Latest / For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast / #378 - For Azeroth!: “The Beloren Blockade"

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#378 - For Azeroth!: “The Beloren Blockade" · For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast

0:00
They forked weak auras, changed the they are literally all using
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weak auras. What are we doing Blizzard?
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Turn the API back on for the rest of us.
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Victory for the Forsaken. For Lauderon for the Karen tour.
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For. Pandaria.
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For calendar to. The burning region for Gilnaeus
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but has not died for the Lich King, for the Sindori, for the
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Alliance for the Horn for Azeroth.
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Hello and welcome back to another episode of for Azeroth.
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I am one of your hosts, Manny, AKA distributed.
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Manny and I am joined by our two wonderful Co hosts.
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First coming from oh man, I'm worried about what states I've
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done now it might be might be getting a little low.
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We're gonna go with North Carolina.
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Yeah, North Carolina. We have the wonderful the nice
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Lex ramps. Hello Manny.
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How how are you? How's the World of Warcraft
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treating you? It's doing well.
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I'm sorry I didn't ask ask you that question.
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I got a little confused on states.
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I'm gonna have to like have a running list of which states
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I've done and which states I haven't done.
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But yes, how is the World of Warcraft cheating you is the
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natural question. It's treating me very well.
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I'm still in a little bit of the solo player high.
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I am still having fun with delves I'm actually not terrible
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at would. Oh my God a nightmare nightmare.
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Pray I can actually do them And I only die occasionally and I
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still think although I did find I I still don't have the critter
1:53
gun. But I think I think that
1:55
everyone is can chill and I'll kill things eventually.
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Like dude, I do it all the time. The critter gun.
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The critter gun doesn't work anymore.
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They nerfed it. They nerfed it.
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Well then good thing I don't have the Critter gun.
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It is very fun though, when you're like in the middle of a
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fight to try to get the red to go away and all of a sudden it
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goes away and you're like, oh, some little, some little Bunny
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you just got in the middle of that fight, I guess.
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I can't believe they nerfed the the critter cannon instead of
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just not making critters eligible.
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Like why? Can't have those open world
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players getting an advantage, Manny.
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It's a competitive advantage. That is ridiculous.
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And then so the other voice you're hearing is the other Co
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host. That is of course Sean the
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Sensational from Parts unknown 'cause I docked him before.
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We'll leave that alone. By my house.
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Hey, Manny, how are you? I'm OK.
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How is the World of Warcraft treating you, Sean?
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The World of Warcraft is treating me pretty good.
3:02
I we went into raid on Sunday and the plan was that I would
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21st our mythic Voracius kill and then 21st what we hoped
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would be a good night of Prague on mythic Chimeris and
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potentially a kill. And one of our Co tanks had some
3:20
computer issues and was unable to play.
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So I got thrown in and we got the kill on Voracius, I think 2
3:28
poles after I swapped in. And then we killed Chimeris
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after 11 poles. And that was enough to secure us
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Hall of Fame for the Dream Rift. So I am now officially a famed
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Slayer, which was fun. Yeah.
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Instead of instead of calling it, I get to actually play it.
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And then I have I have like an ultra casual one night a week
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Saturday team whose focus is just AOTC.
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We've had two raids for two hours each raid.
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We only raid for two hours a night.
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And we are currently sitting at four of nine heroic.
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So we're hoping this Saturday I won't be there because Angele is
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coming home for Easter. So I'm not going to be able to
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raid Saturday night. But next Saturday we're hoping
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to be at crown of the Cosmos and probably clear it on our that'll
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be our the team's fourth night, my third night with the team,
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but really happy with them. It's like I said, it's only two
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hours a night. We don't have any like
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restriction or any there's there is no requirements.
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You can do whatever you want to do gear as much as you want a
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gear. Everybody is is putting some
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effort in. But yeah, there's no
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requirements. It's like I said, it's ultra
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casual and we're doing pretty good.
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That's very nice. I feel like if people are
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pushing themselves in that effort, the requirements, I
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guess the self mandated stuff that they're doing exceeds what
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kind of requirements you'd even want for such a it's such a
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team. Yeah.
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What's the what's the composition of this team?
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Where do these people come from? So it's myself and my friend
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Nick who listens to the show, who is the we've known each
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other since we were 10. He got me into Warcraft.
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He hasn't raided at a he used to raid very competitively back in
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Vanilla, but he hasn't in a long time.
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So he's sort of getting back into that.
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And then my friend and we have picked up a couple of content
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creators and who also were like coming from an AOTC background.
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And then my friend Sham has like 8 friends, 8 or 9 friends who
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were returning players or players who hadn't like raided
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in an organized team in multiple expansions coming back to the
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game. They have they have done
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dungeons, but they are coming back to the game for rating.
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And then Sham is Sham and I were we met in the CE team.
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He's a former Smith grader. So it's it.
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The majority of the team is made-up of people who haven't
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rated at any level in multiple expansions with a few people who
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either rated. See, there's only two of us I
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think that are three. There's three of us that were
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Mythic Raiders, CE Raiders, and then the rest are are just
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people of what you see. I.
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Found that it's pretty common in AOTC groups is that there's
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always like the core is just a bunch of people who are mostly
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hanging out and then there's always the like 3 or 4 that
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you're like babe just FYI you like 100% could get on like ACE
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team but they're fully just there for the vibes and just for
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like the good energy that you guys are bringing.
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Yeah Sham took this season off he he's been rating CE since
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BFAI. Want to say maybe shadow lands?
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I'm not sure when he started getting CE, but this is where
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he's taken the he took the season off because he had a
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really horrible experience through the last two patches of
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War Within with just finding teams and teams falling apart.
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And one of the other mythic Raiders is from my NA team,
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Euphoric. But his work schedule changed so
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he was not able to raid with us and Euphoric and he wanted to
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his schedule might change again in a couple of months.
