Latest / For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast / #294 - For Azeroth!: “Lex Rising!”
Transcript
- 0:00You guys missed the best open we've ever had on the history of
- 0:03the show and now we have to do it over again and there's no way
- 0:06it's going to be as good. I'm really sorry you missed this
- 0:09for. The Karen tour for.
- 0:13Pandaria. For calendar to.
- 0:19The burning region for Gilnaeus, but has not died for the Lich
- 0:26King. For the Sindori.
- 0:30For the alliance. For the horn for Azeroth.
- 0:37Hello and welcome back to another episode of For Azeroth.
- 0:41I am one of your hosts, Manny, AKA the true villain.
- 0:44Manny and I am joined by two parts of the Amazing Triumphant,
- 0:50joining us all the way from the wilderness.
- 0:52From parts unknown, it is Lex Rance.
- 0:56How are you doing? Vibing Manny.
- 0:58I'm popping right along. I'm having the time of my life.
- 1:02There we go, there we go. And of course, joining us
- 1:06freshly from his beachfront property, it is recruit a
- 1:11friend, Sean. Hello, Sean.
- 1:13Hi Manny. Hi, I can't believe you reused
- 1:15the same intro. Yeah.
- 1:20How you doing? You know?
- 1:21I'm doing all right. I'm doing all right.
- 1:24It is being a busy day, not just for me, definitely for you, and
- 1:31not just for the World of Warcraft because so much stuff
- 1:35has been happening. So we're going to dive right
- 1:36into it. But I'm going to start,
- 1:39unfortunately, this show with a bit of a downer because we
- 1:43didn't cover it last week, but we're going to cover it this
- 1:47week. Microsoft has decided that they
- 1:52are going to cut 650 positions. This was mostly in Blizzard.
- 2:00This was throughout their game division.
- 2:03And this, this was unexpected. I don't believe there was any
- 2:09warning for this. This is right after at the
- 2:14beginning of the year, they had cut 1900 jobs before that.
- 2:21And it's just I don't know when this cycle end it.
- 2:26The industry is as industry wide.
- 2:28We have just been seeing layoffs after layoffs, contraction after
- 2:32contraction. But it's not like these
- 2:35companies are not turning a profit because just yesterday
- 2:41Microsoft decided that they were going to do a $60 billion or
- 2:46sorry, that might be Nope, $60 billion stock buyback and
- 2:52increasing the dividends, their quarterly dividends by over 10%
- 2:56for all their shareholders. So the money is there, but
- 3:00apparently not for the people who make the operation work,
- 3:04that make the money factory, that make the money mill go.
- 3:08So one of the big teams that I that has been reported to be hit
- 3:14is the Warcraft Rumble team. Lex, you are the resident rumble
- 3:21player here. Every time I look in Battle.net
- 3:24it's either Delves or Rumble. Yeah, what do you think?
- 3:28I'm livid. I'm so mad.
- 3:32First of all, the rumble team was tiny already and it's been
- 3:35breaking every two minutes. Like I mean, because it's it's
- 3:37like things break. We when they update, we know
- 3:39this World Warcraft like things break.
- 3:42We had an entire round of dark moon fare, which like gave you
- 3:46this season's mini right? Like essentially the only way
- 3:49you can get it for free other than waiting for it to show up
- 3:52on the grid, which is going to take a while and means you won't
- 3:55get it at a high level when like half the world couldn't log in.
- 3:58And if their take away from that was that they needed fewer staff
- 4:02members, like, no, this is ridiculous.
- 4:04This is utterly crazy. Rumble has also been very
- 4:07successful, partially because it's been pushing out a ton of
- 4:10content constantly. Like they've been making so many
- 4:12things. They've been doing all sorts of
- 4:13like dungeons and raids and sieges and, and like, you know,
- 4:18dark moon fair and blink Tron and like cycling things through
- 4:21and scenario and fest, which I hated, but that's OK.
- 4:23Sometimes you hate things. Not everything's for everyone.
- 4:25But like, they've been just like pumping things out.
- 4:27And I am, I mean, I, I am really scared as a Rumble player and
- 4:32also as a World Warcraft player, because what I'm seeing now that
- 4:36Microsoft has taken over is that they are pushing out content
- 4:39extremely quickly and also cutting constantly.
- 4:43Right. Like you were saying, you know,
- 4:45there's money for buybacks, but not for people.
- 4:48Yeah, like, they they're doing fine.
- 4:50It it almost feels like they're just cutting people for the sake
- 4:53of reminding the staff that they're able to cut.
- 4:55I'm being a little doomery. I don't know what's going on.
- 4:57I'm sure it's complicated. Business decisions are
- 4:59complicated. I get it, but it it I mean,
- 5:04first of all, God tear Blizzard employees, right?
- 5:09Like the fact that we are still pushing incredible content with
- 5:12like a constant sword over people's head.
- 5:14The fact that we have one of the best expansions I've seen come
- 5:18out while people were facing layoffs and and seeing friends
- 5:21across the company leave. The fact that we're still
- 5:24apparently pushing like such a fast cycle the, the staff at
- 5:28Blizzard like God, if we joke about the like Blizzard employee
- 5:32who listens to this, but like, if you are a Blizzard employee
- 5:34listening to this, like I, like, thank you.
- 5:36I, I don't know what else to say.
- 5:39I'm so sorry. I, I'm so mad.
- 5:43Like I was one of the big supporters of Microsoft taking
- 5:46over Blizzard and I, you know, I, to be fair, I don't know how
- 5:51it's all going to shake out in the end.
- 5:52I don't know what's going to happen long term with how the
- 5:54the game develops and maybe tormenting the people who work
- 5:59for you and putting them in constant fears for the best.
- 6:02But I'm this was not what we were promised.
- 6:06This was not what they said like they what what is happening?
- 6:12Like how are they? This is this is ridiculous.
- 6:14This feels like they're just cutting for the sake of cutting.
- 6:18They're cutting because then they can put more work on people
- 6:21already crunching. And I'm really mad.
- 6:24And I'm also equally proud and blown away by the Stafford
- 6:28Blizzard. Yeah, that's my I.
- 6:31Unfortunately think, yeah, unfortunately think that the
- 6:35effects of the cuts are not something you see right away
- 6:39like the people who were let go in January.
- 6:43I, I think a lot of the things 'cause they're working three
- 6:47expansion simultaneously, a live team stuff working on midnight
- 6:51and the concept and so forth for, for the last height.
- 6:56And I think some of these effects we're not going to see
- 6:59until later down the line the pipeline for it.
- 7:04So like good on them for getting this stuff out that was already
- 7:09in motion. But like what what happens next?
- 7:12I don't know, Sean, what would you like to say about this?
- 7:20Fork capitalism, I guess. I don't know.
- 7:24Corporate greed is terrible. Firing people from their jobs so
- 7:29that you can line the pockets of people who are already so
- 7:31disgustingly wealthy that they won't even notice the addition
- 7:36of the money that you're paying them.
- 7:37Yeah, it sucks. It's every company should be
- 7:40owned by the employees there Should we should abolish get
- 7:44like there's no nobody should be able to own a company should be
- 7:46owned by the employees. You work there, you own it, it's
- 7:48yours. I hate it.
- 7:51It sucks if if there is a Blizzard employee who listens to
- 7:54this. Sorry you're going through this.
- 7:56I echo everything Lex said. I agree with her 100% and thank
- 8:00you for everything that you do. And if there's ever any way we
- 8:02can help, let us know. If we eat just one billionaire,
- 8:08just one, the rest will fall in line.
- 8:13All right, you're not to. Edit that out.
- 8:15I'm not. Sure, I'm not sure I'm going to
- 8:17edit that out, but we're going to move quickly along all the
- 8:19same. Let's go into like the game that
- 8:24we are enjoying and trying to enjoy and the game that the
- 8:28employees have put so much effort and love into.
- 8:32Let's talk about World of Warcraft, the actual game.
- 8:36So this week was the beginning of Mythic week.
- 8:41Season 1 of the War Within is in full gear.
- 8:45And the big part of that, of course, is the raid.
- 8:48So John, I know you are somebody who loves raiding.
- 8:52You are so into this right now. How about you take this this
- 8:56part? Yeah, it's great.
- 8:59We hit Mythic. So we had Heroic week last week
- 9:01Tuesday and for NA Wednesday for EU reset and we got Mythic week
- 9:05available to us. Everybody hit the ground running
- 9:07in the raid and we're we are full on in the race to world
- 9:11first right now with a three-way tie for first with three teams
- 9:16being at four of eight Mythic. That's Liquid Echo.
- 9:19Sorry, four teams being at four of eight, Mythic Liquid, Echo
- 9:25Method and Reversion as of time of this recording and a handful
- 9:31of teams are three of eight. Everybody's just going nuts.
- 9:33It started with a bang. So there's always like some
- 9:35surprise teams that sneak in and grab an early world 1st and this
- 9:40time around it was fan favorite and all around good team.
- 9:45I believe they're a Vistage approved team.
