World of Warcraft: Current Year

Qhue · Feb 9, 2021

Speaking of lesser-used things... Is anyone doing those gladiator solo arena trial things for Kyrian. I unlocked the first set of that and did a couple battles and went 'oh fuck this shit' and never went back.

a c i d.f l y · Feb 9, 2021

Runnen said:
Since we're somewhat on the topic, add me to the list of people that think WoW should go with Player Housing. Garrisons are at best a timid step in that direction, but they were barely customizable. When I see stuff people have been able to make in much less polished games like EQ2 with creativity and imagination, it's pretty amazing.

The way I envision Player Housing in WoW, you'd get your own plot of land (a bit like the MoP farm) so it's only a small patch of phased land, but inside that your place is entirely customizable. You could choose your house based on your race at first but you could have quests in place to unlock other cultural architectural types. Also, I'd add a ton of recipes for most professions to craft items to decorate or improve your house..

Like add a Carpentering profession that gathers wood from various trees in each expansion to craft furniture (they had some lumberwork stuff in WoD so it's doable).

Then let Blacksmiths make tools or metal gates, Jewelcrafters can make ornaments and trinkets to decorate the house, maybe a big crystal chandelier? Tailors can make carpets and tapestries, or maybe even couches. Leatherworkers can make leather couches and chairs and you could have them use skins and beast parts to make wall trophies and skin carpets like a snow bear pelt. Enchanters could make cool automated items like a broom that sweeps the floor on its own or other fun novelty items. Engineers could make little robots that do stuff around the house and turn it into Doc Brown's lab basically. With Herbalism you could do stuff in your garden outside the house or create flower pots and other decorations inside the house.

Plus as was stated above, you could have a ton of trophies from old content raid bosses and meaningful quest lines, select achievements, feats of strength, a menagerie for your favorite pets, an exposition room for your favorite archaeological finds.. some manequins to equip your favorite armor sets, like they had kind-of in your class hall.

In fact, most of the ideas are somewhat already implemented but sprinkled about in the game, all it needs is some will behind it and it could happen rather easily.

I think it would revigorate the professions a lot, and add a lot of collectibles which is basically what the people that don't raid or do M+ do all the time in WoW, so a significant part of the playerbase in my opinion.

With the lukewarm reception and tepid staying power of Shadowlands, I wouldn't be surprised if they finally get off their "You think you do but you don't" high horse and go with housing for the next expansion.

They've had hints of all of this, too. Like the room in Dalaran, you could fill with collectibles from Archaeology. Or your tier gear head and shoulders on display in your class order hall.

Lodi · Feb 9, 2021

These changes will make the game way more fun to me. Now I can just grind out shit on multiple characters, like I've basically always wanted.

They're going to cap the shit out of valor and timegate this to hell aren't they?

Mist · Feb 9, 2021

I mean, hopefully they start the cap off fairly high since we're in the middle of the season.

Muurloen · Feb 9, 2021

Juvarisx said:
NEW PTR build is up with a release in March, M+ gearing turning into PvP gearing which is great

We’ve opened the Public Test Realm (PTR) for Patch 9.0.5, the next update to World of Warcraft, which is now in-testing and expected to be released in March.

This update will be a bit different from our usual patches. It’s focused almost entirely on systems, responding to community feedback about rewards, doing tuning that requires the sort of notice and iteration that a PTR allows, and fixing a range of bugs that are beyond the scope of our ability to hotfix. We know everyone is eager to hear about the next chapter in the Shadowlands saga and what new adventures and rewards it will bring, and we’ll have a lot more information on that in the very near future. In the meantime, we’ll use this patch to get changes into your hands faster than a large content patch would allow.

