Latest / For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast / #322 - For Azeroth!: “Taking the Gamble on Balance"

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#322 - For Azeroth!: “Taking the Gamble on Balance" · For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast

0:00
My hot take is that this raid tear, which was poised to go
0:04
down as one of people's favorites of all time because of
0:08
the theme and the colorful bosses and some of the way the
0:13
bosses play out. I actually think this is going
0:15
to go down as one of the least enjoyed raid tears for the
0:18
Forsaken. For Lauderon.
0:21
For the Karen Tour for Pandaria. For calendar.
0:29
To the burning region for Gilnaeus have not done for the
0:36
Lich King. For the.
0:39
Sindora for the Alliance for. The Horn for Azeroth.
0:47
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of For Azeroth.
0:51
I am one of your hosts, the true villain Manny, AKA Manny, and I
0:56
am joined by the other two parts of the Triumphant, starting off
1:01
coming from, you know, parts unknown, we'll say Lex.
1:06
Lex, how are you doing and how's the World of Warcraft been
1:08
treating you? It's good.
1:10
The World of Warcraft is treating me well.
1:11
I got I didn't do a ton last week, but I got back into delves
1:16
this week and because I am capable of admitting when I'm
1:20
wrong, I tried a tier 9 delve for the first time.
1:24
And I will say that even though I wasn't getting a higher level
1:28
gear reward, the fact that it was more challenging made it a
1:30
more fun and more rewarding experience.
1:34
So that was good. Oh yeah.
1:39
I'm, I haven't, I really should do things with my priest because
1:42
healing sounds like it's doing pretty well this tier.
1:45
But levelling I've never been able to manage alts.
1:48
It's just like I every couple tiers, like every couple patches
1:51
I'm like, oh, I can totally do an alt and I get them like
1:54
halfway to Max level. And I'm like This is why I don't
1:56
do alts and I never play it again.
2:00
Yeah, I mean, I've finally started doing alts and getting
2:03
pretty deep into like, well, I mean the war band, I've got
2:08
Maine and three alts and the three alts are roughly there for
2:11
professions to get to keep things going.
2:15
So I've been, I've been happy with that.
2:18
But I'm glad that you are getting a little more challenge
2:21
out of Delves. And then let's go to the third
2:24
part, returning from about of illness.
2:27
I'm hoping you're feeling much better.
2:29
Sean, how are you doing? Good Manny.
2:31
I am a million times better than I was at this exact moment last
2:35
week. It was not a good scene here.
2:39
I'll never eat another hot dog again.
2:42
Oh no. It was pretty, pretty rough.
2:47
Yeah, I'm doing. I'm doing good.
2:48
The game's doing well. We're rocking and rolling on
2:51
both NA and EU. Yeah, things are going well in
2:57
Warcraft. I feel like we can't say Lexus
2:59
and Parts Unknown anymore because I'm certain we've said
3:02
her state a couple of times. You don't know.
3:06
She could have moved, you know, I'm pretty sure.
3:09
I've posted my actual address on my Guild discord, so if you
3:11
really want to dox me, just go hop in the Timbermont Tavern
3:14
discord. I don't think we'll do that.
3:21
We'll leave. Places where you could have
3:23
doxxed yourself unknown, and we'll just let it fall into the
3:27
the fog of war that history allows.
3:30
You can do murloc noises that it's it can be on the list of
3:32
things that I probably shouldn't say out loud.
3:35
And then I say on a podcast, immediately I'm like, why did I
3:37
say that on a podcast? Well unfortunately you guys are
3:40
out of luck because I am going to go far less on the editing.
3:44
Oh, I. Can.
3:46
Swear as much as I want. I would say I.
3:48
Mean I'll just bend the episode at a certain, certain point,
3:52
it'll just be like, well, that's just too much work and it won't
3:54
go live. So you guys, you guys test it at
3:56
your own leisure. I heard I heard Lex on another
4:00
podcast last week. Oh yeah.
4:03
That's how time works. I was on live laugh floor which
4:05
was very live. Laugh, Lex.
4:07
Live laugh, Lex. There's no more when I'm around.
4:11
It's just me, Just Lex. Yeah, it was a great.
4:15
But you know, you get to live and you get to laugh.
4:17
So how was that episode? Oh, it was so fun.
4:20
It was I, I always have so much fun.
4:23
Jin is a lovely person to record with.
4:25
And we were just talking about the raid, which is very fun
4:27
because we're on the same raid team.
4:28
So we got to just, you know, like chat and, you know, talk
4:32
about what our team was doing and all the like.
4:34
Fun, different things. And the raid is the raid's a fun
4:36
thing to chat about because it's just a little silly.
4:38
You can just kind of get into the fact that it's a little
4:40
silly. Yeah.
4:42
I love live Lafleur. I love Ali and Jen, and I have
4:45
never had a bad episode recording with Jen.
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I just think it's it's so much fun and it's so delightful.
4:50
So definitely go check that out and go check out Live Lafleur in
4:52
general if you haven't. Yeah, there's no better way to
4:56
enjoy listening to Lex than with a little bit of gin.
5:02
There you go, but speaking about the raid, we are now past the
5:09
Race to World First. We have crowned a winner and
5:13
everything. You were not here last week
5:15
Sean, so we did talk a little bit about it.
5:17
But I really do want to give you the stage to give your
5:20
impressions because out of all of us, you are the person who
5:24
was most up to date on everything going on and you have
5:29
the mythic experience from your own playthrough.
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So how was the Race to World First in general and how is the
5:35
rate for you right now? The raid for me right now is
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good. We're currently working on Styx
5:43
Bunk Junker, which is this tears Ovanax.
5:50
That's the big wall. Early on in the raid, the
5:53
Blizzard said they weren't going to do that.
5:55
They did, yeah. So we're working on that.
