say, I think you reaching out trying “different” things in the WoW community is super healthy for WoW Classic. Much love from someone that doesn’t play any more but is thinking of coming back! Great video Tips!

[@VirusVanquisher]

YES! You get it! So good to hear you say this. I just think it is sad when so many are discrediting the wonderful experience of WoW Classic just because min/max guilds are full clearing in under an hour day one. Most players are still having an awesome time and having their fair share of wipes. You just can't beat raiding with 39 other people while laughing, teasing....and getting frustrated with each other. I myself am having a wonderful time in classic!

[@dbrtomusa]

After watching the ClassicCast with you, Esfand, and Staysafe... I am happy that you got a chance to say this. ClassicCast video that had 95% complaints about Classic metas, minmaxing, etc. kind a bummed me out. I have your exact experience. I go into raids with minimal consumes, stay alive, do no minmaxing, have a regular mount still, some of my gear is enchanted (have a ton of mats to get it done, just haven't bothered), and guild seems to think I'm top hunter.. It's all about how you play your character. Play the way that is fun to you. Minmaxing etc. is just not fun to me. Never was. I just enjoy doing random events here and there in the game. I didn't rush into AV the first week to get exalted. It's been wayyyy more fun to play AV the past month (horde side, thank god for the Blizz fix) and slowly get my Exalted. Earning it. WORST thing in this game is the excessive amount of botting and cheating that is going on. At any one point there is a new HWL or GM due to just botting AVs all day and no1 kicking them because it would hurt the next person. Bothers me beyond anything that Blizzard chooses to do nothing about this.

[@1MoreTurn]

Rest of my guild gets world buffs. I come in with no world buffs, no flasks. Top healing charts. Walk away with rejuv gem from the loot council. Didnt get world buffs bcuz r10 grind. Will be r10 on tues. - a paladin World buffs not needed, but if you parsing, then ya, you do you bruh. Hope you get the best parses.

[@KalispellBarbell]

In vanilla I grinded rank 13 and went all out in pvp. As a feral Druid I made a name for myself and it was super memorable. This time I’m going more into the raid scene as a balance Druid.... and to perform I need to min max to compete and push the spec to the limit. It’s actually been really fun and already kinda turning heads as “hey that’s the top moonkin”

[@ysj1012]

Subscribed after this vid. I had a similar experience recently being vocally angry at another raid member for joining the BWL raid with green items only, and the few criticism I received was truly a wake up call for me. The game is easy but still very enjoyable and I'm glad that you mentioned it through this video and that you are feeling better!

[@blech71]

Badass vid man! What a way to take the pressure off and enjoy the experience all over again.

[@oswaldmensin5283]

I partially agree. Part of the problem is the game is not new. Newness has a way of making everyone in the game be on an even ground and explore together. a game that has been charted, graphed, mathematically proven to an exact point min/maxed to the max is going to get much more dull than the new game is. So it can't ever be as it totally was in a new game, but, I absolutely agree with having fun and playing around with things. playing around makes the game a blast again. Exploring just to explore or to reminisce about old times even can be fun. If you cant resist the minmax urge, another way of fun is to minmax pointless things... for example recently was having fun dpsing as a paladin using every single thing I could find and think of and top the dps charts in our 5mans as a pally. its funny because some people may start to think that class is actually viable as a dps leader and when they ask you about it, you can say no lol ... im doing it for fun, but if you want the best of the best this isn't it, its smoke and mirrors.

[@tomasnovellino5980]

I totally agree. Most of the guilds running for 1st clear, they were practicing in PS... why? That's not fun. But to be fair, each person chooses their way to enjoy. But rushing to clear content comes with lots of down time until next content comes.. or going to play the upcoming game in other places. Good luck on your upcoming tests

[@lukeyl1277]

Tips speaks my experience, thanks for exposing this...finally :) xo Just a game, its great

[@GamesVonJames]

Prayers up that your health stays well. Really enjoy your content and love seeing it

[@apiphobixl8228]

I think any raid is pugable, if people know the mechanics and how to pop certain abilities. It's the gear drops that can cause issues, although that can be a problem for guild runs too

[@cheerwell]

i myself tend towards minmaxing. i have no ill feelings towards those in guilds which don't. what i can't stand is the smug casual who insists that their fun is more valid than the hardcore players. everyone in my guild has an absolute blast clearing content as fast and cleanly as we can. it's not "boring". some people would prefer to spend 3 hours casually romping through raids and gradually progressing through new content, and that's fine, but i'm sick of hearing on reddit etc that my fun is less valid than theirs.

