the raids in WoW Classic can go to Blackwing Lair for the first time to challenge Nefarian and his brood there. Within the buffed editorial team, Karsten in particular is looking forward to this appointment like a small child to Christmas, after all he associates some memorable moments with business administration. Join him on a nostalgic journey back to 2005.

I already told you in November why I think the return to Blackwing Lair will be really cool : we can expect some iconic boss fights, some with unique mechanics, the loot is phenomenal , and Classic finally offers the opportunity to build the legendary Thunderfury sword . For me personally, the visit to BWL will also be a nostalgic trip back to 2005. It’s actually a pity (and good at the same time, but more on that later) that all the players who missed vanilla WoW back then never saw Blackwing Lair like that will get to know as we experienced him from the first hour.

The Classic version, which will be online on February 13th at 12:01 am, can only scratch the surface and reflect a distorted image of the original (e.g. in terms of difficulty). And because that’s the case, in this article I would like to bring you closer to what it was like almost 15 years ago to visit Blackwing Lair for the first time.

Hard-fought progress from room 1 onwards
Patch 1.6 was released on July 12, 2005 and brought a raid challenge with the Blackwing Lair, which should make all raid groups in Azeroth much more demanding than the Molten Core with Ragnaros and Co. had done until then. A painful surprise awaited the players right at the start: there was no trash or an easy entry-level boss to warm up to. Instead, with Razorgore and Vaelastrasz, two bouncers welcomed all guilds that were crisper than the final boss in MC. “Vael” in particular should earn the reputation of the “Guild Breaker” in the coming weeks, killing entire guilds.

“Crisp” is of course to be seen in the context of its time. In many cases, the raid experience of many players was based solely on what WoW (buy now) had to offer to date. In addition, although tactics quickly got around to the business administration bosses, sophisticated guides and videos – as they are a dime a dozen today – were scarce at the time. In addition, you could only “try” Vael for an hour at the beginning, after which the dragon disappeared until the start of the next ID. It was similar with end boss Nefarian: As soon as you mastered the add phase, access to the balcony was closed for the rest of the week. A wipe afterwards and the wait began (Note: By the way, here we probably have the only mechanics that were changed in BWL before patch 1.12, apart from the bug fixing. So neither will be the case in Classic). No wonder it was to take 77 days for Nefarian’s world first kill.

At the time, my guild only used a few of the tricks known today for progress in business administration, with which certain boss mechanics can be easily overridden. We headed to UBRS before Vaelastrasz to get the fire resistance buff there. Likewise, we later used the Holy Water of Stratholme on Nefarian to bomb away the undead as quickly as possible. I don’t remember, for example, throwing free action potions on Razogore, regeneration potions on Chromaggus, or invulnerability potions when needed…

At that time, however, knowledge about one’s own class was not as pronounced as it is today. For example, a lot of playstyles bet on their animal sets without hesitation, after all the items were epic and from Molten Core and therefore inevitably great. I myself was only “lucky” here because the animal sets from vanilla WoW were good to use for villains across the board. Knowing what I know now, I probably wouldn’t have ignored the Old Hidehide Gloves for my dagger wielder… I also remember quite well that some of our tanks at Nefarian couldn’t do the stance dance. This included the targeted switch to berserker stance plus the subsequent activation of berserker ragenecessary to safely counter Nefarian’s fear effect. Wasn’t absolutely necessary beforehand, so private lessons had to get the tanks on track

The fact that we were stuck forever, especially with Vaelastrasz, was not just due to all the points mentioned so far. Another reason was the internet. I remember well that we were struggling with 21,000+ latency on many attempts, and actually four or more players were consistently kicked out of the game after the pull. And that with a boss like Vael, where quick reactions are required, for example to get tank changes with pinpoint accuracy or to move a character that is about to explode away from the group. Remarkable: For some reason the internet problems in the other rooms of the after-school care center were never that bad.