6:00
It's it's caught some nerfs which help, but it's still an
6:04
extremely difficult fight that requires the use of a week or A
6:08
to properly do so. That's good.
6:13
It's yeah. But it's fun though.
6:15
The fights have been fun. Rick Reverb was fun.
6:17
We killed him last week, called in a car and it just fun.
6:20
And we're looking forward to the fights coming up.
6:23
But we also are understanding that the fights coming up will
6:27
fall off a bit in difficulty plus you.
6:30
Don't get to roll around in balls.
6:31
Because we don't get to roll around in balls, yeah.
6:34
Other than rolling around on balls though for the for the
6:37
listeners at home that aren't diving into mythic, I've done it
6:40
on heroic. I haven't done it into mythic.
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How does the weak or work? Like what's the Why is it
6:44
necessary? So you break the room, you put 4
6:47
four world markers down breaking the room into quadrants and then
6:50
the weak or assigned you what quadrant you roll on your ball.
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So when you get, because each quadrant has a scrap master,
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which is targeting a player with an ability that will one shot
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them if it gets off. So every ball has to get to
7:07
middle size and roll up your scrap master before that cast
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finishes. And in order to do that
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efficiently, you need to know that each one is accounted for.
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So you do that by assigning quadrants.
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There's not enough time to do that manually or by verbally
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saying so and so take this so and so take that.
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So you need a weak or to assign it.
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And then there's also the two bombs in each quadrant to take
7:29
care of. So the Wiggori is essentially
7:31
puts on your screen for arrows that are color-coded to whatever
7:35
your quadrant is. And then you go and you're
7:38
responsible for the scrap master and or bomb in that quadrant.
7:42
That sounds. So fun, like I can totally hear
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that that was not well tuned and that makes it less fun.
7:47
But like conceptually that sounds like a really fun like if
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if it was maybe managed a little bit cleaner.
7:51
Yeah, it's yeah. Sorry, I don't mean to like
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define your experience for you. No, it could be.
8:02
It's not unfun. It's just, I don't know.
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It's it's just irritating to know that yeah, it's not fun.
8:15
I don't enjoy it. That's.
8:16
True. Never mind.
8:16
It sounds terrible. It sounds really stupid, I take
8:20
it. Back.
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It will be fun if it didn't like if, if you could just do it
8:24
right. Like in heroic, you get you get
8:27
assigned balls, people can just do them.
8:29
You grab a scrap master, you hit the bomb, there's 4 balls,
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there's two bombs. There's two scrap masters in, in
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heroic, I think maybe 3 depending on your its scales
8:36
based on your, your size, probably you can Yolo that, you
8:40
know what I mean? You can just go, you don't need
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a week or to assign that. But we have to like we have to
8:44
update this week or a pack every single raid day.
8:47
Every member of the raid team has to update it because it's
8:50
going to assign these quadrants and it's it would just be.
8:53
And it's like, can we just design that bosses where, where
9:00
we don't have to make these decisions in such a short time?
9:02
Please learn, learn one lesson. Learn any lesson from these
9:07
bosses where we've had these problems in the past, like echo
9:09
of Noetherian. Just just please learn this
9:13
lesson that you need to give more time so the players can
9:17
compute it themselves instead of requiring a week or.
9:20
Or just assign it right, like make it so that the game it's
9:23
like you know, will come up and you can only go in your one
9:26
quadrant and. They're capable of.
9:29
I think what frustrates me the most, it's like you just have
9:31
kids. Either of you have kids.
9:33
I have a dog which. Is basically the same right?
9:35
We just left every parental listener by the way they all
9:37
like immediately signed off like never hearing this again.
9:40
I know neither of you have kids. I have a kid.
9:42
But it's like when you you tell your kid like this is what you
9:46
know, when you're done playing with your toys, you put your
9:49
toys away. And you watch them play with
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their toys every day. And every day they put three of
9:55
their toys away. But they leave two of them on
9:57
the floor. So you know that they know to
10:00
put their toys away. You know they know because
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they're doing it. It's like, I see you, Connor.
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I see you. You're putting your toys away.
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I'm very proud of you. Thank you.
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You're great. But then they leave 2 toys on
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the floor every day. Connor, why don't you put these
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away? Oh, I didn't know.
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I had to. You didn't know you didn't know
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you put them away. One armed bandit and this, this
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is what I'm getting out of this one armed bandit is great
10:25
visually, it flashes in giant neon on the sides.
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What combinations are available to you that you can do that
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won't cause you to put the boss into fraud?
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And the enemies themselves have those arrows flashing on their
10:38
heads. So they, they learned you have
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plenty of time to look and identify which ones to kill and
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call it an obviously people are using we coral lists because
10:47
it's easier to track it, but you don't need it.
10:50
It's not mandatory because you could do it on your own if you
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had somebody who was dedicated and you know, who was really
10:56
sharp could figure that out. So they know to put their joints
11:00
away. But anyway, that's, that's where
11:05
we're at. We're on, we're on Styx.
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I'm looking forward to sprocket monger prog when Styx is done.
11:10
We'll see what happens. OK, but you just mentioned one
11:14
armed bandit though, and that's supposedly one of the hardest
11:19
bosses for its spot. Like that's boss number six.
11:24
One of the hardest 6 bosses in history is what people are
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saying. I know different people have
11:31
been saying it. Wow had put out an article.
11:33
If you go over to Raider dot IO at the current time there's only
11:37
40 gills that have actually down that and we're now way through
11:42
week week 3. Yeah, I don't think I I think
11:45
you're mixing 2 narratives together.
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Styx Bunk Junker is the hardest fourth boss in history.
11:55
One arm one arm Bandit is not the hardest 6th.
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It is a difficult boss, but I don't think it's been called the
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hardest 6th boss in history. I mean.
12:04
Not to generally quote this, but this is an article by Squishy
12:08
who was nice to meet but like only 30.