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So he just wanted to have his character stay current.
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So that's why he's he's raiding with us.
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Yeah, but it's going really well.
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Oh, and Nick, Nick from EU from the Dungeon Dojo made it a North
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America account just to play with us.
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Oh, wow. Which is crazy 'cause it's we
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raid until 2:00 AM for him. No.
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Yeah, Yeah. No, no is right.
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No, no. Sorry.
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No, no, it's good for Nick. I apologize.
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Yeah, 2:00 AM end time for a raid team.
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It's not something I want to do anymore.
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I, I did raid with like a team that was based out of New
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Zealand, Australia for a time. But that was when I was like
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working remotely for a company that was based in the EU.
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So like I had to like switch my hours around.
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It was kind of nuts, but yeah, wow, that's dedication to hang
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out with some friends. Good on Nick.
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I will say yeah. And he's pumping.
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He's I think he's the lowest geared person on the team.
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If he's not lowest, he's second lowest.
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But he's still doing tons of damage and it's going really
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well. Yeah.
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Nice, nice. But yeah, we are pushing through
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Season 1. This week marks the opening of
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the March on Quel de Nos. We have all the raids that will
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be opened in this first part, all the delves that will be
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opened in this first part, all available for people to play.
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And that leads us into our first bit of news.
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Because if you are going through delves, if you're pushing
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through, maybe you don't have enough time to collect all the
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coffer keys on the NA account when you're also running on the
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EU or vice versa. Reaching level 6 of the Delvers
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journey unlocks the ability for you to buy coffer keys with
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Undercoin. However, at this time it is
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bugged. You can spend the under coin, it
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will take it out of your your purse, your wallet, whatever and
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you will not get the coffer keys.
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So do not do this. If you are at level 6 and able
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to purchase that there will be a.
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It is known by Blizzard. There was a forum post by
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Lynxies saying that they're aware of the issue and looking
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to to fix it, but make sure that you avoid that.
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Along with that, the latest delve, the Parhelion Plaza, is
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now unlocked. This is one of two delves that
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weren't available initially. Have you guys played any of the
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Parhelion Plaza or the other one which is the Dark Way Delve that
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came out last week? I'll start with you Lex, since
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you're our our delving darling. Yeah, I actually haven't, but I
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I very much want to and in fact very likely will go play one or
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the other after immediately after this episode drops.
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I do sometimes wish that like if something new and exciting opens
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up, they should just make it bountiful.
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Maybe they did and I just missed it but.
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Good news for you Lex, The Dark Way was bountiful last when it
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opened, and the Parhelion Plaza is bountiful today.
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Sick. Well then I'm definitely going
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to go do Parhelion. It's once it this makes me a bad
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I I guess probably a bad person. But if I am not gaining like
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benefits from something, it's very hard for me to motivate
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myself to do it. And so I will almost never do
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unbountiful delves. If a delve is not giving me the
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like bountiful treasure I am. I'm, I'm sure I would have fun
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doing it. But I'm like, Lauric, go right
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over here and I could use a key and I could get some gear.
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Your girl still has a couple Blues on.
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We're working hard on that one. But yeah, so no, I, I, yeah, for
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sure. We'll go play it right after
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this then. And so you guys will not hear my
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thoughts for another week. One more week.
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I did the dark way. I played the dark way last week.
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Still enjoying delves, still doing them.
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Not as hard as I was. I'm not feeling Delves, but I'm
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still I am having fun with them. The dark way was a Delph it
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there's nothing special about it.
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You go it's literally the Arcway dungeon map and it's just
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another kill X or click X fill the bar.
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But it wasn't super long. I guess it was just OK there.
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It was nothing special about it. The story, the quest tied to it
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was fun, but the Delve itself I didn't find I, I'm remembering
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back to like the start before the season started, before the
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patch launched. And one of the things that you
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guys had talked about was how you wished there was more story
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put into delves, that the Delves were used to tell more stories.
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And I find now that I'm doing them more, I really, I get that.
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That makes a lot of sense to me. I would like to know why am I
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here? Like each of the scenarios, I
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just feel like they're not really fleshed out and I don't
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see how they connect to the odor world at all.
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Now maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm just not very good at making
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those connections, but it just feels like I don't know, Like
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I'm here just to kill these things just because.
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And Lex, I'm with you. There's no reason to do non
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bountiful delves. You don't even get experience
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for Valera, no. Oh really?
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They actually do them. So I don't know.
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Yeah, Valera. And that's only if you're Valera
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is at a high enough level that she stopped getting experience
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outside of bountifuls. Yeah, but who's Valera is not at
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a who didn't grind Valera levels in preparation for the question
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mark, Question Mark Hall of Fame.
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Sean Oh, right. OK, good.
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As as long as you're leaning into the fact that your
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experience is not everybody's experience, OK, fine, Sophie.
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I for the record, I did not, I didn't do the question mark,
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question Mark Hall of Fame. I did that in a group just for
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the crests. And I haven't grinded my Valera.
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She just is. She's all natural ear leveling.
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Yeah, I was I I to to your point about the storyline, though,
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Sean, maybe this is me becoming a little bit of a hater and to
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be fake. First of all, I'm having a lot
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of fun themselves. I think the pacing is great.
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There were I think it was a Talaman I was doing yesterday
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and I just had this moment where I was like, they know I'm the
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hero of Azeroth, right? Like, girl, I have killed gods
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and you're like, oh, no, some of my people were frogs.
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Like then go fix that. I'm going to go fight the God
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like beings, my dude. And then I like vaguely thank me
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a little bit. I'm like, once again, I have
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killed God odds and I just got you out of your and they don't
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even hang around. They're apparently chieftains.
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You take them out of frog mode and they're like, oh, have a
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good day girl, do your own damn job.
