I don't want to live in a world where we are in the, you know,
vanilla and BC days where you were constantly battling for
threat and it was the only thing a tank could focus on was threat
and nothing else. That is not engaging and that's
not fun, Forsaken. For Lord Iran.
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 Horde for Azeroth.
Hello and welcome back to another episode of For Azeroth.
I am one of your hosts Manny AKA Truvilla Manny and of course I
am joined by my 2 Co hosts first introducing Lex.
Lex how are you? I'm.
Great Manny, I have AOTC. Congratulations.
Congratulations to you and Timbermont Tavern.
This will. Work out treating me great.
I dally dead in all the the levels that I care about.
You mythic Raiders, good for you.
Got it. OK, and and what about the the
story mode Raiders? Have we forgotten about story
mode? Like I swear people have
forgotten about story mode You. Can't also forget about story
mode. OK, I mean, well again, all the
modes that you care about I. Did both of those.
Got it. Wait, that means that you're
missing another one? I'm guessing LFR then?
I no, no, you know what? No in all.
No, she said 2. So no, I'm going to go with
normal. And heroic.
I forgot that LFR existed but I have killed Galliwigs and LFR
because it gives you so much rap.
I see. OK, I, I at some point I'm going
to go back and do the raid when it's on like legacy mode.
I just can't be bothered to go through it right now to try and
get to like the Galaggio renowned Track 20 and that it's
no, I'm I'm done with this raid. Moving You're not doing your
weekly farms to keep your renowned track up to date.
No, but Manny. How are you going to get top DPS
against the bosses that you're done with?
I'm assuming you're just done with rating for the season then?
Yeah, yeah, very, very much. And then that voice that you
just heard, of course, was Sean. Sean, hello.
Hello Sir, how are you? I mean I'm OK, but my question
is how is the World of Warcraft treating you?
World of Warcraft has treated me pretty good.
I am deep in my alt arc right now.
It's the postseason. It is alt era, my alt era.
That's right. It's it's famous.
I've heard people talking about the alt era.
I have fallen in love with Paladin again.
Prop Paladin was the first tank I ever played and it is the tank
I have mained in the most tears. But I haven't played it since
Aberyst and I went back. I got me never leveled one up
and geared him up to like a passable level.
But I haven't like really put any effort in since Aberyst.
I've been playing with him and I got to tell you, I think I am
ready to start dancing at the Pink Pally Club because it is
just all the rights vibes IE today.
So Divine Toll if you're a protection palate and if you
ever play protection Palate and if you ever watch someone play
protection palate, Divine Toll is the single most impactful and
fun button you can press in the game.
You launch 5 Shields into the enemies, you hear a giant bell
toll, they bounce all over the place.
It's instant snap threat, it's an AOE silence, and you look
like a golden God spewing discs of vengeance from your body.
However, since I haven't played them, a sensitive hero talents
came in to any level that mattered.
I have discovered that Hammer of Light, which is the Templar
ability, is the second most impactful and fun button you can
press in the game. You cast Hammer of Light and
just a rain of golden hammers from the sky # into the enemies
in front of you, crushing your foes before you.
Anyway, Long story short, if there are two scenarios right
now, Scenario one, we have a a Death Knight on our roster, DPS
Death Knight who fills in as our de facto blood tank for fights
where you just have to have those grips.
He's considering swapping off of Death Knight next year.
If he swaps off Death Knight next year, then I'm going to
play Death Knight to fill that role.
But if he stays on Death Night next year, I will be returning
to Paladin and I will be a golden, shining beacon of
righteousness and vengeance tearing my way through the
dungeons. I can't wait.
Hey, Warcraft's going well. I mean, I love the enthusiasm
while defending you today. I had to be like, he's hedging
his bets. He just wants to see where
things land. That's why he's doing all these
different paladins every other day.
So I'm glad that I caught you on your paladin love.
I hope that continues through into the next patch.