12:13
This is literally a day ago so hey, congratulations on 10 more
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guilds making it through, but only 30 guilds have killed
12:20
mythic 1 armed bandit in 21 days.
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Hardest 6th boss ever made is the title of the article.
12:28
And it's not just Squishy. OK.
12:31
Right, I have seen some other. I think the difference is 1 arm
12:34
bandits difficulty is tuning it's HP and it's it's it's
12:41
health values and damage values of the abilities versus
12:44
complexity of the mechanics. And that could that Canon will
12:51
be dialed down, but yeah, but it's that.
12:54
And I don't necessarily have a problem with the 6th boss being
12:57
harder and then the seventh boss being harder and then the last
13:00
boss being harder 'cause you want a damage ramp up.
13:07
Yeah, but I'm. Also curious how much the
13:12
difficulty of sticks place in or like I'm not doubting that.
13:17
I I listen we tried heroic and on the second boss we were like
13:20
oh maybe we were a little under geared.
13:23
So like God knows I am not. I don't know.
13:25
I'm only pulling this together from context clues.
13:27
I am. One thing that I kind of am
13:29
curious about though is how much the heavy stacking of difficulty
13:33
early on would affect numbers. Because if fewer people are
13:36
getting past sticks, then fewer people are going to be getting
13:39
to 1 arm bandit even. Yeah, the same thing happened
13:43
last year with Oven Axe and Kyvesa. 4000 guilds got stuck on
13:47
Oven Axe and then very few people killed the bosses after
13:50
that. And everybody was like, oh,
13:51
these bosses are so hard after this.
13:52
I was like, well, there's no teams even getting there.
13:55
That's just. And that goes to kind of the
14:01
deflated ending of the Race to World first, where with that
14:06
final boss having it get down by like 100 kills and then the next
14:11
one was like 50 kills, like less than 50 kills and then 104 kills
14:15
for the third, third kill. You're saying kill.
14:19
He's saying kills, but he means pulls for the lives, yeah.
14:22
Yeah, my apologies. Pulls in order to secure the
14:25
kill where it felt much weaker than previous bosses, especially
14:31
boss #4 that you were saying with Bunk Junker so.
14:39
Watching for example, for example, Styx bunk Junker I
14:42
think was a 200 plus pull boss for Liquid and Galliwicks was
14:49
100. So the fourth boss was I think
14:53
it was 200, but it was like double the pulls.
14:56
That's I I could check, but yeah.
15:00
Oh, I'm totally a liar. Because there's been, it looks
15:03
like, unless I'm misreading radar, IOI think there's been a
15:07
481 kills on sticks. But is that no, that can't pot?
15:10
Nope, there is. That sounds right.
15:12
Yep. So that I that that to 40 is is
15:16
not it's not that there's. AI mean there?
15:18
Probably is a little bit of a bottleneck, but there's not a
15:20
bottleneck from sticks to one armed bandit, so.
15:23
Yeah. No, they are.
15:24
But there are all, they are all that there's jumps there.
15:27
It's they're very, the difficulty is not linear in any
15:31
stretch of the imagination. It's it's all over the place.
15:33
They have it's probably the worst tuned rate I've ever seen
15:37
for tuning. But yeah, that's get another one
15:40
in three weeks. So don't worry about.
15:43
It that that is what I'm what I'm hearing is that the tuning
15:49
through this off I've I've heard people saying that like, oh,
15:52
this race was ruined because of the the tuning.
15:56
And just to go again, this is radar IO.
16:00
You're looking at bunk junker being 114 kills for liquid and
16:04
on its first one, you're looking at mugsy being 149 pulls before
16:11
its first kill. And then yeah, 100 kill, 100
16:14
pulls on the dot to get the first kill for for Galliwicks.
16:21
And there is now that now infamous pose of of just
16:26
shrugging Max being like, what? This is it.
16:30
So there's definitely a lot of contention with this and you're
16:35
not, you're feeling it in your progression.
16:43
Yes and no. Progression for us is a boat on
16:47
par where it has been in the past, but at this point last
16:52
year we were four of eight and this year we're three of eight.
16:58
Yeah, so I don't know, it's just part.
17:05
I don't know if it's part of it's the Racer World first
17:07
hangover, but the raid itself has not impressed me.
17:14
I've not enjoyed my time with it.
17:15
Once I get AOTC on my EU Guild I won't be farming this every
17:19
week. I have no desire to to be there
17:23
and it just feels like it just misses the mark a lot.
17:27
I we need a heroic week for tuning Like we obviously, very
17:32
clearly need a heroic week for tuning.
17:33
Blizzard is incapable of launching a raid tier tuned
17:39
correctly for either the race or the real world without one.
17:46
We have to have heroic weeks back.
17:47
We can't. This is not sustainable in this
17:52
in this state. It's just not fun.
17:54
It makes me want to not rate like your fellowship was going
17:58
to be playing that. It's that frustrating for me.
18:03
And it's just because like I, I know they can do that.
18:08
I know they can know how to put their toys away.
18:09
You know, I know they can do it. So please just do it.
18:15
And then even when they make tuning change, they missed the
18:17
mark. They tuned miss weavers and sent
18:19
the tune, sent the patch live Tuesday.
18:22
But the nerf, they gave them a nerf because some of their
18:25
abilities are too strong, but they gave them a compensatory
18:27
buff, but they didn't actually put the nerf on.
18:31
They just put the buff on. So Miss Weavers went live with
18:33
the 25% buff when they What are we doing here?
18:38
Must be adjusted. Yeah, and Survival Hunters went
18:44
live with an ability that was only supposed to have a 10
18:46
second duration and I think they gave it a 14 second duration or
18:48
something like that. It's like there, there was some
18:50
survival hunter thing that they did like, I don't know, man.
18:54
I, I don't know. I'm I, I worry for the quality
18:57
of the game we're playing. I mean, that goes to a refrain
19:02
that Lex has been saying, beating that drum for many weeks
19:06
now. Lex, would you like to?
