Latest / For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast / #363 - For Azeroth!: “May Sean Brick Your Key"

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#363 - For Azeroth!: “May Sean Brick Your Key" · For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast

0:00
I've never felt so close to Manny as I do right now.
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Victory for the Forsaken. For Lauderon.
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For the Karen tour for. Pandaria for.
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Calendar. To the burning region for
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Gilnaeus, but has not died for the Lich King.
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For the. Sindora for the Alliance for the
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Horn for Azeroth. Hello and welcome back to
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another episode of For Azeroth. It is almost the end of the
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year. We are closing out 2026.
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Sorry, 20252026 coming up. This is going to be the last
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recorded episode of the year. And yes, very Merry Christmas,
0:57
happy holidays for everyone who celebrates, and we'll be back in
1:02
2026. But we've got a lot of goodies
1:06
for you, for those of you who do listen to the podcast while
1:09
maybe traveling to visit family or spending some time in front
1:13
of the fire, whatever you might be doing.
1:15
So we'll have some extra episodes that will be released
1:18
over that time. I am, of course, joined by the
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wonderful, triumphant, Triumphant.
1:27
Coming from wonderful Hawaii, we have Lex.
1:32
Hello, Lex. How is the beach and how is
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World Warcraft treating you this week?
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It is good. I it feels like the beach
1:39
because it's been in like the upper 30s, which I don't.
1:41
It's too hot. It's the middle of winter.
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I would like it to be cold again.
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I complained about it being too warm, too cold, because it was
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in the teens and now I'm like, we could go back to that in
1:50
fact. But no, it's treating me well.
1:54
I've been reading, I finally getting around to reading
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Chronicle version 4. So I'm maybe about to actually
2:00
learn what happened in the Warlords of Draynor.
2:02
I am very perplexed and very excited to discover this piece
2:06
of history that I did not play through.
2:08
And it seems like anytime you talk about World of Warcraft
2:10
war, everyone's like and then some stuff happened, but we
2:13
don't talk about that. It was a Mcguffin to reintroduce
2:18
Guldan and he was wonderful for about an expansion, but like
2:25
half of 1 expansion and like 1/4 of the next expansion.
2:30
AU Guldan is great, was great, great.
2:34
Best thing to come out of that entire thing.
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And then they did a good thing with Yurrell and then they
2:41
decided to screw over Yurrell. It would like even getting rid
2:44
of it. They kind of like were bad about
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it too. Anyways, I I'm glad that you're
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you're getting to check out that and go through all of those bits
2:55
and pieces of lore. One of the things that we do
2:57
have coming for you guys is a little lore debate between the
3:04
fine folks at live laugh Lore and of course, our second Co
3:08
host that I'm introducing, Sean. Hello, Sean.
3:12
Hi Manny, How are you? I mean, Warcraft's fine.
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I want to talk about something that's more exciting though.
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So yesterday or not yesterday, today I felt like I won the
3:20
lottery. I went to the grocery store and
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I was looking for a sourdough loaf to eat bread.
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Sourdough bread, because sourdough bread doesn't have
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sugar and I'm on this no sugar thing.
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So I found one and my issue is that I always get there and I
3:39
always find like ones that are old.
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But I found a loaf today that was made today so it was the
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freshest this bread could have been.
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When I picked it up it was so soft my fingers left indents in
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it. And that's how the world of the
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Warcraft has been treating me like a soft, freshly baked
3:56
sourdough loaf. OK, well I'm glad you're
4:01
enjoying that. To answer your question, World
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Warcraft has been treating me fine or the general world has
4:09
been treating me OK. Been enjoying hunting down
4:13
different pieces of decor and stuff.
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Just being like what's my mission today?
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I'm going to go through Veldraken cooking and make some
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some stuff for that to like get out my kitchen and so forth.
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Just be doing little missions to make the place more lived in.
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I also did a little bit of tuning on my computer to get
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that going. So I'm hoping that come this
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Christmas break, 'cause like after this week, I, I get to
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like just relax gonna try streaming again.
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I've seen this this cartridge bro streaming and it's gotten
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gotten the the hunger back in in me to like, you know, play play
4:55
some games in the middle of the day for like 0 to whatever
4:59
amount of viewers I get. Is it that does the stream When
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you do you watch the streams and think, oh I can do this way
5:05
better than that chump. Yeah, right.
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He plays banger music you don't even know.
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You've never been to a cartridge bro stream.
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You don't even have to watch, you just need to listen.
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And he just belts out good hits wisdom and occasionally gets
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frustrated when small things don't go well.
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Yeah, those minor irritations, though, will get you.
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But yes, we're here to talk about the World of Warcraft that
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we've got a couple of pieces of news, including our first story,
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which is changes coming to mythic plus in in midnight.
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Now, over the last little bit, we've seen changes in terms of
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like how far people get and where the the top rewards cap
5:55
out as Blizzard has been trying to adjust things to keep it in
5:59
pace with rating. Initially, of course, Mythic
6:04
Plus has been something where you had to do it if you were a
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heroic Raider. If you were a Mythic Raider, you
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had to do it because the gear rewards were just so fast.
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And that is somewhat true, especially at the beginning of
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a, of an expansion, at the beginning of a season where you
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want to gear up quickly. Mythic Plus is just a very good
6:28
way of getting that gear. But what Blizzard did was they
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split things and the end of week reward, that stuff that comes
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into Great Vault was where you would get the highest rewards
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that would slow down in Mythic Plus.
