How would you compare the difficulty and quality of endgame to WoW?

Twilanthe · March 2021

Sorry if mentioning WoW or comparing the two is in any way a community faux pas, but I am curious to know what people who have experienced both compare the two?

I have not done much end game in either until recently. I've played both since their respective launches, but never did any of the really challenging content-wise in either, until recently.

In WoW I recently did their +2 Mythic, and the Looking for Raid for shadowlands.
In both I experienced some requirements of skill. I was playing tank. The dungeons I did required little mechanics aside from just holding threat. The DPS did the rest. The raid however required some mechanics of tank swapping and interrupting and focusing certain adds. Getting behind pillars to make a boss slam into them. Avoiding bad stuff on the ground, etc.
I have not done heroic raids let alone mythic, or anything higher than Mythic +2 and only on two of the dungeons.

I was not enjoying WoW for the other content, questing and crafting and housing, all the things I tend to miss when I take a break from ESO.

In ESO however I recently started running dungeons with a friend and guild mates, and we've been doing veteran and I have been healing.

Most of what I think are base game or early chapter vet dungeons are pretty easy. Sometimes we get a tank that could solo the place and we are just along for the ride.

But most recently we did March of Sacrifices, and the Indrik fight is possibly the most fun I've had in an MMO ever. Me and my friend had the tank and other dps quit after we wiped on the first boss, and were fortunate to have someone join our group who was friendly. They got a tank from their guild to join, and they both invited us to discord so they could explain the mechanics and call out as they happened for us to follow. We died like six times and they stuck through it, taught us patiently what we did wrong, and we eventually succeeded.

I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. I was excited, and the amount of pride I felt in myself when we successfully did it was amazing.

It has made me want to get into doing the more challenging stuff, to try trials and vet trials. So I am curious which game has the better more interesting mechanics like this Indrik fight where you need to watch for stuff, avoid stuff, find stuff and click on it, heal your butt off through certain unavoidable mechanics, add to DPS in other areas, etc.

Is one more interesting/creative but easier and one is more boring but more punishing to mistakes? Or are they both about equal? Or is one vastly superior to the other?

How does difficulty compare. Do Vet Trials equal the difficulty of Heroic Raids in WoW? Or are they closer to Mythic? Or to Normal?

BlueRaven · March 2021

Normal trials are more forgiving with easier explained mechanics.

In WoW fights are longer, with “and then in phase 5 we...” not being an uncommon phrase.

In eso there can be some semi complicated portal mechanics, or adds that need to be killed, if you are a veteran of at least normal trials in WoW you will find these pretty straight forward.

In vet trials, good builds become much more important. There are dps check bosses and other bosses that require better group coordination.
But overall the mechanics are very straight forward. Multi stage fights are a rarity.

Personally as a gamer getting on in years, I like the eso trials much better. I hated “studying” for raids in WoW.

•••

Two last things, trials are general shorter in eso and can be done in one setting. Not like wow which may take several days.
And while there are quests in trials that are on a cool down, the trial itself is not. So you can clear a trial, then immediately do it again if you wish.

Edit: vet trials feel a bit like heroic in WoW, but vet trial “hard modes” feel a bit like mythic, in my opinion.

nukk3r · March 2021

BlueRaven wrote: »

Normal trials are more forgiving with easier explained mechanics.

In WoW fights are longer, with “and then in phase 5 we...” not being an uncommon phrase.

In eso there can be some semi complicated portal mechanics, or adds that need to be killed if you are a veteran of at least normal trials in WoW you will find these pretty straight forward.

In vet trials, good builds become much more important. There are dps check bosses and other bosses that require better group coordination.
But overall the mechanics are very straight forward. Multi stage fights are a rarity.

Personally as a gamer getting on in years, I like the eso trials much better. I hated “studying” for raids in WoW.

•••

Two last things, trials are general shorter in eso and can be done in one setting. Not like wow which may take several days.
And while there are quests in trials that are on a cool down, the trial itself is not. So you can clear a trial, then immediately do it again if you wish.

