Yeah, the news delivery from Gamescom has been a massive
casserole of nonsense. It's been so scattered and
difficult to track things down. There's live footage like
fireside chats on stage that just don't exist anymore.
They were live streamed and the Vods are gone and you can't find
them. It's just wild.
I don't understand. Maybe.
Anyway, I was going to say something snarky about layoffs.
I'm not going to do that. It's just been very difficult to
get news from games.com For Lauderon.
For the Karen tour. For Pandaria.
For calendar to. The burning region for Gilnaeus,
but has not died for the Lich King, for the Cindori.
For the Alliance for. The Horn for Azeroth.
Hello and welcome back to another episode of For Azeroth.
I am one of your hosts, Manny, AKA the true villain.
Manny and I am joined by both Lex and Sean.
Hello Lex, how are you and how's the World of Warcraft been
treating you this week? It has been treating me well.
So we are diving into heroic with my raid team tomorrow.
So I'm very, very excited and I'm doing some keys, pretty low
level keys, but I am getting kind of my feet wet back in
tanking. And I'm realizing that I have a
lot more fun when I take things very slowly and I stay kind of
low and mostly focus on having a good time and not stressing out
too much. So I'm having a great time And
also, you know, I get the the new sport of trying to read fast
enough that I can get all of the midnight information.
Oh yeah, yeah, it has been a pretty crazy week in terms of
like not only the amount of info but all the different places it
has been coming from. So we are going to be giving you
a recap of some of the stuff. But even still, we can't do it
justice if we try and cover it all in this one episode.
So bringing in from the expert analysis of race World First, we
have Sean. Hello Sean, and welcome back to
Regular Life. Hey Manny, did you know that
there's a world outside of my office?
Yeah, you want to get it first, that's what the race.
Yeah, whole. World out there, Yeah, it's good
to be back. Race the world first 12 days.
I had the second most casting hours, I think for Team Method
in that 12 days. It was a lot, lot of talking
about Warcraft and the same bosses over and over again.
But we had fun and the race is over now.
Probably the most exciting race I've ever seen.
And the ending was like storybook ending.
It was crazy. Disney hasn't been couldn't
write a movie this good. Yeah, they honestly, let's talk
about that because that was basically a photo finished.
John, tell us what in the world happened with the last day of
race, the world first? Yeah, so it was Saturday in
North America and EU and Liquid was on the last boss, Echo was
on the last boss, and Method was on the last boss.
Liquid and Echo had both had sub 20% best, Method had a sub 35%
best bowl. Echo woke up that morning first
because you get to get up first and they started blasting and
they very quickly had a sub 5% wipe.
And then it was like everybody across the globe was like, this
boss is dying today. And it was basically known Echo
can't go to bed until his boss attack is going to bed as
conceding defeat. Echo woke up, Sorry, Liquid woke
up, started doing the same thing.
They're blasting. And method was also making
really good progress on Saturday.
But they were far enough behind. They were just outside of the
other two teams that we we didn't expect that they were
really competing for first, but that they might be competing for
second. So the day is going on and it's
it's like literally pull for pull new best for Echo, new best
for Liquid, new bad. Like watching the, the the top
spot flip back and forth between them and then Liquid hits a bad
stretch. So it's around.
It would have been around like midnight in the EU.
And method goes to bed. Method says, listen, we're not
killing this boss tonight. We're going to get up in the
morning and maybe try and snake out a pull out a world second
kill. Echo says we're not, we can't,
we can't go to bed. So liquid hits this bad stretch
where they were wiping really really badly not not getting
good pulls. In P3 Echo has a sub 1% wipe,
.58% wipe, Then the very next poll they have a .31% wipe and
they had had one player who was dead for long enough that it
would have been the kill liquid. When that finishes, Liquid has
back-to-back wipes in P1. It's now like 2:00 AM and EU
Echo is still pulling liquid. Like I said, Liquid has
back-to-back P1 wipes and then they go on a lunch break and
people are like, you're going on a lunch break method and Echo is
so close. This is crazy.
I can't believe you're going to lunch break.
They come back from the lunch break.
Sorry, I had that wrong. They won in the lunch break,
came back from the lunch break, had the 2 back-to-back P1 wipes,
and then after that, the very next pull, they killed the boss.
It's like it's like 2:00 AM, just about 2:00 AM in in in in
Europe, Echo suddenly just drained.
They had been fighting so hard to the end.
Liquid pulls with the wind, but it's not just a win, it's a 3
peat. So it's back-to-back to back in
Warcraft that hasn't been done in a very long time and it's the
first ever full sweep of an expansion.
Liquid took world first in all three of the raid tears is
expansion the only so an asterisk on that in mist of
Pandaria that paragon did take world first for all of the 10
man raids. So that was technically the
first sweep, but those those weren't widely considered The
the, the, you know that the top. Is 25 was the higher, yeah.
So anyway, super exciting. Echo stayed up to try and get
the kill afterwards for about another hour.
They couldn't. They went to bed, they woke up
the next morning and when they woke up, Method was getting sub
10% pulls. So now was a race for 2nd place.
Echo did secure the 2nd place finish a couple of hours after
they woke up on Sunday and then Method just a couple of hours
later from them. So it's very exciting stuff that
all three guilds killed it within 24 hours of each other,
like within 12 hours of each other.
And what I find really interesting is that time frame
is about the time that North America had from the head start,
from starting a day early. Now, if you ask Skype or Max or
SCO or any of the people that are in in the actual race at the
top, any of the Raiders, they're going to tell you the North
America early start doesn't affect the race.
If a boss takes some more poles, if it's a longer boss, if it's
tougher, that stuff balances out.
The the the head start isn't a big impact, but I don't know any
competition on the planet we're having a head start doesn't have
an impact. So I don't know, I desperately
want to see a global release for the race to roll first because I
just feel like these teams are all so incredibly close and the
EU teams are perpetually having to play from behind.
What do you think, Lex? What do I think?
I have never actually watched. No, for like a a global release,
like would you think that a global release would would be a
difference maker or are you like saying well, it's go, it's go
and the head guys say it then? I so my OK, again, I've not
watched the race world first, so I am parroting what other people
say to me. What I've heard a lot is that
the flip side of that is that the people who run the bosses
first have to spend all of this time learning it versus if you
come in for 24 hours early, the early ones you can just kind of
wipe out, right? Because you're like, Oh yeah,
whatever, sick. We know this.
We learned the Strat because we saw what the other teams were
doing. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
We're moving forward. We're going through it and I
say, I mean like also, I, I guess my again, my understanding
is that like things like sleep schedules do kind of make it go
back together. That said, I think we should
have a global release. I don't know that it would
change anything. I literally and again, I want to
I want to asterisk because as you're going into the discord
and you're typing blacks, you idiot or Sean, you're idiot.
I'm pro global release. I think that it's it's silly
that they don't release at the same time.
I do think it's we were talking, I think it was last episode
about how that puts a huge disadvantage on the China.
China, yeah, I was trying to remember if that was what the
region was called. But so I, I I think that it
should be a global release. I really don't understand why
it's not other than like, so you only release like you put one
day. I think that's silly.
I think you it's it's a server. You flip a switch, have all of
your teams globally flip a switch at the same time.
That doesn't seem hard to me because I also know coding and I
understand how servers work. All of these are things that I
really deeply understand. So yeah, it's it's easy.
Just whoop, you're done. They have them for classic.
Classic Wow has global releases of the right, so.
Yeah, I I mean. Technology doesn't exist.
Yeah, yeah, I, I, I think it should be global.
I think it's silly. And The thing is that if it
doesn't make a difference, then like people will stop
complaining about it. No offense shot.
So I am not an engineer, but having a having the servers of
classic go live at the same time, which is a which is
predominantly code that has been around for a significant period
of time and has had way longer to work through issues is
different than pushing pushing the latest codes that they do
for untested bosses and so forth on to on to live servers.