Here are two of the larger changes you’ll see in 9.0.5, with further iteration to follow over the next few weeks:

Upgradable Mythic Keystone Gear - The Return of Valor Points
We’ve seen a lot of feedback about the pros and cons of the various sources of gear in the Shadowlands endgame. After a rewarding first few weeks, we know that many dungeon-focused players reached a point where the only relevant rewards from the system come from the Great Vault. While the Vault should represent a major goal and the source of the best rewards the endgame has to offer, we want to find a way for the loot from the chest at the end of a challenging Mythic Keystone run to feel relevant, without bringing back random upgrade systems such as Warforging, which partially solved this problem in the past. We also want to provide a more consistent reward for the effort for players who do not receive an item at all.

The framework for a system that attempts to address these goals should be present in this first PTR update, subject to ongoing tuning and refinement. Gear from Mythic Keystone Dungeons is now upgradeable, initially with a cap of item level 200, which players can raise to item level 207 by completing all eight Shadowlands dungeons at Mythic 5 or higher. This will award a new “Keystone Explorer” achievement, while the existing “Keystone Conqueror” achievement (for all +10s or higher) will increase the cap to item level 213, and then to item level 220 by completing the “Keystone Master” achievement for all +15s in time. The currency used to upgrade Mythic Keystone gear is Valor, which is earned from completing Mythic Keystone dungeons, or by doing covenant Callings, with a weekly cap. Upgrade costs will vary by item slot and will be consistent across all item levels.

Covenant and Legendary Tuning
We’ve deliberately used a very light touch with any hotfixes that might affect Covenant or Legendary balance, as we’re keenly aware of the resources players have invested in those systems. A patch, however, allows for ample notice for the community and a testing and feedback loop that should help ensure that we don’t unintentionally undermine your investment in your covenant or legendary items.

In many cases, the changes coming in 9.0.5 are improvements to Legendary items and Covenant class abilities that have seen comparatively less use by players. Our goal with these changes is to provide more gameplay options for crafting and utilizing Legendary items in specific situations, and to make sure that more players feel that the Covenant that suits their aesthetic, narrative, or other preferences for their character also feels more viable for their preferred playstyle.

We’ll have a number of bugfixes, tuning adjustments to other systems, and other changes coming to the PTR in the coming weeks.

The 9.0.5 PTR is available to all players via your Blizzard Battle.net App. To test with us, go to the app and change your Game Version to Public Test Realm.

We greatly appreciate bug reports! As always, while testing on the PTR, you can submit a bug report for any item, spell, or object by mousing over it and selecting default hotkey F6. Bug reports created in this way include valuable metadata about the spell, your talents, and your player-state when the bug is submitted. If you’ve unbound your “Open Bug Report” hotkey, you can rebind it in Keybindings -> PTR.

If you wish to discuss issues related to this patch with other players, we’ve opened a discussion forum here.

9.0.5 PTR General Discussion

Thank you for testing, and we look forward to your feedback!

Making Castle Nath even more useless awesome.

Rime · Feb 9, 2021

Too little.

Time all +15s to be able to upgrade to 220?

You are unlikely to be timing +15s until you are geared near 220 ilvl or higher.

a c i d.f l y · Feb 9, 2021

Rime said:
Too little.

Time all +15s to be able to upgrade to 220?

You are unlikely to be timing +15s until you are geared near 220 ilvl or higher.

That's always great. Needing the gear to clear the thing that gives you said gear. Makes total sense.

Mist · Feb 9, 2021

Rime said:
Too little.

Time all +15s to be able to upgrade to 220?

You are unlikely to be timing +15s until you are geared near 220 ilvl or higher.

Yeah but it at least lets you upgrade your offpieces like trinkets.

Regardless, pretty sure you can get KSM in all 213 gear + random pieces from your vault. The vault still gives m+ gear above your target ilvl.

Being able to get 220 BIS M+ trinkets without having to rely on luck is pretty cool regardless.

jayrebb · Feb 10, 2021

Rime said:
Too little.

Time all +15s to be able to upgrade to 220?

You are unlikely to be timing +15s until you are geared near 220 ilvl or higher.

Accurate. I was noticing in my 210-215 groups that we can barely time a 11-12 most weeks.

