Latest / For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast / #309 - For Azeroth!: "The Dogs Days are Here!"

Transcript

#309 - For Azeroth!: "The Dogs Days are Here!" · For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast

0:00
Again, this is just an opinion, but this is a direct reflection
0:02
of that difficulty spike and the design.
0:04
The specific boss design of Brood Twister Oven axe in the
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middle of the raid being a giant giant wall for teams that
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requires hard stop. Requires use of an external
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record. For Lauderon.
0:20
For the Karen Tour for Pandaria. For calendar.
0:28
To the burning region for Gilnaeus or have not died, for
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the Lich King, for the Sindora, for the Alliance, for the Horde,
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for Azeroth. Hello and welcome back to
0:47
another episode of for Azeroth. And for the first time in 2025,
0:53
we have all three members of the Triumphant.
0:56
So respecting John's wishes from 2024 into the New Year.
1:01
Introducing first Lex Rance. Hello, Lex, how are you?
1:05
And happy New Year to you. Happy new year Manny, I am
1:09
great. I am over the moon.
1:10
I adopted a dog today on the 8th.
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For those of you who are not listening in real time, which is
1:15
nobody except for Sean and Manny and I'm, yeah, I'm having a
1:20
great time and I'm setting up a little dog bed by my computer so
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I can play video games and pretend that makes me a good,
1:27
attentive dog owner instead of playing video games.
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I've seen a lot of streamers do a similar thing, so I think it
1:33
works. Yeah, and this tweet and I don't
1:37
like it. So introducing second the role
1:42
model himself, the Sultan of the season.
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Sean, Hello. How are you?
1:46
Hello, Manny. Hello, Lex.
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I'm really excited about Lex's new dog.
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Is this now a dog show? Oh, it'll be Manny.
1:52
You need to get a dog. I have a dog.
1:55
You're just babysitting it. Yeah, OK.
1:57
You, Manny. Manny.
1:58
We joked about that before. I'd actually spent a day with
2:01
this dog. Let the record reflect.
2:03
I will go to war for this dog. I have known her, like, other
2:08
than a brief meeting for about 7 hours.
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Actually, we're getting towards 8.
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We're getting towards about 8 hours.
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That I've known her. I would I would fight anybody
2:16
for this dog like I would this. She is the love of my life.
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I've never met anyone in this world who is so important to me
2:23
as this dog. If you're my family, RIP.
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So yeah, you can believe whatever you want, Manny.
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OK, well I guess then I'll have to deal with the the dogs on the
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pet. No, it's not on the pet shop.
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No, there's two new dogs that were put on the traders post.
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I'll I'll get one of those and then I'll be happy and we'll
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make this a full on dog show. That's actually perfect, Manny,
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because I was going to make a joke about how I'm the only one
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who doesn't have a house, but that's true.
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I'll just buy a World of Warcraft house and then we'll
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all be complete there. We go World of.
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Warcraft, if you bought one of those dogs, would that be your
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Tamani Gachi? Okay, I got it.
3:00
That's funny. Stretch.
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No, no, it works. It works.
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I'm gonna leave that in, but already the bad the ratings are
3:07
falling. You could just more like that.
3:10
Nobody would know what he said. I can see the calls now for my
3:14
removal from the show. But we have been doing a lot of
3:19
shows. This is the third episode that
3:21
we're going to be releasing this week alone.
3:24
FAZ is starting out 2025 with a bang.
3:27
So Eva, this is the first episode you're listening to this
3:30
week. Go back.
3:32
We had a sit down interview with the guide writer and theory
3:38
crafter for Augmentation Evokers and we also had a episode where
3:44
we just talked about the patch notes and our expectations of
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11.1. And now we have got it some
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hands on time. Well, you know, it really is
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just like a day before the patches come out.
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So even if you weren't buying a dog and bringing that home and
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acclimated the dog, we've had very little time with this
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patch. So I can understand that are
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this is going to be mostly first impressions with the hand, the
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hands on time. I got to ask.
4:20
I'm going to direct this straight to you, Sean, because
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there was a big concern that you had that you just expressed with
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Warriors. Now you've had some time to tank
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on the PTR. How's it feeling?
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You definitely feel it. The rage pull back, the anger
4:40
therapy that they anger management therapy that they
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made all warrior part warriors go through was effective and
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there is definitely a noticeable difference in rage generation.
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I did the dungeon, I think I did it four times total since
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yesterday. And in those times I'm looking
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at about an 86% of time on shield block, which is good.
5:03
This this is numbers taken from details. 86% of time on shield
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block, which is is decent, and about a 30% of time on ignore
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pain. That's woefully low.
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That's insanely low. And my revenge damage obviously
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way down. Yeah, it feels slow.
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It feels a bit sluggish. And there were definitely times
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when I was raged, starved, and I couldn't hit anything.
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So I'm holding hope that Blizzard will send that blue
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post that says, hey, we hear you.
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And we are putting back some of the rate generation that we
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clawed away. We overshot a little bit, I
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believe. OK.
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Baz, Devin, if you're there, I believe.
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And then what about the tear set?
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Did you fool around with the tear set at all?
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Did it? Did you feel the tear set?
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The difference between what you have on Live and what we have
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with the new Tier 2. So I wore the tear set.
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I didn't really notice a difference.
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I didn't notice when I guess I should set up a week or has to
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tell me when shield wall is procking because of the tear
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set. But it's The thing is tanks.
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No tanks ever want RNG procs of defensives ever.
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That's useless. It could proc when there's no
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damage happening and that is pointless.
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We always want to be able to control our defensives.
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That being said, this tier set is designed so that one tank
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class procs an offensive ability and that's vengeance.
6:41
Stephen Hunter because they proc meta which is not just a
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defensive but it's also a huge offensive.
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Button. So they're procking their RNG
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procs are massively overpowered compared to the other 5 tanks
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because it's a huge damage bump. I I wonder, sorry, Go ahead,
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Lex. So I was going to say it does
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seem like Blizzard's doing some funky little things with tank
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defensive. I'm this is very second hand,
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but I know I have a friend who is a blood decay and he was
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saying that one thing that made Sandland Sandland.
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I don't the vampire thing feel really bad is that it used like
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you had to use your defensive to do damage and he's like that's
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not how you tank. Like I mean by defensive to
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defend myself. So I'm not blown away that they
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are doing funky little things with other tanks defensives as
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well. Although again, I I'm I'm the
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Demon Hunter so. Yeah, I'm going to be great as
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Vengeance. It's going to be awesome.
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Randomly procking meta. Yeah, doing my. 5 Mythics.
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Let let me throw this at you, Sean.
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What if the protection 1 proc Ravager?
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That would be not tank related at all.
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That's an offensive ability all before your glass.
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But it is a rage generating ability is it not?
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It is, yeah, but it's it's targeted.
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You have to like place it with either an AT cursor macro or the
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the placing the the the targeting circle though for it
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to proc randomly would. Be at at you, I guess.
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For best, yeah. At best case and that and, and
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again, that could be horrible if it happens at the end of a pack
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because it's not going to follow you.
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It it moves slowly towards the next pack you pull.
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It's not very fast. Does it approximately have a
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pack and then I jump to another pack or we run to another pack,
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it's behind. Whereas with meta you're, you're
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still probably going to have that meta up for for a bit, so.
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What would you what would you ask for it?
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Like not completely reworking but saying like hey, could this
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proc this instead? If you could like make that
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suggestion, I don't. I think we should have random
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procs for tanks. I know.
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I realize we're going to, we're going to go into the season with
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it and it's just going to be the reality that Vengeance is just
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going to have a superior Tear set to all five other tanks.
9:03
Yeah, I don't. There's not.