That said, I think the closest analog would be Final Fantasy,
which we brought up the last time and we have since learned
that Final Fantasy goes down for a couple of days when they move
into different patches. So if you guys are fine with
that so that they make sure that everything is far more stable,
have the time to test it before things go live.
I think that yeah, like as long as people don't start going like
Blizzard, the servers have been down for more than a day.
Give me a month free. I think that that would be OK.
I've obviously the issue for it would be like, what time does it
go live? Are we doing it in the middle of
the work day for EU or NA or what time does that work out to
Australia or if they do it in the the Chinese, Chinese servers
as well, Chinese servers being completely separate from like
Korean servers and Southeast Asian the servers which is a
different region of the of itself.
All of those are are things that it could be done.
I just think that it is a matter of like how officially they're
supporting the race to world first, because there's always
going to be the question of advantage.
There's always going to be where Lex, you were saying like, oh,
these earlier bosses, they're often like cripping off each
other's notes. And it's not until they go dark
that like really it is like their, their, their progress.
There's also the fact that like some of the teams that get to
bosses first are doing the quote UN quote NA testing where
there's a question of like, when do you push the hot fix?
Are you waiting for echo to conclude it's rate day method to
conclude it's rate day liquid to conclude their array day or go
on lunch break to then push these hot fixes?
Because that's the next hurdle there as well.
So when exactly the the servers go live, when exactly the raid
opens up or, or different questions as well as these hot
fixes as well as all the different systems that people
use the farm gear to go into these things.
Because like let's say the servers go live independently of
the raid going live. Both of those are now a factor
as well, so it's definitely a more complicated question.
Even if you don't take the technical ability of putting a
server worldwide. Servers live synchronous at the
synchronous times, with the same bug fixing of the team that
first takes down any servers, then works on EU servers, then
we're then it's a different team for Chinese service as far as
I'm aware. One thing I will say with the
Final Fantasy, first of all, I, I do think would actually kind
of cool if servers were down for a couple days before release.
Like you had like kind of this blackout and then all of a
sudden it goes live and you all go live together and everyone's
excited and social media is blowing up and it's the coolest
thing that's ever happened. I think that be cool.
That said, as somebody who doesn't play Final Fantasy a
ton, the one thing that I've learned very, very deeply in my
time of playing Final Fantasy is that the Final Fantasy team does
not care about player experience.
By which I mean like all of the little quality of life things.
The fact that the Blizzard store is easy to navigate if you've
never navigated the Final Fantasy Mughal store.
Every time I've had to buy something there, I've wanted to
throw my computer out the window.
And then once when I was getting an expansion, literally like it
wasn't, I didn't remember that I purchased on Steam instead of
purchase directly through Final Fantasy.
And so I bought the wrong code, which is insane.
And I emailed their team and I was like hey I bought the wrong
code can you guys just like refund it so I can buy the other
one? It's unused.
And they were like no buy 2 little things like that.
I just, I'm not surprised. The Final Fantasy's team is
like, oh, it would be much easier for us if we just shut
down servers for a couple days. So we're going to shut down
servers for a couple days, which is like, good for them.
They deserve a good time. That's my little Final Fantasy
right now. OK.
I get. I think I'll give Sean the last
word on this and then maybe we'll talk a little bit more
about midnight stuff. Yeah.
I mean, I don't really have a last word.
I don't I don't buy that it's a logistical issue.
They do expansion launches globally even though the code is
older for a classic. Like of those rains still going
live at the same time. Seasonal discovery rains went
live at the same time. They're not old, they're new.
Yeah, it's a choice they make. It's not it's not due to
limitations, I don't think. Yeah, all of that stuff goes
live at the same time. And the only if and they don't
have to worry about China because Blizzard doesn't
actually do the China stuff. It's all net ease.
And there's actually some talk of China after this race moving
their reset day ahead of day to Wednesday, which would be
Tuesday here, so that they are on the same schedule so that
they have a more fair shot because right now they currently
reset on Thursday. I was going to say, that's super
funny because isn't Nettie's the one that's running the whole
bounty? And like, they could just be
like, Oh yeah, the bounty's getting so big, you guys.
It's so sad that. You just can't.
Compete. Oh, shoot, yeah, it's pretty
funny stuff. We'll see though.
What happens. I mean, like I said, the the
people actually doing the race, you know, every sound bite you
get of them is them saying it doesn't matter.
But if I just lost a race, I wouldn't want to sound like a
bad loser. And if I just want to race
because of head start, I also wouldn't want to sound like I
won the race because of head start.
So I would also probably say it doesn't matter.
OK, but it's a head start no matter how you look at.
But like the EU teams that have won in the past, we have seen
multiple wins from Echo, which is the newest team method.
Back in their day, we're getting getting wins that even when they
won there weren't like, hey, we did it Despite that, like 16
hours head start, yada yada. Yeah, well, no, they just played
so much better than the North American teams.
Your European players, your Europe has a larger player base
and just therefore, because of that, they have a larger pool of
skilled players to pull from. So that's why and North America
just didn't have any competition until liquid really came along.
I guess death and taxes was pretty good back in like, oh, if
you go back way way. But since we're I'm I'm talking
like in the modern day of the race, since it was started,
started being streamed in in old year and I'm certain there's a
BDGG fan listening who will come in and type BDGG, but they never
really had a chance to compete against method at what time.
Day is like pieces. Or does that kill a part of it?
Yeah, pieces would be in there and they pieces won a world
first on who not so they got on, but they're a European as well.
And yeah, I mean for being honest, like 40% of Team Liquid
played from the Netherlands because they're all European
also. So I'm not I'm not standing
North American players. I'm just saying there is a large
pool of exceptionally skilled European players and they're all
time zones are closer, so it's easier for them to sync up.
Whereas North American players, you're on East Coast, you're in
Central, you're on West Coast. It's harder to amalgamate those
great, great players in A1 Guild.
Liquid has done a really good job of recruiting and putting
your team together. They absolutely deserve the win.
I'm not trying to take that away from them, but I think even they
would want to see, you know, a race happen at the same time.
And just to address the, you know, the Oh well, they copy
strats. Every one of those guilds
already has their strats from the PTR.
I interviewed Mary's a couple of months ago, maybe a year ago
now. And I asked him flat out like,
how much do you copy? And he said, we already have our
strats for these bosses before you pull them.
We will see what the other teams do.
And if something like is exceptionally good, they'll
they'll lift it. And that happened.
This race method went on on forge.
Weaver method had a a Strat that used rooting of the.
They would root one set of the small ads and both the other
team and they got there later and when the other team saw what
they were doing afterwards, they started copying it.
Mary said like he was like, it's we're not It's like, you know,
some of the fans are like, oh, they don't even know.
They wait till liquid tells them what to do is we're not going in
there with no plan to take notes on liquid.
They already and these early bosses, they already they've
already killed them on PTR. So they already have strats that
work. It's the later bosses and then
there's not usually an advantage because whoever gets their first
goes dark, who like every whatever team gets their first
goes dark. So yeah, I don't think I was.
Saying mostly it's like it's breakthroughs.
It's like, Oh my goodness, they did this switch and suddenly
like they're getting to phase three-way later.
And then the other teams are like, OK, like we adopt that.
I don't think that, yeah, any of these teams are going in blind
or, or saying like, guys don't look at the Dojo, like we're not
going to look at the dungeon journal to do it.
So there, there's that. But.
I have a hard time talking to North Americans about it because
I find I just have a hard time talking to North Americans
sometimes. It's just a different cultural
mentality on this side of the Atlantic than there is in
Europe. I find Lex is either frozen or
or abhorred that I Oh Billy, it looks like she's.
Tired of your North American smack?
And she decided. And I'm North American, proudly
Canadian. I just.
I don't know. Yeah, you're so Far East coast
you might get adopted by. Is that an option?
Could I get an EU membership by being Will?
Allow people to to vote on that in the Discord.
