I should admit I was really proud of myself soloing Karazhan, so I decided to go further.

My first target was MC, where I spent about a year or so while on US server. The goal was to defeat Ragnaros (which seems doable), however you need to douse 7 runes (means kill 7 bosses in today’s WoW) and then to kill Majordomo who, actually, will summon final boss.

As another evidence of how easy WoW became nowadays I should remind you that initially each or runes should be doused by Aqual Quintessence that disappeared when you’ve done it. You could use for that Eternal Quintessence that didn’t disappear but this item required to be revered with Hydraxian Waterlords AND it had 1 hour CD. Reputation isn’t a big deal, but raid should be prepared so at least 8 raiders had to fly to Azshara, then did a looooong way to Duke Hydraxis, get this essence… and do it every week until they got revered with Waterlords…  Also Blizzard substantially decreased the number of trash mobs, especially so called “flame packs” that caused many wipes while raiding MC in vanilla WoW. I should say that I do not appreciate all these changes…

So I went in and that was like a sentimental journey – all my good memories about fun on US server came back…

If you want to try solo MC trash you need to know those ones very well. Even today, at lvl 80, things could go wrong and you still could die out of them.

I had this experience so I’ve reached the 1st boss - Lucifron - without any troubles and defeated him, no special tricks are needed.

The hardest part for the 2nd boss - Magmadar - was actually to kill each pack of core hounds since you have to kill all of them in like 10 sec. I found that the best way to do that is not to spread diseases but attack them one by one till their hp is around 2k and then spread it. Magmadar itself was also easy.

Since these 2 bosses went smoothly I thought I could easily clear the entire instance solo, but with Gehennas I hit the wall :(

The major trouble is its curse that reduces healing by 75%. Since my healing is not that efficient (rune tap is on CD and for death strike there should be diseases on target) I simple can’t heal thru that damage being cursed. I probably could use purification potion but it has 1 min CD and will not change the situation drastically.

OK, my plan failed but I was eager to continue, so I brought Dunmer’s shamy and dual-boxing this boss healing myself with his char until I kill this boss :)

I’ve continued solo thereafter. Garr, Baron Geddon and Shazzrah were defeated easily, no troubles at all, but with Sulfuron Harbinger I’ve reached the real end…

This boss is no way doable solo since you need to interrupt healing of his 4 adds practically at the same time while my DPS isn’t enough to down one of them or boss fast enough (they start healing itself when one add or boss is at 20% of HP)…

I didn’t try Golemagg the Incinerator since I can’t down Harbinger and I’ve finished MC at this point. 6 out of 10 bosses might be good but it is not what I wanted. But I’m trying to be realistic – due to some bosses mechanics I can’t do MC solo as lvl 80 DK.

I didn’t even try BWL – 1st boss mechanics requires a group of people.

But I tried 1st boss in AQ40. As a part of my 100 mount achievement I’ve spent some time in there grinding instance-specific mounts from trash at the entrance. Those mounts are counted towards M-o-M achievement. Interesting enough that I had no troubles dealing with packs of 4 Anubisath trash mobs that had to be tanked separately in vanilla WoW :).

A few attempts to defeat Prophet Skeram have shown that I can’t do it solo :( due to his mind control and substantial damage that I can’t efficiently heal. I should admit that AQ40 raiding was really hard in vanilla WoW even US guild had very good players (including myself … :)) that were full Tier 2 geared plus we had best loot from BWL and use all possible buffs/flasks/food. So it was not a surprise to me I can’t beat him solo…

Conclusion

I’m still playing WoW every day and can’t wait until Cataclysm comes out. I am inventing new goals for myself that keeps me playing and still like this game very much – it is more that 7 years of playing for me (beta-testing included).

Game has changed a lot after the release of vanilla WoW, that is this game destiny. It started to change a lot even during closed beta test long time ago in 2002 and will keep changing in the future – this way Blizzard keeps you in game.

Vanilla WoW changes and evolution were to satisfy a very narrow slice of gamers, the elitists ones. I was a part of them for some time on US server but, in the end, when raiding was brought to its extreme due to the game changes, it was no fun anymore.

TBC, for some extend, was the continuation of that (just recall attunement to Black Temple path) and (this is my guess) Blizzard was losing its customers rapidly. That is why WotLK undertook these enormous changes that made WoW much easier. Way too much I should say, but WoW, indeed, is commercial project, so it should be profitable. The most money comes from casual players, so be it. I only regret that there are none “almost undoable” things in today’s game, that really require very good skills and knowledge of the class, like vanilla WoW all solo class quests to get epic item (bow for hunter and staff for priest) and “insane difficulty” bosses to get fast paladin and warlock mounts (I’ve spent 5 hours on my US paly helping other paly to get it… and we failed first time).

I do understand that casual players want to get access to the game content, they do pay for playing too and deserve it. But seems like rareness of a recipe or enchanting formula (that drops from a mob and not on sale from NPC as it is today) or craftable gear that required almost unique mats from all corners of WoW universe (which you can’t buy for game gold or mats but need to grind yourself instead), were making original WoW spicy thus making it more fun to play…

WoW will keep changing, so I do expect Cataclysm to be a very new game with different mechanics and more fun. I only wish it will have a few really hard things to do for people like me, who likes to play it solo…

Thanks for reading and hope to see you in game soon.