World of Warcraft: Current Year

Burns said:

A lot of people don't like leveling, and will use the end of the xpac to get their characters as strong as possible, in order to spend the least amount of time leveling.

Click to expand...

Levelling is retard easy, I'm not sure that you are actually aoeing things down any quicker with slightly higher iLevel gear for a few levels.

Burns said:

Back before they started heavily sharding everyone and level scaling zones, I spent a decent chunk of time preping for release, just to get ahead of the mob. There is nothing worse than fighting for taps/spawns. There were always a handful of quests with stupid low drop rates and respawns, that are required to progress, where everyone piled up.

Click to expand...

This hardly ever happened and just being online early and for a long time will get you ahead.

Burns said:

A lot of people don't like leveling, and will use the end of the xpac to get their characters as strong as possible, in order to spend the least amount of time leveling. From what I have read, there are multiple ways to get set items, so it's easier than running alt raids in mythic or heroic.

Back before they started heavily sharding everyone and level scaling zones, I spent a decent chunk of time preping for release, just to get ahead of the mob. There is nothing worse than fighting for taps/spawns. There were always a handful of quests with stupid low drop rates and respawns, that are required to progress, where everyone piled up.

Click to expand...

Since BC leveling is quite straightforward and having +10ilvl than everyone else doesn't really give you a significant edge. Spending days, weeks even months getting those +10ilvls for a whole 10-20 hours playtime sounds like a waste of time.

Also being geared like a battecruiser doesn't really make a difference while Bobby Greengear just tag mobs faster than you because his class / spec does it better regardless of gear.

Then, most WoW xpac releases happen during evening, if you're so focused on getting ahead of the pack, just drink coffee. It'll work way better than running AoE sims in a game where having Leatrix skip dialogues will do a better job for you than switching gems.

Chris said:

Levelling is retard easy, I'm not sure that you are actually aoeing things down any quicker with slightly higher iLevel gear for a few levels.


This hardly ever happened and just being online early and for a long time will get you ahead.

Click to expand...

It was defiantly noticeable when having a high item level and being prepped. Legion was the last time I cared about being ahead of the hump, and I timed my first 4 or 5 characters to max level. Legion also had a spurg play 100s of hours in beta to make a leveling addon that saved hours in level time, on release. Even in previous xpacs, there were hours in difference between my geared toons and those that didn't step foot in a raid.

I think it was also Legion where you could level fast enough that you could get in weekly quests, before it reset in the morning.

There was also something satisfying about being the only person in the zone.

Bondurant said:

Since BC leveling is quite straightforward and having +10ilvl than everyone else doesn't really give you a significant edge. Spending days, weeks even months getting those +10ilvls for a whole 10-20 hours playtime sounds like a waste of time.

Also being geared like a battecruiser doesn't really make a difference while Bobby Greengear just tag mobs faster than you because his class / spec does it better regardless of gear.

Then, most WoW xpac releases happen during evening, if you're so focused on getting ahead of the pack, just drink coffee. It'll work way better than running AoE sims in a game where having Leatrix skip dialogues will do a better job for you than switching gems.

Click to expand...

My Burning Crusade time was a long time ago, so I don't remember how much the Nax gear made. Plus the first 8 hours were in a full Nax geared group with a druid, so we were the ones getting the tags. I don't remember doing the same amount of prep as I did in later xpacs, but I didn't play alts at that time, so I doubt there was much more I could have done.

Being the only person in Blade's Edge Mountains for a few hours was a memorable experience though (then I had to go back and help guildies catch up).

There were other rewards for getting to max level fast, outside of avoiding the crowds, that was just my primary motivation. The sooner you are at cap, the sooner you can get started on raid prep. Of course bliz over the years nerfed many of those benefits, so it hardly matters if you are max level in 5 hours or 10.

In DF I will do about the same amount of prep I did for Shadowlands, which is, make sure I have enough gliders and try to remember to use up any old flasks I have in my bank.