- 9:51Think I'm going to say that fairly confidently and they they
- 9:55they got world first. It was melee mechanics.
- 9:57They got world first old racks and then they went in and they
- 10:00snagged world first blood bound horror.
- 10:05It's like that meme of the guy picking up the hippo melee
- 10:09mechanics is picking up those world firsts like that adorable
- 10:13little hippo. So Congrats to them.
- 10:14Marzipan to drew fire the GM Raley for that team.
- 10:17They put a lot of work and effort and blood, sweat and
- 10:20tears are that team and the whole team has bought in and
- 10:22really excited to see them get those early wins.
- 10:24And then Liquid came on and they're like, we'll take the
- 10:26next two, thanks. And now we're just in a race to
- 10:29see who gets Brood Twister Oven Axe next.
- 10:33I think we had our best pull of 61% from Liquid recently, so
- 10:38it's exciting stuff. Echo went dark for a little bit
- 10:40today when they were pulling Brood Twister early, which isn't
- 10:44new to the race. World 1st, and we're not
- 10:46surprised that it happened. I'm excited.
- 10:48I love the rate I haven't. Happened so early, I guess this
- 10:52because this is the first wall wall boss that the teams have
- 10:55come across that they want to try and get some sort of
- 10:57significant lead or try tried something that they didn't want
- 11:02the other team to glean from. Yeah, this rate is a 10 out of
- 11:0710 certified freak. It's amazing.
- 11:10I love it. Absolutely.
- 11:12Yeah. OK.
- 11:14All right. So then that's, that's your,
- 11:17your take on on the race, is that also your take on how the
- 11:21the rate is for your own experience?
- 11:24Yeah, 10 out of 10. I love it.
- 11:27It's been, There's one boss that I'm lukewarm on, but it's I play
- 11:31Fury Warrior in the raid and I'm our team's backup tank.
- 11:35There's like 4 fights that it was like whoever made the fights
- 11:38also plays Fury Warrior because it's like, let's make it so that
- 11:41all of these things line up exactly with Fury Warriors C DS.
- 11:47And one of those things is the last boss, the last boss
- 11:50Anserek. Like there's literally every
- 11:54mechanic that requires AOE burst lines up exactly with Fury
- 11:57Warriors cooldowns. So we ran two of them OK but
- 12:03it's been a lot of fun. I've enjoyed it from a tank
- 12:05perspective. It's a bit of a snooze fest so
- 12:08far through heroic. We'll see how mythic feels, but
- 12:13I've been really enjoying it thematically and a lot of the
- 12:15bosses are fun. The anserec fight.
- 12:18If you have a chance to do the Anserec fight, either in story
- 12:21mode, LFR, normal, whatever difficulty you want to run it
- 12:23at, pay attention to the the spell mechanics.
- 12:27She does these web lines that it's typical dodge the lines,
- 12:31but they don't shoot out. It's a ball of a web that goes
- 12:35down. The lines move out from it while
- 12:38they're placing and then when they when the damage event
- 12:41happens, the webs are snapping into the ball.
- 12:44It is very cool to see. Don't stand in those, but it is
- 12:48very cool to see. Yeah.
- 12:50I really love it. Lex have you is Timbermont
- 12:52Tavern? Am I allowed to say what
- 12:53Gilduran. I just did.
- 12:54You've been docs is. Have you been enjoying the raid
- 12:57as well? Yeah.
- 12:57Yeah, we did not get past normal.
- 12:59We're Thursday night, so we're gonna be raiding tomorrow again.
- 13:03We are on the second to last boss, the council, which is fun.
- 13:07It's it's we're we're learning the little dance.
- 13:10We're having a good time. I really like it too.
- 13:12I think it is it. It's been very interesting for
- 13:15me to play it as melee for the first time and kind of see the
- 13:18mechanics differently and think about the mechanics differently.
- 13:22But I am I'm also really enjoying it.
- 13:25I think it's really fun. I think the theme, the themes
- 13:27are really cool and cute. It's very spider.
- 13:29We live a little spider and I am very excited.
- 13:34I'm really excited especially to see how it feels and heroic and
- 13:37and what it is a little bit more of a push.
- 13:44Yeah, no, like I I think it's been basically such a great
- 13:47raid, well tuned. I think maybe there's like, OK,
- 13:53maybe this will change when I when we get the heroic answer
- 13:56act. But there seems to be a little
- 13:58bit of a step down going from the penultimate boss, the the
- 14:02silken council and then going into Anserak.
- 14:05It like it felt easier doing Anserak then the silken council
- 14:10just cuz like on I mean, like I've I've tested that fight on
- 14:18all the difficulties. There's a lot of things going on
- 14:21and when they add in the additional things, it gets just
- 14:24like that much more chaotic. I'm wondering how Anserek can
- 14:28really step up on that. But like I will also say that
- 14:32like Anserek is just a beautiful kind of fight.
- 14:37Just just like, yes, the webs coming in the use of like the
- 14:43the poison bomb, the like to to do the mechanic, the platform,
- 14:50like I was worried about the platform, but they've done the
- 14:51platform apart pretty well and they've all like the entire raid
- 14:57is done with mechanics that I've like seen someplace before.
- 15:01So it's quite easy to like figure out like, oh, OK, what
- 15:05this is supposed to supposed to do.
- 15:07It's just being done in new creative way.
- 15:09So I like I love that they've done that.
- 15:12They've done that in that way. I think I'd love to have been a
- 15:17family on the wall for Rashock and those poison waves.
- 15:23And like, how are we going to articulate this?
- 15:25How are we going to set this up? Because some people will go in
- 15:30there and be like, yes, OK, I see this.
- 15:32And some people will be like, what in the world is this?
- 15:36But like, once you get it, once you once you get it, you like
- 15:40it's go time from there. But like how many iterations,
- 15:44how much sit, sit down and like how we going to do this?
- 15:48Like, hey, let's rework this. What's happening in Blizzard
- 15:50headquarters all those like months or maybe a year ago when
- 15:56they were trying to to like plan out this race?
- 15:59Because I think there's a reason that that boss is also a dungeon
- 16:02boss, so that people get get trained on that mechanic.
- 16:06Yeah, yeah, yeah. The raid feels like somebody on
- 16:09my team said this. It feels like a greatest hits of
- 16:14raid boss mechanics with a few new ones sprinkled in.
- 16:18And they're all great answer. I can tell you the answer at
- 16:21difficulty will definitely step up for you in a row.
- 16:23From you. Yeah, but as long as you're
- 16:27raging the plan. If you have a plan, if your raid
- 16:29leader is organized and pre plans, you're fine.
- 16:33If you're not, if you're a team that likes to learn on the fly,
- 16:36you're in for a long pro hug. Speaking of mechanics, by the
- 16:41way, I do want to step back and I do want to publicly yell at
- 16:43you 2 Peek behind the curtain a little bit.
- 16:46I asked you 2 how many new mechanics are there with the big
- 16:50fly guy? Because we're thinking of making
- 16:52him our our blind boss. And you were like, oh, there's
- 16:56so many new mechanics. It's going to be so interesting.
- 16:59Don't worry about it, you guys. There's like 10.
- 17:03No, I told you not to. No, you did not.
- 17:06We all know you're right. We did.
- 17:07Yeah. Sorry.
- 17:08When you get to him on Heroic. Oh, I never thought of normal.
- 17:10Fair enough. Yeah.
- 17:11Heroic ads feel much. Better I feel much because then
- 17:14we, yeah, it was a whole scramble.
- 17:15We feel like there's like nothing maybe.
- 17:19We just wanted to set you up for success.
- 17:20Me. Failure.
- 17:23Maybe you want me to suffer. Maybe you want to have a bad
- 17:25time. Maybe you want to embarrass me
- 17:27in front of all of my friends. Is that what you want to do,
- 17:29Sean? You want me to look bad in front
- 17:30of the Rain team? I.
- 17:32Know I didn't want that. Lex No, it's.
- 17:33Including, it's including Anserak because Lex, you
- 17:36haven't, you haven't done Anserak yet.
- 17:39What is your favorite fight in there, Lex?
- 17:44I'm so bad at these and you picked me first.
- 17:46It's really it's. Really, Lex, I'll come back to
- 17:48you. I'll let you think about it.
- 17:50I'll throw the question to you, Sean.
- 17:53So if we're taking Answer, I go to the equation because I got to
- 17:56tell you I'm I'm reserving judgement for mythic.
- 17:59Sometimes a bad mythic mechanic can ruin a boss.
- 18:01But as of right now, if mythic is more of the same as heroic,
- 18:05Answer might be my favorite end boss ever.
- 18:10So Answer is definitely my favorite boss so far all through
- 18:13heroic. And we haven't done any mythic
- 18:14yet, but we did get AOTC. So I've done all the bosses on
- 18:18heroic. And I would say answer, but if
- 18:20if we're not saying answer, if we're not going with her.
- 18:25Oh, that's tough. I'm a big fan of both Taiveza
- 18:30and Sykrin. Sykrin.