But while we're waiting for Lex, let's dive into some of this
midnight stuff. We again have a lot of
information go coming out. So we're going to only cover
some of the details this week. We will follow up and do and
talk about some of the some of the other things.
One of the the things that got fleshed out a lot more after
last episode. We're actually like how you can
play the new races and the new combinations and of course the
new class. So let's talk about that.
One of the big things, of course, is the hair in our race.
That is something that ever since The War Within began,
there has been a lot of people saying like, Oh yeah, next
playable. This is the playable race, why
don't we have it already? And Blizzard has now delivered.
So these are going to be much like our Earthen friends where
we will play through the campaign and that will unlock
them because they were going to their homeland and we have to
convince them to join the war. And of course, once you get to
do that, hey, they're willing to sign up with our faction.
So there it is. As we said last week, they are
able to be warriors, shamans, hunters, monks, rogues, druids,
priests, warlocks, and mages. That means that the only classes
that they are missing, of course, are death Knights,
paladins, evokers and demon hunters, which all sort of makes
sense. I actually, I know monks, one of
those Evergreen classes that everybody gets, but I think they
could have skipped monk and it would have been a thing.
Like. I think that would have been
like a That's cool. Yeah.
Because Heronar and this entire world saga is being built out, a
lot of the customizations are actually in the files for the
war within and some community sites have like dug into that to
show customizations to show what could be heritage armour and all
of that. This is a these are pretty cool
customizations. They are of course, the what are
we calling them? The missing link between trolls
and and else. Yeah, I guess so.
They're not quite troll, not quite elf.
They can have tusks, but they also wear shoes.
But I think they have the option to not wear shoes as well.
So yeah, they're like, yeah, a hybrid.
Yeah, they can be just like the Urban Horde or Alliance.
So you can. So regardless of your faction,
you'll be able to play these. That's something that's going to
be good before we get here in our before we even get into
midnight Void Elf Demon hunters are going to be available.
Supposedly with patch 11 point 2.7 you'll be able to unlock
them now. It said that it's available
there, but we also saw an interview that said that it is
during the pre patch, which would be the 12 point O.
I'm more likely to believe pre patch but if they get it to us
sooner I'd be happier for that. Me as well, I just want to go
back to Heron here for a second. We because we got confirmation
on what their ratios are. There was only one person in an
interview that asked all of the interviews they had with the
developers. A single person asked what the
ratios were. They have one that is an active
ability that will either root enemies or it will heal allies.
So it's a root or heel. And then they also get a fast
travel using the world tree roots.
So very similar to the mole machines from dark iron dwarves.
So those are two of their their ratios that are coming which the
rooting and like the the extra root and the heel could be
really nice, especially since they can be druids.
I'm not super keen on the fast travel because those tend to be
gimmicky things that they add on one expansion for a couple of
zones and then get fallen off to the wayside.
Much like mole machines, which in my opinion should have had
some spots in Undermine or Beeps or anywhere underground, you
know. But yeah, I think I want to know
land. There is a mole machine in Ole
land. I don't know how that works
contextually. But OK.
Yeah, exactly. The wonderful thing is those
mole machines. I just wanted to go make sure we
covered that off on Arity. Yeah, no, I'm glad I I missed
that. And again, there's a lot of
information that is out there. I, I always don't think that the
healing racials will ever be that good because they always
water them down so that they're never good.
The change that they did with the Drni healing, just in my
mind, that was a nail in the coffin.
Just give me like a little bit of damage.
I guess the utility of the roots is it might be something, but
how often does that matter in a raid?
So I'm basically looking at that for Mythic Plus.
Yeah, OK. But as you said, going back to
demon Demon Hunter, the void elf that's going to be available as
a short storyline that you'll be able to do so that will allow
you access to demon hunters as a void elf.
The new spec are devourer spec that's going to be available
without a storyline. If you are a Demon Hunter
already, you don't have to suddenly be like, OK, now I've
got to learn this new thing. And that is looking pretty,
pretty cool. Like have you seen the little
video where they did a short showing is showing these
abilities? Yeah, yeah, I have.
I think it'll be neat. I guess it's a new spec, so it's
going to be broken and overpowered.
Will it be fun? Well, everybody likes when their
damage numbers are high. Just ask the right paladins.
So yeah, I don't know. It doesn't speak to me.
I'm I'm intermediate ranged spellcaster doesn't really speak
to me. I I'm interested because again,
this is something that we had speculated oh, what happens when
they add in a new spec? Now we know they have broken
apart the hero talents so we have Vengeance which will no
longer have access to Felsgard. Felsgard is now actually shared
between Havoc and the the new spec Devourer and has been
renamed Scarred because Devourers don't use Fel.
So now it is Scarred and then Devourer will share a new talent
hero talentry called Annihilator with vengeance Demon Hunter and
vengeance Demon Hunter and devourer.
This new annihilator speck is themed around bringing down
meteors or comments on a down onto your enemies.
And that I think seems really cool for vengeance and I and I
guess for devourer, I get I'm kind of with you that this
devour spec isn't really speaking to me, but like I do
love vengeance and I do think that vengeance bringing down
like an entire meteor down upon like a bunch of people seems
really cool to me. So I'm happy about that.
But for people asking, like in chat multi is asking the horde.
The Horde is not getting another race that will have access to
Demon Hunter. Right now it is just Void Elves
that are getting access to it. But they did say something
interesting and I, Lex, I'm going to let you jump in and
talk about this. I'm back just for this.
Yeah. So in the interview they said
something like, now I know it feels like the Horde is off
balance here, but it's not the end of the trilogy.
Don't worry you guys, there's more world soul.
We'll be equalling it out. So it does seem like there's
something exciting in the pipeline.
Yeah, I don't actually, I heard that quote.
I don't think that means they're getting another race for Demon
Hunters. I think it means that they're
getting another race class combo other than, you know, troll
Demon Hunters. So that's yeah, yeah, I don't
know, because people, a lot of people were pointing at night
born, like, oh, just give them Night born.
That makes sense. They're just like night dolls.
I was like, well, no. Yeah, yeah, I definitely agree
with that. I do think it's strange because
a lot of the most restrictive classes they've opened up, like
Death Knights are basically every class except for the
latest 2 that they've added, right?
Shamans have been opened up pretty well because every time
they add in a new race, they're allowed to be a shaman.
Does this mean we're looking at like or paladins or something
along those lines, which would be strange, but like I'm, I'm
thinking about like what are the more restrictive classes that
have the least amount of races that can do it?
And I I honestly think that it is something along the lines of
Paladin at this point. Yeah, it's got to be I think.
I think it has to be Paladin. Seen undead paladins as an
option. I think that would be cool.
I feel like especially after watching the trailer and seeing
what we're being told is the army of the light that has fully
expunged itself of all non human members, non human male members.
OK, yeah. I feel like that we're heading
towards, you know. We're going to be getting a
place. The Army, the lights.
Go to a dark place. It makes me so angry, like, oh,
it's there. It's clearly they're on the end
of the light. Like what?
Not a single hoof. Not a single hoof in this group.
Yeah, it was disturbing, and it's something that maybe we
could talk about more in a lore episode.
But like, I do think that there are reasons for it.
I don't think it was just like they're like, yeah, or you're
like we'll just do a bunch of armor clad men and let's leave
it at that. We but we will come back to that
because I do think that it is odd that there was like not much
of a female presence. Anywho, there's of course a lot
coming for different races and stuff that isn't like
headlining. They talked about trolls getting
new hairstyles and stuff because they're putting that stuff into
the Amani. They didn't say if that is just
the dark spare OG trolls or if that also includes the
Zandalari. Those kind of customizations do
come in quite quickly. We just saw new elves and like
some customizations going to I believe not just OG humans but
also the I was sorry they. Called Kieran with the point of
years. Yeah, yeah.
Right. So they can do some stuff like
that. Maybe they like adjust elf eyes
to to like be closer to the cinematic.
But you know, I don't want to cause a fight out here.
That's his eyes glowing more. I'm so sorry, I'm sorry.