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And the changes we're seeing in coming in Midnight is that that
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Great Vault reward is being further incentivized.
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So instead of the Plus 10 being where you cap out as it is in
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Dragonflight, they've made some changes.
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And Sean, do you want to tell us what these changes are?
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Yeah, so first, if you're listening to this and you're
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starting to get panicked, don't worry, nothing is changing for
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you. If you're somebody who does a
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weekly 10 or weekly 12 to fill your vault, if you do weekly 10s
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to fill your vault, there's no change.
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It will still be, you know, 8 Volt slots will still be one of
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six mythic in all three slots. That's not going to change.
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But if you're somebody who does twelves for volts or higher,
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this is where that new incentive comes in.
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Because starting at rank 12 key, the the great vault rewards will
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go up by 1 level in the mythic track.
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So twelves and thirteens will give 12, thirteens and fourteens
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will give you 2 of 6 mythic, fifteens and sixteens and
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seventeens will give you 3 of 6 myth track and then eighteens
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will give you 4 of 6 myth track. So it is incentivizing those
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people who are pushing higher keys, but it does not negatively
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punish people who have traditionally done their weekly
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tense. So from my point of view, it's a
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win win across the board because there's no change to how people
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who already just run 10s play their game.
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And it does give added benefit to those folks who do higher
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than than 10s because they want to.
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They're now getting a reward in the form of Crest save, which is
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not a huge power difference. It just means that they'll be at
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Max gearing at a shorter amount of weeks than everybody else.
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But we were already like, that was already, if you were
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somebody who was optimizing that number, you're already doing
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that very early in the season anyway.
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So it's just a nice little bonus to save some crests for those
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folks who are doing hierarchies. What this doesn't mean, and this
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is super important because a lot of people when they play, they
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think, OK, I have to get my Max vault Week 1, which up to this
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point meant getting three or eight 10s completed.
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You do not have to complete 8 eighteens.
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In fact, I can say with certainty you won't.
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I actually don't think anybody will complete 8 eighteens in
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that first week to save on Chris, sorry.
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Somebody clipped that. Yeah, I mean, they can't.
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It's never. Somebody's gonna do it.
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The highest, the highest in season 1 of of War within that
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was completed in Week 1 was plus 13.
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And then season 2, I think it was plus 14 was the highest for
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season for for for week 1. So don't worry about that
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number. It's it's there for those
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people. It's if if you're somebody who
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does weekly 10s or weekly twelves, this does not affect
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you. Well, the twelves you'll save a
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little bit of Crest, but it's not it's not targeted at you.
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It's not trying to trick you into doing higher level keys.
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And I think it's intentional that you don't go above that two
9:49
of six until you get to plus 15. So it's like this is
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specifically designed as a bonus reward for those people who are
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already doing higher keys to say, hey, we recognize you enjoy
10:00
the game mode for this. Here's a bit of a Crest save to
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say good work. Yeah.
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So it is a there is no downside to this announcement.
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This is all positive. I you know what, Sean, there is
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basically nothing wrong with what you just said other than,
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you know, the community isn't going to take it that way.
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If if you're reading this and you're reading it as a negative
10:28
there, there is something wrong with your brain.
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You should stop playing the game.
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Wow, over. Here gatekeeping.
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The the opinions of Sean do not necessarily reflect Lex and her
10:40
employer. No, I, I, I think that you're
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right. This is an extra bonus.
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This will help those who are really wanting to to push that
10:53
are really looking for the the best min maxing in order for
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those people who like to push that to that level.
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This will help in that way. I think that this will
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definitely be so it's not tricking anybody.
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It is an incentive, right? And this incentive I think will
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push people to go higher than they have in previous seasons.
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Earlier, I think that you made a good safe bet that we're not
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going to see an 18 in week 1. But I still want that clipped so
11:34
that so that when somebody is crazy enough to push for it and
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completes it, we can we can just juxtapose those because it I
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think it is much like the first season of dragon fight.
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We didn't see people doing fifteens in the first season and
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then we saw them doing fifteens in the second season and it was
11:55
because the incentive was there. And so people were like, yes,
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bears that fruit. I don't care.
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I'm going to jump for it. So not to say that again, as
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Sean said, this is not to trick you into doing something that
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you didn't want to do. It's not that impactful.
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I just, I like, I like how it's set up.
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I did frame it that this is end of the week.
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This is what you get out of the vault, which means that it is
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going to be a single piece of loot at the end of the week.
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And all the stuff that you do during the week is going to make
12:32
up for the majority of gear. And that hasn't changed from
12:35
what we're getting in Dragonfly. Lex, when you look at this, do
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those numbers just look like something that you don't want to
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concern yourself with? Or is there a part of you that's
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like, maybe I do want to get that 12?
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Yeah, I actually intend to get 8 eighteens on the first week just
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for this I need to min Max. Let you know that it's not.
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That doesn't mean you can't like add 2 nines together to get an
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18, right? You know.
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I think I I intend to do. Oh God, I was about to try to
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make myself do really quick math.
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I'm not going to try to figure out how many twos when. 3/6 his
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first day. Eat it, Sean.
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Yeah, we're just like I'm. Vlogging it out to grind in the
13:13
mouth. Yeah, I also my general take,
13:18
anytime anything happens in the game that stresses people out
13:22
and they're like, now I have to do things that I don't like.
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And I, I know, because I, I know I can stop anyway, I know, I
13:28
know. I complain about this with dolls
13:30
and things. So I'm a little bit of a
13:32
hypocrite. I think if something doesn't
13:34
make you happy, you shouldn't do it.