- 18:33I like both of those fights. Yeah, Sykrin, I like AI like a
- 18:36simple fight. It's get you know, you take your
- 18:38shadows, you shoot your shadows, you dodge your puddles, get out
- 18:42of the middle, you take your shadows, you shoot your peddles.
- 18:45Yeah, I love it. It's I like, and the tank
- 18:48mechanic in that 1 is really nice, the Tom mechanic.
- 18:50But yeah, that one and Kyvesa, those two.
- 18:53I think there's a subtle brilliance in simplicity.
- 18:57And Sychrin is one of those fights that's simple enough, but
- 19:00it's also fun because you have to watch.
- 19:01And we're really bad at making boxes, so it's a good time to
- 19:04see what shapes we make. OK.
- 19:08All right, Lex, we're going back to you.
- 19:11What? What have you thought of?
- 19:13So first of all, 22 disclaimers. First of all, I don't remember
- 19:17anyone's name. I don't, I don't, I don't know
- 19:20anything. It's going to be π vibes.
- 19:22We're going to describe them π vibes.
- 19:24Honestly, it took me a bit when he said Kai Vesa.
- 19:26I'm just like, oh right, Nexus Princess, right, right, right.
- 19:29Thank you. Now, now we're actually caught
- 19:30up because I was like, I was like, Sean, I'm happy you're
- 19:32happy. I don't really know what's
- 19:34happening. I don't remember.
- 19:37I don't. Remember.
- 19:39Her name Abigail. Abigail is my.
- 19:43Fault the varigai. What's his face?
- 19:45The big bug. Yeah, yeah.
- 19:47OK, I like worm slug. Exactly.
- 19:51OK, we're so back. We're so back.
- 19:53I am also probably gonna get kicked off my team for saying
- 19:58this and I'm not even sure that I believe it, but we're, you
- 20:00know, ask me again in a couple weeks and I've had a couple run
- 20:03throughs and I've like drilled things into my brain.
- 20:05I actually think it might be the duo.
- 20:08It's complicated and weird and I also know I'm gonna get yelled
- 20:12at if my raid team listens to this podcast and be like, wait.
- 20:15You're not even the one who has to do the.
- 20:16Mechanic cuz you're mailing but I think it's fun when you have
- 20:19to like coordinate the fun little things you gotta like
- 20:21stretch the little web and and then you gotta like and then
- 20:25there's so many things you gotta remember like you gotta put this
- 20:26over on this girl when this is happening cuz then it's gonna
- 20:29get again then it's gotta be dispelled then we gotta dispell
- 20:31it and everyone's got it open it and then we go back and we do
- 20:33damage over here and then we wait and then everyone has to
- 20:35like do this little dance we have to do damage too cuz it's
- 20:37not your numbers are gonna it's really bad and it's fun it's a
- 20:40fun little dance it's very exciting there's a lot of things
- 20:42happening I, there's a reason I chose Demon Hunter and it's
- 20:44because I like when there's many things going on at once and it's
- 20:48you know it's terrible and we're gonna have to hit it a few times
- 20:52I'm sure before we get through it but I it's gonna be fun we're
- 20:55gonna have a good time and we're gonna and the minute we figure
- 20:57it out like when everyone gets it and it's all in like 1
- 21:00beautiful sequence and we just see it and it's clean and and
- 21:03he's charging into the thing and then and then we're dropping all
- 21:05the little the. The bug, well, it's gonna be so
- 21:08great. It's going to feel so good.
- 21:11Yeah, no, I think it's always awesome to have a fight where
- 21:14you actually like have the progress and then when you get
- 21:17that win, that first win like that, that's when the nerd yells
- 21:21come up and everybody is just elated.
- 21:23So yes, 100%. I get it, Lex, I get that.
- 21:26OK, so moving from the the rating that is now in full
- 21:34swing, we're now going into dungeons because dungeons we're
- 21:39now in Mythic plus week. Keystones are available, we can
- 21:43go all over the world and get whatever loot.
- 21:47So before the show we were talking a little bit.
- 21:50We've got some different opinions going on here about
- 21:54stuff, but just as APSA, we're going to tell you how the new
- 22:00affix system works. People may have been boycotting
- 22:04or staying away or just took a vacation during season 4.
- 22:08So keys now start 2 plus to 10. It's not all the way to 20.
- 22:15The affixes are also completely changed even if you were around
- 22:19for season 4. So we're going to go through
- 22:20that quickly. When you start the seasonal
- 22:24affix, there's a there is a group of them called Xalatas
- 22:28Bargain. They all do different things.
- 22:30This week Dialtas bargain is ascended, which is that while
- 22:37you're in combat, Zaltas shows up, she rains down these orbs,
- 22:41they begin casting. If you disrupt those orbs, your
- 22:46team gets a buff. I believe it's a 2% stacking
- 22:49haze buff and movement speed. And then if they get the cast
- 22:53off, they give a much better puff to the enemies.
- 22:57So you got to got to disrupt them, but they can be disrupted
- 23:01by so many things you do like like literally a knock up and
- 23:06it'll completely cancel them. You do a stunt, it'll cancel
- 23:09them. There's so many ways everybody's
- 23:11got something. This affix goes from 2 all the
- 23:16way up until when you hit 12, so this will be what you're dealing
- 23:20with for most of at least this first week while you're going up
- 23:24there. If you are one of those big
- 23:25pushers, and for most, most people, it's what you're going
- 23:29to be dealing with all season. At A4 plus, you are going to be
- 23:34getting Tyrannical or Fortified. This week it's Tyrannical, which
- 23:39means that the bosses are going to have more health at A7, plus
- 23:43Challenger's Peril comes into play and Challenges.
- 23:47Peril is a extra penalty, so instead of losing 5 seconds on
- 23:52your timer when you die, you're going to lose 15 seconds, three
- 23:56times the effect. Then when you reach A10, it's
- 24:01going to be the opposite of what kicked in at the four.
- 24:04So this week it's Tyrannic at four.
- 24:06At 10 you get Fortified and both will be in effect for the rest
- 24:11of the dungeons 10 and higher. As we said, at 12 you no longer
- 24:18have to deal with the bargain pool of affixes, but what you
- 24:23are going to get is Zalatef Guile, where Zalatef resends the
- 24:29bargains and then increases the health of all enemies, bosses,
- 24:33trash, whatever and their damage by 20%.
- 24:39So that's how this is, this is going to be working and that
- 24:44should be the same every week this season.
- 24:48The Xalo test bargain will change from week to week.
- 24:52So what that is is gonna change. I don't know the rotation of
- 24:57that yet. We'll know in future weeks.
- 24:59I have put in Mythicpl dot US, so Mythic plus I see what they
- 25:05did there. So you can check the affixes at
- 25:08the beginning of the week, and once the rotation is known,
- 25:11you'll know what's coming up in the future weeks as well.
- 25:16So this first week, I am happy to say that we're seeing some
- 25:22pretty good class representation.
- 25:25This was something that Blizzard had done a fairly good job in
- 25:29Dragonflight Season 1. Again, these are literally just
- 25:34the beginning. We're recording this on
- 25:36Wednesday, this stuff came out on Tuesday.
- 25:38This is people getting their initial foray.
- 25:40So please big grain of salt when I talk about these numbers.
- 25:45So these are numbers that are over all levels of keystones.
- 25:48We're seeing a fairly good representation of all classes in
- 25:52there, including druids, which is getting your classes are
- 25:57getting a sizable buff for Boomkin coming up.
- 26:01And I think Ferrell isn't in the best of place either.
- 26:04So it's it's surprising that that like even though they're on
- 26:07a lower end, they're still seeing some good representation
- 26:10at least on overall keys for for healers.
- 26:15Resto shaman is getting a sizeable representation, but we
- 26:19are seeing all the the healers. Blood Decay is, is being shown
- 26:25as the most popular tank, but we're seeing those protection
- 26:29warriors in there too and all all those sorts of tanks as
- 26:33well. As for DPS, the highest shown
- 26:37DPS is mages with a combined 13.7% of of the showing there.
- 26:46That's good representation as like the highest because that's
- 26:50spread out. That shows that no class is
- 26:53really that far behind. And when you look at the other
- 26:55ones, you're seeing Paladin at 10%, you're seeing Hunter at
- 26:599.9%. They're basically neck and neck.
- 27:02Shaman was the 4th 1. I did look it up.
- 27:04It's 9.6, so we're seeing a lot of good representation for all
- 27:11the classes we will see again, meta has has yet to really
- 27:16develop or cement in people have yet to start switching classes
- 27:20to whatever the meta is. So I suspect we're going to see
- 27:24these numbers definitely shake up.
- 27:26But it's good to see that there wasn't an heir apparent going
- 27:29into this week at least. John, you, you love Mythic Plus
- 27:36you have been pushing. What's your experience been like
- 27:38this week? I've been playing as both Fury
- 27:42and Pratt in keys and I love it. I've had a pretty easy go of it
- 27:50so far. I'm at item level six O 6.
