Latest / For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast / #263 - For Azeroth!: “Dreamsurges and You”

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#263 - For Azeroth!: “Dreamsurges and You” · For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast

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  The Fury of the Incarnates is live, and in this episode I'm
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  going to give you all the information I can on the Dream
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  Surges, which is the new public event in 10 point 1.7.
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  But this is going to be a shorter episode, because we're
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  going to have a second episode this week covering what's coming
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  in 10.2, which has just been teased on Blizzard's official
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  Twitter for Calendar. For the burning region, or
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  Gilnaeus or has not died. For the Lich King?
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  For the Sindora for the Alliance.
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  For the horn for Azaroth, hello and welcome to Farazroth.
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  I am your host, the true villain Manny and today we're going to
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  be talking all about 10 point 1.7 which has gone live on
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  servers both in the NA and in the EU.
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  This is the pre patch if you will, to 10.2 and is setting up
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  where we are going in what I think is going to be the final
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  chapter of Dragonfly. This patch includes a lot of
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  stuff, which is actually quite surprising for a small patch.
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  It is actually I think a larger patch in some ways than 10 point
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  1.5 was. In this patch we have the heroic
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  version of Dawn of the Infinites, which has been split
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  into two four boss dungeons. We have the night Elf and
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  Forsaken heritage armor, and the big show stopper is the new
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  public event dream surges. So starting with dream searches,
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  we have a number of things that have been mixed together.
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  I had initially thought this was going to be sort of a iteration
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  of time riffs, but they've taken time riffs and added so much
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  more. The first thing is that instead
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  of being once every hour, it's actually once every half hour.
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  And on top of the main event, the team has added a number of
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  complimentary side missions or activities that you can do while
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  you wait for the half hour intervals.
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  And that means that while you're playing, you always have
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  something to do as long as there's a reward that you're
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  after. But for those of you who have
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  limited time, let me break it down on what you should be
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  doing. If you have everything available
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  to you, the first thing is you need to go to the right zone.
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  The four original zones will rotate through which one has
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  this event happening each week. Look on your map and you will
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  see the icon which looks like a kind of moon, very night elf
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  inspired kind of icon and if you scroll over it you will be able
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  to see that it will say that there's stream search active
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  there and how long it's active for.
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  Again, it's really just once per week resetting with the weekly
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  reset. When you're in the zone, that
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  same icon will point you towards Nerelex, who people might
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  remember from the good old Baron's dungeon, the Whaling
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  Caverns. Along with Nerelex, there's
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  going to be two other Npc's the Arch Steward, Hamel Rd.
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  Totem, and Celestine of the Harvest.
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  If you speak with Nerelex, he will provide you the ability to
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  shape the dream search. As I said before, these things
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  happen in every half hour intervals, so the vote while it
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  doesn't affect what you're currently doing, this half hour
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  interval it will decide which buff everybody in the zone gets
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  for the next half hour. This is on top of a standard
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  buff that happens regardless of what you choose, which is a 25
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  experience increase for anybody in the zone who happens to be
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  leveling. The choice between bus will
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  change each time, and of course some are better than others.
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  Hamel Rune Totem will sell higher level gear for a more
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  rare Dream Surge Chrysalis, while Celestine of the Harvest
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  will sell a number of things lower level gear as well as
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  pets, mounts and toys. Now if you are trying to level
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  up your alts, the 402 gear that you get from Celestine is quite
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  good. That's equivalent.
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  It's slightly less than what you would get in LFR and can be used
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  with the Catalyst to make sure you get your full tier pieces.
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  Remember that tier this season is an automatic thing, so if you
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  have a brand new character that hits level 70 today, it will
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  have all the charges as if it had been active throughout the
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  season. The gear coming from Rune Totem
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  is higher, it's 415 gear and is on the champion track, which
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  means it goes higher and that is equivalent to again just a
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  little bit below 3 points below the entry level gear that you
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  would get from normal Avarice to Shadow Crucible.
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  One thing to note is that if you're after specific weapons,
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  the gear that you can get with the Dream Surge Coalescence is
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  an R&G loot box. You get a dream bound weapon and
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  that can give you a random weapon for your particular
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  class. Again, that's class, not
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  necessarily specialization. Meanwhile, if you use your dream
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  search Chrysalis with Hammel Root Totem, you can purchase the
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  exact weapon or offhand that you want.
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  So my suggestion is if you are limited on time, use your
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  limited dream. Search Chrysalis for weapons
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  first because weapons are going to give you more power in
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  general and you won't be subject to the RNG of the lower stuff
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  from Celeste. So let's talk about what you do
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  during these dream search events.
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  The big event that I was talking about before is a waking dream.
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  Every so often on the map you will see a little icon that
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  looks like fire. That is going to be where a
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  number of the druids of the flame and their cohorts are
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  going to be attacking the area. If you are low level and don't
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  want to fight, you can still pitch in by using your dragon
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  riding and flying above the area.