Wait there are cooldowns on content in WoW?

Parrot1986 · March 2021

I’ve not got a lot of raid experience in WoW beyond heroic and not cleared CN fully, was stuck on Stone Generals before stopped playing but I’d say heroic is definitely on par with Veteran in ESO and possibly HMs. Fight times and fight phases are totally differen.
It’s difficult to compare mythics in ESO and I’d probably place it alongside going for trial trifectas based on skill level required and commitment.

From a dungeon side it’s pretty similar. I’ve got a few +10 keys in WoW from Shadwolands and would say the main difference is the difficulty gap in ESO across all the dungeons than in WOW. Non DLCs are really easy even in Hardmode and like Herioc at most. DLC dungeons are different story and are some of the most difficult dungeons I’ve ever done. especially when you go for HM no deaths and speed runs. Getting these in Moon Hunter Keep, Scalecaller Keep etc was much harder than a +10 key for me.

It’s these achievements which defines ESO content difficulty IMO and these stand above anything I’ve done in WoW.

Danel_Vadan · March 2021

Never played WoW, but it sounds to me like you'd enjoy vHoF with a clear prog group.

Blue_Radium · March 2021

ESO ultra-max sweat achievements beat WoW's on difficulty by a huge margin. A very small percentile of players have Godslayer as compared to WoW's equivalent absolute hardest raid titles/mounts.

Quality is much tougher/more subjective. I think thr key differentiator is how it *feels* to partake in the endgame. Primarily, WoW does a MUCH better job of incentivizing players. This greatly elevates the quality-feel of WoW. Accomplishments feeling substantial is designed into WoW, whereas ESO is practically designed against it. All the mounts and pets and costumes and etc that ESO has in crown crates would be rewards for all sorts of in-game accomplishments in WoW. It creates an incentivizeless culture where 99.9% of players have no desire to touch the deepest parts of "endgame."

As far as actual content quality, I think WoW is slightly better. Raids feel more fleshed out, dotted with special touches, filled with tons of things to do, etc.

Where ESO really has WoW beat though is skill-based gameplay and the "all content is always relevant" design philosophy. Especially on consoles when it comes to skill, where deep endgame players need to make console controller sing without macros or add-ons. It's challenging and extremely rewarding in and of itself. Those two things are vast improvements over WoW, to where ESO beats WoW overall, IMO.

It's a complex/nuanced question without an easy answer.

Sir_Gentleman · March 2021

I guess I can provide some unique perspective here as someone who has actively played WoW for the last 3 expansions.

I currently play at a pretty high level (I'm a mythic raider with 7/10 bosses downed in the current tier (Castle Nathria), and have all orange parses for downed bosses) and I've played ESO on and off since the BETA (I played back when the game had a montly fee lol). I've had very little experience with end game PvE content in ESO, and the encounters I had with it took place many years ago now. However I remember I briefly tried out one of those "Raid like" encounters in ESO (It was Khajiit themed and the first boss was some moon stuff where you had to stand on the correct side of the room to not wipe IIRC). My impression back then was that it was very "casual" per say. There was very little communication in the chat about what we were actually supposed to do. Basically it felt super similar to LFR in WoW.

I did do a lot of dungeons back in the day though and can say that I actually enjoy ESO's dungeons way more that I enjoy WoW's dungeons (and I've got Keystone master for this season). ESO's dungeons are more interesting to me and I don't know why. It could be the way mechanics are done within the game as WoW feels like a constant battle between you and the mechanics of the boss (and not in a good way. There are many times where I just wish I could cast but I have to constantly run around as to not die or wipe the group). Basically I dont particularly enjoy dungeons in WoW and I remember them being way more interesting/fun in ESO. As for the difficulty of dungeons in ESO compared to WoW I can't speak. WoW's dungeons are usually just hard because you are on a timer, where as I don't know how ESO does it.