- 27:52Most of my group is at about six O 6.
- 27:56In most of the dungeons I do where it's my raid team, I'm not
- 27:58like on LFG like only picking people I don't know was I run
- 28:02with my rig team in the early season so we can get everybody
- 28:05gear and get everybody good vaults.
- 28:08But we've had some luck. We 2 chested a couple of +7
- 28:13Necrotic wakes today. Yeah, we ran a + 7 Grimm Bataal
- 28:19that went pretty good for the most Part 1 minor error caused
- 28:25us to wipe. But yeah, it's been, I've been
- 28:26having a good experience. I've not found them too
- 28:29difficult, I have to say. I mean, I've been saying it for
- 28:33over a month, two months brought warrior feels really, really
- 28:39good. I don't know how that phrase
- 28:41goes. I'm in my lane, moisturized,
- 28:44thriving, or whatever it is, but that's me on prodding keys.
- 28:48There's no better sound than that dull thunk of a blocked
- 28:51attack. If you're struggling in keys,
- 28:54run it with a prompt warrior. You will change your mind.
- 28:59Or blood decay. I've seen a lot of love for the
- 29:02blood decays. No, not with a prompt warrior.
- 29:08Okay. They're really if you're running
- 29:10mountain thing, you're a prompt warrior.
- 29:12Your rage generation is so good that I'm literally like I'm I'm
- 29:16revenging like 10% of the time. All of my rage can go into
- 29:21ignore pain and deal block. I've got like almost a 95%
- 29:26shield block up time throughout the whole dungeon.
- 29:28My ignore pain is like a 95%. It's crazy.
- 29:32And a lot of the bosses that give a hard time with big tank
- 29:35Busters because I'm dumping so much rage through ignore pain.
- 29:38I have shield wall up like every 40 seconds.
- 29:41So anyway. OK, well, I'm glad that you're
- 29:44enjoying it. I'm glad that you're pushing
- 29:46that getting sevens. If you can get sevens across the
- 29:50board this week, that's immediately Keystone Master.
- 29:52Have you reached that point yet or you still got some keys to
- 29:55fill? Actually, I've mostly been
- 29:58running grand Bataals in in a chronic lakes, but that's gonna.
- 30:01Help your IO. No, a couple of stonewalls, but
- 30:04yeah, I will. I haven't gotten Keystone Master
- 30:06yet, but I will have it by the weekend.
- 30:07Really. OK, all right.
- 30:10And then Lex, you have also been pushing through and I.
- 30:15Well, pushing a little. Bit of pre show.
- 30:16Color I did 1 + 2. OK.
- 30:21All right, that's. And to be fair, listen, here's
- 30:23the thing. Most of my Guild is parents.
- 30:27I am. So they have to like deal with
- 30:29bedtime and stuff before they can play.
- 30:31I am a single childless woman who has dived into middle age
- 30:38like 20 years too early. So I'm like 10:30.
- 30:42I'm gone. Like I, there's no change if the
- 30:45fact that my rain goes till midnight, it's like suffering.
- 30:48It's I love them so much and I hope they know the fact that I
- 30:50play with them is evidence that they are the absolute lights of
- 30:53my life because I am in utter hell.
- 30:55And frankly, 1030 is when I want to be in bed.
- 30:58I want like ideally I want a good hour of reading before
- 31:00that. That's not been happening
- 31:01because stupid parents and they're stupid children are
- 31:03like, no, I can't be until 9. I can't be until 9:00.
- 31:06I'm I'm so proud of you all. You have beautiful families.
- 31:08Thank you for sharing them with me.
- 31:10So I have not had a lot of play time.
- 31:12So a lot of what I have heard is kind of through the Grapevine.
- 31:15So what I was told was that last night we did a zero to get keys,
- 31:19then we did A2. The two was cake.
- 31:22It was a faith roll, like it was frankly easier than the zero.
- 31:26I am told that when I then went to bed, they tried a four and
- 31:31they couldn't get through it. The the the item levels were a
- 31:35little there. There was a mostly around the
- 31:37six hundreds or above. Apparently there was 1578 who
- 31:41was keeping up with damage, but that's a obviously a very
- 31:44different item level than what you'd expect in a four.
- 31:47So that might have been a part of the problem.
- 31:50I know my Guild was feeling very unhappy with Method Plus at the
- 31:54end of the night. I think that a lot of what?
- 31:59So I should preface this with the statement, this is my first
- 32:03time pushing at all right? Like usually I am a solid like
- 32:0610 item levels behind my raid. I would be the 578 going through
- 32:09the mythic plus like it is you know I am I am very far behind.
- 32:12So I don't know how to compare this to other tiers.
- 32:15I don't know if this is normal and I just have never done it
- 32:17before or if this is a unique to this experience.
- 32:22Personally, I feel that gear opportunities were too heavily
- 32:27front loaded in the first couple weeks.
- 32:32And what that means is that I hit six O 3 item level.
- 32:36I'm pretty much fully geared out from delves.
- 32:40I'm used to content that I can run just being like you, a walk
- 32:43in the damn park, right? Like an 8 delve is barely like
- 32:47it's it's not even on the same scale as a method plus, right?
- 32:51And now I'm just facing this Cliff where all of a sudden I've
- 32:55been getting like gear and gear and gear and gear and high level
- 32:57gear like like beyond normal raid gear.
- 33:01So it's not even just like the way that you gear with
- 33:03levelling. Like I've just been handed gear
- 33:04like candy. And now I'm kind of like, Oh my
- 33:08God, like to get any upgrades, I'm going to have to be pushing
- 33:11fives, which is going to be rough.
- 33:14I'm going to get significantly less gear than I've ever gotten
- 33:16before just because again, like I, it used to be like every,
- 33:19which, you know, obviously that's the difference between
- 33:20mythic 0 and mythic plus is the amount of gear you get.
- 33:25And it just feels a little demoralizing as somebody who
- 33:28hasn't done this before to just feel the like, especially
- 33:31because it was so like, I, I, the fact that I'm, I'm beyond
- 33:35geared for normal raid before we even touch normal raid was, you
- 33:39know, also meant the normal rainfall kind of bad.
- 33:41Like wait, wait, no. OK.
- 33:44I I actually do want you to speak on that because like there
- 33:48there is this thing about over gearing, there is about like
- 33:52over over rewarding about that. But like you're stepping into a
- 33:59normal raid with all of this gear that you've gotten from
- 34:02your 8, your rank 8 level 8 delves and normal wasn't
- 34:07providing you with like much Ave. to upgrade.
- 34:11Like what was that to you? Yeah, so this it I mean it, it
- 34:18made it feel I mean like obviously the the a lot of the
- 34:21joy of raiding is you get to hang out with people, right, But
- 34:25there is a joy to rating that is like you go through and you get
- 34:28the fun drop and it's ha, this is so exciting.
- 34:32So it did feel kind of boring, like not boring because I was
- 34:40still having fun with my group and learning all these new
- 34:41mechanics, but it did feel like one of the you know, and it it
- 34:44was less fun to be fair, it was normal.
- 34:48I I do like The thing is that usually I don't feel like my
- 34:52Guild is usually that over geared for normal though.
- 34:56Like it doesn't feel like it's it's we're running.
- 34:58Maybe I'm wrong. I might be lying about that
- 35:00actually, because we do usually, we do usually run through normal
- 35:02within like two nights and then we push on.
- 35:05So it might just be that like we usually, this is just the first
- 35:08time I've done it. But like if you look at delves
- 35:13with the 610 gear that you'll get at the end of it, or if you
- 35:16get a for your other that you'll get out of the vault, you'll get
- 35:19616 gear. But if you use one of those
- 35:22maps, you get a 610 gear at the end of that as well.
- 35:26So like that's heroic level gear that you were getting last week
- 35:30and then in the vault. I think I'm already out geared
- 35:35of heroic raid right, OK, no heroic drops drops six 10610.
- 35:42I'm whining. That's not true.
- 35:43I'm not out out here to heroic. So yeah, I I I think that delves
- 35:53over were too easy and too much gear.
- 35:57And I think that that like, and I I, I, I think that those
- 36:02needed to have been like heavily tuned up.
- 36:08I I and I, I know that people are getting mad about it because
- 36:10The thing is that delves were a loot pinata and still are a loot
- 36:13pinata. And I don't think that was good
- 36:16for the game. I don't think that it's good to
- 36:18just hand people like I because then again, part of the issue is
- 36:23that like if everyone's used to getting 5 pieces of like six O 3
- 36:29year within two hours, then and then you take that away from
- 36:34them. Like that feels like a loss,
- 36:36right? At least to me.
- 36:37Maybe I'm just whiny and it would it would've been four.
- 36:40I know there's only four bountiful dowels, but like like
- 36:43that feels bad versus if the gearing process as a whole is
- 36:47slow and incremental and you're constantly working and
- 36:50constantly getting good upgrades.