19:09
I was going to be very polite after our last episode and say
19:12
like, let let everyone think it in their own heads.
19:16
I mean, yeah, I, I'm, I'm concerned that, as I have said
19:20
every week, it's not that we put out content slow or it's not
19:26
that the Blizzard team put out content slower historically
19:28
because they were lazy and liked to sit on their thumbs.
19:32
I think that there's a benefit to space and testing time both
19:37
for the sake of the employees, but also for the sake of the
19:40
game. I think that when things are
19:42
because you know, even if even I guess I should say even if there
19:46
is not an issue with the it's perfectly if there's not an
19:48
issue of crunch with the employees, that probably means
19:51
that the game quality is going to be affected even more because
19:53
again, it's not that it took it's not that historically
19:56
content took longer because the Blizzard team was spending all
19:59
of their time eating pizza right.
20:00
So if we assume that like either to put out content this much
20:06
faster, they. Either have to shove man hours
20:08
into a shorter period of time or do fewer man hours on patches.
20:13
If they're not shoving man hours into a shorter period of time,
20:15
patches are not going to be as well tested.
20:18
That's my take. I think that I think they should
20:20
slow things down, and that's not just because I want to cuddle my
20:22
puppy instead of doing dolls. Don't worry about that.
20:28
And to, to answer your question about the race specifically, it
20:33
was four days too long. The race, I, I, I, I famously
20:39
had to cancel my trip to Toronto because the race was still going
20:42
on on Saturday. And then they killed the bus on
20:44
Sunday. So the race they, they, they
20:49
literally killed it less than 24 hours later than I needed them
20:53
to in order for me to have been able to go to Toronto for the,
20:56
for the event. So that also factors into my
20:59
feelings on on this tear in this race.
21:03
We need a heroic back and I don't want a worst world first
21:06
that lasts more than seven days. I don't, I don't want it to go
21:08
over a reset. I, I don't, we hit that seven
21:14
day mark and I just don't care anymore.
21:15
I just want it to be over. It's not exciting.
21:17
It's not interesting. I I stopped watching like I
21:19
don't I'm not interested in it. Well, and the decision, I, I
21:23
will say very specifically the decision to layer a new patch
21:26
release and this content like, not this like community
21:30
organization, but there was going to be pulling a lot of
21:33
content creators in such a way that they did kind of block each
21:40
other out. Was not a choice I would have
21:43
made, especially given that they have this all mapped out.
21:46
It's like, I understand they're going worldwide, but I, I surely
21:50
do not think you were the only person who chose not to go to
21:52
the like. I'm I'm sure they were race to
21:53
world firsters who would have loved to go to.
21:56
I mean, I don't know where they all live.
21:57
I don't really follow the race to world worst, but like I'm
21:59
sure there are players who would have gone to the Toronto event
22:02
but couldn't because they were literally actively racing I so I
22:06
don't know how I feel about that.
22:07
I mean, but I guess that kind of is like how are they going to do
22:10
multiple events globally where like they're flying everyone out
22:13
everywhere they're going to, someone's going to overlap with
22:15
something, right? Like it's just too much time
22:18
that has to be covered. Wait till you find out what's
22:20
coming up in Boston because I got accidentally added to this
22:22
group chat on with a bunch of Blizzard devs and they're
22:27
sending out all the secret information and I'm in here.
22:29
I don't think I'm supposed to be.
22:31
But he's OPSEC. But yeah, don't worry, Absec is.
22:35
Clean. Well, you know, Blizzard
22:38
employees have standards, so somebody's going to lose their
22:40
job over that. I'm sure other industries said
22:42
that it's slide, but Blizzard has standards.
22:44
That's right. Going forward though, we've now
22:49
reached the end of the race, world 1st, and with the close of
22:53
that race, we get a list of changes, class balances.
22:58
You talked a little bit about it, about how the mist Weaver
23:02
we're supposed to get nerves and compensatory buffs and that
23:07
didn't quite hit right. So we're they're going to have
23:09
to come back and hot fix that in.
23:11
But we also saw a number of these meta specs getting hit and
23:16
brought back back down and a bunch of these like specs that
23:21
weren't getting a lot of play getting some buffs.
23:24
Now in some cases it feels like even if it hit as they had put
23:32
it down in paper, it doesn't feel quite like enough.
23:35
Like demon hunters getting a nerf, Sure, that's fine because
23:40
they were incredibly strong and they got a a nerf to one talent
23:44
that reduced their or rather increased their Perry chance,
23:47
and that's being dropped a bit. But Death Knights, which saw
23:52
almost no play in the race to World first frost, gets a 4%
23:59
damage increase aura and that's supposed to be enough?
24:04
That feels wholly lacking in my in my book.
24:09
Well. My understanding from the death
24:11
Knights not, and this is only from listening to my previous
24:14
death knight friend who now switched to a Demon Hunter tank.
24:16
My understanding of why Death Knights aren't getting play is
24:19
because the Death Knight utility is about pulling things closer
24:22
to you, and there aren't a lot of ads in this rage.
24:24
So short of adding new ads that was never like there, there's no
24:28
real way to make that like that. Utility just isn't going to
24:31
exist. Or or.
24:33
Fully redoing the demon the the the Death Knight utility.
24:37
There's an interview where they said we don't feel like Death
24:39
Knight needs to have a raid buff because the grip that they bring
24:43
is like their raid buff and then they implemented a raid where
24:48
90% of the ads cannot be gripped.
24:54
Yeah, I mean, we were just talking about bunk, bunk, bunk.
25:00
Sticks. Bunk Junker.