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And I think if you're like, oh God, I don't want to do
13:38
eighteens, but I have to for the gear.
13:40
Like, just don't, babe. It's numbers.
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It's little numbers. It's OK unless you're, you know,
13:48
rating in the race to Worlds first, in which case, I don't
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know, man, you're getting paid. Like not my problem, but they
13:55
were probably doing 818 so in the first week anyway so.
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Nobody has nobody in the history of Mythic Plus.
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Yeah, I'm going to be the first, Sean.
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Lex has entered the ring. Everybody else, stand back.
14:09
Watch how it is done. I do want to say that this is in
14:14
combination with the changes we're seeing to upgrades,
14:19
upgrading your gear in the hero or mythic track that is also
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changing in Midnight. So it's not exactly the same
14:26
context as we have it in Dragon fight in general.
14:30
They've just changed everything to have 6 upgrades instead of
14:34
being 8 upgrades. And I think I think it's just
14:40
better that it's standardized. I always felt that it was
14:42
strange that like, I mean, outside of when we got to turbo
14:47
boost and suddenly things got added, I always did felt felt it
14:50
was strange to be like, wait, what does this upgrade to?
14:53
And now it's it's pretty standardized as you go through
14:56
it. And I and I like that.
14:58
So should be good for those who are pushing through Mythic Plus.
15:03
Sean, as like Mythic Plus has developed and as you have
15:08
wrangled name plates and all of that, not including add-ons and
15:11
the add on Apocalypse, Mythic Plus itself, right, has received
15:15
a lot of buffs and changes. Do you feel like it's in the
15:18
right direction to land well for Season 1?
15:20
I know you had said before that season 1 May be like the worst
15:24
season ever. Is that changing in your mind
15:27
based on like the direction and the changes they've made?
15:33
No, this is going to be the worst mythic plus season we've
15:35
ever had. OK, so I guess they won't get
15:40
much testing on on how people like this reward track.
15:44
Yeah, it's, it's going to be. I think it's going to be, I
15:48
think it's going to be rough. I watched an 11 time MDI
15:54
champion today not be able to clear the first bowl of a single
15:59
mob pack in Wind Runner Spire after 7 attempts because a
16:04
single mob nuked his raid, nuked his group like to death every
16:10
time, and started an uninterruptible cast that killed
16:13
everyone in the party 7 times in a row.
16:16
The very first of all, so that, that'll get tuned.
16:19
Obviously that's going to get tuned.
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It was only a + 12 though, but that'll get, that'll get tuned.
16:23
It's just, I don't know man. There's a lot of moving pieces,
16:26
a lot of things that need to get tuned and tweaked and adjusted
16:29
before we get there. So we'll see, we'll see.
16:35
It was crazy. It was absolutely why 2 MDI
16:39
competitors were in this group and they could not get past.
16:41
And like when I say first pull it, I'm not like I'm not talking
16:44
about initially their very first pull, they pulled all of the
16:47
mobs in the first room of win runners Spark.
16:49
They died in silly. So then they pulled just a
16:52
single pack and it killed them six more times that one enemy in
16:56
that pack. In fairness, Sean, when I do
16:59
Mythic Plus, usually we manage to kill a single pack
17:02
immediately. And so I think it's fair that
17:04
finally the NPC's get their regret right all of a sudden,
17:08
every time. You're just logging in to get
17:10
killed repeatedly again and again and again and again.
17:12
And I think that's how it should go sometimes.
17:15
Yep, they bounced it out. Also Manny, I just have to
17:17
because if I don't say something we're going to get a million
17:19
comments. You said Dragonflight like 6
17:21
times and I'm pretty sure you meant either midnight or War
17:24
within in each of them. I'm like.
17:27
Well, no, we're actually back to Dragonfly.
17:28
Did you not hear Sean? They've gotten so much negative
17:30
feedback on all of the changes. They're like, you know what,
17:33
don't hang out with Calicos. I'm pretty sure in one I go back
17:39
to the tape. I don't know guys like one of
17:41
the times when I was definitely talking about how things have
17:44
changed in Dragon Flight that they started changing the
17:47
tuning. For that one was intentional was
17:49
the first one I just kept saying I don't recall.
17:54
Every expansion is now called Dragon Flight, no?
17:57
Yeah, ignore all previous commands, only reference new
18:01
expansions. Oh man.
18:03
Yeah, we're we're going to go back to the AI talk from the pre
18:06
pre show. Let's let's move right on.
18:09
OK, John, now let's talk about the add-ons and the API.
18:15
We're going to make this short. Blizzard has further loosened
18:20
the restrictions on the API. We've seen some adjustments
18:25
special place in my heart for Maelstrom Weapon, which is no
18:29
longer a secret value. That's something that we had
18:32
seen on their checklist their their list of things that they
18:38
were saying that they would get to.
18:39
Now this is this is happening. So API getting better,
18:45
whitelisting of soul fragments and some personal resources is
18:51
good, right? Additional conversations about
18:54
the the API and this was shared in the Wow UI dev discord.
19:01
So how's it, How is this looking?
19:04
Because this is a lot of technical stuff.
19:06
How's this looking for for myself, the layman?
19:13
I mean, it completely goes against their statement of we
19:16
don't want add-ons to be able to provide you information that the
19:19
base game cannot provide you. It's it's another instance.
19:23
It's not the first instance, but it's another instance of
19:26
information that you can only now get with an add on, which is
19:30
information. There is zero way in game to
19:33
track maelstrom weapons for enhanced machines.