- 36:52That's a very different feeling. I also, and this might be very
- 36:58controversial. I am increasingly unhappy with
- 37:03the mythic plus squish, partially because I don't think
- 37:06it exists, right. I think that they were gonna
- 37:09squish to like, you know, a mythic 0 is at the level of a
- 37:12M10 and A10 is level of level of a 20.
- 37:18I don't think that's true. I don't think like my Guild was,
- 37:22again, my guild's great. We, we were not doing M 10s
- 37:26across the board within the first two weeks, right?
- 37:29Like that. We, that was more of like beyond
- 37:32the, the situation. And so it just kind of feels
- 37:36like gear is like I, I, it doesn't feel like there's as
- 37:39much diversity as I'd like there to be, right?
- 37:41If I could do from A0 to a 20, there's a lot more opportunities
- 37:45in between for gearing. And so like I think if they were
- 37:50gonna do the squish, they had to own it, but I feel like they
- 37:52didn't own it. I feel like they like
- 37:54immediately folded on it and just went back to the normal
- 37:57situation. But now we have 10 fewer mythic
- 37:58plus. I don't know why I'm being I
- 38:00feel like Sean and Manny have something to say and I don't
- 38:02know it's cuz I said. Things too.
- 38:03I am just, I just like, I'm sitting here quiet, but I'm also
- 38:07just eating up Sean's just expressions and like.
- 38:12I kind of I. Kind of understand what's going
- 38:15through it. So we are going to immediately
- 38:20curve this, this conversation. We're going to talk about
- 38:23delves, guys. We are totally going to talk
- 38:25about Delves. But we have really dived into a
- 38:27conversation where we're talking about like gearing and the
- 38:32mindset of gearing this. Is I have questions you have to
- 38:35let me ask my. Questions.
- 38:36You have to go ahead, John. OK, well, Alex, I have some
- 38:39questions. First off, I don't I think I
- 38:44think M zeros are as hard as 10s were.
- 38:46And I think your brain doesn't see that number 10.
- 38:49So you think it's easier and and your gear level matches what you
- 38:55would have had when you were doing those 10s because you got
- 38:57that gear from delves. So you're at the same point as
- 39:02you would have been gear wise. And you see it's oh, this is 0.
- 39:04This is easy. I can do zeros.
- 39:06So your brain shifts. You're always able to do those
- 39:0810s, but your brain shifts and you're like, Oh, no, this is
- 39:11actually going to be easier. My question is this, as the
- 39:16person who used to be the lowest geared person in your raid and
- 39:20now being one of the highest geared people in your raid, have
- 39:23you started to resent the lower geared people on your team for
- 39:29not putting in the same effort you have?
- 39:31No because I have been sweating. If anything, I that, well, I
- 39:39feel like, OK, I feel like maybe that this will change over time.
- 39:44The other thing is that like I, I don't, if I'm not getting the
- 39:47little dopamine rushes, I don't know if I'm going to be able to
- 39:50keep up the sweat. It was it was fun to be getting
- 39:53like part of the thing was that every I was getting like every
- 39:55single night. I was getting a ton of gear.
- 39:56That was really exciting. And if now I'm only getting like
- 39:58one or two AD levels per gear, not per night, it's going to be
- 40:02a little worse, I guess. But I also, again, I never was
- 40:04sweating before, so who knows? I do.
- 40:11I think so. Part of the issue #1 frankly, if
- 40:14anything, I'm really grateful that my team isn't getting more
- 40:16gear as quickly because I'm really bad, is what I learned.
- 40:20I thought I understood Demon Hunter, and then I went into my
- 40:24first raid night and it was terrible.
- 40:27I had the third highest item level of a DPS and I was
- 40:30fighting for 7th on the DPS chart.
- 40:32It was really embarrassing. So so we have been training our
- 40:38rotation. We got our little sticky notes
- 40:39out. We had a little thing on the
- 40:41floor. We're working really hard.
- 40:43So I really appreciate that they under geared because it meant
- 40:46that I was holding on because if we're all at the same gear
- 40:48level, I would have been like below the tanks.
- 40:50Oh, so I'm sorry, Manny, you had a question.
- 40:54No, I mean like OK, my my question would be like, do you
- 41:00have, were you switching between specs for like AOE and single
- 41:03target? No, I don't know Manny.
- 41:06I didn't know my rotation. I.
- 41:09Dare the whole we're gonna talk about.
- 41:11I'm gonna introduce you to Lorgs after this and there's gonna be
- 41:14a whole new level of sweat you're gonna have I'm.
- 41:16Not. Excited.
- 41:17You won't even need those item levels.
- 41:19You'll just be like boom. I mean like it happens Lex.
- 41:23I was rating last night rating last night.
- 41:29I'm I'm there. We're going through we're
- 41:31clearing through normal before we start on heroic.
- 41:36What's doing great topic topping the media's at some points
- 41:40fighting fighting there we get through a boss and another
- 41:44shaman on my team wins the the tearpiece and activates the
- 41:50tearpiece. Not just two pieces, four piece
- 41:52and suddenly boom, I'm left in the dust, absolutely left in the
- 41:56dust. So it can be that like there's
- 41:58particular gear that does that because like to hear mean
- 42:01something. It can be like I was looking at
- 42:03I'm like a couple of times where I was like, Oh, shoot, we didn't
- 42:06do that. Oh, wait, I'm in single target.
- 42:09This is better and it's an AOE, that sort of thing.
- 42:12Like you can. There are times where you might
- 42:15be doing really well considering what your build is, but you
- 42:19should switch builds to to do that.
- 42:21So it might not be that like oh I don't know my rotation.
- 42:24It's like you might be just using the wrong build and
- 42:27therefore the wrong build. That's quite possible.
- 42:28I-beam was literally broken. Oh, was it really?
- 42:32Yeah, it was doing less damage. Scaling above 1 target, any
- 42:36targets above 1 and it wasn't scaling, it was capping at one.
- 42:40Any of those fights that you were in where you had like the
- 42:43ad spawns and you were down below, it's because your ability
- 42:47was literally not functioning. Potentially true, however, I do
- 42:53need you all to understand like I really appreciate the sport.
- 42:55I appreciate the love it is because I did like I I had like
- 42:58vaguely read my rotation and I had I thought I understood it
- 43:01and I gently I thought the hunt gave me damage on whatever I
- 43:04cast next right, like I thought that was one of the spells I had
- 43:06to stack with powerful spells. I didn't realize that like
- 43:09immolation aura benefits spell rush to the degree that it does,
- 43:13and I need to be saving Emily. I was casting immolation aura on
- 43:16cooldown and I wasn't using fell rush after it because I didn't
- 43:18like, I think that was that big. I thought that it's like gave
- 43:20you an extra charge. Like I, I, I didn't know my
- 43:22rotation. Like the the issue was just that
- 43:24I didn't understand how and, and Demon Hunter isn't a proc class,
- 43:29it's a choreographed class. So like, if you don't
- 43:32understand, you cast this spell and then you cast this and then
- 43:35you do this and then you do this and then you do this in that
- 43:37order and that's going to get you the best damage every single
- 43:39time. You're just going to tank right?
- 43:42Like you're just gonna poo and you're like my my parses per
- 43:46item level were like a nine. It was.
- 43:48But now I know my rotation. I have AI have a whole wall of
- 43:51sticky notes over here that have all sorts like my little cycles
- 43:54and things that I used to remember and I it's it's gonna
- 43:57be rough for, you know, I'm giving myself grace.
- 43:59I'm forgiving myself because I understand.
- 44:03Like it isn't in my fingers yet. It isn't fully trained.
- 44:07So next Thursday, tomorrow, it's gonna be better.
- 44:10It's probably still gonna be tough.
- 44:12I'm not gonna be top of the charts, and that's okay.
- 44:14We're gonna keep working, We're gonna keep training.
- 44:16I did this when I was learning healer.
- 44:18I was very bad for a while, and then I got good and then I
- 44:21stopped working and I plateaued. But that's okay.
- 44:23We don't worry about that. We just won't stop working.
- 44:26We won't plateau. It'll be fine.
- 44:28So. I'm not sure how much grace you
- 44:30need to give yourself. It's literally week two maybe
- 44:35Maybe like. Don't come down.
- 44:36So hard. No, I have two things to say.
- 44:40One, Lex, it's good that you're not resenting the lower item
- 44:42level people on your team. That means you're a team player
- 44:45and you're there for the team. So I'm glad that that was the
- 44:46answer you gave 2 Manny. I like sweaty Lex I.
- 44:50I I. Yeah, 2 Damn it.
- 44:53Why don't you know you don't? Need to like you need to be so
- 44:56hard on yourself right now. No.
- 44:58Figure that rotation out. Figure out.
- 45:00Rotation. Definitely figure out that
- 45:01rotation. Don't break yourself.
- 45:04Don't. About it.
- 45:05Yeah, we're gonna need a picture of that sticky wall of notes.
- 45:08I thought she tweeted tweeted tweeted.
- 45:11That was on the. So I started.