As far as raiding goes as I mentioned earlier I have very little experience with ESO's raid equivalent. However I will say that raiding is basically the only reason I play WoW. Most WoW raids have a good design and are balanced in a way where it is fun progressing on them instead of frustrating (granted this changes as you get to the more challenging bosses in mythic (Stonelegion Generals for this tier)) and downing a boss that you've progressed on feels so *** good. One of my fondest gaming memories still to this day is me and my guild at the time downing Kil'Jaeden on Heroic for the first time after close to 100 wipes. I get the feel that ESO is a more casual MMO and therefor I'd imagine that the end game PvE content is easier than WoW's.

Sir_Gentleman · March 2021

nukk3r wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

Normal trials are more forgiving with easier explained mechanics.

In WoW fights are longer, with “and then in phase 5 we...” not being an uncommon phrase.

In eso there can be some semi complicated portal mechanics, or adds that need to be killed if you are a veteran of at least normal trials in WoW you will find these pretty straight forward.

In vet trials, good builds become much more important. There are dps check bosses and other bosses that require better group coordination.
But overall the mechanics are very straight forward. Multi stage fights are a rarity.

Personally as a gamer getting on in years, I like the eso trials much better. I hated “studying” for raids in WoW.

•••

Two last things, trials are general shorter in eso and can be done in one setting. Not like wow which may take several days.
And while there are quests in trials that are on a cool down, the trial itself is not. So you can clear a trial, then immediately do it again if you wish.

Wait there are cooldowns on content in WoW?

Yeah there are weekly lockouts on certain instances (Raids and basic mythic dungeons). It's to prevent people not running a raid like 10 times in a week and getting max gear instantly.

BlueRaven · March 2021

nukk3r wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

Normal trials are more forgiving with easier explained mechanics.

In WoW fights are longer, with “and then in phase 5 we...” not being an uncommon phrase.

In eso there can be some semi complicated portal mechanics, or adds that need to be killed if you are a veteran of at least normal trials in WoW you will find these pretty straight forward.

In vet trials, good builds become much more important. There are dps check bosses and other bosses that require better group coordination.
But overall the mechanics are very straight forward. Multi stage fights are a rarity.

Personally as a gamer getting on in years, I like the eso trials much better. I hated “studying” for raids in WoW.

•••

Two last things, trials are general shorter in eso and can be done in one setting. Not like wow which may take several days.
And while there are quests in trials that are on a cool down, the trial itself is not. So you can clear a trial, then immediately do it again if you wish.

Wait there are cooldowns on content in WoW?

Yes. In WoW raids “reset” on (I believe) Tuesdays. At least when I was playing.

A raid in WoW could be 12 bosses long, and some boss fights are quite long. AND many times bosses required practice, downing a boss can be a big deal.

So it was not uncommon to come back to raids on another day. The raid would be cleared out (trash mobs included) up to where you left off. On a character that already cleared it? You had to wait until the following week to go back in. So you often heard, “I can’t go, my character is locked to another groups raid.”
Farming for gear could take a while as gear is not easily tradable, usually bound to your character, and rng could be your biggest obstacle.

Btw this went for dungeons as well (when I was playing), but dungeons had a one day reset.

Edit: I should mention I played from late vanilla to just past mists. I did raids from bc through mists. (WoW players know what these terms mean.)

nukk3r · March 2021

BlueRaven wrote: »

nukk3r wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

Normal trials are more forgiving with easier explained mechanics.

In WoW fights are longer, with “and then in phase 5 we...” not being an uncommon phrase.

In eso there can be some semi complicated portal mechanics, or adds that need to be killed if you are a veteran of at least normal trials in WoW you will find these pretty straight forward.

In vet trials, good builds become much more important. There are dps check bosses and other bosses that require better group coordination.
But overall the mechanics are very straight forward. Multi stage fights are a rarity.

Personally as a gamer getting on in years, I like the eso trials much better. I hated “studying” for raids in WoW.

•••

Two last things, trials are general shorter in eso and can be done in one setting. Not like wow which may take several days.
And while there are quests in trials that are on a cool down, the trial itself is not. So you can clear a trial, then immediately do it again if you wish.

