Lawnmooer said:
Yes Cataclysm has made WoW better, especially leveling from 1-60 but the decline in quality that is WotLK is still having side effects, such as 60-80 being as boring and unengaging as ever (Even moreso now that everyone is much stronger at the lower levels than they were back in the expansions that brought those zones) and after hitting level 85 it becomes alot of fun, until you get gear which leaves Heroics being the same as WotLK ones (Though there are some encounters that can be a pain) and PvP the same as ever (Though different classes are imbalanced now)
I disagree with you on the levelling experience being better. There is no difficulty or effort required to level at this point. If you run a few instances now and then to have a few blues, you will literally one-shot non-elite mobs at your level as a Hunter. Generally it's in your best interest to level in a PvP spec as well, because you can take down anything with your burst combo, often before it can close the gap to hit you. This persists even into much of Cata content, though somewhat mitigated by the HP bloat.
(the rest of this post doesn't have much to do with your's)
Instance runs are completely defanged now that most of the mobs have lost their secondary abilities: meaning that the healer doesn't have to worry about extra things like dispels and positioning. Not to mention the healer can crit for the tank's
entire health bar. DPS numbers are so high anyway that you likely wouldn't need one, it would probably be easier to run through it with five Hunters/Frost Mages/Warlocks each using pets to keep them occupied long enough to burn down. Not to mention a lot of the old instances have been greatly cut-down in terms of content. Sunken Temple in particular lost four bosses and most of the trash.
This level of de-fanging I would say is likely the biggest problem that people are having when it comes to endgame content. They're overpowered for 80 levels, largely unchallenged for the last 5... and then suddenly they have to know what to do. Healers haven't been taught how to conserve mana, in fact your efficient heal (your most-cast spell in endgame) has been your most-useless spell during levelling. Likewise, DPS haven't learned to manage aggro or focus targets because they haven't needed to in all the time they've been playing their character yet. You also haven't needed to use any glyphs or enchantments, though you better make sure you have all the right ones (well, glyphs at least) before jumping into heroics, or even the 84-85 dungeons.
But even with this lack of prep aside: getting into Raid content isn't nearly as difficult as people claim it is either. Between rep gear and crafting epics, you can hop into Heroics without much difficulty, at which point it's just running enough to get the right combination of loot drops and badges you need for whatever you're still missing to be raid ready. The dungeon-finder, while particularly sucky if you're one of the many, many, many dpsers waiting in line, is usually populated by people mostly decked out in purples at this point: further making your job easier. Raid content is still in the WotLK blueprint, with just a slight difficulty bump for actually running the content.
As for PvP, I'll agree with you for the most part; I don't feel like much has largely changed with Arena and Battlegrounds. Rated BGs are (at least on my server) largely untouched. The whole obsession with phasing has all but officially removed world PvP from the game, beyond bored 85s one-shotting people Stranglethorn while waiting for queue to pop, which is a shame because "off the rails" PvP has always been one of the more entertaining parts of any MMO.
Cataclysm is a holding pattern. If you liked WotLK, you'll think it was an improvement becuase it's more of the same, if a little more refined. If you were looking for a return to the "golden age" of the game... I've heard good things about Rift.