9:06
If you wanted to remain tank related, you want to proc a
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defensive, The only thing I could think to bring it in line
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is to change what you proc for Vengeance.
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But Vengeance only has two defenses.
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It's got demons, mikes, it's got meta, and it's got fiery brand.
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You can't do fiery brands. It's a target, it's spelling a
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mob. I guess you could do demon
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spikes, but that would then make vengeance feel terrible.
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Like that would be like why? Oh great, we get the proc demon
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spikes. Thanks.
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Demon spikes is very rarely down.
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Like it's down just enough. Like I will say I'm also kind of
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spoiled as a Demon Hunter because we have very low even in
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DPS we are very unprocky. So like I, it was very funky to
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me when the I was finally playing with our tier sat last
9:53
tier, because before that demon hunt, like before the tier gave
9:58
you the like occasionally this will reset.
10:00
It was one, it was mechanical, right?
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Like everything was just you do these things in order and then
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this comes out and then this changes and like, and I
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personally really like that. I understand why that can feel
10:10
boring to people. And I mean, also I was often
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getting like the floor wiped with me with the, the mages
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damage numbers and things like that, like the higher proc ones
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cuz they get really good procs and all of a sudden they're
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flying high. But I mean, I, I really like
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Demon Hunter partially because I don't have to worry about like,
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you know, what's glowing on my keyboard or my hotkeys at any
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given moment. And I don't, I, I think
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especially for tanks, you're right.
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That's, you know, it's one thing with it's, it's one thing with
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DPS when, you know, it's sometimes fun to have that in
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excitement. If you're tanking, you need to
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be able to keep things under control.
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You need to be able to say, OK, this next pack is going to be
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really rough and I have to be able to pull a lot of damage and
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be OK with that. And removing that is just.
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I guess maybe you could change it to random and this is this.
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I don't know, I'm not a dev, I don't know the insurance and
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outs of it and I'm not a theory crafter.
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If you changed it maybe from procking that ability to
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procking a random cooldowns of an ability, which still kind of
11:15
sucks, but you know, it's a little bit better.
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You maintain control of your your ability.
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So a random Cdr proc maybe for all, Like switch it to that for
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across the board for all tanks. You could still have AB meta,
11:27
still have AB shield wall, and it's just like you proc a random
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extra 15 seconds off your cooldown.
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Well, I might suggest, but I don't know.
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I might suggest that whatever ability it currently procs, it
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gives an extra charge to and when it procs it, it refunds a
11:45
charge. So you would then want to keep
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one charge on cooldown. You would always have it for
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when you really want it, but then proc hey I get a second one
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and now you can use it when you need it.
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Take it into the next pack if you want to hold it, that sort
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of thing, maintain control. But it's still got the RNG
12:02
because you know, it's a Galaggio casino thing.
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So they still want some sort of proc, but at least you could
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hold that proc until you're like, hey, I can use it.
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Be a little bit more free with the next one.
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If they say if you want to boost it from there, it's just like
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the next time you would use it, it's free.
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Yeah, I don't. Yeah, maybe.
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I don't know how I feel about that.
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I think logistically that gets difficult to juggle.
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Like could I now then be sitting on two procs of meta that I can
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just run back-to-back? What happens if I get another
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proc while I have a free stack 1?
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I don't know that, yeah. That's then it would be wasted
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yes, like it's it's it's. So then you're still sending it
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when you don't want it. I'm just saying if you pop meta
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and you get this proc. But I guess the best you could
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hope for is that it extends the current meta.
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Or if you get a shield or whatever it currently uses
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Shield shield wall and you've already used shield wall.
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I guess it extends shield wall either way, like it's currently
12:57
got that same problem where it could be wasted if you if you
13:00
just sent it. At least this one refunds and
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you're like oh good I can save this for later.
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That's true. It, it's, I, I, I like the idea
13:09
that we're in a casino and it's, so the, that's why the tier sets
13:12
are like this sort of gambling esque, you know, insurance and,
13:16
you know, we got the, the, the hot streak of the wind streak
13:19
for DPS. But the, the problem I think
13:23
they're running into now is a lot of classes are finding that
13:26
it's like rogue, for example, assassination rogue is a net
13:30
zero if they equip their, their tier set because the, the
13:34
ability any, and this is for, I think any dot classes.
13:37
So warlocks and rogues, any classes whose ability that
13:41
procs. The thing is a dot, it procs it
13:44
to give you a stacking damage amp, but it can also has it also
13:48
has a 15% chance to proc and remove your win streak.
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So assassination rogues are brocking and then immediately
13:55
removing because it it it goes off dot ticks.
13:59
It's not just off of an application of the ability.
14:02
So a lot of DPS classes are finding that these tier sets are
14:06
not actually gaining anything. It's a.
14:10
It's a 0I. Think they got to change it to
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be kind of like enhancement because the way that enhancement
14:15
it works is that our builders have the chance to continue our
14:19
win streak and our spenders are what can like use up the win
14:25
streak so in that. Way if your spenders.
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If your spenders are a dot, it's not just when you send it, it's
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every tick that's the problem. The rogues are.
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Having so you. Would their spenders are
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resetting it because it's not just it's not just in venom,
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it's the ticks of the dot after the fact, you know it's.
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So they would change it to the cast of the spend, not the
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damage of the spender. Yeah, it would have to be only
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on the main cast. The 15% on the main cast is
14:52
what? But that's probably what they'll
14:53
have to do. But.
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Which seems like a. Yeah, it's interesting the a lot
14:56
of issues right now with the tier sets.
14:58
That's probably PTR test. And I'm confident Blizzard's
15:02
going to come up with a solution either on their own or from
15:06
feedback from people that are much smarter than I am to to
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balance it out. And if not, get your venge
15:11
Steven Hunters ready, folks. Hey, yo.
15:15
As we talked about at the last episode, well two episodes back
15:20
now, we've been going through episodes really fast.
15:22
As we talked about in a previous episode, Shaman's got a bit of a
15:26
rework. My biggest complaint on paper
15:30
was the change to Primordial Wave, where it no longer sets up
15:36
your next attack. It is instead that you will do
15:40
big damage to everything with your your flame chalk, because
15:44
apparently doing damage and then setting up your next belt to do
15:48
big damage was too finicky. The way it's tuned right now, I
15:54
don't care. It's just so good.
15:57
John and I went through just like one dungeon seeing what it
16:01
was. The primordial wave itself
16:06
pretty decent. The follow up to it, the
16:08
primordial Storm actually breaks up its damage into the three
16:12
elements that shamans used. So there's like a fire, a frost
16:17
and a nature damage. And when you put all those
16:20
together, it is the second highest damage I was doing on
16:25
the slice. Obviously I don't have a new APL
16:28
stuff, maybe I could be doing this better, but it's a high
16:31
damage ability that has enough snap burst damage that I was
16:37
actually able to pull threat off of you one time with the new
16:43
tank modifier. That's that's pretty impressive.
16:47
Yeah, you don't. You weren't running details, so
16:49
you don't know this. You were the top of the damage
16:51
meter in both of the dungeons. We did by a lot.
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I don't see a world where this doesn't get.
16:58
I do. I think we should.
16:59
I think we should keep it. I think that's the exact how it
17:01
should be. I wouldn't be any shamans are.
17:03
Struggling to stay on meta right?
17:05
Like nobody plays a shaman right now.
17:07
Yeah, yeah, Manny named his character on the PTR, the carry,
17:13
and then came in and like obliterated the meters.
17:19
There's 00 chance because shamans are already in like like
17:24
they are enhancement. Shamans are already right now in
17:27
season 1, incredibly strong in mythic, plus they're better in
17:33
season 2. There's no way it goes live.