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You're not a frog anymore. Go unfrog your besties so I can
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go save the world. Anyway, I had a lot of fun with
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the with the delve. It's a good time.
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Yeah, I feel that they have the story you get when you're coming
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through on the main storyline. And if you pay attention to the
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quest stuff around there, it sort of fits.
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And it's like, OK, cool, I'm glad that was an excursion.
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And I feel like we've kind of gone backwards where story in
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any instance content is like they're afraid of it.
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They're like, it has to be throw away.
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It has to be something that like you can get from a YouTube AI
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summary or it can't exist at all.
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It's the seasonification of Warcraft story.
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Everything has to be seasonified.
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This dungeon story can't have impact because it's going to be
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cycled through as mythic plus. Can't can't have my voice
15:19
scovald pontificate because that'll affect people's timers.
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God. King Scovald, if you put some
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respect on his name, Manny. If he would stand up for
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himself, maybe say a word or two, I'd have more respect.
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Anyways, I haven't played the latest 1 so Perhelion but like
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to to be honest with you guys, I haven't played Warcraft since
15:49
the reset. I haven't even opened up my
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vaults yet so that'll be after today because I've got to get
15:56
some stuff done before raids tomorrow.
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But I did play the dark way. I do like that they pulled back
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that old architecture because like man, when are when are we
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ever going to go back to Sermar again?
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So it gave it a bit of a a, a difference.
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But you're right, it is reused from the Arcway.
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Just they put AD in front of it. So now it's the dark way.
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Everything gets better when you put a little D in it.
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Oh dear, we're going to leave that one alone.
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I guess Women's Month is over. So you're not completely fried
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just today. Things that aren't women, Manny
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true. But anyways, we did receive more
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balancing for dungeons and raids.
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The other things that are lacking story and so I'm really
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happy about this. There were some pain points with
16:55
one of the groups I was running with that directly got addressed
16:58
with this. So it's not just my group that
17:00
was suffering. Obviously this is widespread
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programs for other problems. Al Gathar Academy got changes
17:09
one to the final boss, the Echo of Derogosa Arcane Rift.
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The duration got absolutely slashed by 30 seconds, going
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down to 90 seconds from 2 minutes.
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The there's now a three second delay after you hit three stacks
17:28
before you drop that arcane rift underneath you.
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And what that means is that the fight for teams that might not
17:38
have like great execution, a little bit more recovery,
17:42
because if you have that 3 seconds just to be like, oh
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crap, I've got that on on me. Let me go off to the side or
17:48
closer to other puddles to like make that adjustment.
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That last fight will probably have less cascading failure.
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So I'm glad for that. But that's not all.
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One of the more painful creatures in the in the dungeon,
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the corrupted mana fiends. They have got their mana void
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changed from hitting two people to only hitting one player.
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They also have it so that if you have a stack of the mana void
18:22
you are you should not be targeted for another stack of
18:25
it, which means that it's going to be less punishing, less
18:29
damage that can like pile on one one person, and more time for
18:34
the HeLa to react. So I'm really glad that they
18:36
made that those changes going onto the Mycera Caverns, they
18:44
have changed the tormented shades.
18:47
Their spirit rent now has like a far less vicious dot that it
18:51
applies to players and the boss Vordoza the Lingering dread has
18:57
the initial damage of that effect slash by 1/4.
19:01
So 25% less damage and the damage over time effect.
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Oh sorry, I apologize. I I sorry 25% more damage.
19:10
But they corrected they changed it so that there is no damage
19:15
over time effect to it. So I feel like that just means
19:19
that like hey, it's a 11 little hit, you survive that.
19:22
You don't have the thought it won't lead to as many cascading
19:25
failures in your runs through Mythic Plus Sean, Or if you feel
19:32
like these are good changes, do you feel that there are more
19:35
changes that are warranted? How you feeling about this?
19:42
So these are good changes. The Agatha Academy change is not
19:45
enough and does not address the actual problem, which is Arcade
19:50
Missiles. Arcade Missiles is an instant
19:52
cast that has no cast timer that can target any player and gives
19:56
a stack of a whirling power. So you could be at 2 stacks and
20:00
then just suddenly you're at 3 stacks.
20:03
So that's why we're seeing a lot of puddle drops that people
20:05
aren't aware of that are happening.
20:07
And I think 90 seconds is still far too long for those puddles
20:10
to last the boss fight. You're looking at approximately
20:14
2 1/2 to 3 minutes. So they're still up for almost
20:18
the whole puddle. They're almost the whole fight
20:19
like. It's not it, it's it needs more
20:22
and I think the numbers show that Algathair Academy was the
20:26
least timed dungeon since Mythic Plus came out at a 77.7%
20:31
overall. And this week since the reset,
20:33
it is still the lowest at 82.8% completed in time out of 32,000
20:39
runs. It, it desperately needs more.
20:41
So those change. I don't think those changes are
20:42
great. Well, that's right.
20:44
I think they're great, but I don't think it's enough.
20:46
And I think we will see more changes to Algathair Academy as
20:50
time goes on. It's just it's a huge gap in in
20:53
difference from the the time that of the other dungeons, like
20:58
our best in time is winning on our Spire at 92 and all of the
21:02
other dungeons. It's like 92 to 88 is the top
21:05
seven dungeons or sorry, the top six dungeons.
21:08
And then the the two bottom ones are 84 and 77, those being
21:12
Mysara Caverns and Algothar Academy.
21:15
And just one note on the Mysara Mysara Caverns, Vordaz is a
21:18
boss. I don't think we can call this
21:20
ability Lingering dread if it no longer has a lingering effect.
21:24
It's just dread now, right? We got rid of.
21:27
The. Yeah, it's just dread.
21:29
It's yeah, it's immediate dread. It's no longer lingering.
21:32
It's well, those are good changes.
21:35
You want to see those outliers you want to see.