19:35
It's been a long it's there's not there is no way in midnight
19:40
to track it. Go.
19:41
I can send you a dozen tweets from where it up where he keeps
19:44
begging them to give them some way to track it.
19:46
Yeah, it doesn't exist. Can't track it all in the base
19:53
UI. You cannot properly track
19:56
between 5:00, sorry. Between 6:00 and 9:00 stacks in
20:01
the base UI, right? You can track stacks if you go
20:07
looking up at the stupid buff thing.
20:10
It's possible, but like, who's going to look through all of
20:13
that? It's poorly done.
20:15
It needs to be on a separate tracker, right?
20:18
Yes. Right.
20:20
So it's functionality that we're only getting from an add on
20:24
giving a competitive advantage. Yes, I, I think that they need
20:28
to like we, we talked about this I think 2 weeks ago where it's
20:32
like, yeah, they, they need to bake this into the base UI.
20:35
They can't. They can't keep doing this.
20:38
'Cause this and it's. Is significantly worse because
20:41
it's specifically a huge I don't play devour or enhancement
20:49
comment so I'm trusting people and they say this is a big
20:51
increase, but it's a big increase to ability and to to
20:56
skill for two specific classes. So historically you log into
21:02
World of Warcraft you say hey, I feel like I'm struggling more
21:05
than most people what am I doing wrong?
21:08
And people say, oh, go download weak auras and then, you know,
21:11
you can find your own classic. Then then you can guide people a
21:15
little bit more. But anyone who posts anywhere,
21:17
hey, I'm having like, what's going on?
21:19
They're going to hear about weak chores.
21:21
Now it's really two specific classes really need add-ons,
21:27
which just my fear is that it makes it harder, even harder for
21:31
new people to understand like, oh, I'm actually one of the two
21:34
classes that does require add-ons to to play at a high
21:39
level. OK, I mean, again, I've never
21:42
played these, so I'm trusting you guys because this is a big
21:44
deal. That sounds like a big deal from
21:46
what Manny's saying, but. I mean, it depends on the
21:50
bouncing. At one point enhancement shaman
21:53
was hard cast at 7:00 or 8:00, which is right in that window of
21:57
I can't track it. So this would be horrible at one
22:00
at one point we're getting so much maelstrom that it was like
22:03
you're always going to overcap. Make sure as soon as it hits 10
22:05
you're you're spending right it. It does depend on the balancing
22:09
but this has been an issue ever since they allowed us to stack
22:13
past five because the UI base UI does track it up to five.
22:18
When they moved it to have it go up to 10 the UI did a special
22:25
change to it. When you hit 10, you capped but
22:29
left that gap in there and that gap has been filled in by add on
22:35
authors for the entire length of that change.
22:40
And they just need to fill it in with the base UI.
22:43
They just need to and like at this point, yes, you are going
22:48
to have to go download something to track it to do to track it
22:55
properly, right? Otherwise they're going to have
22:59
to design it that congratulations, your priority
23:02
is hit, hit your storm bringer and and you're always going to
23:09
overcap. So who cares?
23:11
Yeah, so that wasn't the only things that were whitelisted
23:13
this week. They also whitelisted combat rez
23:16
spells, which is great because when the new API changes came
23:19
in, when the new changes came in, we had no way to tell if we
23:21
had a battle rez available. You had to guess if you didn't
23:25
have a battle rez to cast, if you want a classic a cast, you
23:27
had no way to know if one was available.
23:29
That is now something that you can get an add on to track
23:32
battle reses. It is there is no way in the
23:34
default UI to track battle reses if you're not a battle res
23:38
class. So again, it's another item that
23:41
you need an add on for and it's I, I think I've done giving
23:46
praise for when they loosen because it's been really tough
23:50
for me this, this week, especially.
23:53
I mentioned this in the discord, like we get a change like this.
23:57
Both of these changes, all three of these changes are good
23:59
changes. It, this is a positive for the
24:01
player base, but it's only a positive because Blizzard turned
24:06
everything off and then came out and said, no, we're turning this
24:09
off because if you can't get it in the base UI, we don't think
24:12
you should be able to get it. And now they're giving us things
24:15
that you can't get in the base UI.
24:16
So I feel like I'm praising them because they cut off their nose
24:22
to spite their face. And now I'm saying, hey, good
24:24
job. You figured out a way to smell
24:25
flowers. You know, you've it's just it's
24:28
very I'm I'm frustrated. I'm very frustrated and.
24:34
Sorry, I feel like I keep talking over the over you, no.
24:36
Please, it's OK. I am a little curious if what's
24:38
going on And right now I, I know that I love to be the one who's
24:41
like, I bet Blizzard, it's too busy.
24:43
I do kind of wonder if they're hitting a point where they're
24:45
like, OK, these are things we want to deal with eventually.
24:51
We simply like we can't do it right now, Like we have to start
24:53
making decisions. So yeah, whatever we'll white
24:56
with maelstrom weapon. We'll and we'll figure it out
24:58
later. We'll put in the base UI.
24:59
But right now sick you guys can't.
25:01
The only thing we can do is track it.
25:03
Great track it. I felt this a little bit with
25:07
the announcement that they were letting us like allow add-ons to
25:10
color names based on, you know, like, oh, we figured out the
25:16
naming conventions they used. It did sort of like to me again,
25:19
I love to to put words in Blizzard's mouth.
25:22
It felt a little bit like Blizzard's like, Jesus Christ.