17:37
And it's not just the primordial wave because I only use that in
17:40
like 1 of the runs. I was using a a different set up
17:44
that had none of that in another run and apparently doing well as
17:47
well. So there's there's definitely
17:49
build diversity. This is with people still
17:52
learning what the changes mean. And as Sean has said, when you
17:57
get a bit of a rework, you're typically coming in strong and
18:01
that seems to be true for enhancement, Sean and I'm going
18:04
to be testing out elemental. I will be testing this in raid.
18:07
But as much as Sean you're you're feeling the changes and
18:11
they are hurting a bit, Enhancement does not seem to
18:15
have much to worry about at this point in time.
18:20
I'm happy for you. Happy.
18:21
For my enhancement, my enhancement brothers and
18:24
sisters. That leads us to, of course, the
18:30
dungeon itself, because this week Operation Floodgate is what
18:36
we are testing. Blizzard put out a post that
18:39
says they're testing schedule, we've got a ray testing schedule
18:43
and we have a dungeon testing schedule.
18:46
And what the way that they've broken this up is that this week
18:50
we are going to have Operation Floodgate being tested and is
18:55
that it for Season 2? The only dungeon available be
19:00
tested in Mythic plus or Mythic 0 for season 2 for the entire
19:04
and the good news is it's for the entire week.
19:06
It's not just the weekend like they normally do, so that's also
19:09
good news. Yeah, and that means just
19:11
concentrated testing. Sean, take us through this
19:15
dungeon. How does it look?
19:18
10 out of 10, this dungeon is amazing as it stands right now
19:22
that obviously there's going to be tuning that happens before we
19:24
go into it. The first boss is difficult if
19:28
you are not in an organized group with comms.
19:31
Once you get past that the most, the rest of it is like I would
19:35
say very easily tuned, fairly lowly tuned.
19:38
But again, that can all change. It's just numbers to this point.
19:40
But as far as like mechanics and how easy this to see them and
19:44
how easy to figure them out amazing the new swirl
19:47
animations, there's a new hard outline around swirls that are
19:51
dangerous that hurt you, But you know, hey, I need to get out of
19:54
this. The one change that I would
19:56
recommend that I would like to see that I'm going to put in my
19:59
feedback to Blizzard is that hard outline should appear right
20:03
away, and then it should slowly fill from the center to the edge
20:07
to indicate how long before the mechanic expires before that's
20:10
what I it doesn't have that. Yeah, but you're a genius.
20:12
No, you're the smartest. Literally this first.
20:14
Of all, can I just say the hard outline is gonna be a game
20:18
changer. It's probably gonna ruin my day
20:20
because it's gonna mean that I can no longer in raid say things
20:23
like I was out of that. You guys, I don't know how I got
20:27
hit. I don't understand.
20:29
I was 100% out of that mechanic, but that's still because I'll
20:33
actually be out of it more. Thank you.
20:36
Also go into the character options.
20:39
Go into the your options and type the word in outline and
20:43
under your character. You can put a circle under your
20:44
character so you know exactly where your model is.
20:47
Yeah, I yellow circle could. Also get further out of
20:49
mechanics like there you don't happen.
20:52
There are potentially multiple options, especially playing a
20:55
mobile class. But I think that saying the
20:58
Blizzard lied and that I didn't make a mistake and it must have
21:01
been a bug. I think that's my favorite.
21:03
Server lag. Server lag it.
21:06
Was my controller, goes was my controller.
21:09
Exactly. Yeah.
21:10
So I just want to touch on the circles.
21:12
Just one last thing with the circle.
21:13
Sorry, Manny. So the hard outline circles
21:15
exist. They're great.
21:16
They're beautiful. They.
21:17
The pictures you've seen on community websites don't do it
21:22
justice. Get in, have a look at yourself.
21:23
It is a gorgeous outline. But on top of that, circles that
21:27
are good don't have an outline, so there are still swirls with
21:32
no outline, and those are the ones you want to stand in or
21:35
those are the ones that are safe to stand in.
21:36
The Blizzard is giving us a visual representation of outline
21:40
bad, no outline good. It's an amazing change.
21:44
It's very, very welcomed. I'm very, I can't wait.
21:47
I hope the raid has it as well. I hope every dungeon that they
21:51
bring back into mythic plus rotation as they upgrade the
21:54
graphics they do that including your visual timer.
21:58
Blizzard is trying to make the game easier to read without all
22:03
these weak ores. Especially in raid where they're
22:05
going to be pulling back, clawing back on the power of
22:09
add-ons. So just a clear presentation is
22:13
great. I want this in PvP so when you
22:15
have an enemy and they drop death in decay, exact outline.
22:19
I do want to say and under score what what you just put will
22:24
count this as you're just a tip for the episode.
22:28
But having your outline active means that when your raid leader
22:35
asks you to stack and stuff, you can tell that you're stacking
22:38
because your circle will be there.
22:40
Pixel stacking becomes a lot easier when you know, Oh, my
22:43
circles off of where I'm supposed to be Your the marker.
22:46
It just makes it easier for you to at a glance do it without
22:50
anything and added. So I I like it.
22:52
Maybe start putting it in my default guys, just make that
22:56
your default behavior and that that's great.
22:59
So 4 bosses in here, first boss you're saying is the hardest.
23:07
The trash itself goes through different different phases.
23:11
I will say that the the most memorable trash is right after
23:17
the third boss. You go down into the dam itself
23:21
and as soon as you climb up out of the water, there is one of
23:25
those fish creatures that just comes in named the Bubbles and
23:31
you have to fight Bubbles. I kind of wish Bubbles what got
23:34
away just so he could come back later.
23:37
But he is the he is the instance where we saw the circles of hey,
23:41
we should stand in those because those don't have the outline.
23:45
And yeah, like it's just it. It's a good dungeon that has the
23:50
goblin character but doesn't seem as cartoony like they
23:54
seems. They like, they don't seem like
23:57
a joke. It's still definitively Warcraft
24:01
goblins, but they don't seem like a joke.
24:04
And if you can do that without with like these guys who don't
24:07
really talk, they're just adversaries.
24:08
That's just a dungeon slice that's really good.
24:14
Yeah, yeah, I loved it so. And the trash was fun.
24:17
There's a neat mechanic with a guy who gets on scaffolding
24:19
which gives him a 90% damage reduction.
24:21
So he's above you. You can't hit him, he takes 90%
24:23
less damage. You have to break his
24:25
scaffolding to bring him down. It's so much more elegant than
24:27
just a simple absorb shield on the character Lex.
24:30
I think you're really gonna like it because it's also really
24:32
bright and really colorful. You know how I feel about that.
24:37
I do, yeah. It's very exciting.
24:39
I will admit that I haven't really been reading a lot of the
24:41
news because I've been travelling and then getting a
24:43
dog, so I'm learning all of this in real time and I'm very
24:47
excited I think. Blizzard's being really clever
24:50
about like, how they do those mechanics.
24:52
So like, yeah, the scaffolding is great because it is
24:54
immediately visually like striking.
24:57
You're like, OK, got to break down that scaffolding.
25:01
I love the fact that the these like builders, they have a
25:06
ability that'll root you and it's them shooting nail gun.
25:09
So you get down to the ground. They have all of these abilities
25:16
that work in ways where as soon as you learn how it how it
25:21
works, you can do a lot better with the mechanics.
25:25
Even without any kind of week or so.
25:28
People have been complaining about the big bots that will put
25:32
out the shredder saws. There's these wheel saws that
25:36
will like immediately start dealing damage.
25:38
The trick to them is that as soon as they start casting them,
25:42
move out of the area that you're in.