21:37
I'd like to see a 5% ish gap in in time in time completion
21:42
between top dungeon and bottom dungeon.
21:44
I think that makes them more balanced.
21:46
I think one of the big problems for Algathar is that a lot of
21:48
tanks were going in and pulling it as if it was Dragonflight and
21:52
there was so many changes to the trash mobs.
21:55
You simply cannot do that. And I think that's the problem.
21:58
If your tank gets in, if you get into a key in Algathar and your
22:01
tank says, hey, I'll just pull this like Dragonflight, leave
22:03
that group because you're not going to time it.
22:05
It's going to be an awful time. Yeah, yeah.
22:09
The good anytime we're making things better for players is
22:12
good and those those outliers definitely need to work, but Al
22:16
Gathera Academy will still need more at all levels, at all
22:19
levels. OK, moving from dungeons into
22:24
the raid we saw changes to the light blind vanguard.
22:30
These are this is the Paladin fight.
22:33
They have changed The Avengers shield on mythic difficulty to
22:37
now target 4 players instead of eight.
22:40
They have changed Tears Wrath, the healing absorb has been
22:45
decreased by 17% on mythic difficulty and then Sacred toll
22:50
damage has been reduced by 15%. So specifically on mythic
22:56
difficulty this should hit less hard, be a little bit more
23:02
attainable for for guilds. I obviously am not playing on on
23:08
mythic, but having seen people progress it was the first real
23:13
wall. I was expecting that the twin
23:17
Dragons would have put up more of a fight, but apparently
23:20
apparently not. So this one was the first real
23:23
wall. John, have you has your team
23:28
come across this or at least in your casting?
23:29
You obviously have some experience with this.
23:32
Yeah so this is literally just reverting the panic buffs they
23:35
made last week. When the boss launched it only
23:41
applied Avenger shield to 4 targets, which meant 4 absorbs
23:44
forward, 4 dispels. And when Blizzard saw how
23:49
quickly the teams are progressing through the rest of
23:52
the tier, they buffed it last week to 8 targets and an
23:57
increase. I think they increase the absorb
23:58
damage as well then. So they're just reverting that.
24:01
They're just they, they buffed it last week for race world
24:03
first teams. Those teams discovered a
24:05
specific comp that was able to allow them to tackle that.
24:10
Three mist weavers, I think 4 hunters, a couple of warlocks.
24:14
The mist weavers are exceptionally good because
24:16
they're single target healing is so high right now.
24:18
And spoiler alert, so is there AOE healing?
24:22
So they were exceptionally good at healing off those absorbs And
24:25
then for the dispels you need. So teams are running 5 healers,
24:28
three of them are miss me Vermonks and then two warlocks
24:31
for Singe. So there's your 8 dispels.
24:34
And spoiler alert, the race world first teams wrote
24:37
computational week or is to solve it because they have
24:40
dedicated coders on their teams and none of the rest of the
24:43
teams do. So there was I think 8 teams.
24:49
Maybe it was 15. There was there, there was 120
24:52
teams stuck on Lifeblind of Vanguard last week because they
24:54
just didn't have the comp or the professional coders to get by
25:00
that boss. And then there was somewhere in
25:03
the range of I can't remember the exact number, but it was
25:05
like between 10 and 20 teams that got by it and I think it
25:09
was closer to 10. And they got by it by copying
25:12
this this comp. I am glad that it's nerfed.
25:18
I guess it was it was a knee jerk reaction that Blizzard made
25:21
that I don't think they ever should have made.
25:23
And it it it irritates me because buffing it to 8 dispels
25:30
is one of the and and and knowing that we can't control
25:34
really who's being assigned to things if you're not in a team
25:38
that has a coder it, it really made it feel like they're
25:40
saying, here's the three teams that we are allowing to kill
25:43
this boss this week and everybody else.
25:45
You can just spend your raid night swiping with no hope that
25:50
got to it. And that is awful.
25:52
That's all. I am very unimpressed with
25:55
Blizzard's raid tuning this tear and their reactionary buffs. 2
26:02
things. Yeah.
26:05
Anyway, good change because now teams will be able to fight this
26:09
boss as it was initially intended and clear it.
26:12
Avengers field in. I'm trying to remember what it
26:17
did because I've only done it in normal.
26:19
Was that dispelled? Like a people will die if it's
26:22
not dispelled. Yeah, it's a lot of damage.
26:24
So they get hit with Avengers Shield and then they have a dot
26:26
on them you want to dispel afterwards.
26:28
OK, that eight, that's crazy. Yeah, it it was, it was like, it
26:33
literally felt like Blizzard said, oh, it's too easy.
26:36
OK, here, double them. You now see what you can do.
26:40
Yeah. 'Cause the difference between
26:42
4:00 and 8:00 is the difference between all of your healers.
26:44
Take one dispell to. If you don't have a mass
26:48
dispell, go have a night off. Like, yeah, basically.
26:54
And like I said, they they they swapped in comps to swapped in
26:58
warlocks and stuff because warlocks sprang singe to help
27:00
help help out with that. Five healed it.
27:02
So yeah, anyway, the nerves are good.
27:06
It's good. Now it's in a state the teams
27:08
can progress it. I am 100% against.
27:11
I know a lot of folks are like, oh man, the race is going too
27:15
fast. This isn't fair.
27:16
I am 100% against tuning a mid tier boss cause the paladins is
27:23
a mid tier boss. This is the problem everybody
27:26
looked at last week and said we are you know and I I blame the
27:30
delayed launch of the raids. Everybody looked at last week
27:32
and said Paladins is a penultimate boss.
27:34
It's falling over so the knee jerk reacted and buffed it.
27:37
But Paladins is not a penultimate boss.
27:40
Paladins is the fifth boss in void Spire and it's supposed to
27:45
be like the fourth or fifth boss overall for the raid.