But yeah, I mean, you know, it's a or sorry beyond the next patch
next year rather. But before we get to that next
patch, we do have sorry that X tier, man.
Well, that was my segue screwed up.
Before we get to that next tier, we've got another patch coming
through, which is 11 point 1.7. And to sort of wet our palate
for what is coming next week, we got a short story.
This was a faith in flame. I gotta say that like I'm really
glad they put it in an audio form so that I could just sort
of listen to it as I went went through.
It is it's kind of a three-part. You have one part.
That was the short story that we got ahead of the war within,
which dealt with Ferran going through the Arath, the Arathi
and that entire thing or not sorry, not Farin, but rather
that was when Thrall and Jana went went through there.
And now we have Farin, who is getting ready to go back to the
old world with with our heroes and that will lead into the
story of 11 point 1.7. So I've got to ask you guys,
what are your general overall impressions?
On go. First you want me to go for?
I enjoyed it. I also listened to the audio
format. I found the voice acting to be
delightful. I really enjoy Fair and Lothar's
voice actor and I thought the story was good.
It's an hour long. I did see that some people
complained it's funny. So I, I was watching a popular
streamer today who often covers lore stuff and talks about a lot
like a lot of the, the video analysis, things like that.
And people in his chat were saying how, and, and also in the
comments of this video, we're saying how they hate the
Blizzard puts lore like this outside of the game.
And the part that I found amusing in that statement was
they were watching a Warcraft YouTube or sorry, Warcraft
streamer talking about this story and complaining that they
had to go out of the story to get out of the game to get their
story. And my thought process is if you
have two hours to watch somebody play Warcraft in the middle of
the day, you have an hour to listen to a short story about
Warcraft in the middle of the day.
But I really enjoyed it. I thought it was good.
I thought it was well done. I liked that they gave us a
glimpse of crochet, crochet and Thornton's ancestry and how the
arathe sort of came about. And I liked that it gave us a
little bit more, a little better understanding of who Fahren was.
But before you tell us what you think of the story, Lex, what
did? What are your thoughts on?
I'm pretty sure you're going to say you love it because you're a
big book nerd like me, but what are your thoughts on Warcraft
implementing story aspects outside of the game?
Oh, I think it's, I mean, I think it's important that they
don't make it so you expect to know it in the game.
I think it does lead to the, the lore being kind of overly, not
overly per SE, but it's, it's very different.
So for example, the story of what's her name, I literally
pulled crochet. I honest to God don't know if I
was supposed to know that already.
Like I, I don't know if that was new in the story at this point.
If you tell me like a World of Warcraft story, I'm like, that
was probably in the comics, like I, you know.
So I think it does make it so that if you are not obsessed
with World of Warcraft 4, you are not going to know the whole
story. But the flip side is it means
that the war, the lore gets to become significantly deeper than
what you can learn in the story. And I think that's really good.
I do, I think I'm even on record on this podcast.
They're getting better about this.
I think early on in World of Warcraft, the team had a habit
of hiding anything that could be described as woke in the story.
So that I think they knew that the people who are going to care
about that stuff, we're going to be like the Lornerds and the
people who were going to hate that stuff overall, we're not
going to read the stories. And so they can't read.
Yeah, exactly, because they can't read.
So they could kind of make everyone happy.
Where if you were going to hate the fact that there were gay
characters in World of Warcraft, you would probably never
encounter them. And if you were going to yell at
World of Warcraft for not having gay characters, they could say
no. Look, we put it in the book.
And I thought that was a little cowardly, but I mean, whatever,
they gave us gay characters. So what are you going to say?
But I think so I, I'm, I'm picky with my fantasy and this did not
hit the spot for me, which is like, it's fine.
I think it's, I think it's funny to say that they don't like that
this lore is hidden in like outside of the game because I
don't think I learned anything. Like I feel like they just gave
me, you know, 30-5 pages of feelings, which is fine.