Why is your hand line so high as to the person anyway?
Yeah, I just, I just want to strong draw a line, that's all.
Let's go over to the talents so. I hate men anyway.
We need a. Social We need a social
commentary podcast along with this podcast.
But for now, let's talk about strength of these talents
because as you're going up to level 90, we're getting another
10 talents. But that's not all being put
into one place. These talents are going to be
split between your class tree, your specialization, and your
hero talents as well. As you level up, it'll
alternate, You'll get 3 that go into your class tree by the time
you hit level 90, another three that will be put into your hero
tree as you get up to level 90, and another four that will go
into your specialization for the class tree.
Those points are just free to use things that would have been
harder for you to get before. You might have had to given up
other talents just to path into it or things that like just
generally were like I, I can't spend the point because I've got
too many points that are just locked in.
You're with these just extra points, you're going to have
less of that. You're going to be more free to
get more utility and such in that class tree.
So that's great in the in the hero talents, by the time you
hit the lady, you had already filled up that talent tree.
So what's happening now is that they're adding another lane AKA
column onto that and those three points are going to go right
there and you're going to have a fully specced out here tree with
just that much more power. Finally, in that spec tree,
you're getting 4 points, and those can go pretty much
anywhere you'd like. But they've added Apex talents,
and these Apex talents are one per specialization with four
points that you can put into that into that talent point.
The first point that you put into there is going to do
something massive, and the last point that you put into there is
going to do something impactful. The two points in between from
the examples that we've been given are something passive, but
still something strong. So the example of the new
Devourer, Devourer Demon Hunter, they have a talent called
midnight as their apex talent. And the first point, it turns
your finisher collapsing, collapsing star to always
critical hit. So you'll be guaranteed the
critical hit, and then the next two points, which are the
passive stuff, increases your damaged school.
In the case of Devourers, it's cosmic damage by a percentage
that increases right as well as causing you to increase your
crit damage based on your crit percentage.
So now while you that crit might have been worthless to this
ability, now it's going to further increase your damage.
This is similar to I believe warlocks and their chaos fault
where you're we're at one point the crit, the crit actually just
increase the damage of your chaos fault.
And then the final one, when you put all four points in there is
that when you pop your void meta, you will immediately get
enough resources to do your Collapsing Star.
And this is really good because one, you've been putting all
these points into making Collapsing Star that much
better. But two, Collapsing Star is an
ability that the more you do it, the stronger it gets.
And it's only available in your Demon Hunter form.
So being able to start that chain immediately is actually
quite strong for this spec. And so that's what they want.
They want these talents to be very alluring stuff that you
really want to put in. And it's unlikely, though it's
not impossible, that you're going to want to put your points
anywhere else you. Can though they did make it
clear that you are allowed to do that.
You don't have to do the Apex talent and you don't have to put
more than one point into it. And I'm a little curious how the
tuning's going to work, if it is going to be so overpoweredly
strong that everyone's going to put an Apex or if they are going
to make that a little bit on the table.
Like, yeah, this one like it's, it's good.
But you could probably also just get, you know, more things at
your bottom row and and also get some, I think God.
I think it's going to be definitely one of those things
that it is spec by spec. There might be ones where it's
just like, yeah, it doesn't matter whatever whatever content
you're doing, this is worth it. There might be ones where it's
based on the content you're doing.
It might not be that good in like single target versus AOE
versus PvP and that sort of stuff.
And I think that's that's something that you can do for
whatever specs, like if the collapsing star is purely single
target ability, which I don't believe it is right, you may not
want to dump all those points into it for mythic plus, instead
favoring something that that does better for AOE.
Kind of looking way further ahead than I should.
I would love that if in future expansions they just add other
apex talents where you're like, oh, do I want this one or do I
want this one? It's kind of become something
that could conflict with hero talents, but like I I think that
that's a balancing issue for them.
Yeah, it's something to be said for the fact that they're
putting in all these Evergreen features, but there's a risk
they're going to run into the reason that they weren't always
putting in Evergreen features, which is that if every expansion
you put in an every Evergreen power feature, all of a sudden
you have a lot of power feature. So I'm curious.
I'm also curious how they're going to balance that overall.
I wouldn't mind mutual exclusive Apex talents and stuff like
that, just like give us more options, allow us to go wider
instead of constantly making it longer and more more you're
putting in. But yeah, that that is future
developers problems. Not my issue.
John, what do you think? I don't know, we're probably 3
patches away from saying, hey, listen, we heard you.
We tried the talents, but they're just sort of too deep
and too varied and too complex. And we're going to simplify it
down into just specific items that you get at each level.
And then we'll be looking at like the Legion BFA era class
leveling as Ji don't know. I, I'm going to, I don't really
think it will tell us too much. I'm going to go onto a website,
export the build and import the build and that's going to be it.
You know what I mean? So it's not like it.
None of it really matters to me. I don't agonizingly read through
every single ability and then test them out myself and try
which ones to see which I install the one that I'm told to
install. And that's what I play.
I'll read those talents to make sure that I know I'm playing it
correctly, but I don't. Yeah, it's, and this will be the
same. I'm going to play whether my
Apex talent is good or not means nothing to me.
I'm going to play what I'm told to play, OK?
I have very little exploration in me at this point.
I I mean, I'd love PTR because that's when I can do this most
where I can be like, oh, let me try this and let me try that.
I Sean, you've been on the PTR with me when they did the shaman
re vamp, but I was like, oh, let me try this and let me try this
with that. I think the class tree allows
for the most exploration because of.
The ability, it's like utility and stuff.
It's like I'm not going to be performing subpar damage because
I switched around my utility. And so it's funny that just
having three points in there kind of makes that less of a
thing because it's more likely I'll be able to grab all of
them. I won't be making that
decisions. So I do like that in the
classroom. I do like that in the classroom
that you can like, OK, maybe I don't want to take one minute
sack and instead I want to take double freedom.
Those things when when the impact isn't going to be will my
damage and tanking be affected? And it's just will my quality of
life feel better? Will I feel like I can
contribute more, do something I wouldn't normally able to do?
Sometimes I'll even just take a passive so I don't have to take
an active ability. The debt, my class tree.
You're supposed to run Soul Reaper and it is damage
increase, but it's one extra key bind and it's just like, I just
don't want to. I'm not playing this guy at a
competitive level. I just don't want to have an
extra button I have to press and track.
So I'm just going to take icy talents.
Leave me alone. Yeah, I do kind of think that
World of Warcraft has a little bit of a complexity issue.
I was saying this when we were talking about single button
rotation. That kind of my take away from
that is that I think the rotations are just a little too
complicated and we probably could parse them down pretty
significantly. And I absolutely feel that way
about talents. I look at the like, I open up
the talent trees and I am like, oh, maybe today I'll be creative
and I'll try to figure out how to do something.
And within like 2 clicks I'm overwhelmed and I've broke my
entire tree and I'm having like a mental breakdown and I'm like
This is why they give me important strings.
I have not touched a talent tree since we got the import strings.
It is. It is far too much.
It's funny. That'd be creative.
Actually, no, I'm. Like I'll just pull from this
place over here and then all of a sudden none of my bottom
talents are accessible and I'm like, OK.
Yeah. My bad.
I'm just picturing Monty Python. Let's go to Camelot.
It's a silly place. Let's not go oh wow, that is
perfect. Oh, OK, all right, I, I do
really love what you can shift around your talents.
It is different for different classes for sure.
Some some classes they're like bottom row is or like parts of
the bottom row. It's just oddly not viable and
Shaman, enhancement shaman is not like that and has not been
like that for like pretty much all of Dragonflight.
And I'm really happy about that. I know elemental is really
loathing part of it. So it is different from spec to
spec, but being able to like shift those talents and then how
you play based on like raid council and so forth, I think is
one of the strengths of Wow. Even if you are just using
import strings to be like, I'm going to flex this way.
Being able to be like, oh, no, because I remember before we had
talents like this level of talents and it would be like,
oh, we're doing the single fight.