27:49
So I just I I know there's been a lot of discussion about oh,
27:54
the race is boring, the race is too fast, the race is over.
27:57
You know, and people who think that it's you know, Blizzard
28:02
needs to make the race exciting because it's such good
28:03
advertisement for the game or first of all, I don't think it's
28:06
that great advertisement for the game.
28:07
I don't know that I would want the raceable first teams being
28:09
my ambassador for Warcraft for somebody new coming into the
28:12
game. And if you followed the race for
28:15
any period of time, you could probably figure out reasons why.
28:17
But yeah, anyway, this is good. The the they reverted the change
28:22
that they made. Funny enough, they have made no
28:25
changes to Illyria. They left her unnerfed.
28:29
So we'll see how that goes. And then do we talk about it?
28:33
Anything. Yeah.
28:34
I mean it's right in the next segment.
28:36
So let's let's roll right into it.
28:38
Yeah, and then they had, I don't think the term reactionary is
28:42
better than panic buffs. So we'll use your term.
28:44
They had some reactionary buffs to Bella Ren, which again,
28:49
coming into this tier, this is they, they fumble it.
28:54
They fumble this hard. So coming into this tier, the
28:57
messaging was clear across the board.
28:59
The Larry is the penultimate boss.
29:01
Bella Ren is meant to be around that four or five boss Mark and
29:05
Midnight Falls is the final boss.
29:07
That was the messaging. They everybody who had any
29:09
interview anywhere gave that messaging any time they were
29:12
asked about the separate raids. How does the progression through
29:15
the raids look? That was the messaging we got.
29:17
It's not linear raid to raid to raid.
29:19
It's a weaving in between of the raids.
29:23
When Alaria died in 34 polls, I think it was for Liquid, 21
29:27
polls for Echo, the everybody looked at it and said, well,
29:31
Bella ran needs to be the penultimate boss.
29:34
Blizzard needs to make Bella ran the penultimate boss for this
29:36
race is a failure. And for better or for worse,
29:41
Blizzard apparently heard that message loud and clear and then
29:45
had reactionary buffs to Bella Ren to make it now an extremely
29:48
difficult fight. And not only that, after Liquid
29:53
killed it on Heroic, they buffed Heroic after Liquid got the
29:57
World first kill. So I guess if you're a Heroic
30:01
team whose only focus is AOTC, congratulations, the Eraser
30:06
World First has now impacted you for the first time.
30:09
And if you're a mythic team who was hoping to go into Bellerin
30:12
and work, Bellerin is now locked in as the penultimate boss.
30:16
You will not start progression on March to call the Nos until
30:18
you've completed progression on the Void Spire.
30:20
So they have completely reverted their statement of what the
30:23
order of the bosses is. It's been a casserole of
30:27
nonsense since this tier launched.
30:29
They never should have allowed the story to impact when the
30:32
raids launched. They should have launched all
30:34
the raids at the same time because if they had done that,
30:38
teams would have been progressing last week.
30:40
Instead of having four days to do mythic splits and spend all
30:44
day on Twitter dooming about how easy the raid was, they would
30:46
have been progressing hired bosses.
30:49
But they didn't do that. They waited a week and that was
30:51
a huge mistake. Yeah.
30:54
I do. Feel like I'm having mixed
30:57
feelings about the multiple raids.
31:00
That was something that I was very pro early on and I think
31:03
it's making ramping progression feel weird and complicated.
31:09
Like I, I and part of this was just like particular challenges
31:13
that my Guild was having, but I felt like the difficulty in void
31:18
Spire was all over the place. Like, and again, this is normal
31:21
and this is my things that were hitting us, but like we were
31:27
walled at the Dragons and then we one shotted the lifeline
31:33
vanguard and then we, you know, have I think 4 pulls on Illyria
31:38
and probably are going to get it next time, right?
31:42
I it, it didn't feel like a progression of like this boss
31:47
is, you know, the beginning boss and it's the easiest and then
31:49
it's a little harder and then it's a little harder and then
31:51
it's a little harder and now it's the big bosses.
31:53
Now it's out. But like did the general rate
31:55
progression didn't feel like it was there?
31:57
I don't feel like there's a clear order to to where the
31:59
bosses go and it's doing the thing now.
32:02
I mean, part of this is the time dating, but I know there was a
32:06
lot of panic about what it was going to look like when March
32:08
opened. Because if you have your EU
32:11
teams with a day of like, you know, who are opening a day
32:15
earlier or a day later, there was a genuine risk that people
32:20
were feeling that like, what if. And he manages to get things
32:25
down before he even has a shot at them, which obviously didn't
32:27
happen. But I, I feel it feels messy.
32:32
I expected that the multiple raids is going to feel fun.
32:34
And it just feels like I don't know what's going on and
32:37
everything's a little crazy and we're making these like weird
32:40
decisions. It's like what we're going to do
32:42
when I'm like, I want to raid. I wanted to go and I wanted to
32:44
grind down bosses. I I'm kind of split.
32:52
I mean, like there's many different ways that you could go
32:54
about this. Is this set up particularly the
33:00
worst? Like because you could have it
33:03
like Mr. Pander Siege of Orgemar where it's one rage.
33:07
You just jump between settings. You're in Pandaria and then you
33:09
go over to Orgemar. Same thing that could be here.
33:14
You're in the void Spire. The events at the end of the
33:17
void Spire finish and then Sorry I'm getting an echo.
33:25
Yeah, I think, I think it's. Is it me?
33:29
Yeah, I think it's you is. It because my head's too close
33:31
to my mic. No, I think, I think it's just
33:34
weird now. What happened?
33:38
No. It was definitely on for a while
33:39
there it was. It's weird.
33:42
Maybe it was me, but I was hearing it too, so it couldn't
33:44
have been me. Never.
33:45
Mind, I don't know. OK, let me start over on that.