25:44
The saw will come up where you were standing when they started
25:46
casting them for extra points. Everybody stack on the tank and
25:52
then move together. I know this is maybe too much to
25:56
ask when people, but it makes things so much easier because
25:59
the the enemy will fall up with a flamethrower that will cause
26:03
them to pick a direction, shoot the flamethrower and then rotate
26:07
either clockwise or counterclockwise.
26:09
And if you don't have 4 different saws to avoid because
26:12
you put them all in one place, it's absolute cakewalk.
26:15
And that's what the dungeon is. Get the mechanic and breeze
26:19
through it. Yeah, stacking on the tank means
26:24
stacking on the tank. It doesn't mean standing to the
26:26
left 5 feet, and it doesn't mean standing behind the.
26:29
It means get on the tank. If I say stack on the tank and
26:33
we're going to move left and you decide I'm going to stand just
26:36
to the left because if I can't see my character animations, I'm
26:39
pretty sure my character's not doing the spells, you basically
26:42
are screwing everyone else. And then we have to go the other
26:45
direction. And then you wonder why we're
26:48
taking damage and we shouldn't. Stack means stack.
26:52
Get on top of me. Yeah.
26:54
Sean. I lived.
26:55
Through COVID. 19 and if we don't have 6 feet of space, I'm
26:59
gonna infect you guys, you. If you lead it, you know,
27:02
everybody leads into your saw. Take the.
27:05
It's so bad, yeah. Lex, you can infect me.
27:08
It's better than having my body cut in half with these giant
27:10
buzzers. Valentine's is next month, guys.
27:14
But moving on from that, we have, we have of course, this
27:22
story. And like I was saying in the
27:23
dungeon, goblins come across really well in the story.
27:27
They've done a good job. I'm no spoilers here, not gonna
27:32
say any of these story beats, but they do a good job of
27:35
showing the different goblin factions, showing these goblins
27:40
having more care than just like money or like, you know, living
27:45
in the late capitalist world of the goblins and they, they are
27:50
suffering for it. Who knows what that's like.
27:52
But they do a good job of showing the bad guys and the
27:57
good guys as less than perfect, but more than cartoons.
28:04
And I, I love that. So really loving this.
28:08
Love that even though this is the exact first build, we've
28:11
already got voice acting in, so we're getting those line
28:15
deliveries and it's really bringing things to life.
28:19
Undermine itself. Blizzard undersold the
28:24
Undermine. It is huge.
28:28
It is the most realized city in all of World of Warcraft to
28:34
date, more than Surimar, more than obviously Dalaran is an
28:40
old, old city and they've they've done good things with
28:46
other cities. I think the fact that it doesn't
28:50
have flying though, I think it could have flying and it
28:53
wouldn't be that bad. But I think the fact that they
28:55
don't have flying is to like make it seem like a an absolute
29:03
city. There are low rise buildings
29:05
like that are by four or five stories high.
29:09
There's the Intercontinental Hotel, There are different
29:12
districts. There are there's like Trike
29:14
Station where the trikes get cast up.
29:17
There is the arena. There is so much that makes it a
29:20
living, breathing city. Our peers are going to go nuts
29:24
in here. The train station alone or not
29:28
even the train station, the rocket station where you have
29:30
all these different rockets that could lead to different places
29:33
and you come through one, but there's four other rockets and
29:37
where do those lead? And we know where one other one
29:39
leads. I'm not sure if it's coming up
29:41
in the story or not from what I've played, but like absolutely
29:47
fantastic. I, I think that the world
29:50
builders have outdone themselves.
29:54
There's so much that you can just learn from looking around.
29:57
And if you guys want to go back to episode 300 where we like
30:00
spoke with two Warcraft developers and how they were
30:05
saying how they want to show the story that that's coming through
30:07
in spades here. I do think that World of
30:11
Warcraft city design tends to be like surprisingly good.
30:14
I think this is one thing that I really took out of my RP days
30:17
because we'd spend so much time, like in the cities looking for
30:20
weird little hidden rooms that you could role play in and like,
30:23
turn into something else. And it's really cool.
30:26
The number of just like little secret things you can find and
30:29
the number of like, you know, things on the wall that you
30:31
don't even notice until you're looking.
30:32
And then all of a sudden you want you to turn that into a
30:34
story. So if this is one of the best,
30:36
I'm even more excited. I am curious, Manny.
30:40
I think one of the complaints I've made of World of Warcraft
30:43
cities in recent days is that they tend not to be like, laid
30:48
out in a way that makes a lot of sense to me.
30:49
How do you feel about the overall design?
30:53
Like how easy is it to find things?
30:56
I well, definitely. It's super easy to find things
30:59
like the hotel stands stories above all the other buildings.
31:07
That's where you're going to go for your arrest point.
31:09
That's where the raid entrance is.
31:13
So that's a big thing. The Galaggio is up in the back
31:19
of the city and like at all roads lead to the Galaggio
31:22
basically. So that's going to be easy the
31:26
different districts because the entire city is just a circle
31:29
like it's encased in in in this place should be relatively easy
31:35
to find with multiple paths to get to get each place.
31:38
There are like hostile enemies that are wandering around.
31:43
So if you are using your drive car, you go so fast that they
31:51
don't aggro you. But if you're on foot or on a
31:54
regular mount, then you're going to going to have them come at
31:57
you at the points. But it just it felt really good
32:02
and because of the relative size, it's not, I would say it's
32:08
pretty much as big as Stormar, but doesn't have that elevation
32:11
split might be a bit smaller and Stormar.
32:16
So getting around, I don't think it's going to be that much of an
32:19
issue with the speeds that we're saying we can go on the drive
32:23
system you're going to, you're going to get from one end of the
32:25
town to the other super fast. So I don't think that this is an
32:29
issue of like taking too long to get around or getting lost
32:33
within the city. Were you guys able to ride on a
32:37
cute little girly pop motorcycles?
32:41
There they are. I haven't seen a motorcycle
32:44
there. They have always been hot rods
32:46
for the for the cars. But I will say one thing that I
32:50
thought was absolutely gorgeous though, was that all the
32:54
buildings were unique. I have not seen a single
32:57
building that has been copied from one place to the next.
33:02
And that's, I think that's unheard of.
33:04
And wow. Yeah.
33:07
Now I apparently I don't know what a girly pop motorcycle.
33:11
Is that what you're trying to tell?
33:12
Me No, no, no, it's not at all. Manny.
33:15
What I was, I I thought a hot rod was a motorcycle.
33:21
Is there everyone was talking about the hot rods.
33:25
I'm like, Oh yeah, the motorcycles.
33:27
We're all going to. Drive No, no, these are these
33:30
are like cars that are just like the roadster, goblin roadster,
33:34
the trikes, not tricycle, but like a three wheeled car that
33:40
the goblins have as their their racial.
33:43
And in the original Kazan, there was like a really larger one
33:47
that was like the US the driver or no, somebody else was driving
33:52
because you couldn't, yeah, actually drive at that point.
33:54
And you were in the back seat is like some big shot getting
33:56
chauffeured around something that people have asked to have
34:00
to come back. But these one, the ones that
34:02
you're getting in the drive system, are you driving?
34:05
They are just big cars. They just happen to be on three
34:08
wheels instead of no four wheels.
34:09
Now they're actually on four wheels.
34:11
But there's the original trikes at the gas station.
34:14
And you know, this is doubly stupid of me because I'm
34:17
realizing that I've seen pictures.
34:19
Like I think in the Warcraft wreck there were either pictures
34:21
or videos. So I knew it was a car, but I
34:24
was just so convinced that a hot rod was a word for a motorcycle
34:27
that I was like, oh cool, sick. This is so great.