I ran a 10 before reset in the morning and we only got a +1 push. Thats at 215 ilevel. We had a 2nd MM in the group so my DPS wasn't lagging at all, we both ended up exact same damage highest overall, still scraped a 10. Sometimes the tank matters a lot.

jayrebb · Feb 10, 2021

Been in a funk with the game, so I actually tried out one of those Chinese boosting communities (yes, from Trade chat) right before reset, after taking a week off. I got a few keys done on my main and alt, then bought a key.

Surprisingly well-organized in terms of on-demand capable players, rapid organization and deployment. I was skeptical they could get a team together before reset, and the organizer assured me any team would be together within 3 minutes at most. He kept his word and everything was as advertised. The captain was Chinese, and the crew was a mixture of Latin America and North America. The Chinese basically rigged the market to where players may purchase gold, and then with a high likelihood that they spend the gold again to where it flows back into Chinese coffers-- so they are getting their gold back. There are American boosting groups, but in my experience they don't organize as rapidly as the chong ones, nor do they spam as hard. This was spur-of-the-moment razor sharp mobilization that was unexpected. The Trade channel pound-for-pound champion spammers actually delivered.

The quality of the run however was less than desirable. I asked for a 4 man AFK carry guarantee for this 170 ilevel alt I have, and they guaranteed it. Let's just say I ended up DPSing as hard as possible with flasks and potions to make time. We also wiped x2 and these guys were 220+ ilevel a piece. Even carries just have random shit go wrong.

Merrith · Feb 10, 2021

jayrebb said:
Accurate. I was noticing in my 210-215 groups that we can barely time a 11-12 most weeks.

I ran a 10 before reset in the morning and we only got a +1 push. Thats at 215 ilevel. We had a 2nd MM in the group so my DPS wasn't lagging at all, we both ended up exact same damage highest overall, still scraped a 10. Sometimes the tank matters a lot.

How much dps were you guys doing for the full run? Granted I just hit a big ring upgrade out of Vault today to get me to 210, but aside from stupid deaths, most of the time when I was in 205 groups we would +2 10's without much trouble as long as the tank knows route decently enough.

Granted I've been slacking horribly of late, didn't run a single key until late last night got into a 10. 3 hunter group, actually had a Survival with me and another MM. Actually wasn't too bad, I mean he was behind both of us but it wasn't like he was super terrible. Sometimes I've ran some random 10's and you have guys not even pulling 3k dps for the full run.

But maybe it's a tank problem like you said.

jayrebb · Feb 10, 2021

We both tied 3.9k. His Aimed shot % was lower and wild spirits % was slightly lower. I wasn't running Explosive Shot or Volley because I had been messing around in PvP earlier. 4-5 weeks ago dropping Explosive Shot or Volley would put me behind other MM's, this time it didn't have me trailing. Whether that's due to gear or scaling IDK.

Was a SoA and we botched a Prideful on 2nd boss and had some leashing flops. Tank was doing Prideful placement and boss leash without saying, it looked like a go on the boss like he was engaging he started the engage then maybe thought to Prideful. Just bizarre stuff like that was tank dependent. By the time it was sorted out my 2min CDs were back up with plenty of time, so that was def a big blow to any +2 push potential.

Warmuth · Feb 10, 2021

3.9k isn’t really +2 territory from my experience. Certain dungeons are easier on the timer and it can be enough but the run has to be perfectly clean. Maybe it’s different with broken ass DH tanks that can actually contribute dps unlike blood.