- 45:12I started. Out on the floor, because then I
- 45:14could organize them, but then I moved the important because part
- 45:18of them were things like I anyway, I it was it was like
- 45:24just like little notes of like remember what this spell is
- 45:27like. Do I like?
- 45:28For example, I have a little sticky note that says, do I need
- 45:31to keep? I still have it.
- 45:32I should have thrown this way. Do should I be keeping the green
- 45:35Dottie stun spell on cooldown in parentheses?
- 45:38Chaos Nova because I remember what it looked like and it
- 45:40wasn't in my rotation. I remember what it was called
- 45:42and then I remembered so I wrote it down.
- 45:45And you don't, by the way, you don't need to keep that on
- 45:47cooldown. That is the only stun if you
- 45:49need it, which is great in mythic plus, but you don't.
- 45:51That's not a cooldown, interestingly.
- 45:53It's really. Good for this week's ethics.
- 45:55Oh, it's because it can. Hey, we get all those orbs.
- 45:59Yeah, next season Lex is going to be like the one we go to for
- 46:04the the high end content. It's already.
- 46:07Happening I'm just resigned to be the casual on the the show,
- 46:10but that's fine. That is fine.
- 46:13I will tell you guys all about how I got my transmog set up and
- 46:17how much money I made my my pet collections and all Well, not
- 46:25pet collections, mount collections, whatever.
- 46:26Collecting pets. I'll, I'll, I'll be the all
- 46:29rounder because I've got a lot of stuff.
- 46:31And then and then Lex can talk about her first week mythic
- 46:35kills. God, no.
- 46:39I mean, it's my fun, cute little easy thing.
- 46:42I mean, like, it's not it's hard.
- 46:43It's challenging. We work really hard.
- 46:44I have I I've tried mythic reading.
- 46:47It was like genuinely so rough. We like the officer team had to
- 46:53like sit down and be like, we don't have to keep doing this
- 46:57right. We can stop doing this right?
- 47:01And now we. Did OK.
- 47:03Now we do here to see and then we do achievement runs and we
- 47:05have a good time. I want to do the achievement
- 47:09runs too anyway. I love achievement runs and they
- 47:11get you all mounts. It's as long as you don't do it
- 47:14in the middle of the raid. Lexus freaking lead.
- 47:18Middle of the raid. No, no announcement activating
- 47:21your achievements. Like what is this frog doing
- 47:24here anyway? Sometimes you got to moving on.
- 47:27Don't don't I have a new. No need, no need.
- 47:32He's my other brother. You don't need to do that.
- 47:36Moving on though, we have a new patron to thank.
- 47:39So, Sean, can I get you to do this?
- 47:42Yeah, Manny, Lex, I want to tell you guys a story.
- 47:46Back in the thick of Battle for Azeroth, I, Forsaken Warlock,
- 47:50watched as Casey, an Alliance warrior, charged head long
- 47:54headlong into our ranks, their blade gleaming with fierce
- 47:56determination. Despite the chaos of war, their
- 47:59movements were precise. Cleaving through our lines are
- 48:01the strength that rivaled any Horde champion.
- 48:04As I unleashed a torrent to fell fire from the shadows, I
- 48:06couldn't help but respect Casey's unyielding resolve,
- 48:09knowing that in another life we might have fought side by side
- 48:13rather than its bitter enemies. AC, thank you so much for your
- 48:18your Patreon subscription. Do for Azeroth and for all of
- 48:21our listeners. Or Azeroth.
- 48:22We'll always be free, but if you enjoy the content we produce,
- 48:25consider pled to our Patreon at patreon.com/FAZ.
- 48:29And if you do, and you would like your story to actually
- 48:33match your character's race and class, join our discord at FAZ
- 48:38or at bit dot LY slash faz discord.
- 48:41And please tell me what you play, because I'm guessing these
- 48:45are all guessing folks. I mean, Judge, Judge Abby was a
- 48:49pretty solid guess. We we had a good idea.
- 48:51On that, we nailed that one. Yeah, OK.
- 48:55Well, thank you guys for all your support.
- 48:58Again, we do this just because we love talking about this game.
- 49:03I. Love talking.
- 49:06I mean I've got 2 podcasts now so I clearly love talking.
- 49:11But yes, we do always appreciate the support.
- 49:15Now let's go into the big talk of the week, Delves, because
- 49:20Delves are the new end game. Clearly they have changed the
- 49:25game for Lex and they've been changing the game for a lot of
- 49:27people. Joss, who you might remember as
- 49:31one of our former Co host and friend of the show, has been
- 49:35diving into Delves as well and enjoying that with her with her
- 49:39new routine. I did a lot of Delves last week.
- 49:42Sean. Of course, you were tearing
- 49:44through it and now we're in Week 2, but there's been so much of
- 49:50an evolution. So to talk a little bit about
- 49:52the evolution, I'm once again going to throw it back to you,
- 49:55Sean. Just tell us what in the world
- 49:57has been happening with Delves over the last little bit.
- 50:01Delves have been a roller coaster of emotions for
- 50:04everybody across the board. They started out easier in
- 50:07groups than they were solo. Then they said, hey, that's not
- 50:10right, we don't want that. So they buffed them so they were
- 50:11hard in groups and Han Solo, nobody wanted that either.
- 50:15Manny, that wasn't it. So then they made some more
- 50:18adjustments. They made some easier thumb
- 50:20harder. They made they added mobs in the
- 50:24plus 8 Salima and then those were wrecking everybody.
- 50:26So then they took those out. It has been crazy.
- 50:30The the, the, the major credit the Blizzard, which we saw with
- 50:35Mop Remix and we've seen it so much in the last six months.
- 50:38They are listening and they are quick to make those changes.
- 50:41They have their hand on the dial and they are ready to adjust and
- 50:45they are tuning us in. And the end result, with the
- 50:48last changes that happened, I think yesterday, Delves are now
- 50:53in a spot where Lex thinks they're too easy.
- 50:58The rest of the world thinks they're just right.
- 51:00I. Was I was going to say, Sean,
- 51:03you did tell one lion that because you said that nobody
- 51:06liked it when they were harder in groups and harder solo.
- 51:09Let me tell you, it's true. It was like one day that I was
- 51:12happy with the tales. It was that day when it was hard
- 51:18forever. I am actually going to jump in
- 51:20and join Lex with this. Like when they were a bit
- 51:23harder, like they brought this to a point where the difficulty
- 51:30is roughly where it is now before they did the micro
- 51:33adjustments for like the elite kind of characters and some odd
- 51:39casters. Like there's some casters that
- 51:41would just like spam casting to the ends of the earth.
- 51:46I think that I am closer to where Lex is standing where I
- 51:50felt that like they we're at a point where, yeah, you had to
- 51:55work to get that 8IN. You needed to be closer to or
- 52:00above 600. You needed to.
- 52:02And even then, for many players that weren't tanks, you needed
- 52:07to make sure that you weren't pulling more than like 2-3
- 52:11casters that you could keep locked down with CC and stuff
- 52:14because like too much of that, too much of those like auto
- 52:18attacks plus cast that you can interrupt and that's it.
- 52:21You would just lose lives. I do think that some of the
- 52:25elites were just game ending by themselves and they did need to
- 52:32be taken down. But I do think right now we may
- 52:36have shifted it a little bit too much.
- 52:40Is is that kind of where you're at Lex?
- 52:43Yeah, I I I will say I joke about like there was one day
- 52:46that I was happy they were heavily overturned like to like
- 52:53or or more so like there were they were not consistent a delve
- 53:00to delve right certain delves I could do pretty like I did.
- 53:02I did 18. I think there's actually one on
- 53:05the last episode I said I did 18 and it was great and super clean
- 53:09and beautiful. And then I went in another one.
- 53:11I got bang into the ground. And that's not like I wanna have
- 53:15a general sense of what I can do, right?
- 53:18Like, it should all be kind of consistent.
- 53:21It also is like, certain packs were really easy.
- 53:23And then, yeah, like, you know, there were certain packs that
- 53:25were harder than elites. And I think there kind of still
- 53:27are. I still think the tuning is a
- 53:28little bit inconsistent in some of them, but it's mostly just
- 53:31kind of like lowered across the board.
- 53:34So, yeah, there's still packs that are harder than elites, but
- 53:37that's partially just because the elites are pretty easy.
- 53:40I do think, yeah, you should not be getting one shot from bosses.
- 53:46Like, like, you know, like it was too.
- 53:47It was just like frustratingly hard, right?
- 53:50But not in a like. OK, here's the thing.
- 53:56Like you're 3 podcasts away from telling us to get good.
- 54:01It be so often you just say something.
- 54:03I'm just like what? A spicy thing I love.
- 54:08It. Delves are supposed to be at
- 54:11about like based on like what they're dropping.
- 54:14A delve should realistically be about the same challenge level
- 54:18as a Keystone 5A delve is easier than an M0 right now.
- 54:22Like like that's not I'm sorry, an 8 delve.