34:31
I'm always willing to admit that.
34:33
When I was like a kid. I should really watch it again
34:36
because I don't think I understood it.
34:38
I have heard some of the songs recently and I'm not going to.
34:41
There's nothing safe for work, I can say, but there were a couple
34:44
times I'm like, oh, OK. Yeah, that one's right over your
34:48
head when you're a kid. I don't think I've watched
34:50
Grease as an adult. Maybe we do some sort of viewing
34:54
party, Lex, and we just like, sit down and watch basically
34:58
like, oh, oh, now I kind of want to watch that like not so clean
35:04
dancing movie and see if there was any innuendo in there.
35:09
Not clean. I'm clean dancing.
35:11
I like that one. I like that one.
35:14
I actually watched that for the first time, like you, a month
35:17
ago now, I think. I'd never seen it all the way
35:19
through. I'd only ever seen like the
35:21
final dancing movie. I've never seen the whole movie.
35:24
On with you beat me. Now, but no, I don't think I've
35:26
seen that as an adult, like to the point that I don't think I
35:29
remember most. All right, you know what fast
35:33
viewing party we're going to. We're going to watch some
35:38
movies. Yeah.
35:39
But yeah, that's that's the general what comes in this in
35:43
this patch, their story elements, the raid, of course,
35:47
that we are going to be getting testing for the new dungeon.
35:51
And of course, Delves. There is a new delve Lex.
35:57
Unfortunately, I have not had a chance to test the new Delves.
36:01
What you're telling me the first thing you did when you've gotten
36:05
the PTR wasn't just to immediately test the delves, but
36:08
I thought you loved Delves, Manny.
36:10
I thought you woke up every single day and you were like,
36:12
today I'm going to play 50 Delves and it's going to give me
36:16
no rewards, but just for the joy of the delves.
36:19
I want to say that for a period of time this December, I was
36:24
getting up each day and checking what Dells were available
36:27
because I was working on the achievement.
36:29
So you're kind of right. The problem is that as soon as I
36:32
got the achievement, I did not give a about Dells again.
36:38
I might go back and do Zekvar double question because I
36:44
haven't done that yet solo yet. No, because I did the first
36:47
question mark and it was so uninspiring and not challenging
36:52
that I kind of just gave up hope of Dells being interesting to me
36:56
ever again. Do it on a red paladin because
36:59
it's trivial, no? I think you.
37:02
Mean that's the hardest? I'm going to go pick a red
37:05
paladin. Not know how to play it and it's
37:07
the hardest class to do it on. Would Snow would still even not
37:11
knowing how to play a red paladin?
37:12
You would still It's because you can freedom his root cast and
37:17
then you can interrupt his other cat like he completely negates
37:20
the two mechanics you have to worry about.
37:22
I can already like break roots with two abilities on the shaman
37:27
and interrupt his cast, never mind with the shortest cooldown.
37:30
Probably trivial for you as well.
37:32
Okay. Can you guys not just get out of
37:35
mechanics by hitting the new button and Newman on forward?
37:38
I don't think that's. Two things I ghost wolf and that
37:41
breaks roots every 30 seconds and I can use my not wood
37:47
walkers grace spirit spirit walk and that breaks the root every
37:52
30 seconds. No, every 15 seconds I'm
37:54
breaking roots. Is that I'm actually good at the
37:56
game so I don't even get rooted because I just get out of the
37:59
mechanic before it casts. We did have to have AI.
38:03
Did realize when I was doing the queen Ansarek that we were like
38:08
trying to coordinate roars and stuff when we were running away
38:11
from her when she was webbing and I was like, I don't
38:14
understand why people are struggling.
38:15
This is literally such an easy mechanic like I'm barely even
38:18
thinking about it. Like why are why are people
38:20
having issues? Just don't get sucked in with
38:21
the webs. You just hit your movement speed
38:24
ability and you're like at the edge.
38:26
Just fly. Just fly away.
38:28
Why don't you all just sprout your wings and fly?
38:31
Lex is over there giving them the old Elfaba.
38:34
My God, I thought I'm still picturing Lex on priest
38:38
something. She is being such a sarcastic
38:40
right? Now I forgot she switched to.
38:43
TV on 2025. Everything old is near again.
38:50
OK, I'll be better. I get it.
38:52
You're zooming. That's the team Hunter motion.
38:54
Sickness from the hot rod from the the drive, see.
38:58
I don't. Reports on so I don't know,
39:00
being reports on Twitter of a lot of folks who are unable to
39:05
play it or finding the extremely unpleasant because of the motion
39:08
sickness. Soul and squishy.
39:12
Both of them were like yeah this is not fun for me.
39:16
OK. They had similar reports with
39:18
dragon riding and they added in a number of features for that.
39:22
It could be because they're grounded and more things are
39:26
actually going past them that it's affecting people who might
39:30
not have been affected in particular dragon riding, and
39:33
they might need to activate those features.
39:35
But definitely if you are feeling any kind of nausea or
39:39
motion sickness from that, you should check those options in
39:46
the game and report it even with without checking those options
39:51
and then report it to see if it if those options helped because
39:55
accessibility is big. Dragon riding is controversial
39:59
purely because of the accessibility issue.
40:04
And I think at this point, the next.
40:09
Two or three episode pictures are just going to be pictures of
40:12
the dogs guys, because I am watching dogs while talking
40:17
about this. And four, Lex was like trying to
40:19
keep a straight face while I was waving at Zumi in the
40:22
background. And now Sean's playing with
40:24
Shadow I'm. Not playing with her, she went.
40:27
I keep like a stack of paper bags next to my garbage can for
40:30
compost for my coffee grounds. And she just went over and
40:34
pulled one of the bags out from beside the garbage can and
40:36
started tearing it apart. And when I looked at her, she
40:40
stared at me, waited, and as soon as I turned back around,
40:44
she ripped. It again like oh he doesn't like
40:48
seeing this I'll like I'll I'll wait okay good turn around now.
40:52
Oh yeah, Reya has already learned that if she is not
40:54
getting enough attention, what she needs to do is look me dead
40:56
in the eyes and start chewing on one of the blankets.
40:58
She'll immediately get my attention.
41:00
Like no question, nothing asked. She's Oh OK, she's I.
41:03
I learned a trick today too. So that's our initial
41:10
impressions. Obviously, we'll get into The
41:12
Dells, Lex, you and I will. We'll try those out when when it
41:17
gets free time and we'll talk about that report on that in
41:20
later episodes. But there is testing coming up.
41:24
Sean, do you happen to have the full dungeon testing?
41:28
So you can tell us what dungeons are being tested when.
41:31
I can do dungeon testing from the top of my head.
41:33
Shadow stop. You got to stop.
41:36
So week 1 shadow stop. You got to stop.
41:38
It's crazy. Week 1 is Operation Floodgate on
41:41
Tuesday. I think it resets on Tuesdays,
41:45
so next week it'll be. The Four.
41:51
The four War Within dungeons are next week.
41:53
The week after that is the three.
41:55
You probably can't hear me over the sound of this paper bag
41:57
being thrown apart. The three, the week after that
42:00
is the three legacy dungeons. The week after that is the four
42:03
War Within plus Operation Floodgate, and the week after
42:06
that I think is the three Legacy plus Operation Floodgate.
42:09
And then the week after that it's all of them.
42:12
So there are six weeks of testing scheduled, which sort of
42:18
gives you an indication of when they're looking to launch.
42:19
Probably it says every week after the 6th week will be this.
42:23
So yeah. So that is the focus testing,
42:31
you'll get to go through that. There have been a lot of data
42:34
mine changes to the War within dungeons that have been coming
42:38
out over the the holiday season. In fact, the Mercury seems to be
42:43
getting a lot of changes that make it seem like those bosses
42:47
aren't going to act anywhere like what we used to have.