I need to change specs because this this spec cannot do single
talent or this spec cannot do AOE, and having the ability to
flex that at least a little bit to be viable in those situations
I think is a just like the reason talents are are so good
right now. That's fair, and I do also feel
like before this, when I think about it, genuinely, it did feel
like a lot of patches and expansion, especially there was
at least one person in the Guild who is like, well, I guess I'm
rerolling because everything that I love about my spec was
just taken for me. And I feel like I've heard that
a lot less now that there is that flexibility in talents.
So, and I, I guess that is potentially the other argument
that if the, the, the ideal is that World of Warcraft has the
ability for complexity and also the ability to be simple, right?
If you want to play around with your talents and figure out
exactly how you feel, you do that.
If not, you go to row head. If you want to figure out your
entire rotation, get a perfect, you do that.
If not, you do the single button rotation.
Like there is that ability to play both.
Yeah. So I think that there is a funny
thing about the single button rotation.
The more you understand the limitations of the single button
rotation and your talents, the better you can spec your your
talents to take advantage of the single button rotation and not
get hit as hard by that penalty. Like if you do a lot more stuff
that's hard casting, if you do a lot more stuff that avoids that,
like GCD Incursion, you might actually get better performance
than somebody who this follows the guide and then does single
button rotation right. If you're like, I actually, I'm
going to stop at this haste break point because that's now
going to start clipping into this or and I'm going to get
this other stat, you actually would perform better.
It's a very funny thing when I was talking with a a theory
crafter, that's like, actually we might start doing a single
button rotation gearing strategy, which is not something
I'd ever considered when we were talking about the single button
rotation. Wait until those builds start
out performing the non single button rotation builds.
It's going to be a nightmare. Wait.
OK, so I'm going to pass this over to you, Lex.
This is I think something that you have been loving.
So go ahead. It is outdoor content season,
babes. We are getting so much exciting
new stuff, so we are seeing a lot of different ways the the
goal of the game right now, the philosophy that they're saying
is they want to provide a lot of different activities for
different players. The one that I am the most
excited about, obviously, because I've been talking about
it very excitedly since we learned about it.
The last episode is Prey, so we got a little bit more clarity on
how the Prey system is going to work in general.
So you go to Murder Row, you talk to the guy who likes to
torture Naru, whose name I've already forgotten, and he gives
you a target. They.
And then the target is in the the different zones, right?
It's supposed to be unpredictable.
I I'm going to make a confession and maybe one of you 2 can save
me. Or maybe this is simply how it
is. I'm kind of still confused about
how exactly this is going to work.
I still don't feel like we've gotten harsh clarity like they
they're talking about like you're getting ambushed by your
guy, but then also like you're finding tracks and it seems like
there's multiple encounters. And I, I personally, when I was
listening to the interview, I felt like it was remaining a
little fuzzy. I still honestly, for example, I
know it's a weekly set. I don't know that I know for
sure how long it will take. So I go ahead, John.
The the way that I heard it described from someone who was
at games.com is similar to the mall.
When the assassins in the mall would randomly attack you,
you'll be doing your other daily activities, herbing, fishing,
world quests, whatever. And then you're going to get
jumped and it could happen multiple times or will happen
multiple times. And then the final time is when
you you get the kill or whatever.
That's how they described it was that that I don't remember if
that had a name from the MA, but with the jailer's eye, like this
was season 1 of of shadow lands. The jailer's eye would like
randomly send assassins after you to try and take you out if
your thing was too high. So that's what I think you're
going to sign up for this thing and you're going to randomly get
it's going to be like getting PvP ganked, but by an NPC.
You're out in the world. OK, I think that's one system
that I didn't really play with a ton, so I think I didn't even
realize there was that like connection.
OK, so that actually makes more sense.
And that makes me feel better that they're not pulling this
entirely out of thin air. And this is based in.
Yeah, oh, that was awful in the mall so.
Yay. Like, yeah, like they, like, it
could have been really bad if you were, if you were early in
your gearing experience, if you were already just like surviving
whatever you were dealing with, and then the assassin jumped to
you. And I think that's supposed to
be the tension that they're giving you, especially on the
higher difficulties. It's like, you better be
prepared. This is when you pop your
cooldowns and try and survive and that sort of thing.
But part of it is that the number of encounters, like how
exactly these things are going to operate is supposed to be
something that you don't know immediately.
At least until like one of these community sites throws out the
guide and says when you take this one, they will they will
jump you on a cooldown of X and they will have this.
So like it is supposed to be something that adds a little bit
of suspense to your otherwise like general outdoor activities.
They did say that these enemies can jump you anywhere.
Remember when we were talking last week?
I was saying, Oh yeah. Like, so that means that when I
want to actually do fishing or something, I'll just stay out of
the area that this guy will jump me in.
And apparently it that doesn't matter.
You could be in like the void Storm and suddenly this Almani
trolls like I've travelled across the Galaxy to get you and
yeah, you'll just have to reconcile with that.
It is from what I saw. It is like what Sean said where
like you'll randomly get this, like, oh, you're, you're dealing
with me now. And then you'll get them to a
certain point and they'll run away.
Think like the Nemesis when you're in a Delve where suddenly
they'll pop up, they'll fight you for a little bit and then
they'll they'll run away. So it has been used now
repeatedly in in World of Warcraft.
And I think that should be OK. I just don't know what the fail
state is. Is it like when same thing with
those where like oh you'll get jumped by the nemesis and
whether you beat them or or lose you'll still move on to move on
or is it that like oh you've lost so Nope you got to wait for
them to ambush them again. You have to beat them X amount
of times before you can do the final encounter.
Or do you become the hunter for somebody else?
When you lose, you get trapped into this contract with Bourne
Zombie, and now you have to track down somebody else who's
just doing their fishing. That would be so cool.
That would have made it for PvP. And for PvP.
Oh yeah, I don't like PvP. You're right, man.
Put it in. PvP mode.
Imagine the person who's your prey just like doesn't log on
for the week and you're like where did they go?
From where where did they? Go here, you just stuck in
purgatory with Bourne Zombie, which wouldn't be so bad.
I love Bourne Zombie, but you love it.
OK, yeah, so that's very helpful.
That makes me feel a lot better that because because it felt
very nebulous. I was like, is this done?
Like, do you guys actually know what we're doing?
But maybe it's just nebulous. Maybe sometimes things are just
kind of weird. They have told us a lot more
about the difficulty levels. There's normal, heart and
Nightmare to answer a question we had in the last episode.
Normal is public you still it's your prey, so you don't have to
worry about like other people killing it for like for you
before you can target it, but other people can help you, they
can see it and they can assist you on hard a nightmare.
It's going to be a 1V1 and it also is going to have torments.
So things that are going to make it more complicated and more
difficult. And presumably they'll either
stack or they'll be more difficult a nightmare than in
hard. So we we got our levels.
We have. So in the interview they said
that during games com so we're really getting flash moments.
They determined that they were going to make prey contribute to
the world tier row. Yeah, the world tier row of your
great Vault and it could get you up to heroic.
So you will be getting gear. My understanding is only through
vault the way that it was that I understood that interview.
You're not going to like get gear dropping when you're
killing the guys, but you you will get gear at the end of the
week. So there is a power reward, but
it is primarily cosmetic that you were doing this for.
And Nightmare is supposed to be like a little bit below the
final, like the the big final boss delve of every season.
But it's still supposed to be hard.
It's supposed to be at like getting close to those levels.
So it's actually going to be complicated.
It's going to be fun. It's going to be this harder
open world content, but you get to choose it as you people don't
get to complain that it's too difficult because then just
choose easier. And I'm sure people will find
things to be unhappy about, but that's OK.
We're going to have a good time. We're going to pray and we're
going to kill things. How are you guys feeling about
this? How is anyone else excited for
praying? I'm conflicted about the the
loot. It's just too heroic.