25:02
Bunk junker and if you could pull those ads onto the boss
25:06
right and keep them gripped so they wouldn't fly away, I'd pull
25:10
death Knights in and just have them like staggering their their
25:14
grippy hands. So like there's there's clear
25:16
things you. Can grip the territorial
25:18
bombshells, yeah, but the and I think the hyenas maybe, but you
25:23
roll them up anyway. But not the scrap masters.
25:26
No, the scrap masters in particular, because those are
25:28
the ones that like rocket away. That would be the big difference
25:32
maker. And then if you could grip them
25:33
in, then you could also have one person with one ball roll over
25:35
all of them, right? Then you wouldn't have to assign
25:37
quadrants. Or am I tripping out?
25:39
Yeah, but you'd also end up stunning the DK in the process.
25:43
It's just. Maybe it's worth it.
25:44
DKS are. Yeah, that's what they get for
25:46
being. I.
25:48
Oh yeah, I. Think that like if their damage
25:50
was high enough, if they were just bringing damage, people
25:53
would be like, OK, we're giving up some utility, but we're
25:57
bringing that, bringing the damage.
25:58
It's like Hunter's raid buff is a front loaded damage amp that
26:04
means very little when a lot of these fights really become like
26:09
the pressure points are at the end of the fights.
26:11
So like, I mean, there's spaces for it.
26:14
Like not every raid buff is like, I must have that.
26:18
So like when your utility isn't there, bring the damage.
26:21
But if you're not going to bring the damage or the utility, yeah,
26:23
I can understand that. My hot take is that this raid
26:26
tear, which was poised to go down as one of people's
26:31
favorites of all time because of the theme and the colorful
26:34
bosses and some of the way the bosses play out.
26:39
I actually think this is going to go down as one of the least
26:41
enjoyed raid tears of all time. Like right up there with like
26:45
Emerald Nightmare and Crucible of Storms.
26:49
Crucible of Storms was Crucible of Storms was the Nightmare.
26:54
Emerald Nightmare, I like, I think it just went so fast and
26:59
was so monotonous that that's why it was bad.
27:02
But anyways, yeah, I can. I can understand those examples.
27:05
Wait until I tell you about how the skip functions.
27:14
Augmentation is getting a a a damage buff and it's and it's
27:19
nobody was bringing Ogg for its own damage, giving it a 15%
27:24
damage buff after you've like very much took in the taken the
27:27
time to gut its literal spec identity do any.
27:33
Of the listeners, I don't. Want to say slap in the face?
27:35
Do any of the listeners remember when I said by the end of this
27:38
expansion augmentation will just be a straight DPS class?
27:42
I'd love to be able to pull that that.
27:45
Find that clip and pull that clip.
27:47
Because I feel like we're almost there.
27:52
We're almost there. I mean, I, I, I go back to our
27:55
sit down where we were talking with Jericho and how what
28:01
augmentation really needs is competition in the space.
28:06
Yeah, we need to stop listening to the 15 very vocal high key
28:12
pushers on Twitter who scream about how Ogg has ruined keys
28:16
for them and just listen to the actual player base who enjoyed
28:20
having a support smack. Like I get it, player poem got X
28:26
is upset that we bring hogs. We'll just give us more support
28:30
options there, but they won't support is dead.
28:33
We're going to, There was a one of the interviews in the last
28:36
cycle from a dev said. We don't think you guys want
28:38
support cycles, support classes. Which means we're not.
28:41
We're they're gone, I'll go be Adps class guaranteed without a
28:44
doubt. Bar none, it will slowly have
28:46
all of its its augmentation stripped away.
28:50
Well, and part of the issue is how we to my understanding
28:52
again, this is not saying that I actually do so you guys can tell
28:54
me that I'm just being a silly little fool who's pretending
28:56
that I know things I don't. But to my understanding, part of
28:58
the issue is that we like, it's just in how we track DPS.
29:03
And I, if I could wave a magic wand and make World of Warcraft
29:07
players less obsessed about numbers and like watching those
29:10
numbers, I would in an instant. I think it would make Mythic
29:13
Plus happier. I think it would make everyone
29:15
happier in general. But like, yeah, the fact that
29:16
like tomorrow training Augie doesn't really fit into details
29:20
super cleanly. And it also doesn't really fit
29:22
into logs super cleanly. So it looks like it's doing
29:24
really limited damage, even when like then you look at the like,
29:28
you know, other person that's burning.
29:31
So don't look at numbers. Everyone delete details.
29:33
Everyone delete all of your add-ons.
29:34
No more add-ons in this game. We should be Final Fantasy.
29:37
Not really. Please don't please God, don't
29:39
make us like final. I mean, like it's fine.
29:41
There's there's benefits to Final Fantasy, but don't do
29:45
that. As Tim, if you're listening,
29:47
that was a joke. Lex was joking.
29:49
It was a. Funny thing with the with the
29:52
cooldown manager coming in 11 point 1.5, we might be heading
29:57
in that direction where they lock down more of it and you
30:00
might get your wish Lex or not really your wish, whichever side
30:05
of you and eventually ended up lying down on anyways.
30:10
I I do think that with sorry, I have to go back through all the
30:15
things that you said augmentation.
30:19
I know in logs you can delineate and see what they provided, but
30:23
in the in the add-ons that are live pulling that data, it
30:27
doesn't show up. So yeah, you're right, that
30:30
information's there in some places and not in others.
30:33
And so people can do a snap reaction.
30:36
But I think that people now understand that Aug is inflating
30:42
your numbers even if they don't know exactly how much the Aug
30:45
player is inflating your numbers.
30:47
And the biggest issue with augmentation outside of the fact
30:55
that it was making tanks and healers more effective more than
30:59
any other class, was that the high end augs was all about
31:06
lining up the cooldown windows and such to get the most out of
31:10
it. Where the plug scenario, you
31:13
weren't getting that much and so there was a huge variance
31:16
between the everyday play at home people and the like, people
31:21
who were absolutely kidding it out.