33:50
So yeah, I'm of a multiple, I have like multiple directions
33:53
where this could have gone like it could have been like Siege of
33:56
Orgomar where you start in Pandaria, you go through the
33:59
portal and then you're in Orgomar.
34:01
Similarly, we start in the Voidspire.
34:05
We have like what happens in the Voidspire and then we do the
34:09
March on Quel Denas. Any of the events that happened
34:15
in between for questing could have just happened as part of
34:20
like you going between one boss to the other, which I think
34:24
would have made for a more cinematic kind of raid.
34:28
Kind of like the I'm sorry I'm forgetting what the second raid
34:37
was after Emerald, Nightmare and Legion.
34:41
After Emerald Nightmare, wouldn't that have been night
34:44
hold? Yeah, night hold, because night
34:47
hold had like the entire army getting unfrozen and marching
34:50
forward and everything. That was part of the events and
34:54
stuff. There was a story.
34:55
I maybe this is me ranting about story mode kind of making making
35:01
them feel that they have to extract that story events put it
35:05
in outdoor questing so people can say, oh good, I can access
35:08
this without doing the raid. But yeah, like are you, is this
35:17
a point where they're serving too many masters and it's
35:19
impacting everything? I don't I don't know if the
35:25
progress really is a is something that should be
35:30
sacrificed for this. I know that even if let's say
35:37
they're ramping was on was on target for what they wanted to
35:43
do, there's still the issue of teams being able to farm split
35:48
mythic bosses without compromising their lockout,
35:52
which is something that I can't even remember the last time that
35:56
that was even a possibility if it ever was.
36:00
And Sean, you might be able to like double check on this.
36:04
Since the creation of Mythic which is Mr. Pandaria, has there
36:08
ever been a multi boss tier where multiple, I'm sorry rather
36:16
multiple raid here where you were able to hit those raids
36:24
before the the completion of the race the world first?
36:29
It's tough because the way that they play now is so far removed
36:33
from how they played then. It wasn't really until like old
36:37
deer I think, and even in old deer I think they were only on
36:40
like 3 or 4 faults for splits. So this like this race in this
36:46
instance is the first time it's ever existed like this.
36:49
The ability to run mythic splits on on two different raids in
36:55
gearing up for 1/3 raid that was coming a week later.
36:58
That's never happened before. Yeah.
37:02
So there are some factors that are unique for this.
37:05
They definitely missed the mark on their tuning the reactive.
37:10
Changes I just want to push back a little bit on next.
37:12
I don't think they did I I think so I think on Illyria they I
37:16
think they they maybe missed the mark on Illyria from and I'm
37:20
going based on if if Blizzard's statements are true about their
37:25
intent for what bosses were meant to be what difficulty in
37:27
the raid, then I think they missed Illyria.
37:30
But I think the rest of the bosses are fine.
37:33
Those bosses, if you go back and look historically every other
37:36
race to world first, the first four bosses are pushovers.
37:39
They all die. The first 3 for sure are like
37:42
sub five pulls, sub 5, sub sub sub five pulls before kill and
37:47
then you're looking at like 15 to 24, four and five.
37:50
Unless they hit a wall like they did on 6 Punk's Junker, which
37:53
was a mistake. And that's the same progression
37:57
they had here. Like those bosses died in a
38:00
boat. The same number of pulls.
38:01
But the issue is because March of Queldanos was denied, it was
38:05
delayed. Everybody was thinking of
38:06
Illyria as oh, this is the last boss, which means the boss
38:10
before her must be the second to last boss.
38:11
So everybody bumped everything up one level when they shouldn't
38:15
have. And then they all started
38:16
thinking of Bella ran as the the second of the last boss, which
38:19
is now true. They manifested that.
38:22
But I I think the tuning is fine.
38:24
It I don't think like guilds, guilds outside of the race the
38:28
world first are not they're progressing mythic at a both the
38:32
same pace. They would have progressed
38:33
mythic in every other tier. Like we are on the same boss
38:38
number now that we were on in Manafort Omega.
38:41
It none of that has changed. Sorry, I I do want to hear a
38:45
little bit more from you Sean, because I need you to explain
38:48
the evolution of your thinking from last week where you're you
38:51
were saying that guilds that have no business getting kills
38:55
were getting kills to the tuning is OK, except for the one boss
39:03
like if. Did I say that last week about
39:04
Mythic? Yeah, yeah, he said.
39:08
Gilded had no business getting kills, were getting kills or no
39:11
business being in there. I can't, I cannot recall the
39:14
exact words, but it would definitely teams that had no
39:18
business doing what they were doing were doing what they were
39:21
doing. I think I was talking about
39:22
heroic when I said that. I feel like heroic is tuned
39:25
extremely easy. I don't.
39:28
I may have said it about I think I'd have to go back and I don't
39:30
remember specifically, but. I I might be I then I might be
39:34
missed the. Yeah, I do remember trying to
39:38
subtly throw some shade at how easy Heroic was last week, so it
39:43
could have been that, yeah. I do think though, even assuming
39:51
that you're like, I think the way that Blizzard set like was
39:56
originally planning on setting up the bosses, frankly was also
39:59
kind of nonsense. Like what do you mean the
40:02
penultimate boss is not the like, obviously you're going to
40:05
progress in the line, right? Obviously you're not doing.
40:08
You know you're going to do voids, fire for three bosses,
40:10
then you're going to go do the. Chimera whatever one the dream
40:16
rift and then you're going to come back to voids fire for two
40:19
more bosses then you're going to go do one in March and then
40:21
you're going to like go back in and kill Elyria.
40:24
I I think I am realizing in this raid here that as much as I was
40:29
really excited about them shaking things up and maybe it's
40:31
just that I'm you know, I hate progress.