[@sheeshmate597]

Nah, its just people want to be able to play ret, ele, feral, etc without being called shit and gets kicked out of guilds/groups because its not "optimal". Meanwhile I would 100% take the feral or ele that puts in the extra work to enjoy what they play rather than an elitist resto sham who pushes chain heal 400 times during the raid because its the most "optimal" thing to be doing.

[@shadowlife15]

All of this blows my mind. I play both classic and retail, and on retail, we raid Mythic 3 nights a week for 3 hours at a time. In those segments, we might down 1 boss progression, or clear the raid on heroic. One. Boss. Now sometimes we do well and kill more than one on progression, but those are usually the easier fights. This being said, I see that players want to cut their raid times down to a half an hour?!?!? If you didn't do any of the prep: no world bosses, no farming for consumables, no min maxing.... how long would the raid take? One hour, two??? In the time it took my guild to possibly down a single boss in the highest difficulty of retail you blew up the entire raid in classic. Would it really bother people that much to take their time? I guarantee that every raid is puggable, even naxx. It would take time, weeks even. But it is certainly possible. How do I know this? because in B.F.A. right now pugs are already downing heroic N'Zoth. Heroic boss in retail have loads more mechanics to think about and manage with rando's in the pug than classic bosses do, and if retail babies can do it, so can hardcore classic chadgods. As Tips said, take your time and enjoy the game. There is no reason to speedrun the endgame when it has so much inherent value. Also as a sidenote, thank you tips for the health updates. You have been a great inspiration for me to start taking care of my body. Im glad to see you are recovering and having fun with classic! The game is just so wonderous.

[@zipzzo]

Naxx will 100% not be puggable, if only because of the barrier for entry in the attunement.

[@jamesgatto5758]

I've got a lot of respect for you Tips! I'm glad you took a stance. Obviously it's reflective of what you were observing in yourself and the game. When my guild spent two months wiping on The four horsemen back in 2006 we only considered world buffs towards the end as something to push us over the edge. I think we should go back to flasks and elixirs, and maybe a Dragonslayer...

[@OlJimbo]

really fun wiping on eggs for 4 hours.

[@WeallAreAdults]

wait what ? XD

[@surebud1765]

Eggs are EZ

[@mikek3638]

@Jacob Grislebottom Same. 2 group strat ftw.

[@Koshea69]

Had a blast getting full world buffs and chasing fastest bel clear speed we could. But we don't do that every week. We have one group that provides people the option of DM buffs before raid but that's not required for the normal guild runs. couldn't imagine going balls to the wall every week but I couldn't imagine going full on the other way and plugging every week either. In a guild where the only thing required is to show up and do your job you still get a feeling of your guild progressing when clear times go from 2 hours to 1:30. And I'm enjoying the he'll out of Wow doing it that way.

[@Bubbub420]

My guild wiped on vael for about an hour and a half. We had a blast doing so! This games about having fun with friends not zerging to the finish line. Great perspective tip.

[@Gogmosis]

First off glad to hear you are donig better Tips. Also, glad to see someone advocating playing Classic more like we did 15 years ago. That said, any thoughts on the state of addons in Classic? They seem to be much more sophisticated than they were in 2005 and seem to me to be trivializing content more than people care to mention.

[@Acidblood83]

Couldn't agree more. I'm not sure why anyone would think a 15-year-old game should cater to streamers and speed-runners who know the game backwards and have been practising on private servers for years. I'm in a casual guild, we raid 5 hours a week over two nights, it takes us about 2 hours to clear MC and we only got one boss down in BWL last night, but I look forward to it every week and I can't wait to get back in there.