42:52
A lot more focus on AOE damage and avoid avoiding stuff.
42:57
So we'll, we'll get our hands on and we'll report back about
43:01
those now for the RAID testing, because there has been raid
43:06
testing that has been put out. Sean, do you happen to have
43:10
that? Yeah, the raid testing schedule.
43:13
So this Friday, January 10th, we are testing Heroic Sticks, Bunk
43:18
Junker. On Thursday January 16th we are
43:22
testing Vexi and the Gear grinders, then the Cauldron of
43:28
Carnage and then Rick Reverb. Then Friday January 17th we are
43:33
testing Sprocketmonger, Lockenstock, 1, Armed Bandit,
43:38
Mugsy Heads of Security, and this is all Heroic.
43:41
And then on normal we'll have the full raid except for
43:44
Gallulix starting that weekend Friday to Monday.
43:48
And then the Mythic raid testing is on Friday January 24th.
43:58
We have scheduled 4 bosses on one day which is sticks, bunk,
44:04
junker, sprocket, monger, lock and stock armed, 1 armed bandit
44:08
and mugsy and then LFR after that. 4 bosses in one day is a
44:13
lot and Blizzard said that it's so that they can get the testing
44:17
in and get the feedback in quickly and start implementing
44:20
changes. But it I can't help but feel
44:24
it's a lot like, hey, we have a deadline we have to have this
44:26
done by, so we got to jam all this testing in now I think
44:30
it's. Weird that one day has only a
44:34
single boss. That guy could have been spread
44:37
out. Yeah.
44:39
Maybe they don't have the others ready yet.
44:43
Which goes towards the like rushing towards a release
44:48
release point in terms of like releases that we've got recently
44:55
you've I've noticed like a couple of slip UPS making it
44:59
through to live more frequently, like, you know, small things
45:03
like grammatical mistakes or stuff that might have been
45:07
caught with a little more feedback.
45:11
Seems like a double edged sword because like I like the cadence
45:15
of stuff. I like seeing this thing being
45:18
at like 7 weeks or more out because like there's no way it
45:22
releases on the week that they're testing and we've got
45:24
six weeks worth of testing. So I expect a release candidate
45:28
to be coming out the week after testing has been done and then
45:35
probably see the actual release announced for two weeks after
45:43
that. So we are looking end of
45:46
February. I think like let's see here we
45:52
have testing starting this week. There are four more weeks left
45:55
in January if you include this week.
45:58
That means that the testing running through till the middle
46:02
of February of release client, earliest I would say a release
46:10
client would hit is the the week following and then probably
46:20
that's when they announced the release.
46:22
So 25th even feels like a squeeze.
46:26
That's them giving one week notice of a release client that
46:28
they only said is a release client because the testing, the
46:32
testing of the final raid went through smoothly.
46:35
The testing of the last couple of dungeons went through
46:38
smoothly. So they say, OK, this build will
46:41
be a release, release candidate. So I could see this easily
46:47
falling into March for our 11.1, which is a long time with the
46:53
Siren Isles, which makes sense with the seven weeks that we
46:57
have of the temple or the time waste, right, that's going
47:03
through right now. Are you guys happy with that?
47:08
Do you think that's going to give them enough time to Polish?
47:09
Do you think that's too slow? Let's let's start with your
47:12
opinion first. Oh, I would always rather they
47:14
take extra time. I'm, you know, I, I would always
47:17
take more downtime just because I would rather the game be good
47:22
and complete. I and I'm I'm well on record
47:26
saying that I'm really scared that they're pushing too hard.
47:30
And so far I haven't seen major errors with that, but that's
47:33
sort of the type of thing that inherently becomes like I if if
47:39
you don't have the man hours, you don't have the man hours,
47:41
the the human hours, Excuse me, but so I, I, I want them to take
47:47
a hour longer. It takes I I want the old
47:49
Blizzard of like it, it's pushed when it's pushed, you guys will
47:53
get your game. Don't worry about it.
47:54
Chill out. It'll happen.
47:55
It's fine. Sean, Yeah.
47:57
What do you think about this timeline?
47:59
Too quick? Too early?
48:01
When would you prefer for this to come out?
48:05
I think it's way too quick. I think we're going to get AI
48:09
think we're going to get a launch on February 25th of the
48:11
patch with the raid starting March 4, and I really hope I'm
48:19
wrong because that seems really really fast.
48:23
There's still only 700 ish guilds that have killed Anserek.
48:28
There's over 2000 stock at four of eight.
48:32
This is mythic numbers so I'm just worried that it's too fast,
48:38
and my concern with it being too fast is that things will launch
48:44
in a not great state. This is a very different team
48:47
and I understand this team is having very big issues
48:50
maintaining staff. So I'm not saying this is
48:52
necessarily 1:00 to 1:00, but I will say as a Rumble girly, I am
48:56
growing increasingly concerned with blizzards standards of
49:03
acceptable releases. Rumble is busted.
49:06
Like it's fine, it's playable, but like there's like 3 new bugs
49:10
a week I swear to God. And most of them don't get
49:12
fixed. And I do again, understand the
49:13
Rumble team is really really struggling.
49:15
I know they've had layoffs and they've had people quit.
49:17
And I've heard rumors that the community manager is going
49:19
through chemo right now, which if so, sending so much love.
49:22
Like take care of yourself, do well.
49:25
But I have also really never seen a mobile game tolerate this
49:28
much vadnais, and I am concerned that that's a sign of what like
49:39
Blizzard under Microsoft is willing to accept.
49:44
But it's also a very different team, so I could also be dooming
49:49
for nothing. OK.
49:52
We are 17 weeks or 18 weeks into this season and people have been
50:02
dooming not just about Rumble, but about Mythic Plus.
50:09
Sean, you're talking about how few people have been able to
50:12
push through on the Mythic level raid.
50:15
And you had some numbers about how everything was shaking out
50:21
in terms of participation this season.
50:24
So tell us a little bit about like, where things stand and how
50:28
they compare to previous seasons.
50:30
So this is just raid numbers and these were this was from 2 days
50:34
ago I think so they will have changed a little but it's a
50:40
comparison of the first first boss kills after 17 weeks and
50:44
the last boss kills after 17 weeks.
50:46
All raids back to BFA season 1 with this isn't the lowest
50:54
season so the number of guilds that had killed after 17 weeks.
50:59
Last boss for this season is 615.
51:04
For dragonfly season 3 was 631 so pretty close for Sepulchre of
51:08
the first ones was 361 and then it fluctuates from there.
51:14
All of the rest of them are like around 900.
51:16
Not not all of them, but there's only two that are lower.
51:22
So just the 361 and then 516 was lower for BFA season 3.
51:27
Fern is off. Every other season is higher.
51:29
BFA season 1 had almost 1300 kills at this point.
51:34
But I think the biggest the biggest concerning thing.
51:36
So it's a less number of boss kills which is concerning.
51:39
You want the mythic grade to be healthy.
51:41
The number that concerns me the most though is the completion
51:45
rate which is number of guilds with a kill in the first like
51:48
first boss kill compared to last boss kill.
51:51
We only 9.6% of guilds who have killed the first Boston mythic
51:57
have killed the final Boston mythic and that is the not the
52:02
lowest. There are lower percentages.
52:04
BFA season 2 is lower at 6%. Season 1 was 8.3%.
52:09
So a lot of seasons are lower percentage wise, but we were
52:12
seeing a trend of more kills coming in and then they're just
52:16
it just is falling off here right now.