So like we had a discussion in the discord about how quickly
we're outgrowing certain rows in the vault, so it's just too
heroic. So I don't think this will
bother me past like week two of a of a season as an alternative
to doing delves. I think that like, you know,
more variety is always good for people who who want to do that.
I just question if this is a weekly and like, let's say you
want to fill out that row, can I do like 3 hunts to fill up the
three rows? Is it going to be that I have to
do X amount of hunts? How quickly can I conclude
hunts? There's there's a lot of
questions now about like how much of the vault and how
quickly I can fill up that that vault row with the hunts are.
And because of the random nature, if it's Monday and I
pick up a hunt, am I like actually going to be able to do
it in time? So there's a lot of questions
when it stops, when it ceases being cosmetic, when it gets
tied to these sort of schedules that pop up from this.
And so as soon as they they did this, I was just like, and
here's the next 20 questions. So yeah, I don't know.
I don't know. Yeah, my my guess is so first of
all, just to to again restate, they kind of pulled this
respectfully out of their butt, right?
This was something that they even themselves admitted they
altered course on during games com.
So they, I think don't know how exactly they're going to put it
in. I think this was just kind of a
like conversation. They were like, oh, that's
actually a really good point. I guess I could contribute to
the vault. My guess is it's going to be 1
tick. You get 1 possible chance.
So you will get one box filled in your great vault.
If you want more than that one box, you go do delves.
Because I again, I don't think they really want this to be a
gearing thing. I think that that's why they're
choosing not to have gear dropped and it could be wrong.
I'm not coding it. I don't know anything, but I I
don't get the vibe that they want this to be a thing where
you are like this is your weekly gearing.
I think they want more of oh cute one Victoria.
I got a QP salute. That's not how I'm going to gear
for the week, but I feel good about it.
Can I put you in a hot seat for a second?
Yeah, totally. OK so if this contributes to
your vault but you can only do 1, does that then make it the
equivalent to doing 4 dels for the last slot, or only the first
slot? And now I have to do 7 dels to
get to the last slot. I think it's the seven dels.
I think. I think they want this.
I could be wrong again, I first of all, I'm confused as we have
determined. I'm confused about all this
news. I'm especially confused about
the prey. So I I am not saying this with
any sort of like strong confidence.
My vibe is that this is meant to be like like really minimal like
I think this is going to count as one delve right?
This will and I think, OK, I'm going to feel really, really
stupid the first slot of. The.
Vault. You only need to do one thing to
get it right. Yes.
Yeah, I know what my fault looks like.
This. Is the first slot.
First slot is 2 delves in the world content.
OK, yeah, so and the first raid slot is 2 raid bosses as well.
Yeah. So, so if they just make it
count as a Delve, then it's just do one of these, do a Delph, it
could just count as a Delph, right?
Yeah, then that's what they do with most world content.
Like for example, if you do like the theatre troupe right now, it
counts as one delve. So like it will pop up like
it'll it'll get you somewhere, but it's not you're not going to
like clear a row just with that. So we're getting a little gear.
If you are like, I'm an open world gamer and that sucks.
I don't like pray this is stupid.
That's OK. You got more things.
We're doing great. So you also have the Silver Moon
Court, which is meant to be reminiscent of the like Aldores
Grier sort of thing where you're doing Rep balancing.
There's four different factions in Eversong Woods and you'd,
you're all, they each have their own track.
Their tracks have cosmetic rewards.
My I, I was not really, I was a child during Burning Crusade.
So I only know about the outdoors Grier from like memes
and stuff. But my understanding is that you
kind of have to pick a side, right?
Like you can't, You couldn't be full.
Yeah, sick. But like, I'm going to, I'm
going to push back against it because I think that they made
the wrong analogy. I'm going to say that this is
more like the severed threads where you can choose the
general, the the the vizier or the Weaver.
And each of those had their own separate track, but they all
lead towards the the main track. And I say that because with the
advent of war bans and with the advent of everything being done
on your account level, I would hate for the inability to switch
between these. So each week you're probably
going to switch between these just like the silk, the severed
threads or more recently undermine where you would choose
your cartel. I think that that's sorry, I
think that that's more likely in a in a in a war bound thing
because with the Stryers and the Alder I won, they had
professional stuff. So I would always have to pick
based on my profession. But 2 I had alts that I would
have one work on another one and one work on the other.
Batchy. Back then I didn't do alts.
And they were mutually exclusive.
When you wanted to do something with the alders.
Congratulations, you are now hostile with the Scrys.
They're not hostile. Yeah, hostile is is correct.
They weren't at war with you, but they were hostile.
They'd be like, get out of my my neck of the woods and they'd
kick you out of the area of the city.
So you had to choose one faction at the expense of another
faction. Since Shadow Lands, Blizzard's
kind of gun shy about that. So I don't, I don't actually
think that it's outdoor scryers, I think that it is severed
threads or undermine cartels. Well, see, but I feel like it
can't be because those are such easier references to make.
I feel like the fact that they chose outdoor Squire was a very
and also the fact that they are saying the word balance.
They didn't say build your reputations.
They very explicitly said to balance your reputations between
the four different factions. I I, I don't know how it'll
work. It's possible they won't make it
war bound, which I think would probably be the easiest option
is just be like this one is character specific.
Oh, apparently that's not that's not popular with the group.
But I like I, I can't imagine that they would pick the words
they picked and they pick the examples they gave.
If it I, I, I think I mean like based on the way the game tends
to go, I think you're probably like, I, I can see where you're
coming from. And that does seem to fit the
most of how World of Warcraft has been making decisions where
they do kind of give you a like or you can grind it all, have
fun, enjoy yourself. But I would be, I would just be
very surprised based on the words they picked.
But to be fair, I was also like, there have been a few times,
including with the to do a quick little call back single button
rotation that I've been like, no, you guys listen to what
Blizzard saying. They're being very, very clear
about what they want this to be. And I've been very wrong.
So maybe I don't know what Blizzard say.
Yeah, I it's a question. You're right.
They did use the term balance. They, they were very specific
about words like balances and something that that you just
sort of throw out there. I'm I'm interested in seeing
where this goes, but what else do we have for the people who
maybe are not wanting to deal with the court?
We also have the Loa of Abundance.
So this is a gathering sort of adventure where you're going to
go into these caves, It's going to be a fast-paced treasure room
event. You're going to be running
around gathering different things.
You do not have to be a gatherer to do it, but you will get cute
little bonuses. And also it's tied to Zuluman
because again, you're gathering for the Loa of Abundance, but
you can do it anywhere or the the events will occur anywhere,
I should say. So you're able to go in and,
and, and do your adventures and have your good times with
whatever vibe you're doing, which is very exciting.
I don't know, I guess I say that and I don't, I'm not really a
collector and I'm probably not going to do this a lot, but I'm
excited for the people who are happy.
There's the legends of the Harnier where there's gonna be
magical paintings which will uncover bite size, lore, focus,
objective. So you can quickly if you want
to, but they said you can slow down, read tidbits, get deep
into the into the information and and learn a lot through
these events. And then there's the Stormarian
assault. This is going to be a wave
defense and it's going to be a group event similar to like the
soup was the example they gave you will be scored and you will
be scored by yourself and the fighting that you do and also
the way that you're setting up defenses, which I am cautiously
excited about this one. I, I'm really curious how
they're going to pull it off because usually in these sorts
of group events, again, it is a very like you're done within 5
minutes. Like they, they, they've made it
in such a way that you can score the Max and you almost certainly
will, unless you're like playing at 2:00 in the morning.
So I'm curious they they the way that they said it made it sound
like they were going to make it difficult and make it actually
more of a scoring system. I have never seen them do that
for open world content. So we'll see.
Yeah, I mean, with this one in particular, I think you're
right. There's going to be the guy
who's streaming and and AFK and proudly AFK while he's chatting
and everybody else is doing stuff around them.
There's going to be stop laughing.