31:23
So it's been the balance issue since day one in so many
31:28
different ways that I don't think it necessarily had to be
31:33
really. I would argue that that, I mean,
31:36
we won't talk about it because everybody likes to think that
31:37
they could be on the PGA Tour if they just had enough time
31:40
golfing, but that that skill gap exists in every single class.
31:47
The best players in the world are playing a different game
31:51
than anybody who's not in one of the top three guilds in the
31:54
world. If you're not in a top three
31:55
Guild in the world or an AWC champion, you're not playing the
32:00
same game. They are playing those classes,
32:03
all of those classes at a level so much higher than you could
32:06
ever fathom that it was. It doesn't matter if it's Ogg or
32:12
fire mage or rogue like. They're just, but we don't, we
32:18
don't say those things. People say things like, well, if
32:19
I could play 16 hours a day, I would be just as good as Trill.
32:22
Yeah, I don't know if I like that's.
32:23
What I've had. The gear I think that I could be
32:25
in limit. That's right.
32:26
That's right. That's what they sound like.
32:28
Like. Yeah.
32:29
And I think that you're right, John, But I think that when they
32:33
make changes, it was hard for them to bring it in line at the
32:37
top end without causing it to drop further on the low end.
32:42
I think that was the issue. Like usually you can screw up
32:46
your rotation and it drops your your damage commensurate to
32:50
that. But it's but with this, you
32:53
could screw up your rotation and that would be one thing, but the
32:59
person that you're also buffing could screw up the rotation and
33:03
that would cause an issue and. The.
33:06
Combined mistakes between, yeah, exactly compounding it, right.
33:09
And so if it was I guess a buff class where the entire thing
33:15
you're doing is just, I'm spinning plates, I got to keep
33:18
this buff up 24/7. And that's like what my rotation
33:20
is. So that it's a flat line of like
33:23
buffs. I'm, I'm not sure that would be
33:28
the engaging spec that people would want.
33:30
Like I hated total twisting back in BC I quit the game because I
33:35
was expected to totem twist and I'm like this is not fun for me,
33:37
forget it. I don't want to be thrown in
33:39
with the melee group and make sure that my strength of earth
33:42
totem is down like that. That was never compelling for me
33:45
and I just left the left the game until Wrath switched up
33:49
what shamans did. Back in.
33:53
BC yes, way back before then, but I'm just saying that was a
33:58
time when it was totem twisting and it was seal.
34:03
I forget what the hell Palens were doing some seal thing
34:07
around and you would have warriors that would jump between
34:09
stances and all of that jazz. But you know, if the as a
34:16
separate spec, it is there for some people to enjoy.
34:19
And that's what Sean was saying. It just, it just becomes an
34:26
issue where when you're when your contribution is so
34:31
dependent on other players, it becomes very hard to correct for
34:37
your contribution and what your what your contribution is being,
34:42
I don't want to say exploited leverage to get the final number
34:48
right. That's a multiple points of
34:49
failure. Yeah, that's true.
34:55
Beyond that, yeah, we got a bunch of classes that got some
34:58
changes. Again, we talked about the Miss
35:00
Weaver thing. I do want to give a special
35:03
shout out to Holy Paladins that were really suffering.
35:07
They did a flat out buff. They did some very specific
35:13
buffs to like further give them some energy, and then they had
35:18
to come back the next day and give them even more buffs
35:21
because Holy Paladins were really struggling.
35:26
I haven't played with the holy paladin or spoken to any holy
35:29
paladin since these compound compounded buffs have come in.
35:35
Do any of you know how this is landing now with the second wave
35:39
having hit? I'm seeing, I'm seeing some
35:42
shaking. The holy paladin that I play
35:44
with has been playing Holy Paladin for so long, I think
35:48
that you would have to pry that class out of his cold dead
35:50
hands. So I don't know how he's feeling
35:52
about it, but he's still playing Holy Paladin so.
35:57
OK, well, you know, the diehards stick with it and it's a better,
36:02
better thing. And I'm very happy for those
36:06
Holy Paladin enjoyers, those crusaders, if you will, because
36:13
you have people like Chrisette, that Sean and I know you have
36:17
people like your Holy Paladin friend that ride through the
36:20
lows. And now hopefully this is going
36:22
to land in a spot where they'll be in a much better position.
36:26
Healer's got a lot of adjustments to sort of bring
36:30
them more in line. I'm seeing this priest get
36:34
adjusted. Oracle's getting a big, big
36:37
shift and Holy priest being brought into a brought into line
36:43
a bit better. I mean, hoping that we see again
36:49
a meta shift because of these these changes.
36:53
But Sean, have we really seen a meta sort of like settle in in
36:58
the first 3 weeks? Seems really fast but it is
37:01
season 2. I haven't really been tracking
37:04
it, if I'm being honest. I know Vengeance Demon hunters
37:09
are are hot right now, but I haven't been tracking a meta.
37:14
Yeah, the race really sucked the life out of me.
37:17
That was really, really disappointed.
37:22
Yeah, no, but like, you know what, let's hear it from our
37:26
listeners. I know last season we were
37:28
looking at the various statistics of like we're the
37:32
tanks and healers, especially the healers 'cause that was a
37:34
big hot topic at the beginning of Season 1 were.
37:37
And if you'd like us to check in on that, let us know.
37:40
Just join jump into the discord bit dot LY slash fast discord,
37:44
and we will look at that depending on the reaction.
37:49
Big reaction. Speaking of big reactions,
37:53
everybody has been talking about this DDoS attack.
37:59
So I John, I know you've been hurting after the race, the
38:03
world first, but have you heard about this?
38:08
So I know there was some DDoS attacks during the race, but
38:11
this was only fangs right? The really loud, obnoxious
38:14
content creator Guild that is playing hardcore classic?
38:18
That's them, right? Definitely the name and
38:22
definitely some pinon wrapped in with that.