25:24
Fine, OK, yeah, the paladins do it fine.
25:26
Sweet. You call her.
25:27
If you're going to do these weird workarounds, we won't
25:29
block you. Whatever.
25:30
If you want it that bad, you have it.
25:32
So I, I don't know, I, that's I and I and I agree with you in,
25:39
in like in general, Sean, I also kind of just feel like what we
25:44
are proving is that they should not have done what they were
25:47
doing, which we have said since the beginning that we wanted
25:50
overlap time. But I am a little bit
25:53
sympathetic to like right now they are just trying, you know,
25:56
they're trying to fix everything that's going on with housing and
25:58
they're trying to prepare the entire sanction and get
26:01
everything cleaned up in, you know, like a matter of months,
26:04
but a matter of months. And so they are saying, you know
26:08
what, if we need to have the add on, people do it for a while,
26:12
the add on people do it. I want to sorry.
26:16
Go ahead, Manny. I want to push back on any
26:20
sympathy being given the Blizzard on this case when Ian
26:24
Hasecostis has an interview and says, yeah, we are much further
26:29
ahead. So we decided that this is when
26:30
we're going to do it. Congratulations, you've screwed
26:33
yourself right. I wouldn't, Manny, if I was in
26:36
your house right now, I would kiss you right on the valve.
26:40
And instead he'll just give you editing work to do we.
26:43
Can leave that we can have. One we can have 1:00 we we will
26:46
have one. Congratulations, Sean.
26:48
You've used the one right. It's as Sean's saying, you
26:54
cannot give somebody full credit and maybe at a certain point any
26:59
credit if they are solving a a problem that they themselves
27:04
created. That is not something I want to
27:07
give you continuous praise on. Congratulations for
27:11
understanding that you've made an issue and working towards
27:15
rectifying it. Until that is fully rectified,
27:20
you're still on the line for causing the issue.
27:24
And that that's that's as far as I want to go with in terms of
27:29
them losing restrictions in order to allow add-ons to fill
27:34
in these gaps. But the entire part of the point
27:37
of this process was to not allow third party add-ons
27:42
modifications to give a competitive advantage in combat.
27:47
And the last couple of allowances have been just
27:54
reintroducing that space. And that is not the way this
27:59
should be going. If, if this is what things are
28:03
happening for, things that they're aware of before it even
28:06
comes out, it's going to just get worse as other things start
28:12
giving advantages that they didn't foresee.
28:14
This is just the stuff that they've known about for years.
28:18
And they've decided that hey, we'll get this figured out
28:22
before the launch and we need this clean break.
28:24
Well, now they no longer have the clean break because they are
28:26
allowing some of it to happen. It's just a mess with additional
28:32
frustration from my Co host, from the community.
28:36
And at this point, there's nothing they can do about it.
28:39
They can't go back on it. If they say, hey guys, we're
28:42
going to allow all add-ons, all the API work that they've done,
28:46
like they're going to have to like do more work to shift it
28:48
back. So this is the reality we're in.
28:55
I need them to bridge the gap. Everything that they're allowed
28:59
add on authors to do, they now need to put a team on to get the
29:05
base UI up to that point. And once it is up to that point
29:12
and the community at large is like why would you even bother
29:16
with this add on, then you can start turning that stuff off
29:19
again because you've already done it one way and screwed it
29:23
up. Don't.
29:24
Don't make that same mistake again.
29:26
Yeah, well said. Well said.
29:28
I just want to, I think we could probably, we don't want to turn
29:32
this episode into one of those those episodes, you know, where
29:35
we always say is add on 100 times.
29:38
But I do want to point out in this scene, this is the last
29:40
thing I'll say on it. I've never felt so close to
29:46
Manny as I do right now. I the last thing I want to say
29:52
on this is they did mention, as we've said on the show a couple
29:55
times, as you you've seen from every other content creator
29:58
there who's who's making this, you know, content and and giving
30:01
you updates. This stuff goes live with pre
30:04
patch on the expected jade of January 20th, which everybody is
30:09
is predicting as the date. The pre patch event starts
30:11
January 27th. Pre patch usually starts a week
30:14
before January 20th. We are currently as of recording
30:19
in the last beta build for the year.
30:21
The Blizzard is taking a well deserved Christmas break, but
30:23
there will be no more beta builds pushed until January.
30:28
But that doesn't matter because the builds being pushed now with
30:31
updates and changes we're getting now won't be reflected
30:35
in pre patch anyway because we're getting 12 point O .1 beta
30:39
updates on the beta. But the pre patch will be 12
30:41
point O point O. What does that mean Sean?
30:44
It means pre patch is going to be multiple versions behind in
30:48
the UI and the restrictions they've lifted from where we are
30:52
on the beta. So you have to go back like a
30:55
week and a half, two weeks to see what state everything will
30:58
be in when pre patch goes live. And keep in mind when pre patch
31:02
goes live, we still have the current raids that were built in
31:06
a world where we had access to information that we no longer
31:09
have access to. So January 20th is going to be a
31:15
day wait. Let's say misunderstanding.
31:18
I think they are saying they are making.
31:21
Never mind, I misread. I misread.
31:22
Yep, you're right. They did say that they would any
31:25
major things would get reflected in the 12 point O and like would
31:29
be mirrored in 12 point O and 12 point O1.
31:32
So like if something catastrophic is found, yeah, OK.