It could be anybody. I'm in this, I'm in this tweet
and I don't like it. There, there's going to be a
bunch of people who are just running off doing their own sort
of thing. And so like, I don't think you
can really tune it that that high into difficulty.
Like I'm looking at Nightfall and how you, you had to do your
own particular stuff to like actually earn those rewards.
And so like they are doing different things to evolve this
formula a little bit and we'll see.
If you're killing mobs for myself like a sucker.
Like, since the advent of Dragonflight, they have had
these public events, and these last four definitely seem like
public events. Oh, there's a cave up.
Oh, it's the top of the hour. Let's do this.
The Stormarian assault, right? Oh, the lore event is available
for the for the next hour. Let me go, go do that.
I think they're cute, but this is this.
This part of it doesn't seem like anything revolutionary.
It just seems like the next wave of the same things we've been
doing for the last, what, four or five years?
I, I get a little anxious about these now because every single
time they put in some rare recipe or some something that
people need to get from these things.
So people are farming it like every hour on the hour for the
first like X amount of weeks. And then the next patch comes
out, everybody moves on to that and there are a bunch of people
who didn't get the recipe or came in late that are now stuck
trying to do it with the same really low drop chance.
And it just becomes frustrating for them.
I'm hoping they do something to make these a little bit more
Evergreen. They kind of did a little bit of
that in Dragonflight where like they upped what you the quality
you would get out of them at least.
But I haven't really seen that in the war within.
Like, I mean like they did up the quality, but they also made
things so obsolete with the speed of stuff coming out in in
in the war within that. I when was the last time either
of you did like the like protecting the light in hollow
fall? Season 1 when I got Max Rep,
that was the last time. So I mean one way that they did
kind of keep some of these world events relevant in War Within is
they gave them delve keys and then they suddenly switched them
to shards and didn't tell me. And now I have 50 shards I don't
know what to do with in my bag because I didn't realize the
theater troopers shards and I would have done it if I do that.
I knew it was stupid and lazy. But anyway, not that I'm mad
about that. So that is one thing that
they've been doing a lot of. Like that's also, you know, the
only reason I awaken the machine is because I get the weekly
quest and it gives me a delve key and I'm like, OK, sick.
I'll blow 5 minutes on that. So I can see that being the way
that they go about this. And I'm curious to see some of
these like, for example, not to out myself as like a bad World
of Warcraft player, the legends of the Harnier does not speak to
me at all. Like to the point where that is
the one that I did not take any notes on when I was watching the
video. I was like, oh, and then there's
the lore one, which we love the lore ones.
I read the books, but I am and and so I can see some of these
getting tedious as well. And I'm curious how they're
going to do the rewards. I am also curious how they're
going to keep it Evergreen, if it is going to be, you know,
fun, cute little cosmetics, which seems to be what they're
doing with a lot of these. Whether it is going to be things
like dove keys and and potential benefits, whether it's a mix of
them, who knows. And I am curious, especially for
the ones like the Assault, which is a Group One, how much there
will be like how much I actually will have to care about my
fellow players. Yeah.
So we will have to see. I'm glad that they are putting
some attention into the open world stuff.
All of these things you could be doing and then suddenly your
prey can come across you. So there is that.
We will see how Legion Remix goes because I would love to see
the world tier difficulties be something that is fun.
And then maybe after that, adopted.
And yeah, before we go any further though, Sean, we happen
to have a new supporter over on Patreon.
Oh snap, nobody told me I don't have a thing.
But I will say a special thanks to Aphrodon and all of our
Patrons for Azeroth. We'll always be free, but if you
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Patreon at patreon.com/F AZ. And if you don't want to do
Patreon, just come hang on the Discord at Bit dot LY slash fast
Discord. We're always in there.
We're hanging out and I'm basically Tinkerbell.
I require applause to live, so please come spend some time with
us. OK, with that said.
Right. I mean a little bit, a little
bit. With that said, I do want to
talk about quickly the revamped levelling process because they
did cover this off and go and went through it.
Assuming that if you're listening to this show, you're
actively playing and this won't be of much value to you, but you
can get some friends to come back.
You can entice a new player and this is sort of what they're
going to be going through. So they still have the Exiles
reach process. You'll go through that as a new
player, or if you just want to, on one of your alts.
That will get you to level 10. From there, you're going into
Dragonflight just like you would today, except that they've
revised the Dragonflight levelling experience.
You'll go through the 1st 4 zones just as you normally
would, but that won't get you all the way to 70.
Instead, you'll complete those 4 zones and then start going
through some of the expansions later patch content, which means
that you're going to fight in the Vault of the Incarnate as
part of a story mode raid. You'll then go into the Zerlak
Caverns again, there will be another story mode raid, go off
into the Emerald Dream and Ameritracil and go up against
Fire Rack as part of the final part of the of the story, the
expansion, and that will get you to level 70.
From level 70 to 80, there is going to be an abridged version
of The War Within. I think I've said it a couple of
times that I feel like the story for The War Within has sort of
wavered and gone all over the place.
Is that time? Well, now they've got the Cold
Notes version of it, taking something that they said would
have taken dozens of hours and compacting that into something a
lot more streamlined, getting you to level 80, which is when
you will step in to midnight with everybody else.
These revamped stuff are coming before we start midnight.
So if you want to do this revamped version of the war
within as a refresher that they said they're allowing players to
do that, I think that's that's pretty cool that they're doing
this abridged version. They had said that like dragon
fight was going to be their jumping off point for new
players. And this definitely makes it
feel like the new era. Hey, let's get you up to up to
date. If you are a returning player,
they have something else for you.
They have this scenario where you are going to have your quest
log hidden away. Don't deal with the stuff in
your inventory and all of those items.
Instead, you'll have this scenario where you'll be with
Thrall and Jana and it'll reintroduce you to to the game.
That includes a tutorial that will make sure that you're
learning about like what you should know at this time,
including an interrupt tutorial. Oh, that is so good.
There are so many people in pugs that I want to be like vote into
the scenario, but they, they have that.
I think this will become the new pug slur.
Have you done this and have you done the interrupt tutorial?
But if you feel that you already have the handle on things and
you're like, OK, you know what? I'm I'm caught back up to speed.
You can drop out of this scenario at any time and then
jump back into the into the game.
And that at that point it restores all the stuff, gives
you appropriate gear for whatever level you're at when
you drop out of scenario. So that's a lot of stuff that's
good to get people back into the game or get new players up to
speed and playing along with us. And I really do like that.
I hope they let excuse me sorry, I hope it's late.
I hope they let non returning players opt into these like
short and story modes because I think they will be neat to get
Blaster the story of Dragonflight or Blaster the the
abridged story of the war within where I don't have to do this
eco Dome be quest that makes me want to throw my computer out a
window. Dude, don't do that.
You can ship the computer over to me.
My computer's a little a little rusty.
That said. Yeah, will my prey attack me in
the interrupt tutorial? That actually is the interrupt
tutorial. Yeah, it's it's just like, oh,
actually we're going to throw one of the hardest world bots in
the game at you alone. It's on Nightmare.
You're you're, you're doing this thing.
They're like interrupt. You don't interrupt and then
your, your praise says you idiot and then start stabbing at you.
That's the the failed case, but that's that's all for new
players and returning players, which is which is going to get
you caught up for midnight. We did also get a lot of
clarification about the raids because we were talking about
that last episode and looks like we just need to wait a couple of
days for them to actually tell us what the hell is going on.
Sean, I'm going to give this one to you.
Yeah, the news delivery from games.com has been a massive
casserole of nonsense. It's been so scattered and
difficult to track things down. There's live footage like
fireside chats on stage that just don't exist anymore.
They were live streamed and the Vods are gone and you can't find
them. It's just wild.
I don't understand. Maybe.
Anyway, I was going to say something snarky about layoffs.
I'm not going to do that. It's just been very difficult to
get news from games.com, but we got some news on the raids.
So as we mentioned, there are three raids that are coming at
the start of the tier. 2 of them are launching at the same time.