[@declanharris3763]

The reason my guild is min/maxy is because everyone is basically an adult now and doesnt have time to play like they used to. By getting full world buffs and consumes on monday casually, we are able to clear MC/BWL/ONY in around 2/3 hours for all three on tuesday and not have to spend 3 days progressing.

[@declanharris3763]

And although it may be trivializing the current raiding content, from what ive been hearing about AQ and Naxx, to be able to clear we probably need these min max practices so its just good habits to develop now as a group and weed out the people who arent willing to put out the effort when the time comes

[@generositygamer7971]

I think it depends on how you enjoy the game. If it's fun for you to min-max, by all means go for it and have a blast. But, if it's not, just do what you enjoy. Min-maxing is not an issue, doing it when you don't enjoy it is.

[@Naomi_Boyd]

I have a feeling that min/max culture is about to kill my guild. They are already discussing which race should receive which weapon and who should be the first hunter to get the 8 piece bonus. I have enough irl XP to know that this is how guilds die, but my objections are being ignored because the guild officers have "already discussed it". >.

[@Nivhilism]

I think you can easily get the best of both worlds. I've got 3 level 60's. I minmax in my main raids and I run organized weekly pugs outside of that on my alt. The alt raids are definitely more memorable, because in a group/guild where everyone is experienced, min-maxing and world buffed to the tee, you expect one thing. There are no surprises but disappointing mistakes. But in a pug you meet new people, there is always some uncertainty to how smooth the runs are and that is where Classic really shines for me. Because pugging is so much more community minded. I've played WoW and other games with my guild, a community which goes way beyond World of Warcraft, for over 10 years, but pugging Classic is just that bit more exciting and you meet new players every week.

[@not_vern]

This is great! This is the positive outlook we needed! Not everyone needs to be hardcore speed runners. Sometimes just chillin and playing the game can be fun too!

[@berniemargolis4288]

7:04 - I've been saying this since Cataclysm when so many were complaining about the introduction of LFR. Why did we have to add LFR? Well, because Cataclysm was originally designed around min-maxing being a requirement as opposed to an option. That's why talent trees were scrapped. Instead of being forced to spec into a min-max build, you were handed one, so all that was left to min-max were the rotations and cooldowns. Still, many players complained that the heroic raids of the time were easy enough and needed no nerfing. The observation I made back then was the same as Tips made now. If you're doing everything in your power to trivialize the content, then don't complain that content is trivial. Besides, when you're excluding perfectly nice players who don't want to min-max from group content, then eventually the only people left in the game are tryhard fanatics who treat raiding like a full time job. This, in my opinion, is what destroyed the game. There are now two options: 1. Run LFR as a solo player (because no one wants to bother forming guilds to run content that rewards subpar gear) 2. Min-max your way through brutally punishing content 8:08 - I don't think this has been good for the game, either. Prior to Cataclysm, brutally punishing content existed, but it rewarded cool unique items like special mounts or pets. In Cataclysm, brutally punishing content became the sole means of acquiring high end gear. Instead of rapid gear acquisition being a reward for high end raiding, the lack of any gear acquisition became the punishment for not raiding. I don't have to wonder why subs suddenly spiked with Classic's release. Obviously it's because players once again feel that they can acquire the best gear in the game without having to dedicate their lives to min-maxing their way through raids. Sorry for the wall of text, but there is just one more thought I'd like to close with. I can't blame players for min-maxing their way through Classic because the last nine years of Retail have trained them to do that. Classic is a reminder that the game was at its most successful when it was inclusive.