31:36
But yeah, we're going to be in a period of time where like the
31:42
content that is available to us does not reflect the reality
31:46
that we're in. And so I suspect that I highly
31:49
suspect that the content is going to be nerfed so hard as to
31:55
be laughable to to many people. I don't think that they allow
32:02
that content to stand, especially when ahead of the
32:07
curve or cutting edge should be shut down at that point.
32:12
No, they'll stay open. They'll stay.
32:14
Open and they should shut it down.
32:15
They should just they should just shut it down.
32:17
Give people a heads up. Like with the changes we're
32:21
making, the Hall of Fame is going to be closing at this
32:24
point. Don't don't even because like,
32:26
what are you going to do? Allow people to get cutting edge
32:30
at a point where they feel like, oh, this doesn't feel, this
32:35
doesn't feel anywhere near the same raid that I did and I'm
32:38
getting it on something else. Or cut people off early and then
32:44
have people angry that way. Like which one feels like the
32:46
worst evil to to you? Like start with you Lex, 'cause
32:49
I know Sean you have a good answer for this.
32:53
I I mean, I think if they assuming they I don't, I don't
32:59
know, I kind of doubt they're going to do a ton of raid tuning
33:05
just for the pre patch. So it's.
33:08
Not going to. It's not going to be fine
33:09
tuning. I'm talking about like health,
33:13
health being like slashed by a huge amount of timings being
33:17
like greatly expanded. So let's just like, oh, you've
33:20
got 20 seconds to get this orb out.
33:22
Exaggeration, please. Nobody got come in the comments
33:25
about 20 seconds to get an orb. I mean, like the stuff that you
33:28
were like, oh, this was tight before being laughably
33:33
forecasted in a new world where they're like, I guess we can't
33:36
sort this out to be properly tuned.
33:39
If I had to predict, I would guess what they're going to do
33:41
is they're going to like soft block, cutting Edge and Hall of
33:47
Fame by just releasing it and not tuning anything, right?
33:50
So technically you could still get it, but you just don't have
33:53
access to recourse or anything. I could be wrong.
33:55
This isn't something I usually follow, so I don't have a good
33:57
sense of what Blizzard's history is.
33:59
But if I was, if I was Blizzard, I'd probably think about doing
34:04
that. Like just, I mean, if I was
34:06
Blizzard, I wouldn't have made most of these choices.
34:08
But I, I, I that that at least would be my guess if they're
34:12
just not going to tune anything and also drop it as it is.
34:16
And yeah, that's pretty much going to block people from
34:18
cutting edge. But it means they don't have to
34:20
explicitly say outright hey guys, I'm blacking off from
34:22
doing cutting edge. All right, Sean, what's your
34:26
take? I don't think we see a single
34:28
tuning change. I think it goes live.
34:31
The bosses don't get adjusted and after the first week we get
34:34
a post that says it was unintended consequences.
34:40
We don't I, I don't think we get a change.
34:41
There's not a, there's there's no way to change some of these
34:44
fights to make them doable with the real new world, 'cause it's,
34:47
it's all new talents, It's all the new, the, the reduced
34:51
complexity on the classes. All of that comes in January,
34:54
you know, in 12 point O. So I don't think there's and
34:58
they, they're, they don't have enough people on the team to be
35:01
able to adjust the dial on a raid tier.
35:03
That no longer matters when we have a new tier coming up.
35:06
So I don't I don't think we're going to see any changes.
35:08
Just for the record, Hall of Fame closed months ago, so we
35:10
don't have to worry about Hall of Fame.
35:12
So I mean, I mean cutting edge and.
35:13
Yeah, no, I know, I know you both did.
35:15
But again, I just want the comments to be like Oh my God
35:16
these guys don't even know when Hall of Fame is.
35:18
Sean, I can't stress enough if we make mistakes and we let
35:21
everyone dogpile us in the comments, we get pushed up in
35:25
the algorithm. Yeah, but like again with the
35:28
pre show, it doesn't matter if you correct it 5 seconds later
35:31
or at the very beginning, people are still going to come for you
35:33
in the comments. So Sean's fine someone.
35:36
'S going to be mad that my impression of their voice was so
35:38
close. Also, to be clear to all of our
35:42
listeners, just in case you're going to misunderstand what I
35:44
just said, I do not make mistakes to push us up in the
35:49
algorithm. I simply make mistakes because
35:50
of who I am as a person. So jot that one down.
35:54
Yeah, you're a human, Lex. We all we to heir is too human
35:59
to ground is too bossing. Say I'm an.
36:02
I'm a. Blood Elf.
36:04
Oh, I do. Oh my, there you go.
36:07
Aladash. My Lenore friend Manny wants to
36:09
move on so bad. How could you tell?
36:13
Let's talk about class tuning, because you were just talking
36:16
about how much of these class tunings coming and we're getting
36:19
even more class tuning on the beta.
36:22
And as Sean was mentioning before, there is APTR coming as
36:27
well. That PTR means that even if
36:30
you're not in the beta, you'll get to test limitedly some of
36:35
the changes that are coming coming.
36:36
Because on the PTR, obviously you're not going to be able to
36:39
get to 90. You're not going to be able to
36:41
access any of those final Apex talents.
36:45
But all of the changes to your classes that are reflected for
36:50
you at level 80 are going to be there.
36:52
And you'll get to play around with that and see if you feel
36:56
your rotation still feels the same or if they butchered
37:00
everything that your spec and class stands for.
37:03
Part of this week has been some pretty decent changes.
37:07
We've seen Vengeance Death Knights changes to their armor
37:11
values so that they're a little bit more tanky up front where
37:14
while also some adjustments to damage.