52:18
Because if you look at Dragonflight at the same point
52:21
in Dragonflight, it was season 1 was 12%, season 2 was 17%,
52:25
Season 3 was 11% had killed who teams have killed completion
52:30
rate, raid completion rate. This is just Guild numbers.
52:32
This isn't bugs. It worries me, right?
52:39
The mythic raid scene needs to be healthy.
52:41
It need it should never shift to being just for Hall of Fame
52:46
Raiders and world first Raiders. And I mean this is a direct
52:51
reflection in my opinion of again, this is just an opinion,
52:55
but this is a direct reflection of that difficulty spike and the
52:58
design. The specific boss design of
53:01
brood twister oven axe in the middle of the raid being a
53:05
giant, giant wall for teams that requires hard stop, requires use
53:11
of an external week aura to complete.
53:15
We we cannot have that. And Blizzard don't hear me give
53:17
an interview saying we're going to call back and what we course
53:19
can do and we're going to design better bosses.
53:22
But it's the third tier in a row.
53:23
They've told us that. And it's the third tier in a row
53:25
where we have a hard stop at a boss that requires we course.
53:28
We absolutely cannot have an open axe wall next here and we
53:32
absolutely cannot have any bosses that require a week or to
53:36
calculate mechanics for us. Sorry, that's probably not where
53:41
we wanted to end the show on, but.
53:42
No, no, I think, I think that it puts the importance of this next
53:48
season into perspective because we already have the questions
53:52
about Mythic Plus and how much they need to hit Mythic plus.
53:56
Well, the Ovinex bosses is a question as well.
54:02
I am looking not just against all the seasons but really
54:05
against first seasons in previous expansions and the
54:10
completion rate in that regards is not horrible.
54:16
It is better than BFA season 1 and I don't know what the hard
54:23
stop boss was there. I don't believe I remember there
54:28
being one. I didn't I.
54:30
Didn't read that season so I don't know.
54:34
I'm, I'm looking at Shadowlands season 1 and again, that's,
54:41
that's looking as a healthier completion at this point where
54:45
Shadowlands season 1 and Shadowlands being Shadowlands,
54:49
but 17 weeks in, I don't think it had that reputation yet.
54:53
Shadowlands had two extremely difficult fights in mythic, the
54:56
council of blood and stone legion generals which was was
55:00
literally broken up until it never got fixed I don't think.
55:04
I think they didn't fix just like the last three weeks it was
55:06
like because it was anyway it is that so that fight alone ended
55:11
teams. I was on a Guild that was like a
55:13
multi CE team. We're talking like six years of
55:15
CE and they got hard stuck at Stoneleigh generals.
55:20
Yeah. And so the last one we would
55:23
look at is Dragon fight Season 1.
55:26
I again, I personally believe that the last fight in that that
55:32
raid is at a different level than all of the other fights and
55:38
that one also has a lower completion rate at this point.
55:42
Which 12%? It's higher 12% completed for.
55:45
Dragon OK, yeah, sorry, I apologize.
55:46
I'm looking at the level above, which is 8.6, but that's yeah,
55:50
Season 4. We ignore that, OK.
55:52
There's no season fours in here. That was Season 3.
55:55
Season 3 of Shadeline. Oh yes, OK, yeah.
55:57
So against season ones, I guess that means that there's only one
56:01
higher. Yeah, yeah, that's true.
56:03
But yeah, that's that is true. There's only one higher, but
56:09
we're comparing it against these like pass on half year was a
56:12
good Ray, but it was considered quite tough.
56:15
Yeah, I don't know the BFA season one, I'm not sure.
56:19
Last year I'm a. Little curious and I don't this
56:21
is not like a gotcha in any way, I'm just curious what do you
56:23
think would be like in your ideal world?
56:26
What percentages would you be wanting to see from Mythic?
56:29
From Mythic, I'd like to see 50% of the teams that go into mythic
56:33
be able to clear mythic I think is reasonable.
56:36
At week 17. Yeah.
56:40
By week 17, yeah. That is a far more conquerable
56:49
mythic than we have on our current record that we have in
56:52
front of us. That's actually close to heroic
56:55
based on the numbers that we're seeing.
56:57
Yeah, Heroic. Yeah, Heroic is about 67 percent
57:00
or so, maybe averaging higher. It's like 90% in some seasons.
57:05
There's a two seasons where it's 48 and 43 and those are shadow
57:08
lands when everybody hated that. Yeah.
57:12
I don't, I think that they're like, I, I think Classic rating
57:18
is wildly popular and it's not wildly popular because of how
57:21
complex the raid fights are. Yeah, I think a 50% completion
57:27
rate for week 17 let's those teams that are more experienced
57:31
and more skilled really show off their stuff and finish finish
57:34
the season early, which gives them a long tail to do whatever
57:37
they want to do the remainder of the season, whether that's Sail
57:39
runs or player the games or whatever.
57:41
And it also makes it attainable for players who are new to
57:44
Mythic rating to get in and get a chance to see it.
57:47
The issue, I think, is you hit these wall bosses and guilds
57:49
just fall apart. So then there's no chance for
57:52
consistency. There's no chance for longevity
57:53
in a team because who's going to stick around on a raid team that
57:57
can't clear the boss when you think you can do better and you
57:59
know other teams can and you have these constantly cycling
58:02
guilds. So I'm going to post this
58:05
questions that are both of you and I'm actually going to throw
58:07
this to Lex first. Would you be happy with more
58:13
aggressive nerfs after release? So they have the race, the world
58:16
first, the Inhuman, top of the top guys go through, they clear
58:21
through this stuff and then start aggressively nerfing so
58:26
that it gets tuned down, tuned down, tuned down.
58:29
So we hit that 50% of whatever benchmark you guys want to put
58:33
at we at like whatever arbitrary week we decided to look at these
58:37
numbers. Do you think that that would be
58:40
the right way to go? And if not, what would you
58:42
suggest? Oh yeah, I think games should be
58:44
fun. I think that it is fun to face
58:47
roll things. I think it's also often fun to
58:48
have a challenge. And so I think starting out and
58:51
making things rough is really good.
58:54
I understand why a lot of people wouldn't like it.
58:56
I think that we do have a tendency to be like, well, but
58:59
this achievement only means something because this
59:01
achievement meant I did it before.
59:06
Like, it, it, it was tough. And if every, if every Joe schmo
59:09
on the street can do this, then it doesn't mean anything.
59:11
And I mean, like, I kind of I, I, I get it, but I also don't
59:16
like it's a video game, But like, I get it, I get it, I get
59:20
it right. Like I do.
59:20
I'm not trying to be just like utterly dismissive and rude.
59:22
Like I do understand why that can feel bad and feel like
59:28
lessening in what you're doing. But no, I think video games
59:31
should be fun and I think it's fun to just wipe the floor with
59:34
things. And I think it also is fun to
59:38
like there, there is a level of so my team's an IOTC team.
59:41
So to be fair, we're not pushing it as high of a level as you
59:45
know, your teams and we, but we do hit points when we as the
59:51
officer team start getting a little bit anxious often and
59:53
we're like, Oh my, like what do we do?
59:55
Do we need to start sitting people so that we can just make
59:58
sure that some people get AOTC And like to be fair, we finished
1:00:01
AOTC with now it's looking like potentially 3 months left to go.
1:00:04
So we stress a little early, but like what needs to happen?
1:00:09
Do we need to start considering like pulling people off the
1:00:12
team? Really aggressively coaching
1:00:14
people, having conversations about like what's like, you
1:00:19
know, what's going to happen. We need you to start stepping up
1:00:22
things like that. And it would be nice to not have
1:00:27
to do that, right? To just know, like, OK, but it's
1:00:30
gonna be OK, right? Like at the end of the day, it's
1:00:33
gonna be fine. We're gonna get it.