---

As for anyone spending more than a few hours to prep, its mostly is in relation to mythic raiders (and maybe even some mostly heroic raiders), where for the last 4 or so xpacs, you are expected to have multiple characters ready for splits on the first week of heroic. Which means they all need to get to max as fast as possible in order to get the first weeks wizard chores done, since it all adds up in those first three to four weeks.

You can also make a shit ton of gold by leveling as fast as possible and getting the higher level mats and consumables up on the market...or at least you could. They made the AH regional now, for that shit, so who knows how it will play out.

That's not me though, I spent maybe a couple hours reading the prep sheets and rounding up supplies. I never took alts to PuG raids just to gear them up for leveling, but I know people that did (usually they wanted to change mains/primary alts, after seeing what Bliz did to the class in beta).

Burns said:

As for anyone spending more than a few hours to prep, its mostly is in relation to mythic raiders (and maybe even some mostly heroic raiders), where for the last 4 or so xpacs, you are expected to have multiple characters ready for splits on the first week of heroic. Which means they all need to get to max as fast as possible in order to get the first weeks wizard chores done, since it all adds up in those first three to four weeks.

You can also make a shit ton of gold by leveling as fast as possible and getting the higher level mats and consumables up on the market...or at least you could. They made the AH regional now, for that shit, so who knows how it will play out.

Click to expand...

Just the thought of that makes me gag a bit. DF is already doing a good enough job making me we want to puke with the fag drags, but GDKP and the "best practices" of it will always make me just want to quit a game at the mere thought of it.

Burns said:

Hey hey people, did you spend a bunch of time getting tier sets, on your main and alts, so you could use them while leveling in Dragonflight? Well guess what, we changed all the classes so much that we will have to disable those sets when the pre-patch hits...oops.


View attachment 438020

Click to expand...

I mean, specs and talents are getting completely redesigned, most of the tier sets bonus would probably don't even work anymore, so it's a moot point.

Malkav said:

I mean, specs and talents are getting completely redesigned, most of the tier sets bonus would probably don't even work anymore, so it's a moot point.

Click to expand...

I just looked at DK, rogue, & druid tier sets and all of them except Ass rogues have those abilities available in the new talent tree. So, from the outside it looks like they could have left them active and with minimal work, replaced the couple talents that were being renamed/reworked with the new ID.

It's a month of prepatch and then leveling, so it's not just about keeping it going for the first ~10 hours of play in DF.

Burns said:

I just looked at DK, rogue, & druid tier sets and all of them except Ass rogues have those abilities available in the new talent tree. So, from the outside it looks like they could have left them active and with minimal work, replaced the couple talents that were being renamed/reworked with the new ID.

It's a month of prepatch and then leveling, so it's not just about keeping it going for the first ~10 hours of play in DF.

Click to expand...

They have done this at the end of the last few expansions with legendaries. So its nothing new.

Animosity said:

They have done this at the end of the last few expansions with legendaries. So its nothing new.

Click to expand...

I was a bit annoyed that Legiondries were disabled after 5 new levels, since they were actually fun. I think the Legion tier sets were only disabled when you hit max level, but I forgot that they disabled the Legion weapons on the prepatch. Loosing the weapon, right off the bat, and then the legendries, half way through, also made BFA the worst leveling experience in the game, so far.

Burns said:

I just looked at DK, rogue, & druid tier sets and all of them except Ass rogues have those abilities available in the new talent tree. So, from the outside it looks like they could have left them active and with minimal work, replaced the couple talents that were being renamed/reworked with the new ID.

It's a month of prepatch and then leveling, so it's not just about keeping it going for the first ~10 hours of play in DF.

Click to expand...

This is asinine levels of complaining. Yes, many of the tier sets are talents now so everything would be super fucked if they let you have tier set and the talent as well. Expect legendaries to also get deactivated. It doesnt matter. Other than DF tier sets, all the borrowed power systems are baked into the new trees. You are going to be very powerful with just the trees alone. And, nobody gives two fucks about power level in prepatch. You making fated mythic jailer plans?

