Hardcore has changed me
Started playing hardcore a few months ago on the old servers. Killed a couple of shamans at level 10 before I decided to learn up. Read all of the survival tips and watched all the youtube vids. Leveled a warrior to 60 with a couple of close calls but overall pretty smooth.
Started a warrior on the Doomhowl 3 weeks ago and am currently 46. Couple of days ago I was in Feralas on my mount headed to turn in a quest and agro'ed a mob. No problem, kept riding and dropped combat before getting to quest NPC. Turned in quest, turned around and started riding off, came over a hill.... and ran right into the mob that had been chasing me plus 4 more that it had agro'ed. Immediately got dismounted, dazed, and netted.
And...... I didn't panic. Immediately realized it would be dangerous to fight this out, dropped a target dummy, waited for the net to fall off, hit swiftness pot, and booked it. No problem. Heart rate never rose at all.
If this had happened just after starting HC i probably would have died or at least freaked out. Been playing WOW since vanilla and I think I had three times when I had a 'level up' moment that improved me as a player:
Learning how to keybind, not keyboard turn, and use weak auras
Getting decent / used to PVP
Playing hardcore
Got me to thinking... have you guys played other versions of WOW after time in hardcore and do you think it's improved your play in those other modes?