Pooch · Feb 10, 2021

Just to add a touch in on garrisons. It is one of the best features they ever added to this game coming from a casual/farmer. I know people will hate on it, but here me out. If you played back during Wod and got your AH bot setup and your black market panda. I play a warrior and the blacksmithing hut has probably saved me 100s of thousand of gold on gear repair over the years. If you put a follower in there you get a 4 hour buff where your gear takes no damage and still works to this day which blows my mind. Until SL came out you could make drums for yourself to help you kill old shit faster and free to make from your garrison conversion merchant. Free gold from the mission table no where near what it used to, but on the day the daily npc is a profession merchant you can burn your garrison resources into bloods, then turn those in for gold. There are a bunch of other little quality of life things still present to this day. But they are slowly chipping away at it. Just throwing my 2 cents in but as much as WoW resets everything each expansion. My garrison is still my most used area and I don’t see it changing until they nerf the gold income even more and remove my BM panda and AH bot for the people that finished it.

Secrets · Feb 10, 2021

Muurloen said:
Making Castle Nath even more useless awesome.

Good. Fuck raiding. Hate being locked to my computer chair while some nasally neckbeard barks orders at me.

That's why I play Warhammer Online - I can at least kill people I dislike by going to the opposite faction and wrecking them.

a c i d.f l y · Feb 10, 2021

Pooch said:
Just to add a touch in on garrisons. It is one of the best features they ever added to this game coming from a casual/farmer. I know people will hate on it, but here me out. If you played back during Wod and got your AH bot setup and your black market panda. I play a warrior and the blacksmithing hut has probably saved me 100s of thousand of gold on gear repair over the years. If you put a follower in there you get a 4 hour buff where your gear takes no damage and still works to this day which blows my mind. Until SL came out you could make drums for yourself to help you kill old shit faster and free to make from your garrison conversion merchant. Free gold from the mission table no where near what it used to, but on the day the daily npc is a profession merchant you can burn your garrison resources into bloods, then turn those in for gold. There are a bunch of other little quality of life things still present to this day. But they are slowly chipping away at it. Just throwing my 2 cents in but as much as WoW resets everything each expansion. My garrison is still my most used area and I don’t see it changing until they nerf the gold income even more and remove my BM panda and AH bot for the people that finished it.

The only thing that made me stop going to my garrison was the fact that I can load in anywhere in the game in 6-8 seconds. It takes 3+ minutes for the garrison to load using the hearth.

jayrebb · Feb 10, 2021

Merrith said:
How much dps were you guys doing for the full run? Granted I just hit a big ring upgrade out of Vault today to get me to 210, but aside from stupid deaths, most of the time when I was in 205 groups we would +2 10's without much trouble as long as the tank knows route decently enough.

Granted I've been slacking horribly of late, didn't run a single key until late last night got into a 10. 3 hunter group, actually had a Survival with me and another MM. Actually wasn't too bad, I mean he was behind both of us but it wasn't like he was super terrible. Sometimes I've ran some random 10's and you have guys not even pulling 3k dps for the full run.

But maybe it's a tank problem like you said.

Just checked my logs because I was scratching my head on it. And yep, the 3rd DPS we had (Windwalker) came in at 2.1k and was below Guradian tank at 2.3k

I don't know how I didn't see that when I made the post, or how he managed that. I felt like WW in rags can pull 2.5k+ just by hitting 60 and queuing up.

jayrebb · Feb 10, 2021

Someone mentioned earlier how we are seeing Cataclysm numbers on damage and not stopping around WOTLK. I think this design choice was made because of the loud complaint in BFA about power-scaling, quicksand combat, and not growing in strength enough at the start of the expac. And not feeling the gains in your character enough. They might have went a little overboard considering they just did the squish.

Merrith · Feb 10, 2021

jayrebb said:
Just checked my logs because I was scratching my head on it. And yep, the 3rd DPS we had (Windwalker) came in at 2.1k and was below Guradian tank at 2.3k

I don't know how I didn't see that when I made the post, or how he managed that. I felt like WW in rags can pull 2.5k+ just by hitting 60 and queuing up.

Yeah that is brutal. The Survival pulled 4.2k for the whole dungeon, which I assumed was more than fine for an actual survival player. Literally first one I've seen in M+

Mist · Feb 10, 2021

How the fuck does a WW do 2.1k in M+? Like, you could beat that at ilvl 185.

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