Wait there are cooldowns on content in WoW?

Yes. In WoW raids “reset” on (I believe) Tuesdays. At least when I was playing.

A raid in WoW could be 12 bosses long, and some boss fights are quite long. AND many times bosses required practice, downing a boss can be a big deal.

So it was not uncommon to come back to raids on another day. The raid would be cleared out (trash mobs included) up to where you left off. On a character that already cleared it? You had to wait until the following week to go back in. So you often heard, “I can’t go, my character is locked to another groups raid.”
Farming for gear could take a while as gear is not easily tradable, usually bound to your character, and rng could be your biggest obstacle.

Btw this went for dungeons as well (when I was playing), but dungeons had a one day reset.

Edit: I should mention I played from late vanilla to just past mists. I did raids from bc through mists. (WoW players know what these terms mean.)

OMG, this is brutal. I quit WoW shortly after BC was released, and I never played enough to get to endgame. Glad that I didn't stay.

IneedaDollar · March 2021

I would say clearing current most difficult veteran HM bosses in Eso is comparable to the easier bosses of the current mythic raids in WoW.
Overall clearing a raid on hardest difficulty for the first time is not comparable to WoW difficulty.
Any statistic on how much percent of the playerbase cleared certain content is completely irrelevant at this point because compared to Wow the Eso playerbase is very casual.
Also Eso raids are much shorter which changes the goals you can set yourself as well as the raid culture a lot.
While "hardcore" WoW raiding is mostly about getting that 10/10 mythic clear and farming gear for your character, Eso "hardcore" raiding is about improving your runs until you get the achievement (clearing highest difficulty without a death within a certain time)
or improving your score (clearing highest difficulty without death in the lowest possible time).
So basically speed running like the classic players currently do with Naxx.
This makes the raiding experience very different.
I would say the positive thing about WoW is that clearing something for the first time is much more rewarding.
You finally beat that last boss and can feel like a true heroe.
It's more like a seasonal event that you won't forget that fast.
Eso raiding on the other hand is a bit more long term oriented in its game play. You can instantly set a new goal after you achieved the last one.
Another big difference is the raiding schedule. Eso raid groups tend to have 2-3 raid days a week going for 2-3 hours each.
Wow raid days are much longer and can block a whole evening for 6 hours straight.

tl;dr it's a very different raid culture

ccfeeling · March 2021

Lag vs no lag ?

Rukia541 · March 2021

WoW endgame for me was staring at the group finder for ages looking for an arena parter, applying to a raid or M+ and promptly being declined 9000 times because I didn't have the latest greatest item level or use one of the best meta specs. I can only speak for the first couple months of shadowlands, but taking even a few days break really screws you over and you get left behind in the dust. God forbid you miss a week and didn't do your chores, good luck getting into groups.

I had a hard time finding active guilds , and the nature of the game being more of a lobby queue system where everyone stands in town and wait for their queue to pop or watch the group finder really feels like its actively encouraging people not to be social so I had no one to group with.

Another funny thing I notice is most of the groups I saw inviting are wanting higher or same ilvl as what actually drops in that content, so you need to magically already have the gear from that content in order to do it. I ended up pvping for days on end in random bgs to get my gear up to around 200ilvl and was already burnt out because I saw no end in sight.

There is nothing to do in WoW but end game so I would expect the quality and balance to be much more refined, but really its a lot of waiting around to do nothing and get your hopes crushed. If you can find a bunch of friends somehow then sure it might be great, but ESO is far more welcoming and has a ton of relevant content outside of just raids. I felt like M+ was just a trash farm simulator too, I'd rather fight bosses than trash personally.

I liked cataclysm, the heroic dungeons were near DLC vet quality and I had a ton of fun in those and the raids, I don't remember having any grouping or guild issues back then but they had millions of players and wotlk had just been a very casual friendly xpac so it makes sense. I guess WoW really went on the decline. I could have spent the money I wasted on SL for more crowns kek

jtm1018 · March 2021

Twilanthe wrote: »

Sorry if mentioning WoW or comparing the two is in any way a community faux pas, but I am curious to know what people who have experienced both compare the two?