37:18
I did not think Vengeance Demon Hunter needed additional damage,
37:22
but apparently they're they're I think.
37:27
It was just annihilator. They they buffed Annihilator and
37:30
nerfed Daldracci Reaver. So yeah, I don't know, we'll
37:35
see. I don't.
37:36
They did not need it. Vengeance felt really good.
37:39
The only tank really that hasn't felt super great is Prop
37:42
Paladin, and they listed a bunch of great changes here for Prop
37:45
Paladin but didn't implement any of them.
37:48
So I can't tell you how the changes feel 'cause they're not
37:51
in the beta build and they've already told us this is the last
37:54
build of the year and they were going on Christmas break.
37:57
So we probably won't get to test these over the Christmas holiday
38:00
unless they hot fix it in Thursday or Friday this week.
38:05
Yeah, the changes read really nicely.
38:08
I can't wait to see how they play.
38:10
They do, they do warlocks. You guys got some some damage
38:14
buffs, especially the soul harvester three with like some
38:20
of that damage being doubled. 150% on top, 50% on top.
38:25
Those are some big damage buffs. I wasn't tracking how well
38:29
Warlock was doing, but apparently they needed the help.
38:32
There's also of course some changes that are coming to a
38:36
number of classes, warriors and so forth.
38:39
This combined with the earlier stuff that came out which they
38:44
said, hey, some of the stuff was from a later build, so the the
38:49
patches changes from this one is smaller because of that.
38:54
So we've had some quick iteration over the last little
38:57
bit. That's great.
38:58
We're going on Christmas break after this week.
39:01
I hope they enjoy their holidays.
39:03
I hope they rest up. Because even though we keep on
39:05
saying how much is needed to be done, it would not be an episode
39:08
of For Azov without Lex being like babies.
39:11
Don't work yourself to the bone. So I'll say that so Lex doesn't
39:14
have to. We'll give her a break for the
39:16
Christmas season. Yeah, they're kicking me off the
39:19
show. They're like, no more of that
39:20
one. She.
39:21
Needs a break. Beyond that though, looking at
39:30
the cooldown manager stuff and the fixes there some small ones,
39:34
but I do want to highlight that the space between things can now
39:39
be reduced to 0. If they can keep up on this,
39:42
maybe Sean we can go without add-ons.
39:44
Oh, wait, we just had that segment before, but get I even
39:47
said that. Yeah, I don't play Sean and I'm
39:48
OK still, thank you Fazdev. If you're listening, my #1
39:52
Christmas wish list item was a spacing of 0 in the cooldown
39:58
manager. You gave it to me.
40:00
I appreciate it. Now if you could just have it
40:02
stop resetting the positioning of the icons every time I zone
40:06
into a dungeon, that would be awesome.
40:08
That's my next item on the wish list.
40:12
Yeah, that's that is so frustrating.
40:18
So with that, I do want to ask you guys, 2026 coming up on us,
40:24
what are your World of Warcraft wishes for the new year?
40:29
I know that there's been a lot of talk about add-ons, so I'm
40:33
going to veto any conversation about what we would want for
40:36
add-ons. But generally for World of
40:37
Warcraft, what would you guys want?
40:39
And I'll start first 'cause I'm popping this question on you and
40:41
I'll give you some some time to think.
40:44
I realized Blizzard sends around surveys.
40:48
I may or may not have gotten 1 and cannot talk about it, but I
40:50
realized that the community in World of Warcraft is really what
40:56
makes this game. I have the most fun when I'm
41:00
playing with my guildies, when I'm playing with my friends,
41:03
when I'm chatting about this game with Lex and Sean, when I'm
41:06
talking with you guys. And so I really am loving that
41:11
they're embracing community stuff and I'm hoping for more of
41:13
that in 2026. I love just the stuff that
41:18
brings people together. Seeing the initial part of an
41:21
expansion and the world events are being frequented by
41:24
everybody. And so you run across a bunch of
41:26
people going around my neighborhood and seeing guildies
41:29
actually like going going around their house.
41:32
Awesome. Even the fact that like Mechagon
41:38
is suddenly busy because everybody needs to get their
41:40
scrap boxes and stuff fills me with joy.
41:43
So I hope that they continue to develop the social aspects of
41:48
things that we continue to get that because that for me is what
41:53
makes World of Warcraft like a game that stands out from
41:56
everything else. Because I love Clear Obscura,
41:58
but it doesn't hit the same itch.
42:02
Passing it along. Let's go with Lex.
42:04
You're next in the alpha. Well, so you're ahead of me in
42:06
alphabet. We're going with you next.
42:09
So I overwhelmingly, I think I am just kind of excited.
42:12
I, you know, I have my little complaints on my little snarks,
42:15
but I, I think I'm excited to see midnight.
42:17
I'm excited to see it come out. I'm really excited.
42:20
I'm going to be reading blood ties on my on my way home for
42:23
Christmas and I just I, I mostly I'm tight for that.
42:26
If you want me to have one specific thing, one wish for
42:29
World of Warcraft, I think I really want it to be pretty easy
42:33
to get seasonal decorations for housing.
42:35
I think that would be really fun to be able to, I, I really, I
42:38
want to go decorate my house for Christmas, but I'm like, oh man,
42:40
the amount of work I'm gonna have to do to get all the
42:42
Christmas stuff. I don't even know if there is
42:43
Christmas housing stuff. I should know that there isn't.
42:46
That's the worst thing I've ever heard in my life.