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  There are birds that are flying around, they have circles around
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  them. You fly through those circles,
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  it counts towards the completion.
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  The completion is defeating enough enemies, interacting with
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  enough items and flying through those birds to get the bar up to
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  100%. The birds aren't worth much, but
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  they are worth something and really nothing is worth that
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  much. Defeating the non elite enemies
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  is worth about 1%, defeating the elite enemies is worth about 2%.
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  So you are going to need a crowd of people to get this done.
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  And in fact when I was testing this on the PTR this was a real
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  struggle to do with 2-3 people. But on live these things go
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  quickly. So if it's up, make sure you
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  head there ASAP. The next priority would actually
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  be the rares that show up in the zone.
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  When a rare spawns in the zone, it will be empowered by the
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  dream. That means it's going to be a
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  lot tougher than what you remember, but with the increased
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  difficulty comes better rewards. These guys are going to be
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  dropping slightly shy of 30 of the coalescing essences, and
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  then they also have a chance of dropping gear tokens directly so
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  that you can get those tokens. The same thing is true for the
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  boss of the waking dream. At the end of filling that bar,
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  a boss will spawn, and this boss will again give you a tremendous
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  amount of the coalescing essences and have a chance of
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  dropping the tokens directly when those aren't available.
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  There are smaller portals also called waking dreams,
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  unfortunately confusing enough and those portals can be found
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  throughout the zone. Unfortunately these are not on
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  the map, so you will have to come across them when you do
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  come across them. Or if somebody is nice and puts
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  it out in chat, make sure you're paying attention and fly out to
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  deal with those. These things are like mini
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  versions of the big waking dreams.
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  Once they are active, they will spawn different enemies.
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  When you kill those waves of enemies, it'll eventually spawn
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  a commander or captain. Killing the captain will give
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  you roughly 10 or so of the coalescing essences.
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  But the waves also have a chance of giving essences, so it it
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  works out to be pretty good. In between that you will see
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  little moats. These moats are fantastic
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  because they not only give you about 3:00 to 5:00 coalescing
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  essences, but they also will give you a small amount of
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  Wellpling shards as well towards building Wellpling Crests.
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  Again, all of the gear that you're getting from this can be
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  upgraded, so on an alt having a quick way of getting the Crest
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  is fantastic and these stack up fast, though a token would cost
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  about 100 of the coalescing essences, you can collect these
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  so quickly. In fact, in my play time and I
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  again I've had a day ahead of the EU crowd.
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  I have managed to collect almost 2000 of the waking essences,
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  which is enough for the most expensive item on the vendor,
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  which was 1000 for vanity mount as well as tokens for for my
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  alt. While I was doing that I got
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  many tokens directly from the bosses and we're and I've been
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  able to get upgrades for a number of miles, including
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  different armor types for Demon Hunter, for lever or my warlock,
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  getting cloth, so on and so forth.
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  As you're going around, there will also be little plants,
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  which much like the moats will be able to get use a number of
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  those resources, both the well playing shards and the
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  coalescing essences. So the last thing that's in
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  there is that there will be quests. 1 requires that you do
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  world quests. That same quests will also ask
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  you to kill one of the rares and collect a set amount of
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  essences. I believe it's 100.
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  The thing is, you want to do all of these.
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  Even doing world quests will give you coalescing essences,
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  and there's even a buff that will double the amount of gold
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  that you will get from a world quest.
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  A world quest that might have only given you a couple 100 gold
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  will suddenly be giving you over 1000 gold with this buff active
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  if you happen to be lucky and be doing it at that time.
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  The second quest just requires that you gather enough of the
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  Dream Search Coalescence and that will give you one of the
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  more rare Dream Search Chrysalis as well as some Drake Shadow
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  Flame Crest Fragments. Basically go into the zone.
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  Pick up the quest, do the things in the priority to get you what
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  you need, but make sure that you do everything in order to
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  complete it. And get that Dream Search
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  Catalyst, which is the rare thing that you need to get very
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  specific weapons or higher level gear.
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  And that's basically all there is to the dream searches.
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  It seems pretty simple once you break it down, and I'm really
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  sad that Blizzard did such a poor job of actually
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  communicating it, but I guess that's more content for me.
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  The really cool thing about this is because it happens so
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  quickly, because it's very free form, and because you can just
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  choose whatever is your priority, it's actually a lot
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  more engaging than the time risks for for me.
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  And I think the only reason that my feelings were really all over
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  the place was generally because I didn't really have direction
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  on what to do or I didn't know exactly how things worked and
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  that was kind of sad. I think that there's also a
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  couple of bugs that are kind of marring the experience right
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  now. With the smaller waking dreams,
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  you could have some that are bugged, and this is really
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  problematic because you won't know how you're supposed to do
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  them and therefore you won't realize that they're bugged
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  unless somebody tells you. So let me just tell you right
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  now again, these portals will be all over the zone and there will
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  not be a map indicator for them. If you come across a portal, you
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  are supposed to be able to click on the portal assuming it's not
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  already going to start it being active, but the bugged portals
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  will be there and you won't be able to click on them.