You can have 35 pages of like, you know, emotions.
I just, I I didn't feel like I walked out of this knowing
anything more about like I and I think actually Manny did make me
kind of rethink this a little bit when he described this as a
three parter. Because one of my complaints is
I don't feel like there was anything in this story that was
unique that I didn't get out of the voices within short story.
I feel like all it was the same. You know how people are reacting
to Faron Faron and how Faron is engaging with people.
Like all the emotions are identical.
The potential change is I don't there was nothing about crochet.
And I will say I think that the best part of the story was the
children's story in the middle of it, mainly because I think
that the prose was kind of weak. And I think that children's
stories like that can tolerate weak prose.
But anyway, I don't, I, here's the thing, when I dislike
especially fantasy writing, I kind of switch over in my brain
from reading for enjoyment of reading the story and reading
for the enjoyment of being a hater.
And so it probably is not as bad as I'm making it seem.
It probably is not like, it's not like it was that terrible of
prose. It felt like it was that nothing
of like, you know, a story. It's just that within like a
couple pages, I knew that I was not going to like it.
And so then I just started reading it to find issues with
it, which is really fun for me. I had a good time.
You got to love read. You can't hate read.
You got to love read. It was I, I'm.
Picking would you be? Would you be open to listening
to the 1st 10 minutes of the audio version to see if it hits
differently? I I probably should I'm not
usually an audio book girly so but it's it's possible that the
voice actor is is what was missing for me.
And also I want to be clear, these are all personal
preferences. I also, for example, one of the
books that I hate read was Gardens of the Moon, which is
famously one of the best books that like everyone loves the
Malazan Chronicles. And I hate that book.
I hate that book so much. So you are allowed like I, I
don't say any of this. I in fact, I desperately hope
that nobody's going to hear this and either feel bad about liking
the book or like read the story and feel like they should hate
it. I want you to be able to read
this and form your own opinions, and if you love it, please do.
Please love this story. There's nothing wrong with it,
there's nothing bad about it, it's just not the the style of
fantasy writing that I like. Lex likes her fantasy a little
more smutty. Yeah.
Manny, did you? Did you like the short story?
I think that I understand why Lex didn't like it.
Like even listening to the audio book, there were especially
early, there were just some of those sentences that we're just,
I don't know how you even say it like it.
I at first I was like, man, this is a poor reading.
They're fumbling over these sentences.
And then I'm like, actually, I think this is just how it's
written. But it did get better as it went
on. I do think that the the story of
the queen region that is a plant for later on, that isn't
something that I have heard of beforehand.
And it definitely seems like something that might become more
important as we further explore the Arathi Empire, especially
since they're making such a big deal of like she was never able
to find that story again, but it stayed with her.
Like the importance of that story, but she was never able to
find it again. To me that that just screams
that they were taking the hammer of light or whatever and being
like, you must know, this is important, which I was
interested in because like, hey, this is cool, this is important.
But also, again, I don't know what audience they're writing
for because it did feel a little heavy-handed in some parts.
That said, the take away other than that is that they are 100%
shipping Ferren and Anduin that like and so when I look at this,
I I go, I don't think that there was any part in here that you
could miss and feel that you were like hard done by.
I think all of this stuff is going to be reinforced or
reintroduced later on. And I think that's a good place
for transform media like transformat media, cross media,
cross media narratives to be where they can sort of reinforce
parts, introduce parts, reintroduce it later.
Like if we're going through later on and we find that that
book and it's just like a little toy and you and you can read it
or it's just like a book that you come across to know about
that that legend. That would be cool if later on
it is like some things that sort of like lead towards that and
people who have read this are like, Oh my goodness, that's
what it is. I think that is cool.
If later on I need to solve a problem, a puzzle, and it
requires that I knew this, I'm going to have a problem.
Right. So at this point, I don't think
it's made any offense. I do think that the voice acting
that was Paris Blue, who does act Farron did a quite a good
job. I, I think that she has the
energy, she's up, she's uplifting.