If you are going to bitch, bitch about how the talents aren’t actually all working and many of the specs are still bugged to hell and back. Or bitch about their loot system in M+ being dumb as fuck.

I just geared up 3x chars with set and double legendaries in the last few weeks, not surprised and don't care about this change. I only did it because the sets and legendaries were basically required for the builds to play the way they should, but with the new talents I can make even more interesting builds and rotations without relying on that stuff, so it's all good, and I can play more alts without the investment now. In a lot of cases the same power from the set/legendary is in the new tree anyways, so I see why they'll have to disable them. Way more interested to play with the new trees and swap builds easily than to keep the borrowed power from sets/legs atm.

People who know what they're talking about have been throwing out that 90% of the specs feel good mechanically atm, with the other 10% needing help. So play specs that fall in that 90% if you want to have fun, or play in the 10% if you like to bitch about shit, up to you. Pretty easy to figure out if you play around with the talent calculator or look around for a little beta info.

Foggy said:

If you are going to bitch, bitch about how the talents aren’t actually all working and many of the specs are still bugged to hell and back. Or bitch about their loot system in M+ being dumb as fuck.

Click to expand...

Already did that, on to new things to bitch about. Gotta feed the beast!

Rajaah said:

I was gonna do a level 50 heroic boost to check out Shadowlands before this, but it looks like the game is wildly different from a few years ago so I think I'll start at level 1. Subbing for 2-3 months to do SL/DF. Running an Affliction Warlock for the first time ever, a class I always wanted to try but I stuck with Mage instead. Two questions:

-Shadowlands content is level 50-60, yeah? How'd they divide things up for the first 50 levels? Are the old expansions still useful in any way?

-I thought Shadowlands was included if you bought Dragonflight? Looking at it now, it's worded like you only get Shadowlands if you buy the "complete edition" that includes all previous expansions. That kinda sucks, don't really want to spend money on SL if everyone hates it.

I'll probably just resub in a week or two when I've got some time to kill and start doing the regular levels, don't actually need SL until I get to 50 I guess.

Edit: Looks like the pre-patch on the 25th might be a good time to get back into it, since they're overhauling UI and talents then and SL is rumored to be free after that. Would be weird to get into Warlocking before the 25th, plan out a talent path, and then have everything get flipped on me.

Click to expand...

They had some promo when they announced the release date of DF, where Shadowlands was free, to try to drum up subs early. They may do that again on prepatch release, but I don't think they usually roll the old xpac into the base game until a week or more after the new xpac is released.

As for leveling from 1, they changed it to a system like timewalking, where you pick an expansion and you just level in that expansion till 50, then you have to move to Shadowlands (until after DF starts, then you should be able to level to 60 in a single xpac, through Chromie time). Legion is probably the best xpac to go to, if you never played it.

You can also swap chromie time whenever you want as you level, I like to do WoD for quick garrison stuff, Legion (skipping the intro scenario) for order hall and highmountain, MoP because I like it, Cata for dungeon spamming (includes all the vanilla dungeons). You can start SL at 48 also, if it's your first time or if you're not skipping the maw start. Some dungeons scale pretty poorly while leveling making them much more difficult than others, like Maw of Souls in legion.

If he qualifies as a new player, they will force him through BfA after the intro island area. If not a new player, can pick expansion.

If you want to minmax your leveling time, there are speed routes on youtube that tell you what zones/expansions to do in what order to level the fastest.

First time through Shadowlands will force you to level up through the story which forces you into zones in a specific order. After that, can pick fated leveling which allows you much more freedom and is generally faster. Once again, like with leveling from 1-50, 50-60 fated leveling has routes on youtube that makes the experience much faster and less painful (the routes try to avoid the obnoxious shit).

I was wondering how the leveling thing happened now. I'm so used to set zones, nothing dynamic, and you go this route to level the fastest, etc that having a choice is almost overwhelming. Kinda crazy. Back in the Spring, I feel like I logged back in after I had subbed for TBC Classic, just to check it out. Never went through Shadowlands stuff though and like Rajaah maybe it's time to go through that content to check it out.