[@stevebarrett9357]

I remember pugging dungeons back in Wrath. When I started, people were helpful, making suggestions and allowing folks to have gear that they needed more than the others. If we wiped, we'd pause to consider what happened and try again. By Cata this attitude began to change and the people I ran into were more self-centered, self-serving and even rude. The last time I raided, the raid-boss insisted everyone have the addon, Deadly Boss Mods, so the computer could tell them what to do and when to do it, and I thought to myself 'where's the fun in that?'. At some point, I realized I was becoming as self-centered, self-serving and rude as the others and backed away from pugs. I haven't raided yet in classic but have done pug and guild dungeon runs and they were a hoot, very much what I fondly remember back in the day. I plan to give raids a go with my guildies when I get my toons up to 60. Yes, it's been 5.5+ months since classic came out and I still don't have a level 60. I'm having a blast exploring different classes, discovering quests I never knew, and taking part in the vanilla storyline (and that's just the Alliance side). I admit I don't understand the people who hurried as fast as they could to level 60 since a lot of the end game content has yet to be released. It seemed to me they'd get bored and leave, and I expect a number of them did. Still as you say, each to his/her own. I like your videos and thoughts on the game. Trusting you and yours are (and will remain) well and in good spirits, I wish you a great day.

[@rogero8443]

shit yeah, this is def what I wanted when I first saw that Vanilla was returning. When things got min maxed, I stopped playing. This makes me want to go back.

[@antoniobellu7884]

Totally agree I'm having a blast with out min maxed

[@chainclaw07]

The difficulty is kind of like darksouls, hear me out. It's really hard unless you know about weapon upgrading and where to find mats for it. If you know a weapon scales with a certain stat you can min max to get the most out of it. Then the balance of the game shifts to easy while your first play through is gonna hurt as hell. People love dark souls, it's not a bad game and classic isn't either. The only bad thing about minmaxing is that those players form cliques and won't play with people that don't. And have this negative social experience. That's a bad thing

[@jayb8940]

This. You nailed it.

[@shadowlife15]

This is why challenge runs in darksouls are so fun to play/watch.

[@Qstorm88]

excellent point!

[@robertAnthonyColon]

Wasn't dark souls beaten with a broken sword?

[@chainclaw07]

@@robertAnthonyColon it can be beaten several ways. With a broken weapon you can use buffs to make it viable. At soul lvl 1 you can do pyromancy since that is a separate progression. But I mean some people might even go for doing 2 dmg per hit on boss and it takes them 300 hours to complete the game, they just dodge all attacks

[@hostileaks4495]

I said this to my guild. I missed a couple raids and had to run some pugs. And my guild is saying how easy mc is and blah blah. And i said "you guys have to pug mc to get the real classic experience". Im glad someone agreed. Its more rewarding seeing people get excited for beating a boss rather than bitch that mageblade didnt drop. Good times.

[@chasz3776]

I think my guild has a pretty good balance of min-max/goofiness that keeps things going smoothly but still fun. We did min-max our first BWL run last week really just to gauge how difficult it was in Classic so we could determine if we could run two raids a week there or not... I think, even though we cleared it in 3hrs with only one wipe on Flamegor, we have decided we aren't ready to run two raids there yet. Got my Dragonstalker Shoulders tho!... Hate the T1 looks with a passion.

[@daketh4572]

I’m back in retail but I loved classic and I like the passion people have in classic

[@matthewharper6900]

If your tank isnt defense capped stacking block% and HP5 and your mages arent stacking ungodly amounts of intellect, you're still playing the game on easy mode

[@neobahumuth6]

TBH I feel that this video message applies more than just vanilla

[@Nisei710]

CLEAR COMMS

[@Antholography]

5:58 Thank you so much Tips for putting this feeling that I have had nagging in the back of my head but haven't been able to explain. You totally shifted my view on Classic - and although it might not be easy to just make that shift; I think this is probably the healthiest mindset possbile.

[@kenhinzman609]

I've always thought that playing games should be fun. /shrug I'm having a blast!

[@BSwitchGTG]

Super glad you’re having fun dude! As a boomer dad, don’t have a ton of time to play, so for me having a blast clearing with my guild. Cleared BWL night 1, and if all goes well that’ll be the way - BWL night 1, MC/Ony night 2. We’re casual, but tryhard and plan. Buffs aren’t required, consumes aren’t required. Things are recommended, but fun and effort are our goals. So far, this has been perfect for me. Hoping the AQ/Naxx pump won’t be so difficult we need to evolve more hardcore, because yeah - we’re not min/max, but we all try to do the best with what we have, and this casual focused progression is just the best.