I'm quite surprised because when I look through her IMDb and like
some of the other stuff that she's done, she is quite the
range. It is, it is quite exceptional
and I think that when they add in some of the different voices
and the effects to that it, it made the story feel more live
than if I was perhaps reading it half heartedly.
I have done hate reads. They are actually quite
enjoyable to be like I am going to pick this thing apart.
But that's not where I was at with this.
This was just, I'm going to forgive this for its
shortcomings and I think that the on balance, this was just a
nice, enjoyable, quick listen while I was doing other things
as well. Yeah, I, I did my delve shuffles
while I was listening to it, so it wasn't like, but if you do
watch the video, there is some gorgeous B roll footage of the
Arathi high of, of Halifal, Gorgeous, gorgeous B roll
footage. If you're a video editor or a
YouTube for who does Warcraft content, grab some of it for
your videos because it's really, really nice.
Yeah. Yeah, I'll check out the I
should check out the voice acting.
I'm sure that's I mean, the voice actors in the World of
Warcraft tend to be pretty top notch.
So and I didn't like again, there's nothing wrong with it.
It's not like I'm like this was an offensive part of the book
and This is why I hate it. It's just it's 35 pages.
But like, I book is book is a strong word is what I'm trying
to get across. But it just, I, I, I am very
picky with my fantasy and the honestly, there's one reason I
think it's good that the book club never got off the ground,
because I think it would have been me kind of just being a
hater way more than it should have been.
Telling all of our FAZ family that they're wrong for liking.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no no. You are not wrong for liking a
piece of media. You are allowed to have
different opinions as what to what good writing and what
interesting writing means to you.
The joy of the world is that we all get to experience and love
things differently. And if you love this short
story, I'm so happy for you. Like, please do, please love
this short story. Read it, dive into it, feel the
feelings. It can be the best thing you've
got. Like I'm so 100% and like, I'm
not even being like kind of like, you know, in genuine here.
Like enjoy the media that you enjoy and don't let other people
disliking that media make you feel bad about the fact you
enjoy media. Now, is it specifically that I
don't know, just there's times where people say the medium is
the message. If you consume this in a
different way. If this was like a little quest
scenario thing that was in that was in 11 point 1.7 where you
just sort of like met up with Ferron and then it went into
this like, oh, you're the little kid and it it went through all
of that. I think that this is the level
of Warcraft storytelling. Oh yeah.
The only, sorry, I'm going to be very honest, I have not enjoyed
a World of Warcraft novel that was not written by Kristy
Golden. And even then, it's not like
the, like top level of, of writing that I like.
I'm not, you know, there are some writers that I will talk
about for hours. I really like Kristy Golden's
work. I am not trying to like, hate on
her. She's not one of my like, Oh my
God. And this changed my life
writers. I, I, I have.
Yeah. So I think, I think you're,
you're right. I think it's just that it was
not a Kristy Golden story. And so it was never going to be
well, I, I also think the fact that there wasn't really a plot
and it was mostly just you experiencing like the emotions
that Faron was having in this moment made it like, that's a
really hard story to write. And if you want to write like
if, if you don't have the the fall back of telling an
interesting story and you just have to focus on the feelings
and the emotions that are going on.
Your prose has to be flawless. It has to be interesting and
engaging without being too fluffy, because there's nothing
else that I can think about. And so I think that this author
was given a particularly hard job, right, to write this
emotional story without much plot.
I think that's also why I think the strongest part of the story,
I was mean about the fact that it's because children's, you
know, like the oral children's storytelling can tolerate a
little bit of fluff and flamboyance.
But also it had plot and she wrote a plot.
Well, she was able to follow plot interestingly.
So I think that she was kind of hamstrung by the story that she
was given. I I certainly don't think this
author is the worst World of Warcraft author I've ever read.
That's Richard Knack. We don't edit anymore.