38:24
And I guess they were rating and there was a deal attack happened
38:29
and I assume I can only assume screaming into the mics followed
38:33
lots of. Content.
38:34
Yeah, OK. And then it was it was a no,
38:38
like somebody was specifically targeting them, apparently, and
38:42
Blizzard made the decision to roll back their deaths.
38:46
Is that right? They yeah, they're resurrecting
38:49
a bunch of characters, which they have said is they could do
38:54
on the discretion. Did we have to blame pirate
38:59
software for this one or was this separate?
39:03
I can't. It's so hard to keep track of.
39:05
The only fangs drama is where they did they.
39:07
Did the D dos happen because he ran away from a pole or did the
39:12
D dos happen because the DPS didn't stand in the fire and
39:18
help save Tyler? One I I I just have a hard time
39:21
remembering which scream fest was the cause of it.
39:25
They scream so much Manny. All they do is yell into their
39:28
mics. It's.
39:31
It's definitely that farming content from this.
39:34
Yes, I agree and clearly you have you have some opinions,
39:40
some. Opinions.
39:41
Some really, I just don't watch. I just mute and block all of
39:45
that. I don't ever see it.
39:46
I only read. The only reason I know it
39:47
existed is because Towelie tweeted about it.
39:50
Yeah. Yeah, this is again, this is
39:53
this is definitely informative of your opinions of it.
39:58
But yes, there was a raid organized to go and just as they
40:07
were raiding, there was AD Dos attack, huge hit.
40:12
This was on Sunday. It affected not just classic
40:16
hardcore servers, but also affected all of Warcraft
40:21
servers. I was in a Mythic plus on at the
40:25
time when it happened and obviously we didn't time that
40:29
key. It took us way too long to get
40:31
get back in. I didn't didn't need a res
40:35
because it's retail and I don't require that, but it affected
40:41
many, many players. Blizzard had said that this was
40:48
a one of the biggest, if not the biggest ones.
40:51
In fact, Kyvax went to the forums and called it an
40:55
unprecedented DDoS attacks that it affected their game services.
41:02
And so they made the decision that they were going to
41:11
resurrect some of the sorry many if not all of the characters,
41:19
right? And they stress that they may
41:24
elect in the future, but it is at the sole discretion of
41:27
Blizzard to make that resurrection right?
41:34
And they will consider it in the event of AD DOS attack.
41:38
This is not, hey, my Internet failed, I had a blackout.
41:45
This restore my character because it is part of it where
41:49
it's like, yes, these things can happen.
41:51
They might be outside of your control, but we are not
41:55
obligated to resurrect your characters.
41:58
And it has to go with the way that you approach hardcore,
42:03
right? Like you have to be willing to
42:06
let that go. And I know the screams and
42:10
reactions of the only Fan Fangs guildies there's.
42:15
Also quite a few screams and reactions and only fans.
42:18
Sorry, I should have said that. I should have said that.
42:21
I'm sorry. There's like then I could watch.
42:25
They're maybe he's. Going to throw away this
42:28
episode. They're there for the content.
42:30
They are there for the content, right?
42:32
And that they they lean into it more.
42:35
But I think that if you're playing hardcore, like you can't
42:41
be attached to that. It's just like, hey, I made it
42:43
this long, I made it this far. That's the thing and it goes.
42:46
It's why I don't play hardcore because I would hate to go
42:50
through that experience again. I just, I'm not a classic
42:53
leveller period. I barely like levelling on
42:56
retail as it is. What about you guys?
43:02
Has hardcore ever appealed to you?
43:07
I, I, I fully don't believe I'd make it past like level 10.
43:10
I am very stupid, and I jump off many things and I pull very
43:14
large groups. Yeah, I mean, that sounds like
43:19
devastating and heartbreaking to me, the idea that, you know,
43:21
like my game could bug and I could lose the character
43:24
forever. But that's why I don't play
43:25
hardcore. So no, it does not.
43:27
Appeal to me at all, John. I loved vanilla Wow and I
43:37
thought it was a great time when I played it, but I also loved
43:40
other things like not having a cell phone when I was a kid and
43:44
not having bills and, you know, vehicles without heated seats
43:51
and they're. I'm not going back to that
43:53
though. Like I the quality of life
43:55
changes that have been made in the game.
43:59
I went back and tried to, I even tried to play Season of
44:01
Discovery and I hate it. I hate it.
44:07
The leveling is so slow. It's so frustrating and there is
44:12
zero chance I would play a game mode like I play RPGs on easy.
44:17
There is zero chance I'm playing a game mode where one death
44:21
means I have to delete that character and start over.
44:24
I there's a a running joke in my EU Guild that even the most
44:29
minor of inconveniences is enough to make me quit.
44:34
And I, I promise you that would that would qualify, yeah.
44:38
You'd play hardcore. Hardcore.
44:39
When one of your characters dies, you no longer play World
44:42
of Warcraft ever again. Quit the game.
44:44
Yeah, I quit Warcraft. I almost cancelled my trip to
44:48
LFG because I have to install some cockamamie app on my phone
44:55
so that I can pay 1010 lbs to the UK so I can get a a digital
45:02
travel pass to say that I can come visit for a week.
45:04
And I was like no, no thanks, I'm good.
45:11
They're like just to sell the app and send them a picture of
45:13
your your ID like or F that. OK, understandable.
45:21
Yeah, well, not. That's reasonable, I think.
45:24
Understandable. Is a reasonable.
45:25
Reaction to needing to uninstall an app.
45:28
I've been there so many times. Yeah, like, I, I think it's
45:33
funny because sometimes it's the smallest annoyances that sting
45:37
the most. Like if if it's a big enough
45:40
problem, I'm like, OK, and roll up my sleeves and I'll get to
45:43
it. If it is a small nagging thing
45:46
that might set me off more than anything else.
45:49
Yeah, like it. Which is a weird inverse.