So the Void Spire, which is the 6th boss raid and the dream rift
which is the one boss raid. Those are both launching at the
same time. Now let me walk you through the
launch pattern. So expansion goes live on
February 9th. That date is not confirmed.
That is a Sean prediction. Lock in February 9th raid goes,
the expansion goes live. 16th the latest February 9th
expansion goes live. We have one week of doing our
quests, vibe and chilling. I guess technically the 9th -3
days for early access or the 6th.
February 6th, early access starts February 9th.
Everybody doesn't have early access, gets to play.
You're vibe and you're chilling. A week goes by, you're doing the
campaign, you're getting all your blood off transmog, you're
faction changing, you're cursing.
You know how the launch was buggy or you're saying how the
launch was great? We don't know, nobody knows.
You can't believe you need a 9000 series X3D CPU now to run
midnight. Anyway, that week goes by, then
the raid launches. Once the raid launches we get
Heroic week. So that's a week where Normal
and Heroic are both open when Heroic week ends.
So normal and heroic. And that will be Void Spire and
Dream Rift when Heroic week ends.
This is now the third week we will get Mythic Void Spire and
Dream Rift. Now here's the issue.
The information they gave us was that the March of Quo de Nos,
which is has heavy lore implications will launch a few
weeks. They said two to three weeks
after Void Spire. Now is that we don't know if
that's two to three weeks after heroic week or if that's two to
three weeks after Mythic week. OK, sorry.
We're not entirely sure that there will be a heroic week.
I wish I had the exact no, no locked in.
They did lock in. I from what I had heard from one
again, somebody says something and then there's another
interview. There was a question directly
asked to them, will there be heroic week?
And one of the interviews that I saw, they said we're not sure
yet and he leaned towards no. And so if you're saying they
locked in, then all right. Yeah, Ian locked it in, he said.
You know, start of an expansion means we're bringing back Heroic
Week because you don't have that power gained from the previous
week. Yeah, Heroic Week definitely
exists. That's 100%.
Does it, does it exist for all of the rights then if we're
going to do staggered raid releases?
Well, only two of the raids will get Heroic Week Void Spire and
Dream Rift because they're launching together.
March of Kel de Nos Quel de Nos won't get a heroic week because
it's launching mid season or not mid season, but after the season
it started. So the question people have is,
is it two weeks after heroic week?
Is it two weeks after mythic unlocks?
When? And they and really it's just
like just give us a date. Please let us know and we will
know. Like right now everybody's in a
tizzy over it because nobody knows any dates.
February 9th, right in the calendar.
Nobody knows any dates, but it's February 9th and all, right.
That's it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna put my lock
in two weeks that you said the 16th, so 23rd Feb 20 third.
There we go. Rob, you're way late.
Sure. But you already said the the
16th, so I had to take the next week out.
Oh. That's right.
Yes.
We don't know what where that's gonna launch.
We're gonna find out. But where this has big
implications is the Race to Rule First, which we started the show
with. And it's kind of nice to bookend
the show with this because the Race to Rule First typically
does on location events and they'll start with heroic week.
Well, if if March of Quel de Nos doesn't come out until three
weeks after heroic week, that means the Raiders are going to
be on location for what, a month, which is a massive cost
issue. And they're the Raiders are not
military personnel. They're not used to being away
from home for long periods of time while deployed.
So it'll be really, really curious to see.
I am expecting that we get more online only race to world 1st
events next season, the start of the start of the race.
Because logistically it'll just make more sense.
And maybe it'll be the case of the first two raids are online
only and then when March of Quel de Nos goes live then they do
like a one week on location for those.
And then the question is well what is the race to rule first?
Is it whoever kills the last boss of Quel de Nos first?
Is it whichever Guild kills more bosses first, like the last boss
of Void Spire and the last boss of Cualdonas, but they lose the
dream rift? It's going to be yeah, it's
going to be wild. Can I all of that, though?
Yeah. Now you don't care that it that
it affects the race of work. You shouldn't because it's
probably going to be really good for the player.
No, I was. I was going to be a hitter, a
Blizzard actually, and I was going to say my take away from
this whole thing is they have lost way too much historic
knowledge. This feels like people who have
not been releasing expansions for years are just like, you
know, we really cool guys. What if we like did the first
cinematic in like this 2 hour long event?
Like, hey guys, what if, what if we like released the raids and
it would OK, Like at first they're like we're all going to
release them together and then they started getting pushed back
and they're like, no, we won't release them together.
We're going to do 1. Like I, I don't know, like 2 to
three weeks after like this feels the the fact that they
changed how they were going to do gear in the middle of a
convention like absurdity. What's that happening?
It feels to me like they they brought back people who used to
work on the game long ago and those people are saying, you
know what was really cool? That we didn't Mop, we had three
raids launched at once. It's going to be epic.
Yeah, that's how it feels to me, is that people that are supposed
to be coming back to be saviors are just trying to recreate the
things that worked for them in The Burning Crusade or Wrath of
the Lich King or miss a Pandaria before they handed the reins
over and left the company and then came back to be our
saviors. That's how it feels to me.
But I don't know. I, I don't, I don't feel like
Metson's making those calls. If Metson was like somebody that
would the, the, the like vague sort of mold that you threw out
there. I'm just saying I also.
Was it a good Metson impression though?
Was the impression good? It wasn't good enough to be
legally inviting, I'll say that much.
I do think, though, that a lot of people have been saying like,
oh, I do miss when they had these, these raids, the layer of
Malthurian or whatever, right? Like they, they were getting
that feedback and they for a while they weren't doing that.
They're like, you know what, fine, first rate of of of a
tear. It doesn't matter as much.
Let's let's do something like this.
And you're right. What's going to count for the
race the world first? You know what Blizzard has said
that they don't design with the race the world first in mind and
people keep saying oh they cater to this group, they cater to
that group, they whatever. You're right, this is going to
be a logistical nightmare for those race the world first
teams. They are more likely going to
have to do do part if not all of this remotely.
And it will depend on like how quickly they can even clear
through the 1st 7 bosses. Because if they are like taking
let's say 12 days to clear through the 1st 7 bosses and
then they've got to pick up and like get to location that like
I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm saying that eats into their
prep time. They want to be re farming this
these raids and stuff getting ready.
We have no idea if there's tear in this opening raids and if so,
which bosses are dropping them. Like there's a lot of things
that could like drastically change things.
What does that mean for the Great Vault for those of us at
home? If Tear doesn't show up in the
raid until the March on Call donos opens up, can I still get
charges in my catalyst before that opens up?
Is it going to drop in the Great Vault before that opens up?
There's a lot of things to even think about there.
So like, I don't know, there's like it's going to be a lot of
questions, a lot of logistical issues for those of us at home,
for those of the people who are doing the race to World first,
There are going to be a lot of questions even about like how
they're doing the reward design in the boss drop tables.
Like, am I going to suddenly have to create a new best in
slot list two weeks later, because now these trinkets are
available and to be ready for this, I should have done the
best in slot trinkets from this raid.
And now that this is opened, well, I've got to start farming
this. I I think that yes, boohoo, race
the world first, but we're all kind of sinking in this Titanic
boat or just enjoying the chaos together.
Not me. I'm on that door.
I'm floating away to fellowship land.
Well, I, I, I do hope that you enjoy Fellowship.
I will complain about it's so little downtime between tears
that I don't get to enjoy other games as much.
I got to, I got to jump on and play peek.
My friend bought that for me and I was like, oh, I really want to
play it. Oh, I can't even raid tonight
because my computer screwed up, but you know, such is life.
That said, guys, we have links to the software download as well
as another couple of interviews in our show notes.
Those are available in the discord at bit dot LY slash fast
discord when this show goes live, and we will be talking
about all say as many of the other systems as we can in
future episodes as well as because news is coming out so
quickly, we're going to have some bonus episodes to try and
get into other details about the upcoming expansion as well.
So look out for for all of that coming towards you in the near
future. And until next time, may all
your hits be quits.