That's that's days. Hopefully Richard's not a
listener. Won't be after this, but yeah,
like the I just think that you're right, the emotion,
emotions are hard to play through, especially in a video,
a video game. It's very hard to have that
conveyed a written. The written format is way
better, even better than I think a movie of being able to put you
in the mind of a character to be to do that.
And while this may not have been the best attempt at it, I think
this was the best format for it is where I was trying to go with
that. So.
You. Did.
Not expect me to start throwing strays.
No, like I have given up trying to keep this on rails as of last
episode. So we just sort of try and curve
with the bullets that you're throwing at people.
That said. In Lex's defense, if that
individual didn't want bullets sterile, they should have should
not have written Day of the Dragon God.
I. Haven't even run.
That, but, you know, like. That's also Martin or something.
No, that's Dancing Dragon. Yeah, if if so, in this that
author's defense, I haven't published anything.
So like, what do I have to talk about?
You're doing better than me. Yeah, you've.
Published many podcasts and I'm sure in fact I'm acutely aware
of criticisms that you that you receive as well.
So it all it happens to all of us that's.
Lex is getting criticized. Wait, that's that man, you have
to tell me this. But not on air or I'll cry, but
maybe off air. OK, so now that I've made
reduced lexer nervous wrecks, maybe you'll be slower to throw
those stones in your glass house.
Anyways, one of the things that is strong about about this again
is the voice acting and that falls into our second piece of
news, which is that SAG act AFTRA, which is the voice actors
that were striking against a number of companies in the video
game industry, including the Blizzard have come to a
tentative agreement as of yesterday.
And then today they suspended their strike, which means now
it's a suspension. It's not completely done.
Tomorrow, June 12th, probably by the time you are hearing this,
they will have met and come to decision on the tentative offer
that they have received. Now this strike had affected
Blizzard. As I had said, this is the
reason that we had no voice acting for Rensic the Shiv in
11.1, for the Undermine campaign or in the lead up to it in 11
point 0.7. My hope is that we will, that
they have come to terms and that will go forward because I do
think that voice acting really brings a lot to the World of
Warcraft both in game and outside of the game.
Now I did reach out to Blizzard for comment ahead of this
recording. At this point they don't have
anything to share at this time, but hopefully we will be hearing
from their PR soon about this. Most likely they're waiting for
the vote to come to come through.
I would love if the Rensic VO was unencrypted and maybe they
allow people to like get the option of going through if they
if they want. I'd love to see how much that
the difference is when you know, he's not just like mute and
everybody's just sort of like quiet for a bit.
Because it, it did Take Me Out of it both in the 11.0 point 7
and the 11.1 campaign for it. What, what about you guys?
What do you think? I'm happy they came to an
agreement. I love when things go the way of
the workers. That's awesome.
I was also really impressed that Blizzard didn't just have
somebody else redo the voice over that wasn't on strike, that
they said, you know what, he's on strike.
We respect that because they they probably also could have
made the argument that this was recorded pre strike.
We can air this and I don't know, maybe I'm giving them, you
know, the credits they don't deserve To me from the roadside
looking and it looked like this guy went on strike and Blizzard
said, OK, he's striking. We're not going to use his voice
over. We'll keep it in the game, and
we're not going to replace him. And now I like like you, Manny.
I hope that once it's officially signed that they can make a
statement saying, hey, you know, we're happy to announce that
we've hot fixed in Rensic's voice lines.
But yeah, I'm glad that strike is over.
Being on strike sucks. My dad was on strike when I was
a kid. I remember it was miserable.
He hated it. Nobody wants to be on strike.
We just people just want what they're deserve, what they
deserve and they want equal pay and fair rights and all
whatever. So give them what they want.
Companies make enough money so. The whole point of a strike is
that they want to do the job. If they didn't want to do the
job, they quit. So yeah, no, I fully agree.
I'm really happy with how Blizzard, I mean, without.