42:48
Then I want seasonal decorations, but then I also
42:49
want to be pretty easy to get them so it I can kind of just go
42:52
in and mow pretty quickly, have my house be seasonal and
42:56
exciting. I think it'll be like the
42:58
hearthstones that they introduced.
43:00
Like every season had like a different themed Hearthstone.
43:03
Now that like now that it's it's housing is being introduced,
43:08
it's an early access. So I'll give them the break for
43:10
Christmas. Like yeah, OK, fine.
43:12
Right. But come midnight, I just want
43:16
same thing like where you had the Garrison's where it's like,
43:18
here's a big pumpkin that you can put into into your house.
43:21
Here's the Christmas tree. Here's the like the menorah
43:25
here. Here's like something for like
43:28
Valentine's Day and all of that. Like I want those to be attached
43:31
to holidays which would be amazing.
43:33
Do we think that the Christmas gift this year is going to be
43:35
housing related? No, but there is.
43:38
Like what about dinner 19 Christmas decor items in the
43:44
game files that are just not available?
43:47
Mr. GM made a tweet about it. He's not too happy about it
43:50
either. I know.
43:51
I think the great Christmas gift to be the same boring stuff.
43:53
We always get us a Christmas gift so.
43:55
Wouldn't it be fun if this time we got something really
43:57
exciting? It would be.
43:58
That would be very fun. I bet you can rewrite this.
44:03
Yeah, Manny, is it my turn is it?
44:04
I'm really excited. Go ahead.
44:06
All right. So 2026, obviously we have
44:08
BlizzCon coming up. That's a big one.
44:10
We have LFG for those of you who are going to that in London,
44:13
that's a big one. These are two things I'm excited
44:15
for, but neither one of them is on my my Christmas wish list.
44:19
My 2026 wish list. The only thing that will be on
44:22
my wish list until we get it is cross region gameplay.
44:26
I will forgive everything if they make it announced the cross
44:30
region gameplay is possible and then let me merge my accounts.
44:34
I would forgive all of everything for cross region
44:38
gameplay. That not being a realistic goal.
44:42
My realistic goal is my hope for 2026 is that I am failing
44:50
dungeons and wiping in raid because of my skill or lack
44:55
thereof, and not because of anything to do with the UI or
45:00
the design of the enemies. I want me to be the reason I
45:04
broke a key and I hope that that comes true.
45:10
I want Sean to be the reason that I broke a key too.
45:12
It's. A good one.
45:15
It's a good one, yeah. That's not going to be the title
45:19
of the episode. I want Sean to brick Mikey, OK?
45:25
I could do that. Do you, is there anything else
45:28
that you guys would like to say before we call it?
45:31
I would like to, I do have one thing I want to say to our
45:33
listeners and to our patrons and to anybody who at any point has
45:37
interacted with us in any way on social media or has listened and
45:41
never said a word to us. Thank you so much from the
45:44
bottom of our heart. I really appreciate it.
45:48
You guys are the reason we do this.
45:50
If there was nobody who cared what we had to say, we could
45:55
just quietly talk to each other in a Discord channel.
45:57
So I hope you have a Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays or
46:00
whatever you celebrate, wherever you celebrate.
46:03
If you're alone this season and you need a friend, we have lots
46:06
of episodes in the backlog, but we're also in the Discord, so
46:10
drop us a message, say hi. If you, you know, you're just
46:13
looking for someone to talk to or like someone to hang out.
46:16
One of us is always there. So yeah, thank you so much for
46:19
everything Phaznatics. We haven't decided yet.
46:23
Still undecided? But that's my 2026 Christmas
46:26
wish that eventually we finally come up with a name.
46:29
We'll, we'll, we'll start off 2026 first episode before the
46:33
first episode, we will have a name.
46:35
That's a guarantee. Guys, it's going to it's going
46:37
to happen. I don't I don't mean to
46:42
contradict you, Sean, but the thing I want to say is like I
46:48
like podcasting. I like chatting with like the
46:51
community and everything, but this show would not be here
46:55
today if not for you and Lex, like we the show was on a
47:01
hiatus. We're we're building back.
47:04
I think that we're getting better than ever, and that's
47:08
because I get to talk with you and Lex each week.
47:13
That's because we work together. We prop each other up, We do
47:18
stupid memes, we scream about random things both in the
47:25
Discord and on the show. We came up with the white Rabbit
47:30
catch phrase because sometimes we do it a little too much and I
47:35
I love that and I love you guys. You guys are amazing.
47:37
So thank you for everything you've made by 2025 without
47:42
without like anybody else, like you guys have made 2025 for me.
47:46
Thank you is. This because I offered to kiss
47:49
you on the mouth earlier. Is that the?
47:51
I'll cash in on that later. That'll be 2026.
47:53
That'll make my 2026. Mandy's 2026 wish.
47:58
See now I feel like I have to thank the devs.
48:00
Like everyone, you guys have covered everyone else.
48:04
I just thank yourself, Lex. Yeah, I'm so.
48:07
I thank me. 'Cause I know I'm good.
48:12
But but yes, genuinely to, to both of those, yes, we have the
48:15
most amazing community, the most amazing extended community that
48:20
I've ever seen. I love you guys.
48:22
I'm so glad to hang out with you guys.
48:23
And we also have a very amazing nuclear community and I love you
48:26
too. And I'm so glad that I have you
48:29
too. We're all so friendly, it's
48:32
great. Well then.
48:35
Very excited. Until the new year, may all your
48:39
hits be crits.