40:33
I don't know I'm a hater. I want everything to be stable
40:35
forever, but I think I actually kind of just really like the
40:39
standard raid thing. I like to log in and you go
40:42
through the bosses in the raid and it takes you through the
40:45
story that it's taking you through and they ramp up in
40:48
standard difficulty and it's just, it is the raid tier.
40:52
I I mean, like, you know, it's not like game running for me.
40:55
I'm enjoying writing with my group.
40:56
I just, it feels so messy to me, the way that they're putting
41:00
these bosses together and how they're thinking about the
41:02
tuning and who's going where like.
41:06
Yeah, instead of talking about how gorgeous Bellerin is as a
41:09
fight or how gorgeous Midnight Falls is as a fight, or how fun
41:14
Ellaria is despite the difficulty as a fight, we're
41:17
talking about, you know this And it's.
41:21
I worry that that this will over shadow what was otherwise, I
41:25
think a very successful launch for Midnight.
41:28
But yeah, it's. Let the record reflect, as much
41:33
as I'd love to be a hater on the moments that I'm being a hater,
41:35
this is the most fun I've had playing World of Warcraft.
41:37
I I am in love with Prey. Delves are at the best I've seen
41:42
them. Personally, I am playing more
41:44
than I usually do. I am excited to play.
41:47
I'm logging in to play on my own in a way that historically I
41:50
wouldn't. I am.
41:51
I am really, really loving Midnight in general.
41:54
And you know, again, I you got to experiment, right?
41:57
And if you're going to experiment, sometimes you're
41:58
going to try something and it's not going to work out.
42:02
Or maybe everyone else loves it. Maybe everyone else like
42:04
actually I am doing, you know, 3IN voice fire and then going
42:07
doing a dream RIP. Like, I don't know, I don't know
42:09
what you guys are doing. I hope you're having a good
42:11
time. So it's it's quite possible that
42:13
it's like most people do love this and we are going to keep
42:16
getting split raids and you know, not everything has to be
42:19
for less. But yeah, I, I overall, I am
42:22
having fun. I do think the raid here is
42:24
really messy and I hope they learn lessons from that, but if
42:29
not, you know what, whatever, screw it, I'll still get my
42:32
IOTC. Sooner than normal.
42:37
Well. Hopefully we will see, I guess
42:43
next week we'll see the nerfs to Ballaran to put it back to where
42:46
it was according to recent history and trends.
42:50
And then we can go from there. But again, all the stuff is on
42:53
Mythic. Most of the player base, we're
42:55
not, we're we're armchair quarterbacking.
43:00
We're just, we're just looking at being like, oh man, it's
43:02
happening faster than we'd like. And like the entire, like
43:05
literally last week I said the worst thing that could happen is
43:10
that they get it down. And then the EU teams have to
43:13
watch Liquid getting stronger and stronger and stronger and
43:17
then praying that they don't wake up to it happening.
43:20
And we almost had that scenario. So hey, these reactionary
43:27
changes, they saved us from that scenario.
43:30
If they were an overcorrection, is that better than like what
43:33
would have been a absolutely tearjerker scenario?
43:38
I'm going to say, yeah, I'm going to say that this is not
43:40
the worst thing. And that could have happened,
43:43
especially based on what we were saying last week.
43:46
And then the other part is your right legs, like for the
43:50
overwhelming majority of the player base, this is being an A
43:53
quite an enjoyable experience and I'm glad that they are
43:57
experimenting. So I will 100% agree with you on
43:59
that. Perhaps it's just that we're
44:02
we're content creators and we got to find something to
44:04
complain about, but we'll go from there.
44:10
That said, with the race still going pretty strong as of this
44:18
point, the top three teams are still working away at Belorin.
44:26
Nobody has has got to the final fight of Midnight Falls.
44:34
In fact, I believe that we had one team go dark for their
44:38
heroic pull of of Midnight Falls just so they could test some
44:43
tech without giving away their strategies.
44:47
Yeah, they all, they're literally all using weak auras.
44:50
They forked weak auras, changed the name.
44:54
They are literally all using weak auras.
44:57
What are we doing Blizzard? Turn the API back on for the
45:01
rest of us? I shouldn't.
45:02
Like I feel like I want them to go further now.
45:05
Like it's just, it's so sad that again, we're right back to that
45:12
back to that conversation we had where it's like, why didn't you
45:17
get to a point where people didn't have to use any of these
45:20
work weak words and then shut it down.
45:22
Instead, they're going to have to do this thing and I'd want
45:25
them not to go backwards and put it through all of this again,
45:28
Just work it out, get it done right.
45:32
I'm happy that in my own progress I don't feel the need
45:37
to pull these computational weak aura forks into my my level of
45:44
rating. Are you having that pressure,
45:46
Lex? Well, we're not using weak
45:48
auras, but we realize that if you download DVM, it is a huge
45:53
skill. Like it, it it basically is DVM.
45:58
So we're all back on DVM and I yeah, it this feels like the
46:06
turning off of the add-ons didn't really turn off add-ons
46:11
and didn't really change anything.
46:13
It just kind of made a huge raging mess and now everything's
46:16
a little harder. So it just kind of.
46:21
The thing is Lex, if you don't use bigwigs or DBM, you don't
46:26
get an indicator of when the similacrum on Illyria is casting
46:30
cosmic barrier. There is one mechanic you have
46:32
to deal with in P2 of Illyria and it's the cosmic barrier that
46:35
the similacrum spawns. You need to know when that's
46:37
happening so you can swap targets and blow that shield up
46:40
before it kills the raid. It's not included in the
46:43
Blizzard base timeline. Wait.
46:45
Are you serious? It does not exist.
46:47
If you don't have DDM or bigwigs, a timer for that spell
46:50
coming doesn't exist. Yeah.
46:54
What do we? What do?
46:55
We have to rely on our raid lead or people.
47:00
I think it's horrible. Go download TPM.
47:03
No, I'm not downloading TPM. I listen, we'll see.