I can’t remember how long it took before we finally had business administration on farm status. I can still hear the jubilation in the TS after Nefarian’s first kill. And what I remember exactly: We were extremely proud of the kill, also because only a few other players on our server had previously managed this feat. Of course, when we first placed Nefarian’s head in Orgrimmar, the whole guild was there. But also many other players on the server who congratulated us and celebrated with us.

waiting times from hell

The long explanatory and allocation phase at Razorgore, the internet problems at Vael, then later Nefarian’s respawn timer (15 minutes!) … I personally associate business administration with an incredible number of long waiting times. But they also came from the fact that it wasn’t as easy in business administration as it was in the molten core to just go for a round of “afk”. The trash came along mercilessly one whole corner, and then there was the infamous trap room where no fighter was allowed to stay behind.

Since we regularly spent four to five hours in business administration on the raid days, the desire for one or two breaks could not be avoided. Unlike in MC, our raid leaders quickly defined fixed break times. Nevertheless, there were always unplanned interruptions. Partly technical problems were the reason, but partly it was also due to the mentality of some players from back then. I had experienced something like that in vanilla quite often in thrown together groups for dungeons and world bosses. In Classic or BfA (but also in previous years), at least in my WoW environment, such forced breaks are much rarer.

Awesome loot and DKP madness
I’ve heard time and time again from vanilla or private server players that the business administration loot caused a lot of drama in their guild. Sure, some of the weapons and trinkets in particular offer a huge upgrade to items previously available in the game, and some of the loot from the hoard remains relevant to Naxxramas or even beyond. In addition, the most coveted items appear very rarely in the loot window. For my guild, for example, the existence of the chromatically hardened sword was nothing more than a rumor, the second blade Maladath dropped at least once in umpteen months. couplearty!

Fortunately, there was never any drama in my guild. When fellow players got upset, it was more about the already mentioned waiting times or about the place on the substitutes’ bench (because we were all horny for raiding). Oh, and we had trouble getting enough registrations for Molten Core at some point after the release of BWL. But we didn’t want to do without MC completely, because one or the other upgrade and of course the shackles or the Eye of Ragnaros could have dropped there.

Perhaps the loot caused little trouble because we used a DKP system and everyone had it in their own hands to earn the points for bidding on the desired items. However, BWL changed the way players used the DKP system. Suddenly there were agreements in the class chat to only have to pay the minimum for class-internal loot so that you have more points for the hard-fought items. Some blatant sums were then paid for the jewelry and weapons. Players who subsequently strengthened the raid actually had no chance to bid here. The disadvantages of DKP systems really came to the surface – at least for us – in the after-school care center…

Nevertheless, I mainly associate positive things with the booty in business administration. A lot of Tier 2 sets just look great, as do the various weapons from the raid. In fact, when TBC released, my rogue was still wearing a number of items from Blackwing Lair, combined with a few pieces of Naxxramas and AQ40 loot. And how stupid I found it to have to exchange these beloved items in Outland during the level phase. After that I looked at the loot in WoW with different eyes, namely as a pure means to an end. For me, Maladath, the Bloodfang Set or the Dragonfang Talisman were even more than that.

Long and frequent waiting, bosses despawning for the entire rest of the ID, high latency in combination with regular disconnections and the potential for loot drama – maybe one or the other of you will be surprised that I – certainly also nostalgically transfigured – so positively about business administration think back But to be honest: Overcoming all these hurdles and still having all bosses on farm status in the end was something special. Especially since one mustn’t forget that the Hort was also a noticeable step forward in terms of design compared to MC and Ony’s home. We hadn’t entered such an impressive raid before.

What is WoW Classic?

World of Warcraft Classic is a true recreation of the original WoW as you know it from 2006. All parts of the game – from combat mechanics and talent trees to character models and zones – have been recreated, contributing to the authentic experience.

Getting Started

All players with an active World of Warcraft subscription or game time on their accounts have access toWoW Classic at no additional cost.

1. Open the Blizzard Battle.net Desktop App and select World of Warcraft from the menu.
2. Select World of Warcraft Classic from the Version menu. If you have more than one World of Warcraft account, you’ll see a second Account drop-down list. In this column, select the active account you want to play with.
3. Click the Install button. The progress bar will tell you when your game is ready to play.
4. Click the Play button when the installation is complete.

You will need to select the realm you want to play on from several different realm types. Make sure you choose the same realm as your friends – in World of Warcraft Classic, you can only group with characters that are on the same realm as you!

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