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  You might think, oh it's already active, but it won't be spawning
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  stuff. So the way to look at it is that
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  if you have your nameplates active, a non bugged portal
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  should have its nameplate readily visible.
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  Or if you're not sure, when you mouse over it you should then be
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  able to see your mouse turn into a gear.
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  If that doesn't work then it's likely that the portal is
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  bugged. Move on.
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  The next thing that was kind of weird was if you kill a rare, it
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  is still based on your lockout, so the rear might spawn,
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  everybody might be going and because you killed it earlier
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  you don't get any loot. Make sure you're remembering
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  what you've killed or you have an addon that will track it for
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  you. Waking dream portals don't have
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  a lockout. You can kill the rarest from
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  that every time and you will get rewards from that every time.
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  Which means that there is sort of a difference between what you
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  could do once per day, once per week, and what you can farm to
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  your heart's content. So keep that in mind when you're
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  playing. So while I feel this is a marked
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  improvement over 10 point 1.5 and the time riffs, I have to
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  say that the general consensus is that this is actually kind of
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  mid. There has been a lot of
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  fantastic parts about Dragonfly and there has been some stuff
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  that hasn't been as good. And that inconsistency is really
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  what's starting to become the talking points in the community.
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  A lot of people are loving the story, the cinematic team
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  kicking it out of the park. I personally am loving the UI
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  updates. They keep bringing in new and
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  new stuff. In fact, in this patch we got
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  the new ping system, which is something that I would want to
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  talk about, but I haven't really had a chance to get used to it
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  myself and until I'm using that in like a raid or dungeon
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  properly, I don't want to really give a half baked review.
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  The thing about Dragonfly is that they are completely going
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  in a new direction. We are getting faster content
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  releases. We are getting a lot of content
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  that is truly optional. In fact, the title of last
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  episode was optimally optional. And what that meant was that you
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  can go through 10 point 1.7, do the different story beats that
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  have been unlocked, and completely skip all of this
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  content that they've done for dream searches.
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  Do I think that that is wise? It actually depends on where
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  you're sitting right now. We are in an amazing time for
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  video games. People are loving Diablo Four,
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  and if you haven't like blazed through the entirety of that
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  campaign, people are loving that.
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  But then again, season one of Diablo 4 didn't go over so well.
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  More universally loved is Boulders Gate Three people are
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  loving Boulders Gate 3, going through and doing playthroughs
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  of that. We just had the release of
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  Starfield and that is a game that has been widely
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  anticipated. We are getting different updates
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  for so many different things. ESO is getting an update,
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  honestly. Go check out the Girls Gone Wow
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  podcast. They cover a bunch of different
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  games as well as Shanty Man and Raven do the 10th Divine, which
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  covers ESO. There's a lot of stuff that's
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  out there and so if you want to skip over 10 point 1.7, you can
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  do that. But that's not the point of 10
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  point 1.7. I believe it's to get people who
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  are coming in late the ability to catch up and play some of the
• 18:30
  gems that have been in dragon fight.
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  If you are like my friend Wochi, who's part of the Dungeon JoJo,
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  he didn't do the Blue Dragon fight quest, something that I
• 18:41
  think was absolutely phenomenal. The story quests in 10.1, I was
• 18:49
  not the biggest fan of, but the stories that were around for the
• 18:55
  Black Dragon Flight being redeemed were not everything.
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  Like I said, there was a blue Dragon flight stuff.
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  There is the stuff with the bronze dragon flight which has
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  been coming in 10 point 1.5 and continues now in 10 point 1.7.
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  And I think that's actually quite fantastic.
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  All of this means that you can set Wow down for a little bit
• 19:17
  and play when you feel you're ready.
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  The one thing I would say is that if you are trying to be
• 19:24
  absolutely 100% prepared for 10.2, do the storylines that are
• 19:29
  currently available. Because it is likely that this
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  is going to follow the same suit that we saw with 10.1 where the
• 19:38
  10.0 point 7 Forbidden Reach storyline became the first
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  chapter and was in fact mandatory before you could
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  really do the storyline of 10.1 properly.
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  So get that done. I really do want to hear from
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  you guys, Are you liking Dragon Flight?
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  Now that we are reaching again what I think is going to be the
• 20:01
  finale? Did you like the story?
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  Did you like the way that the cadence was and how fast we got
• 20:08
  stuff? Did you like the stuff that we
• 20:10
  got? What was the best?
• 20:11
  What was the worst? I know this is a short show, but
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  I'm going to be doing a followup episode because tomorrow there
• 20:18
  will be the full announcement of 10.2, which is going to be with
• 20:23
  the Wow cast. So make sure you check out the
• 20:25
  team at Wow Cast over on YouTube and I will be covering that and
• 20:29
  everything that we learn shortly after.