Again, I don't have an eye behind the curtain, so it's not
like I know what was going on behind the scenes, but from my
perspective on the outside, it seemed like Blizzard was doing
this as well as they could. And that's heartening.
And I'm also glad that they got an agreement that's that's also
really good. And I agree, voice acting, as
was proven by missing a voice actor, is really fundamental to
making the stories come alive. Also, as can be evidenced from
the fact that 2/3 of us really like the short story and the one
who didn't was the one who didn't listen.
So yeah, like I I think voice acting is really important and
and really meaningful in how we in interpret the media.
So I think they deserve to be paid well and fairly and not be
replaced by AI. Yeah.
And so this strike has been going since July 26th of last.
Year. That's that is dended they're
now obviously they were allowed to complete contracts that they
were already in, which is why it hadn't affected things until
later. There was also provisions for if
a company had done a contract that fit with what they they
were asking for, you could work for them.
But between Activision Blizzard and where Activision was before
this and Microsoft, yeah, like, it did affect some things.
So hopefully this is good. This.
I know one of the issues was about use of AI rights to
digital likenesses of voices as well.
There's been a lot of, lot of discussions about that ever
since Lucas started buying up likenesses for people and, yeah,
just, you know, fair pay for Fair Work.
We stand with the workers here at For Azeroth.
Is it? Is it crazy that like in, in my
naive mind, I want to prescribe to companies like a sense of
being a good person, Like company like Blizzard is going
to do what's right. Oh, they see, they're striking.
They know they want this. They'll make sure they get that.
Like, in my mind, in my heart of hearts, I want companies to be
that way. But I had a friend who was often
vocal in reminding me that all companies are evil.
None of them are your friends. But like, I just wanted to be
like, I want to be able to. I want to be able to say like,
oh, Blizzards going to look out for their employees.
They're going to look out for the contractors.
I want to believe, and not just blows, there are other companies
too, like Apple and whoever I want.
I want to believe Companies inherently want to do good.
Then they've done a good job with their PR and you should
thank their PR. For it, Manny, Were you the
friend who told me? No, but like just fiduciary
duties of all companies is to make money their first priority,
right? And the only priority that they
are mandated to do is to make money.
Everything else is superfluous. Yeah.
Well, I mean, so yes, like companies exist for profit.
I, I think that's 100% true. And I, I also think like
companies are also run by people and sometimes like people, as a
general rule, don't want to cause harm, which is not sorry.
OK, let me let me back up, let me back up, let me back up, let
me back up. I'm back up like 20 steps most.
No, you only have to undo the last sentence.
You only have to do the last sentence.
Companies are run by people and people continue.
People are complicated. People are complicated.
I OK, I think like ultimately you have to expect that a
company is always going to put money above people because
that's like Manny said, that's their job.
That's what they exist to do. I think it's not impossible for
for companies to to try to to care about their workers.
I actually would argue that the concept that the the most
companies do seem to buy into that their job is to make as
much money out of people as quickly as possible and as hard
as possible is incredibly short sighted.
And that you can get a lot like even if you all you focus on is
the value, like the money you bring in, you get a lot more
value if you treat people well, if you're compassionate, if you
care about them, if you make people feel cared about and
important. I make less money in my job than
I could if I went elsewhere, but I feel like my company cares
about me. I work there through COVID and I
felt like I was taken very good care of and that they were
prioritizing me and the people that I worked with.
And that means that I always like anytime looking for a new
job, the 1st place I work is internal, right?
I trust my company and this might age poorly.
There's there's a risk time to get laid off and then I'll feel
worse about it. But like, anyway, so I don't
think, I don't think you should ever trust a company, but I
don't think that companies are like apparently mindless evil
money machines. No, that's OK.
