WoW Classic. Dire Maul: Expectations vs Reality

Posted by Darius Kimarius on October 22nd, 2019

Dire Maul, a level 58 to 60 dungeon located in the Feralas zone, was released last week on 15 October. The news came as a shock to many players who were expecting Dire Maul to be released in Phase 2 of the game, but regardless, players reveled at the prospect of making tons of WoW Classic Gold and getting better gear. On the run-up to Classic WoW's release, we only had memories of Vanilla or experiences on private servers to set our expectations of Classic. When the game launched, it became clear that private servers were a lot less Blizz-like than we thought, altering the way we play the game on live servers. Since Classic's release, there's been a ton of YouTube videos and written guides on how to make lots of Wow Classic Gold and Accounts (https://www.eldorado.gg/wow-classic-accounts-for-sale/a/14-1-0) with Dire Maul farm runs. But did expectations meet reality?

Dire Maul West

Dire Maul West appears to be the dungeon with the least change from private servers. No drama here.

Dire Maul North

The mobs have a bigger aggro radius than on most private servers so overpulling is a real issue. Some Mages doing AoE runs of DM North have reported issues with farming the dog mobs. There also appears to be an Evade bug happening if you stand in certain places and the loot appears to be severely reduced.

Dire Maul East

Dire Maul East is known for the Lasher WOWC Gold Farm run. Players were excited to Farm the Lasher mobs and Elite Satyr's in Dire Maul East because they are easy to gather up and kill with Area of Effect (AoE) spells, and drop some valuable Bind-on-Equip items and tons of vendor trash. Players with AoE spells like Mages, Druids, Shamans, and Priests were expecting to make a ton of gold with this WOW Classic Gold farming run, only to find that the dungeon functions differently in Classic WoW than it did on private servers.

Firstly, it turns out that the Lashers are 100% immune to nature damage, which greatly reduces the ability of Druids and Shamans to perform this run.

The Lashers also seem to drop much less loot than on private servers, with the amount of vendor trash being significantly lower. Before the release of Dire Maul, players were anticipating making over 100 WOWC Gold an hour. However, it now appears to be more like 30 WOW Gold per hour without Herbalism, and around 50 Gold per hour with Herbalism since there are lots of herbs in Dire Maul. The Patrol mobs also seem to be making their way around the instance faster, making them harder to avoid and potentially landing players in a deadly situation.

The Economy

Although Dire Maul hasn't been the game-breaking Classic Gold making machine we were all expecting, it's ultimately a good thing. Many players were concerned about Dire Maul being released early, arguing that it would massively inflate the economy. Luckily, that hasn't happened. This tamer version of Dire Maul is still a decent way of making Gold, but it's not a get-rich-quick dungeon that'll get you your Epic Mount in a matter of days. Dire Maul Gold farming seems about on par with Zul'Farrak or Maraudon Farming, which is also a good thing. It means players can vary their Gold farming methods, instead of spending all their time in one overpowered dungeon.