[@roblogan6300]

I've been in a pugger raid for months. Doing mc, and now doing bwl, 3 hours only had nef left but ran out of time. Alot of the same people from mc pug. But, still a pug. So much fun.!!

[@druidraven]

I totally agree with you Tips thanks for giving us that sort help to understand whats the important aspect of the game

[@Frog89mad]

I remember you guys asking the Classic devs i think during the ClassiCast show if there was a possibility to release C'thun in it's pre nerf state. They answered just do it without buffs or something those lines. Wink Wink ;)

[@mikaelsvensson2700]

You rock man im some years older then you but i totally feel you. In pretty much everything. From taking care of my body and I'm also struggling not getting sucked into this new videogamers era that I totally not like. Piece out from Sweden!

[@gillisorneborg6180]

Spending a few hours of my own leisure time to gather consumes and buffs each week is not a problem for me. Having to spend 5+ hours every raid night would be a problem as I simply can't allocated such an amount of time on a consistent schedule. Getting buffs and consumes is not about reducing your personal game time, it's about reducing the time during which 40 people are required on the same schedule. It's also a lot of fun, at least as a warr since I scale so insanely good with the buffs.

[@TheDJPurple]

To answer your question at the end, I get excited everyday actually. Maybe its because of how limited my game time is. (2 hours of game play a day on normal and 3 hours when I'm raiding).

[@benwhittle9001]

I love this new style of video, I feel like we're all at the pub with Tips and hes our best mate looking out for us. 100% best video on youtube.

[@Kinson09]

Tips I think you’re onto something. I’m level 29 after re-rolling on a 2nd toon and really enjoying leveling. Did the hardcore raiding thing in vanilla and I know I’m not missing out there.

[@marckbashaw2792]

You’ve just explained gamer mentality in a nutshell lol. It’s not just content creators, even semi hard core guilds are doing this

[@Greshah]

leveling my druid in westfal while watching this

[@Racer818]

Great points! Thanks for the reminder on how to keep Classic fun!!! Frankly i was getting super bummed out by all the people that crushed BWL in under an hour and then saying Classic sucks. They are the ones that suck, not Classic!

[@halbourneutube]

Love the analysis. Alts are where I spend my time. Your main's in-guild raiding situation sounds familiar for many people that watch your videos. I have felt the same way for a while, which is why I think so many people I have fun on alts. I think that your take on a hard core raiding culture or min/max mindsets make the game as fun as you describe it. I've talked to many people who don't bother to log onto their raiding toons unless they have to, but do you think that speaks to the guild culture more than the game?

[@Ghalion666]

Im in a "casual" raiding guild that does not require said world buffs for raiding. We also have a feral drood and thunder chicken in our raiding roster, and we don't demand consistent attendance... so yeah its fun. Other guilds look down on us sometimes but I actually feel sorry for them =p

[@s0515033]

Your video makes a great point: people make the game boring and easy by either doing the easiest possible thing or trying to trivialize it. Then they complain the game is easy. The same, however, applies to retail. People claim retail is easy and boring, but they make it that way. Lots of people only do the easiest content. It's an unfair statement, since retail is full of challenging content people CHOOSE not to do so they can complain. BWL was cleared in 42 min, but people claim retail is too easy. Classic ultimately is not the same as vanilla because people are approaching it from a mindset with future knowledge. People were uninformed, bad with shitty computers. That is why it felt so much harder in vanilla. My friends treat classic just as you said: logging in camping world bosses and buffs so they can faceroll the content.

[@XXHattoriHanzoXX]

Fantastic video bro. Good to see you getting your health on track.

[@thieuthieu]

Imagine how much fun you have min/maxing a Pokemon game. It's just not made to be super enjoyable with you min/max them. But they're some of the most enjoyable games when you just play it, no guides, no rules, especially first time through.