I think prescribing a emotion or morality to a company is a
fool's errand. I think that you have to
understand that companies, by their very nature, right, do not
have a moral compass. They have priorities that are
set on them. And we're going to leave it at
that because this is a show about for Azeroth and we are not
fighting galliworks anymore. Everybody's finished galliworks
now, so we're moving on. We will have this conversation
after the show. Wait, so I just want to say, is
it OK for me to wish that the world wasn't like that and that
it was the way that I want it to be?
I invite you to wish in one hand and shit in the other.
Anyways, talking about something a little bit more plausible.
Tanks have gotten more threat. So Blizzard deployed this hot
flick, this hot fix today, buffing tank tank threat from I
believe they were at 815% and put that up to 950% and I
actually was able to pull up my notes.
So I did get that right, and that's an increase of 16.5%
threat. Now, a lot of people that have
been complaining about tank threat, I think that Blizzard
has done this to sort of head off where we're going as stats
have been boosted and DPS are starting to like get further and
further ahead of tanks. Tank threat needed to be
adjusted in that way. But tank threat is a very
interesting thing in the World of Warcraft because it's just
got such a winding history. At some points, tank threat was
like the thing that tanks were dealing with.
At other points, tank threat has been so not an issue where tanks
have just been able to do anything.
And Blizzard has been fighting it more more recently to find a
sweet spot so that tanks weren't able to just run around and kite
and not actually stand in front of of the enemies generating
threat. So John, you are the resident
tank. I've got it.
I've got to hand us over to you. What do you think about the
current situation of tank threat in your place?
I would like to speak for all tanks and I think I'm qualified
to do that. Nope.
Keep going though. As always, I will speak strictly
to my own point of view. So tank threat is there's a lot
of nuance to tank threat and the issues currently with tank
threat. The biggest of which is that
there are a lot of tank abilities that are just bugged
and do no threat. For example, if you're a
Vengeance Demon Hunter and you use Sigilo Flame on a pack,
before you're in combat with that pack, it generates 0
threat. What?
Zero if you pull the Sigilla Flame, which you are recommended
to do because it builds your Perry stacks, that's Sigilla
Flame. If that pack is not already in
combat with you. Generates 0 threat.
On them? Is that why I'm sorry?
Hugo as well throw glave on a Demon Hunter in the tool tip
says does a very high amount of threat and it does approximately
the same amount of threat as if you body pulled, which is almost
none. So, and these are not the only
tank threat. Make your tank damage mechanics
and don't do threat. The way threat works is you get
a damn the modifier man gave us the numbers.
You get a modifier based on the damage that you do with your
abilities and that's it. Taunt will give you.
I think it's a 300% threat modifier on top of that.
So the normal normal threat modified by 300% for three
seconds and then when that ends you have to be at the top.
To pull threat from a tank, a melee DPS has to do 110% of the
threat that a tank is doing. To pull pull a mob off and
arrange DPS has to do 130%. Now there are some speculations
that classes that have tank alternate classes like feral
Druid still have the tank threat modifier on some of their feral
druid abilities and that's why they pull threat more often.
That's not been confirmed, but that is a tinfoil hat theory
that exists. Lots of evidence that usually
backed them up. So tank threat is a known issue.
We have obviously instances of devastation warlocks who have a
buff. Their mastery gives them more
damage on a pack of mobs the higher their health is.
When is their health the highest?
At the start of a pole. When is tank threat the lowest?
At the start of a pole devastation of ogres the world
around have been one shot and clapped by mobs because of tank
threat. Especially when they get those
procs. Especially when they get those
procs. Yeah.
And it's not. And I know like for anybody been
playing a long time and Manny made, you know, alluded to the
fact that tank threat has changed over the years and it
has and I think it does need to fundamentally change again for a
balance somewhere in the middle. Nobody wants to go back to up
tank tags at once and then can infinitely kite packs.
That's not fun for anybody. And I don't think anybody wants
to return to you have to wait for five sunders before you do
anything because standing there for five full seconds while you
wait for five sunders isn't fun gameplay for anybody.