47:07
We'll see 'cause I I don't have my AOTC of the Crown of the
47:13
Cosmos. I am not a Hall of Fame Raider
47:17
like some people here. So I got to, I got to like get
47:23
through there and then the maybe then I'll be talking from like
47:27
experience and but thus far I have managed to raid on 2
47:35
separate teams through what is now most of the raids and most
47:41
of the fights without DBM. Should they improve upon what
47:46
they have right now? Most definitely Should they go
47:50
backwards because unless you have it perfect, there's no
47:55
point in doing it at all. I believe that's called a
47:57
Nirvana complex and I really wish people would stop throwing
48:01
that at at us. What else?
48:03
Like they're not going to, right?
48:05
Like they literally made fun of us for saying they were going to
48:07
for the Five April Fool's Day thing.
48:10
No, that was like. There's no world where they're
48:13
gonna they. That's not.
48:15
On the table. Method did that.
48:17
That wasn't Blizzard. Oh, that was method.
48:19
Oh sorry, I have not actually been paying attention today.
48:24
I don't need them to go backwards, I just need them to
48:25
do their job, that's all. To a level that a player can be
48:30
expected to play the game and not require.
48:32
You can't tell us we don't want you to use add-ons because they
48:34
give an advantage, so we're making it so you can't do that
48:36
and then just not give the information that players like,
48:39
they're just not giving it. I don't understand.
48:42
You still can't track some spells in the cooldown manager
48:45
like. I think the it's only been out
48:49
for. 5 1/2 years for fuck sakes. Sorry, that's our one that's I'm
48:53
very frustrated, very frustrated.
48:56
I think the biggest thing that I would hang them for is saying
49:00
we're ahead of schedule and so we're going to to shut this all
49:03
down. Like clearly you didn't make it
49:05
across the finish line yet. So I don't know what schedule
49:08
you're ahead of lunch, but. They're ahead of the lunch
49:11
schedule. Ahead of the lunch schedule.
49:14
Oh oh man. OK, Any final words on this add
49:20
on, add on, add on? There you go, SEO.
49:25
With Midnights. I think it's a good expansion.
49:27
I think they did a good job. I think it's just a little busy
49:30
and a little overwhelming and I think that they bit off a little
49:33
more they could chew and sometimes that is very obvious.
49:37
Yeah, I'd like to. No, I'm not going to.
49:41
It's I got nothing else, just do better.
49:47
OK, Well then until next time guys, may all your hits be good.
49:51
I don't. Know why I waved?
49:54
They can't see me wave. I could see Alexa.
49:57
I could see it. I was waving.
50:00
At you. It's so frustrating and like oh
50:04
we don't, we can't design now. We can finally design bosses the
50:07
way we want to design because weak auras won't solve them for
50:10
you. And the first fucking thing they
50:12
did as a knee jerk reaction was to add 8 dispels that require a
50:17
weak aura. That's what they did.
50:21
They're fucking full of shit. Full of shit.
50:25
They never needed to do this, none of this.
50:27
Our UIS could be beautiful today.
50:31
I could still be tracking kicks. I'm so angry.
50:34
This might be my last year anyway.
50:41
That's OK, Sean. They nerfed they.
50:43
Nerfed it. They nerfed it back down to
50:45
four, so that's good. I don't have this song called
50:48
styles. They just.
50:49
Like fuck the raced world first for the sake of it.
50:52
What if we just like? But they didn't the thing.
50:54
Is a week. They didn't fuck them.
50:56
They figured it out because they have access to a dozen fucking
50:59
Raiders that are on the bench. They can play every class.
51:01
So all they did was fuck the teams from spots 10 and up.
51:05
They're like fucking guys. In particular consequences.
51:07
Consequences like a world 25 to 40 team.
51:10
They got the Paladins and they're like, well, we have
51:12
three raid nights now on a boss we know we can't kill, So what
51:17
are they supposed to do? Like Mythic plus?
51:21
Mythic plus split split splits. So frustrating.
51:24
Build the deepest roster of alts you've ever did.
51:28
See. Like that's what really made me
51:32
go like Oh my goodness. Like as bad as it is that these
51:35
teams already have like how many alts that are set up?
51:39
And it's like whichever 1 gets like the horseshoes up their
51:42
butt for gearing in the vault, that's the one that they want to
51:45
bring in. Genji running with two mages
51:49
that were the best geared mages in the world.
51:54
Yeah, yeah, he's the same person.
51:56
He's that's like he is both #1 and #2 for highest geared in the
52:00
world. Yeah, and then gets to be like,
52:02
I'll take this penultimate boss, I'll take my lesser shitter
52:07
geared mate one item level. Like what the hell, It's
52:13
insanity. It's insanity what those guys
52:15
do. So I don't, I don't think that
52:19
that has any reflection on me, on my rating.
52:22
I'm still playing absolute trash can garbage specs like
52:30
enhancement shaman, like they're bringing 1 elemental shaman for
52:34
the mastery buff and you know what elemental doing fairly
52:37
decent damage. Not, not a not a complete
52:40
embarrassment to all of the elements, but me, I ain't
52:44
letting that go. I'm coming in and I am just like
52:47
you remember the entrance to Zolomon and you got like Zol Jan
52:55
and the the void elemental comes and he comes up with his like
52:58
axe. He's just like, that's what I'm
53:01
doing and Ray 24/7 and I'm loving it.
53:08
OK, I'm. Pro Pathetic.
53:11
I am all out of rage. OK.
53:17
Also, fuck, fuck April Fool's Day.
53:19
Yeah, No, I just, I could not. I could not.
53:22
I don't. Yeah, I want to play this game.
53:24
I was. I was away like all yesterday.
53:27
Yeah, go play. I'm going to stop the recording.
53:29
Bye, chat. Wait, I didn't stop yet.
53:33
Different window opened. There we go.