World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

...now let me dial that back.

Every World of Warcraft expansion has come in terms of a delicate balance between arbitrary difficulty - long walks across Silverpine Forest, getting mauled by roaming Fel Reavers, the impossibly high cost of a level 40 mount in Vanilla (I got mine at level 56) - and the removal of game content for ease of use.

I will hold that Wrath was the expansion when World of Warcraft had its most rewarding challenges, its most convincing competitive experiences, its most vivid differentiation between classes (coming from someone with a Ret Paladin and an Arms Warrior), all experienced by a community of 10 million that had no idea where the game might head next. Anyone could reach level 80. I made it to ICC10 when I was 13 years old.

And I'd argue that the experiential end of Wrath was also stronger than ever before or ever again in WoW. Arms Warriors played like 3 different specs jammed into one body with cooldowns to respond to anyone; Frost Mages were untouchable by melee classes but couldn't put out a fraction of the damage an unchecked Destruction Warlock would; Retribution Paladins and Enhancement Shaman and Frost Death Knights and Assassination Rogues all had an amazing tactile feeling to every spell and a unique, peculiar gameplay (okay, maybe not the first two) that left 3v3 arena a bewildering dance between players that would struggle to understand the combat language of every opponent. You'd actually feel threatened by the animation of Ret Paladin's wings going up. Arms Warriors could respond to an unskilled Rogue by switching into Defensive Stance and using Shield Block to convert every single hit into another thousand-damage Revenge and I'd actually start laughing when the Rogue wasn't smart enough to stop fighting.

That shit was awesome.

Cataclysm began the trend of Diablo-ifying WoW specs into 3-button rotations and empty action bars. Swifty's youtube videos turned into a mess of Razor keyboard ads and brofists. But hey, you never know what you had until it's gone.

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...now let me dial that back.

Every World of Warcraft expansion has come in terms of a delicate balance between arbitrary difficulty - long walks across Silverpine Forest, getting mauled by roaming Fel Reavers, the impossibly high cost of a level 40 mount in Vanilla (I got mine at level 56) - and the removal of game content for ease of use.

I will hold that Wrath was the expansion when World of Warcraft had its most rewarding challenges, its most convincing competitive experiences, its most vivid differentiation between classes (coming from someone with a Ret Paladin and an Arms Warrior), all experienced by a community of 10 million that had no idea where the game might head next. Anyone could reach level 80. I made it to ICC10 when I was 13 years old.

And I'd argue that the experiential end of Wrath was also stronger than ever before or ever again in WoW. Arms Warriors played like 3 different specs jammed into one body with cooldowns to respond to [i]anyone[/i]; Frost Mages were untouchable by melee classes but couldn't put out a fraction of the damage an unchecked Destruction Warlock would; Retribution Paladins and Enhancement Shaman and Frost Death Knights and Assassination Rogues all had an amazing tactile feeling to every spell and a unique, peculiar gameplay (okay, maybe not the first two) that left 3v3 arena a bewildering dance between players that would struggle to understand the combat language of every opponent. You'd actually feel threatened by the animation of Ret Paladin's wings going up. Arms Warriors could respond to an unskilled Rogue by switching into Defensive Stance and using Shield Block to convert every single hit into another thousand-damage Revenge and I'd actually start laughing when the Rogue wasn't smart enough to stop fighting.

That shit was awesome.

Cataclysm began the trend of Diablo-ifying WoW specs into 3-button rotations and empty action bars. Swifty's youtube videos turned into a mess of Razor keyboard ads and brofists. But hey, you never know what you had until it's gone.

undskylde 2017-11-12T00:47:30Z

2017-11-12T00:47:30Z

5.0

In collection Want to buy Used to own

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Filter by: All 300 Owned 154 Rated 272 Wanted 6

MayaVampaya World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King 2023-02-05T20:15:58Z

Windows / Mac • XNA

2023-02-05T20:15:58Z

4.5

In collection Want to buy Used to own

roemanlaporte World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King 2023-01-19T16:22:56Z

2023-01-19T16:22:56Z

4.5

In collection Want to buy Used to own

Edder World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King 2023-01-18T20:57:58Z

2023-01-18T20:57:58Z

4.0

In collection Want to buy Used to own

ariyorke World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King 2023-01-18T15:30:21Z

2023-01-18T15:30:21Z

In collection Want to buy Used to own

devino2002x2 World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King 2023-01-11T22:59:39Z

2023-01-11T22:59:39Z

5.0

In collection Want to buy Used to own

TiraRemy World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King 2023-01-07T18:07:59Z

2023-01-07T18:07:59Z

4.0

In collection Want to buy Used to own

iamrw World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King 2023-01-06T13:30:12Z

2023-01-06T13:30:12Z

3.5

In collection Want to buy Used to own

Daelok World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King 2023-01-05T23:58:57Z

2023-01-05T23:58:57Z

5.0

In collection Want to buy Used to own

LedriTheThane World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King 2022-12-30T19:09:24Z

2022-12-30T19:09:24Z

4.0

In collection Want to buy Used to own

ColdVein World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King 2022-12-29T23:10:37Z

Windows / Mac • XNA

2022-12-29T23:10:37Z

3.5

In collection Want to buy Used to own

vroum World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King 2022-12-10T22:09:31Z

2022-12-10T22:09:31Z

4.5

In collection Want to buy Used to own

hoppsan World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King 2022-12-09T12:23:13Z

2022-12-09T12:23:13Z

5.0

In collection Want to buy Used to own

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Content rating

ESRB: T

Expansion of

World of Warcraft

Media

1x DVD

Multiplayer modes

Cooperative , Deathmatch / FFA, Team play

Multiplayer options

Online

Franchises

Warcraft

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Aurochz 2023-01-13 02:36:20.784771+00
Other than it being the conclusion of the Lich King's story, I have never liked this expansion. I think it had the worst most streamlined dungeons and the ones that weren't were dogshit like TotC and arguably the worst dungeon of all time The Oculus.
The first raid tier was a rehash, and Ulduar might be the most overrated thing having to do with this game in its entire existence. I don't think it was a terrible raid by any means, but the presentation was just lackluster gigantic rooms filled with nothing, old god stories are boring, and 95% of the player base didn't complete the hard modes pre-nerf that people think makes this the pinnacle of early WoW raiding. In my haughty and arrogant opinion, it is a middle-of-the-pack raid in the game's overall history.

PVP was ruined by DK's for the entire expansion and I know that because I have mained a Blood DK since day one. Which means I'm a canonical veteran of the Third War and hence better than you. This is the one major plus of the expansion in that it debuted the Fisher Price young player piano class for all to mash. I was finally able to get solid 4th on the damage meters when this class was gifted to me.

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