- 54:24It should be about A5. It's it's it's not congruent.
- 54:29It's and what that means is it's just become like a loot pinata,
- 54:32which I've already complained about how that makes me feel in
- 54:34mythic plus, but it like, OK, I'm going to I'm starting and
- 54:39stopping myself a lot because I'm I'm flustered.
- 54:41I got big feelings. I also do feel a little bit, and
- 54:49maybe this is whiny and maybe this is problematic and maybe
- 54:53this is it's everything's about me because it is.
- 54:55I'm a Leo, I'm a double Leo. It feels like they came to us
- 55:03and they were like, we're going to make like we know that a lot
- 55:06of you guys want solo content. You want things you can do
- 55:09alone. You want open world content to
- 55:11be a little bit more, you know, feel like we want end game open
- 55:15world content. So we're going to give you open
- 55:18world content and we're going to make it actually challenging.
- 55:20It's not going to feel like open world, like it's, you know, it's
- 55:22going to be the same vibe as open world content.
- 55:24You can do it alone. It's about exploration, it's
- 55:25about fun, but it's going to have a challenge that makes it
- 55:29feel like an end game sort of situation.
- 55:33And then it came time to execute it and it feels like they were
- 55:38like, oh, but it is open world content.
- 55:41Like it has to be easy, right? Like it's open world content,
- 55:44right? Like, we've got to give it to
- 55:45them, right? And I think that's part of my
- 55:50problem with Delves is it almost feels like it's sort of this
- 55:54return to the idea that solo players can't handle tough
- 55:58challenges. Open world content has to be a
- 56:01Gimme. And, and the other thing is that
- 56:05we're basically done with them. We, we, we're on week 3 and we,
- 56:10everyone has reached essentially the pinnacle, right?
- 56:12Like there's a couple more levels you could do for
- 56:14challenge only, but we've the people, I mean, people who are
- 56:17playing trying to get into like rating and, and trying to do
- 56:20other end game content are thinking of this as like end
- 56:22game content by and large are through their eights and on week
- 56:263. Like it's it, it's still useful
- 56:28because it's still gearing, but it's dead content.
- 56:31It's finished. Go ahead, Sean.
- 56:36Elves aren't for you. They're not.
- 56:39They're not for Raiders and people that are running
- 56:42dungeons. There's solo content for solo
- 56:45players who don't have the support of a raid team and a
- 56:48mythic plus team, and they're easier for you because you have
- 56:51that support structure and players who don't have that
- 56:55aren't finished with. Well, but.
- 56:58That's partially because they tuned them badly, right Like
- 57:01that. That's because they they made, I
- 57:02mean, no, they did. I'm I am still mad about the
- 57:05fact. OK, I'm on your side Lex.
- 57:09That the way the delves came out like 4 when they released 4
- 57:17above right? They were under tuned.
- 57:20They were incredibly easy for people in groups.
- 57:25They moved the difficulty of the groups to match more the solo
- 57:32content and people complained because the people who were
- 57:36doing it for the loot obviously ran through those as fast as
- 57:42possible, filled up their vault. And the reason that they were
- 57:45going back in after they made the changes was to make sure
- 57:48that they got the loot at the end of the the delve, because
- 57:52that was still the best loot at the end of the delve.
- 57:54So yeah, I walked in after the hot fixes and it was like, oh,
- 57:58this hurts. This is, this is a little much
- 58:00for me solo, right? And I looked at it and said,
- 58:06there's no way this stays because I, I'm in the curve of
- 58:14players that I think that this is not, that this was like not
- 58:21meant to be something that was going to like overly challenge
- 58:25me. And there were some scenarios
- 58:26where I'm like, I don't see how somebody without these
- 58:29particular, these particular assets, level of CC and such can
- 58:35get through this. And that's the problem with
- 58:37Dells. They are meant to be, hey, let's
- 58:41have no tank in there, let's have no healer in there, let's
- 58:45have 5 tanks or five healers. And then how do you tune the
- 58:48damage intake? How do you tune the like amount
- 58:52of CC and stuff that be can be in there?
- 58:55Because like if I run in there with like 2 of my friends like I
- 58:57did the other day or I run in there solo like I did yesterday,
- 59:01the creatures in there, there's not larger packs, right?
- 59:05There's not like more stuff that I need to use my CC.
- 59:08So I go in it with a group and we all have our CC going.
- 59:11We're going to walk through that.
- 59:12Even today with solo and multi multi members in a party being
- 59:19there, you just have more tools. So it like, I just don't think
- 59:23that the tuning is ever going to be precisely there.
- 59:26And there's always going to be something that makes it harder
- 59:28because they said it. They said it when they made the
- 59:30tuning. Hey, yeah, it sucks if you've
- 59:32got four or five players, but going with two and three and
- 59:35it's easier or it like there might be tuning later on that
- 59:39they do it where it's like, oh, this elite is hard, but like if
- 59:42you've got four or more players, you can interrupt all his
- 59:45dangerous things without an an issue.
- 59:48So now they're having to go in and do some fine tuning that I
- 59:50wish they had had more time to do in the beta.
- 59:54And I think that my unfortunate thought behind this.
- 1:00:00Is that they were rushing towards a release date and this
- 1:00:04is something that needed just a little more time in the oven for
- 1:00:08them to get to get exactly what they needed at the end of this
- 1:00:15week. With the the now that they're
- 1:00:17intellectual fine tuning, I think Dells are in a fairly
- 1:00:20decent place. Yeah, they might be a little bit
- 1:00:22easier than I would like for my purposes, but as Sean keeps
- 1:00:25saying, it's not for me. It's sort of for it's for other
- 1:00:31people who are enjoying the solo content.
- 1:00:36And I'm sorry, I went through follower dungeons and there's
- 1:00:40another thing not for me. I've gone and done a couple of
- 1:00:47things and it's like, OK, like this isn't meant to be quote UN
- 1:00:51quote mage tower until you do the the Zechvall fight, which
- 1:00:59they specifically said here's a 13th L that is that is not part
- 1:01:03of the regular thing that is meant to beat your face in.
- 1:01:07And when I saw people going in like the first day that was
- 1:01:13unlocked and like beating it in not that many attempts, it was
- 1:01:17clear that they missed the tuning mark if that was meant
- 1:01:20what they meant to be their mage tower like event.
- 1:01:27I I. Did.
- 1:01:29I'm sorry. Actually good.
- 1:01:30I I was gonna say no, I. Don't have anything, I'm just
- 1:01:32stretching my fingers. I thought you'd just rack it up
- 1:01:35for like a big speech here. No, my my fingers are tight, so
- 1:01:39I'm stretching right. I see I.
- 1:01:40See. OK, so while Shawn stretches the
- 1:01:42fingers, let's go ahead. So I will point out I do like I
- 1:01:48OK, I went through delves in groups when it was the point
- 1:01:52where it was like, if you go through the solo immediate
- 1:01:55death, there's no chance you were screwed.
- 1:01:57If you go through with a group that it the, the the cakeiest
- 1:02:02cake you ever eaten in your life.
- 1:02:05I since it is tuned more like accurately, I've only done solo
- 1:02:10delves. I do prefer delve solo.
- 1:02:11I think they're I'm a Demon Hunter.
- 1:02:12So to be fair that I do have a lot of abilities that makes that
- 1:02:15a little bit easier for me to manage, including just the fact
- 1:02:18that I can like skip you around corners really easily because I
- 1:02:20can zoom. So fair enough.
- 1:02:24I, I, I had a second point and it's, it's gone.
- 1:02:29Oh, yeah, I do have also, I do want to say I am sympathetic to
- 1:02:37the people who are mad about when the tuning hit because it
- 1:02:43did really make it like one of the reasons that I'm I was able
- 1:02:49to gear up really highly and really quickly is because I can
- 1:02:52play during the week. And it does like even as
- 1:02:58somebody who benefited from that, it does feel bad that they
- 1:03:01tuned it in the middle of, I think they tuned it on like a
- 1:03:05Friday, a Thursday or a Friday. A.
- 1:03:08Big hit happened on a Tuesday. It sure didn't, because Tuesday
- 1:03:11is the day that it drops. No, sorry.
- 1:03:15It's Tuesday 9th like like there was like, hey, did you do your
- 1:03:19delves during the day? And then Tuesday night, like
- 1:03:24something along the lines of 10 something they they made the hot
- 1:03:28fix that changes. So it was like I was like in the
- 1:03:30middle of raid and it was like, oh, hot fixes.
- 1:03:33I'm going to try this after raid.
- 1:03:35Ho, this is a different game. I do so the first drop of of of
- 1:03:41tuning definitely happened before the before last weekend,
- 1:03:45right? The one that made it so that the
- 1:03:46group was no longer a a huge benefit.
- 1:03:49There's been a ton of hot fixes. Am I tripping?
- 1:03:53No, I know I'm not. I'm smart.
- 1:03:54I'm going to stand to my own knowledge.
- 1:03:55I'm going to stand my own ability.