1:00:34
And we don't have to worry and nobody has to sit.
1:00:36
And if the team is really struggling, and I mean, it also
1:00:38
means that, like, we wouldn't worry less about carrying
1:00:42
people, right? Like, if again, you know, at the
1:00:44
end of the day, like, yeah, we can totally bring in your friend
1:00:46
who's been playing World of Warcraft for two weeks.
1:00:48
And it'll be rough. But it's OK cuz it's gonna work
1:00:51
out in the end. Again, I can understand why that
1:00:53
might not be everyone's take. That's like I, I, I can also
1:00:57
feel like as I'm saying this waves potentially that could go
1:00:59
wrong. But yeah, 100% I think that like
1:01:02
there is no harm in dropping things down to the point where
1:01:06
anyone hypothetically could get it.
1:01:09
OK, Slight follow up question for you, Lex.
1:01:14
If you wanted those changes to come in and a particular time,
1:01:19
do you think that, hey, once the Hall of Fame is like, so once
1:01:23
world first is done, they start doing doing nerves, once Hall of
1:01:27
Fame is filled, they start nerfing even harder.
1:01:32
Do you feel like that would be a fair thing?
1:01:34
So people who got Hall of Fame can have their sort of level of
1:01:37
prestige. People who get world first or
1:01:39
that first top five can count that as their level of prestige.
1:01:43
I, I would say probably a little later, I think I would say maybe
1:01:54
like you start doing really progressive nerfs within like a
1:01:59
month to maybe a month and a half before the patch ends.
1:02:04
So you get like then you give people a genuine opportunity to
1:02:09
push and try and then you kind of do the like, OK, but it's OK.
1:02:15
You know, the, I, I don't know, very millennial of me, but the
1:02:18
participation trophy at that point.
1:02:21
I, I don't think that we should be nerfing too early because
1:02:24
there is also a like a real joy and challenge, right?
1:02:28
If we started and I guess to be sure, again, I'm, I'm talking
1:02:31
OTC, so I'm, I'm not at all. And I, I'm also not thinking
1:02:35
about things like E sports and people whose job is World of
1:02:37
Warcraft and like that's all a whole other layer of layer of
1:02:40
complication. But like, ultimately, I'd always
1:02:44
rather get the achievement when it's hard, right?
1:02:47
Because that's more fun. And the moment that it works out
1:02:50
is more exciting. I just think it would feel
1:02:53
better if, yeah, like there was a sort of like in the back of
1:02:56
your mind, you can kind of keep like, OK, but it's going to be
1:03:00
fine in the end. But yeah, like, if I can't get
1:03:02
it, like getting it is going to be a a big power push.
1:03:05
And I'm going to feel so good about myself.
1:03:07
But it's not like I'm going to feel terrible if I wait until
1:03:09
the nerves. Yeah.
1:03:10
All right. So Sean, I'll give you your
1:03:13
chance to answer those both those questions.
1:03:15
Let me know if you need me to repeat them.
1:03:16
Yeah, I like the nerf. I like the nerf after the race,
1:03:19
world first nerf after Hall of Fame closes.
1:03:22
But I think you got to have aggressive adjustments in
1:03:24
between there. You can't.
1:03:26
If we wait five months, so Lex says wait till the last month,
1:03:29
then hit your heavy nerves, you wait five months, you're going
1:03:32
to lose guilds. I think we need to create a
1:03:35
better player environment. The way to do that is to like
1:03:40
make it so that these teams have a chance to get together, to
1:03:42
succeed together, to stay together and build some
1:03:45
longevity. Though we don't have people that
1:03:47
are jumping Guild to Guild every tier or every two tiers and
1:03:51
teams that are falling apart every tier or two tiers because
1:03:54
they had a wall boss they can't kill or they had a weak or boss
1:03:56
they can't get by. So I think, yeah, I don't know.
1:04:00
Once Hall of Fame closes, what are you really playing for
1:04:02
anyway? Like the Hall of Fame is closed.
1:04:05
I got to tell you, it doesn't matter if you're world rank 1000
1:04:08
or 1500, it's it's good to have a personal goal, but then just
1:04:13
you would still it would just shit like you still going to
1:04:15
have been competing as other people.
1:04:17
Can you hear the squeaking behind me?
1:04:18
Can you hear Shadow squeaking behind me?
1:04:22
Sorry, I'm very dog. There will be no answer for this
1:04:24
episode, I think. I think.
1:04:25
I think 2025 is the Acapola FAZ, yeah.
1:04:29
We'll make sure you cut off the part where I yell at my dog for
1:04:31
chewing on a bag. No, no.
1:04:32
That that that's going into the pre show.
1:04:34
We already said that. Yeah, I don't know, man.
1:04:39
I I'm not saying the rate has to be a pushover.
1:04:41
I'm not saying too mythic like Heroic, but I don't think
1:04:43
there's any reason that we have to have, you know, less than
1:04:48
1000 guilds fill a final boss of a team.
1:04:51
Like, that's 20 people per per Guild, that's what.
1:04:55
I'm bad enough with Neruba refinery being like a steady
1:05:00
baked in nerf as well. Like Ovenx isn't, it's not a
1:05:04
damage and healing issue, it's a mechanics issue.
1:05:06
And it's 100% that it's not like it's, it's not an ideal design.
1:05:15
This is actually I guess a fairpoint, though I wonder how
1:05:17
the mythic nerfs would even occur because I feel like, I
1:05:21
mean to be fair, we did. We attempted mythic very
1:05:24
briefly, I want to say Shadow Land season 3 but like only for
1:05:30
a few boss. I could be utterly tripping.
1:05:31
I don't even remember which bosses we did it.
1:05:33
Was it was like one season and there was the officers being
1:05:35
like, we're not doing that again.
1:05:37
Right. And and a lot of it was because
1:05:39
it did feel like it was just so if you are not on every single
1:05:44
mechanic and you miss them, you like it's done, everyone is
1:05:48
screwed. We're all wiping.
1:05:50
Have a good day. Congratulations, you're failing
1:05:54
and I I guess I'm curious how in mythic rating either I
1:06:00
misunderstand how tough mythic is because we did it for three
1:06:02
bosses and we're like we hate this or like how those nerfs
1:06:08
would even like would we be imagining we're pulling down the
1:06:10
mechanical difficulty in mythic or just making it easier like
1:06:15
something with narrow bar farnery?
1:06:16
So this is. Ovanax is a different beast
1:06:18
because Ovanax cannot be fixed by adjustments to damage done,
1:06:24
health done, healing done, that kind of stuff.
1:06:26
It's unless you absolutely trivialize and like the
1:06:29
parasites or the egg mechanic. But ultimately what you would do
1:06:33
is you would, you would tune stuff up and down like you.
1:06:36
So this mechanic was a one shot. Well, now it's not a one shot.
1:06:40
So if you fail it, you take a big chunk of damage.
1:06:41
But if you have a really good healer, they can they can keep
1:06:43
you up those kind of nerves and adjustments later on in the
1:06:46
season. Take things to make it, you
1:06:48
know, so that teams that are people that don't have the time
1:06:51
to play all the time, don't have the time to research, don't have
1:06:53
that that same skill level and still get through and see this
1:06:56
content. Yeah, I need to end the show
1:07:00
because she is losing her mind right now.
1:07:01
Oh yeah. My dog is peed on the.
1:07:04
Floor OK, so with that said and everybody's dog calling for
1:07:08
them, we're going to call this an episode.
1:07:10
We'll be back again next week with multiple episodes once
1:07:14
again. So make sure you are watching
1:07:16
your lines, but until next time guys, may all your hits be crit.