[@juvygenius]

I do, within reason, enjoy min/maxing in Vanilla. Obviously it doesn't have to be done, but it has more to do with what goal I want to achieve with Classic. That is to clear AQ40 and Naxx in Classic WoW. The application of min/max currently is to assure that you are making the best use of available time to be ready for that content. I can admit, it probably would be more fun to not min/max. It is just that I am putting in the effort to meet that goal. Just as well, I can look forward to Phase 4 introducing more world bosses and ZG which is going to exponentially make the game feel more alive. Unless you are a true hardcore guild with all the time in the world, you can't really plan to min/max ZG as a guild. Scheduling for it is a nightmare alone which means pugging is far more open and without needing to get world buffs for it.

[@vivianmendespaioli7740]

Well, would be Nice to be playing without flasks or consumables in general, to bring things to the Edge. But, that can bring some problems with loot

[@1312noel]

The Problem with min/maxing is that even if you play good groups will not invite you because of retail mentality so that makes the game not fun for me.

[@tylerm6080]

Also i highly doubt anyone is raid logging for more than a day or two. Doesnt take 5 days to get fully world buffed. And any realm thats even slightly populated by high performers has timers on buffs and discords that track world buffs.

[@MrManafon]

Yeah, Madseason taught me that from the very release. Good catch dude!

[@bikespj22]

He's the only youtuber that was doing it right from day 1

[@jacobbruch7854]

Or you could run mc with what ever buffs you could get right before and have fun

[@violetbliss4399]

In so many games the kind of "min/max - game is easy" mentality is really prevalent, I think it's just become a thing of the times. You actually see people say that raiding in retail WoW is easy, and you know that whoever said that is not playing the hard content, just basing that from a different experience in the game (be it lfr, normal, etc) that indeed isn't hard for them. I'm going to go against the message just a little bit, and saying that while I largely agree, vanilla wow does have more limited content, so with time it's easier to hit a content ceiling. But it thusly becomes even more obvious when you actually do rush through.

[@blacklabelz9]

I made a similar change a while back and made a totally new character just for fun. The game instantly became way more engaging when i stopped trying to get the best of everything and just grind nonstop until i get that one piece.

[@swarles354]

Pugging can be really frustrating when it comes to loot. You know that every week you'll raid with different people resulting in new people needing stuff that you need to (especially with a popular class). When you raid with the same guild mates every week, you know that eventually everyone of you gets his loot. In a pug that's a different story. Every week there's a new one that needs the same stuff as you and when you are really unlucky with your rolls you can go a really long time with almost no new gear which can feel really unrewarding. Other than that casual raiding is definitely the way to go. My guild's main goal is clearing content and having a blast while doing so. Having a laugh on discord each week with the lads while corpse running to chromaggus the 5th time because of that damn time lapse is definitely more fun than farming hours for flasks each week.

[@itsmejf4242]

Like it or not, TIPS helped create a part of the HYPE for classic. And I hope this video helps save all lost souls in how they should play. gl and HF ... For the love of god HAVE FUN.

[@Cynyr]

on the min/maxing, i think there is a gradient. yes, it's stupid to spend hours getting world buffs every week to take 20 minutes out of an MC clear. On the other hand, ,yes, i've looked up the best specs and gear, but I'm not usually even eating squid, or drinking elixirs, and can get 70-80% parses in MC/Ony. We are doing safe strats on Shazz, and luci. I'm looking forward to raid every week. That said there isn't much to do in classic if you already have raid gear, though i do like doing 5 mans if guildies need/want something.

[@clv603]

Min-maxing is fine if your aim is to play with other players that enjoy that play style. It becomes beyond toxic and annoying when small groups of members in casual guilds think they are power gamers and let _everyone_ know about it. But on the contrary, speed runs are some of the most fun I've ever had playing the game. And while I happen to be a member of a guild that is well-within the top 10 world's fastest MC speed run clears, we all are well-aware that we are min-maxing the absolute shit out of a casual game... but we're competitive and we've found a way to scratch that itch. To each their own :)