I have not done much end game in either until recently. I've played both since their respective launches, but never did any of the really challenging content-wise in either, until recently.

In WoW I recently did their +2 Mythic, and the Looking for Raid for shadowlands.
In both I experienced some requirements of skill. I was playing tank. The dungeons I did required little mechanics aside from just holding threat. The DPS did the rest. The raid however required some mechanics of tank swapping and interrupting and focusing certain adds. Getting behind pillars to make a boss slam into them. Avoiding bad stuff on the ground, etc.
I have not done heroic raids let alone mythic, or anything higher than Mythic +2 and only on two of the dungeons.

I was not enjoying WoW for the other content, questing and crafting and housing, all the things I tend to miss when I take a break from ESO.

In ESO however I recently started running dungeons with a friend and guild mates, and we've been doing veteran and I have been healing.

Most of what I think are base game or early chapter vet dungeons are pretty easy. Sometimes we get a tank that could solo the place and we are just along for the ride.

But most recently we did March of Sacrifices, and the Indrik fight is possibly the most fun I've had in an MMO ever. Me and my friend had the tank and other dps quit after we wiped on the first boss, and were fortunate to have someone join our group who was friendly. They got a tank from their guild to join, and they both invited us to discord so they could explain the mechanics and call out as they happened for us to follow. We died like six times and they stuck through it, taught us patiently what we did wrong, and we eventually succeeded.

I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. I was excited, and the amount of pride I felt in myself when we successfully did it was amazing.

It has made me want to get into doing the more challenging stuff, to try trials and vet trials. So I am curious which game has the better more interesting mechanics like this Indrik fight where you need to watch for stuff, avoid stuff, find stuff and click on it, heal your butt off through certain unavoidable mechanics, add to DPS in other areas, etc.

Is one more interesting/creative but easier and one is more boring but more punishing to mistakes? Or are they both about equal? Or is one vastly superior to the other?

How does difficulty compare. Do Vet Trials equal the difficulty of Heroic Raids in WoW? Or are they closer to Mythic? Or to Normal?

I cant, I never played world of whatever.

Seraphayel · March 2021

ESOs endgame is pretty poor compared to that of WoW when it comes to quality and amount of content - but that only applies when you are heavy into dungeons and raiding (other endgame content besides infinite grind doesn’t exist in WoW). The advantage of ESO is that once you reach 50/160CP everything counts towards your endgame progression.

phaneub17_ESO · March 2021

Currently at wipe 37 on Heroic Sire Denathrius. Up to phase 3 though, I hate this fight.

Linaleah · March 2021

as someone who actively plays ESO and WoW (though i'm even more casual in WoW than I am in ESO nowadays and also currently taking a break till 9.1, though i HAVE done progression raiding in both), the philosophy of the games is very different.

WOW philosophy seems to be "real game starts at end game" (though they have been adding stuff to do for solo players, its STILL mostly done at max level) while with ESO the game starts at lvl 1 (or 3-4, since its what you get out of tutorial with/or if you just skip the tutorial all together).

and because of that endgame in ESO is not as much of a focus.

WoW does also have meta achievements (glory of the... insert expansion raid or dungeons here) they are a little different from ESO in that they group content by expansion generally. in ESO, each raid/trial gets its own meta achievement and dungeons are grouped for their achievements by DLC (so 2 at a time). speed run achievement are probably closest to mythic keystones but still not quite the same.

it does feel better to do mechanics in ESO vs WoW to me at least, because you can cast on the move and even if you play a melee, you can use a ranged backbar, so even if you have to move out of melee - you can still actively do something. overall ESO is MUCH friendlier to melee then WoW is.

yes normal trials are more or less around lfr difficulty. Vet trials... range. pvp doesn't have ranked arenas, but battlegrounds are fun - shorter and more compact then WoW equivalent in my experience (though bear in mind, i haven't played pvp in wow since Pandaria and its requirement to get the cloak. Korrak's revenge doesn't count. you know it doesn't) Cyrodil is basically wintergrasp, Tol Barad and Ashran rolled into one and more gigantic. the problem is that ESO skill gap is much MUCH higher then that in WoW. and it becomes especially, painfully apparent in pvp.

now.. I'm not trying to dissuade you from playing ESO, OP. it is the game I play consistently, while WoW I hop into and hop back out sporadically. but I'm a casual, so my priorities are different from yours.