- 1:03:57It definitely I I know there because I know my Guild was
- 1:03:59talking about how it sucked that this got like it it it went from
- 1:04:04loot pinata. Everyone who wants loot gets 4
- 1:04:06pieces a day. It's going to be super easy.
- 1:04:08Everyone's going to gear up to challenging or like, I mean, you
- 1:04:12know, I still think it's too easy, but like significantly
- 1:04:14more challenging and this is no longer just going to be handing
- 1:04:17you loot like it's candy right before the weekend.
- 1:04:22I know that felt bad to the people who played primarily on
- 1:04:24the weekend. And like, I get it.
- 1:04:25Like it was it was so broken with groups that it was
- 1:04:32essentially an exploit, right? Like it was way under tuned.
- 1:04:37People were doing apes with 570 something item level.
- 1:04:40Like that's crazy. That's simply too low.
- 1:04:43Like full groups in the 70s. So I do think it needed to be
- 1:04:49tuned, but I do also understand why I feel really bad if you
- 1:04:51couldn't access until the weekend and all of a sudden all
- 1:04:54of your friends are in, you know, full 6 hundreds and you're
- 1:04:57just getting started. But all of a sudden it's harder
- 1:04:59for you to get geared. I don't know if there's actually
- 1:05:01a better solution, but that's my take.
- 1:05:04The second thing I'm going to bounce off of this might be my
- 1:05:06third thing. I I'm really refusing to shut
- 1:05:07up. I'm so sorry.
- 1:05:08I'm a sweat now I talk over people.
- 1:05:10What can I say? I do also kind of feel I think
- 1:05:16that this is the first time that it's starting to feel like maybe
- 1:05:20this expansion was a little bit rushed.
- 1:05:23I think the story was beautiful and stunning and and like the
- 1:05:28opening was also like the way that they there were not a ton
- 1:05:30of like big in your face bugs. The tuning was a mess and there
- 1:05:37are not only still a lot of weird little bugs, but bugs that
- 1:05:40have not been fixed since opening.
- 1:05:42Like we joke about the like Ambassadors 1.
- 1:05:44I don't know if this is going on in other people's Guild, but
- 1:05:46like sometimes it'll just like log everyone back in and be like
- 1:05:49oh diplomat ambassador, you get a bunch of killed.
- 1:05:51The one that is annoying me significantly more now is that
- 1:05:54something's broken with auto loot.
- 1:05:56And like, it's not the end of the world, but it's really
- 1:05:58annoying. We're like a rant, like out of
- 1:06:00nowhere. There's no rhyme or reason to
- 1:06:02why it happens. It just won't auto loot for me,
- 1:06:05which was annoying when I didn't realize this was a risk because
- 1:06:08I would just like, you know, click on something, wait a
- 1:06:10second, fly off. And I'm like, wait, hold up.
- 1:06:13Something didn't work there. It was especially annoying with
- 1:06:15like herbs and stuff because then you have to like, go redo
- 1:06:18the herb. It was a pain.
- 1:06:21None of these are game breaking bugs but the fact that they're
- 1:06:23just sitting there is concerning.
- 1:06:27I also don't think I know Necrotic for a while wasn't
- 1:06:30dropping valor. I swear to God I didn't get any
- 1:06:32valor on Tierna which was my +2 and and none of these are are
- 1:06:37the end of the world but they are like there's just a lot of
- 1:06:41little issues and I would like to petition our the Blizzard
- 1:06:45employee who watches the show. FAZZ Blizzard.
- 1:06:48Yeah, exactly. FAZZ Blizzard, it's OK if we're
- 1:06:52not doing 8 week cycles. Like I would so much rather that
- 1:06:56somebody comes out and they're like, hey guys, the time frame
- 1:06:59is not realistic. Like it was crazy.
- 1:07:01That's just too much pushing. We're changing the calendar.
- 1:07:04We're so sorry. We know people are going to be
- 1:07:05disappointed. Like people are going to yell,
- 1:07:07people are going to yell about anything.
- 1:07:09I, I would, I would frankly feel really heartened if I heard that
- 1:07:14from Blizzard right now. Like this was a little too fast.
- 1:07:16We want to make sure we have time to test things.
- 1:07:17We want to make sure we have time to like, tune things before
- 1:07:19they come out because yeah, I, I really appreciate the Blizzard
- 1:07:23listening really closely. I really appreciate that they're
- 1:07:25making changes as they need it. When the game is changing this
- 1:07:29quickly, it does feel a little bananas.
- 1:07:34It's hard for me to feel like I've got my feet under me.
- 1:07:37And I would so much rather that we're catching these ahead of
- 1:07:41time, like, and, and again, to my beloved Blizzard employees,
- 1:07:44thank you all so much for what you do.
- 1:07:45You do incredible things. I'm so proud of you.
- 1:07:47You're working under really stressful situations.
- 1:07:48You're listening. I love that.
- 1:07:49I love you're listening. It's incredible.
- 1:07:51I want the game to be stable. Like it's going to be so much
- 1:07:54more fun when stable. It's OK to need more time.
- 1:07:57It's OK to need to bug test. Like that's fine.
- 1:07:59Take the time, be slower. People will yell.
- 1:08:02People will yell anyway. I'm sorry they yell at you.
- 1:08:04You don't deserve that. We love you.
- 1:08:06You're the Angel of my life. You make the game that sparks so
- 1:08:08much joy and fills me with a life that I didn't realize I
- 1:08:11could have this much fun zooming around on a fun little demon
- 1:08:13girl. It's OK if it's slower in my
- 1:08:16opinion and I speak for the world because I'm W so.
- 1:08:21OK. I can't believe you think that
- 1:08:23the person they assigned to listen to this podcast has the
- 1:08:26ability to determine the dense cycle.
- 1:08:27There's a lot of pools and poor fat stuff.
- 1:08:31I'm sure of it. It's hot.
- 1:08:33Yeah. Joe Berg listening to For
- 1:08:35Azeroth. Love what you do.
- 1:08:37We could definitely use 10 weeks maybe.
- 1:08:41Yeah, Lex, that was I I get it. It's frustrating that we do make
- 1:08:45fun of that bug as well. There's another bug that is more
- 1:08:48of a problem for me and my GM, and it's that when you do
- 1:08:52crafting orders, you can't pull the mats from your War Band
- 1:08:55bank. Oh, my God.
- 1:08:56So, and they've identified that it's a bug that they're working
- 1:09:00on, but every time I go to do a crafting order, I have to go to
- 1:09:02my bank, take all of the mats out, go back to the table, do
- 1:09:05the crafting order, go back to the bank, put all the mats back
- 1:09:08in. Because all of my characters are
- 1:09:09enchanter, so they all use the same mats.
- 1:09:11Put all the mats back in, log on to the next carrier to go get
- 1:09:14all, take all my mats out, go to the table, do the crap.
- 1:09:16Anyway, Lex, I you want to do some dungeons.
- 1:09:23Yeah. That's what I took from that.
- 1:09:28Lex is a baller now and we're going to do some dungeons.
- 1:09:31I hope he was still group with me.
- 1:09:32If my score is high, I'll. Consider it for you Sean.
- 1:09:37I'll make an Excel. I'm not sure if you guys read
- 1:09:40the notes, but the title is now Lex Rising.
- 1:09:43It's just what this show is. But yeah, I think that there's a
- 1:09:48lot that I love that they're responding quickly, that they're
- 1:09:52making these changes. I, I wish that it that it took a
- 1:09:55little more time in the oven because it's always better when
- 1:09:58they can address it before it goes live.
- 1:10:00Of course, this isn't the first thing that I've seen that I've
- 1:10:05sort of been like, like the fact that some classes are some like
- 1:10:09hero specs are getting some major reworks.
- 1:10:13To me is a is a big sign that they're like, yeah, this isn't
- 1:10:17landing the way we want it to and we can't just adjust numbers
- 1:10:20to make this work. But I'm sure they're working
- 1:10:26towards things. I just, to me, it feels like
- 1:10:29decisions are being made at a level above what the developers
- 1:10:34would want because I know that like devs don't say let's ship a
- 1:10:39half baked game, let's ship it. It's not ready.
- 1:10:44So maybe if the person who is listening to Faz has that power,
- 1:10:49hi Phil Spencer. I don't know.
- 1:10:53Oh, if it's Phil Spencer, we got some words.
- 1:10:56I won't say that because I'm not going to say Jenny's life
- 1:10:59harder. None of them are appropriate.
- 1:11:02We want the listener because like that's problems with one of
- 1:11:05our listeners. But yeah, if you guys want to
- 1:11:09join in any of these conversations, we're always
- 1:11:12talking about this sort of stuff, including some very
- 1:11:16strange lore, tinfoil hat theories that I have.
- 1:11:23But that's all happening in the fast Discord.
- 1:11:25That's bit dot LY slash fast Discord, just like Sean had said
- 1:11:29before, but we're gonna call it a show here.
- 1:11:32Until next time, guys, may all your hits be good.
- 1:11:36Good night.