45:51
I went to the website, like I went to the website and it was
45:53
like, go, go here to learn about which countries need them.
45:56
It's spoiler, it's all countries.
45:58
If you're not in the UK, you don't live.
45:59
If you're AUK citizen, it's all of them.
46:01
So I was like, OK, fine. Well let me just sign up for it
46:04
here. I have all my information on my
46:06
computer anyway I can just upload it And it was like sign
46:09
up via the app is faster. Would you like to do that?
46:11
I'm like, no, I want to sign up on the website.
46:13
So I clicked sign up on the website and the next page is
46:15
like you need a cell phone to sign up on the app like why do?
46:19
You even give me the option. And I'm an only fangs creator.
46:23
I'm an only fangs. This is how only fangs happens.
46:27
Only fangs happen. OK, well, so we just.
46:33
Created international fraud. We I sent the information to one
46:36
of the guys in the UK and they just filled it out for me.
46:40
Oh dear God. Well, at one point, because of
46:47
all this, there were rumors that only Fangs was going to just
46:51
utterly disband because they had just reached that point.
46:56
I Who will do the screaming then?
47:00
Let's move on to other content and continue screaming on other
47:02
content. I know that the developers were
47:07
even taking to social media saying like how stressful it was
47:12
because of the like size and, and and just impact of this this
47:19
DDoS attack. I know that Blizzard is not and
47:25
this is part of the discussion that happened in the fast
47:28
discord. Blizzard is not going to put out
47:30
specifics about like where their guidance is or what will cause
47:34
them to take such action again. And part of the reason is just
47:40
because you don't want to put that information out there,
47:43
which will cause actors to then be like, OK, like I'll go close
47:49
to the limit, but not to the limit.
47:51
Or in some cases, go to that, go to that limit to cause
47:56
themselves to get the resurrection.
47:58
Like if such a thing, if somebody wanted to go to that
48:02
point, and for those of you who are saying, Oh yeah, nobody
48:04
would go to that point, we have people who are attacking people
48:11
that they never met over the Internet for no good reason
48:16
other than like vindictiveness to make their own kind of
48:20
content. Was it Pirate Software's team?
48:22
Did they do the DS to get back at only?
48:25
Thanks for kicking him out of the Guild.
48:29
I don't know. Any of these words?
48:32
You know these words, you just don't know what they mean in
48:34
this context. That's true.
48:35
That's true. I do certainly know what they
48:36
what they and I. I'm feeling like I frankly is
48:38
almost making me want to because I love a good drama.
48:41
This is why I watch reality. TVI love.
48:43
A little. I love when people are
48:44
ridiculous. It makes me very happy.
48:46
It makes me feel. Better you need to go back and
48:48
look into the the pirate software Roach out start there
48:52
follow it straight through and then we'll start the rumor now
48:56
that it was pirate software viewers who launched the DDoS
49:00
attack against only fangs as a way to get back at them for
49:03
kicking him out of the Guild and.
49:05
It's so sad that that could happen because of the
49:09
demographic of Pirate Software's viewership.
49:11
Like they would be the straw. Anyways, that is too far down
49:15
the rabbit hole for this I'm. Going to send this tweet and
49:19
watch my account blow up. Oh.
49:21
My goodness, please. No, it's good and all all
49:24
publicity is good. Publicity tag for Azeroth be
49:27
like for Azeroth confirmed. But we're still seeing a lot of
49:36
a lot of stuff coming for 11 point 1.5, so hopefully that'll
49:41
give us better content than this drama.
49:45
But unless you guys have anything further to talk about,
49:49
I think we'll call it a show there.
49:55
No, I got nothing else. I missed you guys last week.
49:57
Thanks for a good show. Missed you too buddy, glad
50:00
you're here. Yeah, and next week?
50:02
Glad that you're feeling better. Listeners, I want you to know my
50:04
energy levels might seem a little low this week, but it's
50:07
because I'm just coming to terms of the fact that I'm going to
50:09
have to quit Warcraft because it's not fun and the game sucks.
50:11
I'm sorry babe, but once that's that's a joke, that's a joke.
50:15
That's a joke. Oh my goodness.
50:18
That's a joke. All right.
50:20
One thing before we go actually is for I, I don't know when
50:23
manny's going to post this, but if it's before 1:00 tomorrow,
50:29
1:00 ESTI think it's 1:00 EST. If it's not, I'm going to tell a
50:32
lie on this. If when the Blizzard Boston
50:35
tickets go live. Wish me luck and.
50:38
Is this still happening in America?
50:39
Yeah, allegedly and if any of you hopefully I'll be there,
50:45
fingers very crossed and I'd love to meet people and if not,
50:49
I'll probably be at PAX that day.
50:50
I'm gonna probably get packs that day either way, so hope to
50:53
see people. Best of luck with the ticket
50:56
gods. There you go, and whatever you
50:59
do, just make sure you come up to her and ask her a million
51:02
questions about priests. Not would Demon Hunter priest.
51:05
Specifically, it's like like in a church like be like, what's
51:08
the 5th? I don't Matthew 512 quote it.
51:16
The 1st and people that come up to Lex and say FAZ is my
51:20
favorite podcast get a full 15 second embrace.
51:26
The 2nd 10 people that come up and say that get a slap in the
51:29
face and she will not tell you which number you are when you
51:33
arrive. I do have some big dreams of
51:35
doing like. Somebody ahead of you?
51:37
Recording thing, I don't know if that'll actually happen, but
51:39
there's a chance I'll be doing a little a little something
51:42
something we'll. See, that'll be cool to.
51:45
See only Fangs recording. Yeah, exactly.
51:49
Like that's what I'm. Looking for I'm just going to go
51:53
in there and scream, see how long it takes until they kick me
51:57
out. Yes, yeah, changing her name to
52:01
Lex One. Until next time guys, may all
52:06
your hits be crits.