Sir_Gentleman · March 2021

Rukia541 wrote: »

WoW endgame for me was staring at the group finder for ages looking for an arena parter, applying to a raid or M+ and promptly being declined 9000 times because I didn't have the latest greatest item level or use one of the best meta specs. I can only speak for the first couple months of shadowlands, but taking even a few days break really screws you over and you get left behind in the dust. God forbid you miss a week and didn't do your chores, good luck getting into groups.

I had a hard time finding active guilds , and the nature of the game being more of a lobby queue system where everyone stands in town and wait for their queue to pop or watch the group finder really feels like its actively encouraging people not to be social so I had no one to group with.

Another funny thing I notice is most of the groups I saw inviting are wanting higher or same ilvl as what actually drops in that content, so you need to magically already have the gear from that content in order to do it. I ended up pvping for days on end in random bgs to get my gear up to around 200ilvl and was already burnt out because I saw no end in sight.

There is nothing to do in WoW but end game so I would expect the quality and balance to be much more refined, but really its a lot of waiting around to do nothing and get your hopes crushed. If you can find a bunch of friends somehow then sure it might be great, but ESO is far more welcoming and has a ton of relevant content outside of just raids. I felt like M+ was just a trash farm simulator too, I'd rather fight bosses than trash personally.

I liked cataclysm, the heroic dungeons were near DLC vet quality and I had a ton of fun in those and the raids, I don't remember having any grouping or guild issues back then but they had millions of players and wotlk had just been a very casual friendly xpac so it makes sense. I guess WoW really went on the decline. I could have spent the money I wasted on SL for more crowns kek

This is why guilds are vital for you in WoW. I don't know what server you play on but by the way you described your guild searching efforts I get the impression that you're playing on a dead/dying realm. I play on Draenor and TarrenMill on the EU and by the launch of the xpac I had no troubles at all finding guilds. There were literally hundreds of recruiters in trade chat trying to get people to join their guild. Total I've been in 4 guilds this xpac and all of them have raided actively (atleast twice a week, sometimes more). Nowadays, couple of months post-launch, there are still tons of guilds looking for players. Problem is that a significant part of the player base quit so there really aren't enough players to go around, rather than the other way around.

I do however agree that there is a serious issue with gatekeeping in WoW when it comes to harder content. Trying to do anything related to raiding if you don't have AOTC for whatever the current tier is, is a nightmare. And M+ always becomes pretty exclusive after people start getting their Keystone masters where you need to have cleared pretty high keys of a dungeon once before getting invited regularily to lower keys. This is why you should push your own keys btw; you get to be the gatekeeper!

WoW is a game that basically requires you to find a group to play with/join a guild if you want to tackle the real end game content. People are distrusting of randoms and stuff like keys and raids are almost exclusively done within guilds.

Twilanthe · March 2021

Linaleah wrote: »

now.. I'm not trying to dissuade you from playing ESO, OP. it is the game I play consistently, while WoW I hop into and hop back out sporadically. but I'm a casual, so my priorities are different from yours.

Thanks for all the info!
Don't worry, I'm not discouraged from playing ESO, I've been here since Beta

I've just never done hardcore end game in either game, and now I want to try, so I was curious the differences between the two.

I think I greatly prefer ESO, but I was wondering if the WoW endgame was just so much better that I'd rather play the game I dislike when it comes to literally all other content for the sake of Endgame.

But from what I've read of this thread, I think I will still like ESO endgame more.