I don't I don't believe so. We need to find a happy middle
somewhere. This modifier bump I feel, and I
think a lot of the community feels is a Band-Aid on that fact
that some things are bugged and aren't doing any threat at all
and that they there's a fundamental change needed in the
way threat is dealt with. This will help a little bit and
if you play mostly in like the seven to 12 range, maybe you
don't notice this as much, but you probably do because it still
happens to at all levels. Another issue that comes up is
when you're in a raid and this year was especially bad when one
tank is actively tanking the boss and the Co tank pulls
threat just by doing their rotate like no crits, nothing.
They're just doing their rotation and they pull threat.
And that that can be a problem because bosses can be become
taunted immune. If that happens, you can eat a
front or eat a tank Buster you didn't mean to eat.
So those are so, so those are some of the issues.
Is this going to help maybe a little bit?
Is it the, the full solution? I definitely don't think so.
I do have a solution that I think would be I, I, I have a, a
A-frame of mind where it's like, I have an, I guess suggestion of
this is where I think they could find a happy medium.
And it actually came from the game Fellowship.
Before we run into. Do you like the game Fellowship?
Sorry man, you. Before we run into your
potential solutions, and I would like to offer solutions as well,
I would want to get Lex's because like I'm sure a lot of
that information might have been like, wait a second, is this why
I'm not having issues and that sort of thing.
But like, I think it's definitely exasperated when you
are just getting into tanking when your gear isn't that good
because it is a modifier. It is.
It does mean that if you are like, let's say you're not
normally taking you jump it onto the tank, but you're running
with your guildies that are really good.
The rotation have been like gearing, gearing to the nines
and that sort of stuff. This these threat issues are
going to come in more often. And then, of course, like Sean
was saying in in raid, I'm sure you've you've seen it from time
to time where Oh, no off tank pull threat.
Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Let's talk back.
So what's your been your experience with tank threat?
Yeah, so first of all, this changed my life.
Like quite genuinely, I this has made me feel so much better
about myself with the tank, because I thought I must be the
world's worst tank because I was struggling so much to maintain
pack aggro. And I mean, part of that is that
I'm going to do tank and pack aggro is tough.
The part of that is because anytime I wanted to get pack
aggro, the only thing I could I think I was Thor clave and then
I they didn't there's no finding matter like I'm suck on the left
tankers ever lived the. Tool tip says high threat.
And also I am, I mean, and this is probably not like 100%
fixable, but I, I do tend to off tank for the raid if our current
second tank is away and our one of our like actually both of our
tanks, I don't know. I'm I'm numbering them.
They're not, they just want to have been a tank for longer.
Both of them are really talented players and I am a really new
tank. And part of that is just the
reality of like how side is generated.
But I am constantly dropping aggro and feeling terrible about
that. And I'm also constantly
struggling to pull even with taunt.
Although also I thought taunt just immediately blasted them
with aggro generation, I didn't. Realize so it does.
It forces them to. Focus you for three seconds and
then you get a bump to the threat you're generating.
Yeah, it resets their threat table.
It gives you the 300 on top and then and forces them to attack
you. And then after that force
attack, whatever, whoever's on top of the threat table, that's
who they'll go to. But hopefully because you've now
reset the threat and had this head start on with the 300
boost, you should be on top at the end of the taunt window.
Gotcha. So yeah, I mean, I, I will say I
struggle a lot with threat and that makes tank not as fun for
me and makes especially Mythic plus stressful.
I'm also a new tank and there is the constant balance you need to
walk between making something fun for new players and not
making it boring for old players.
So I think threat generation in a way that I could easily manage
threat would make tanking just the most boring thing that Sean
has ever done in his life, for example.
So it's good to know that it is actually some of these things
are actual issues that the entire group is aware of and
that maybe they'll get better. But I think a lot of it is also
that like realistically, if I can be Co tanking with no issues
with a tank who's been tanking for ages and is doing purple
parses, then that is that that would be a problem as well.
And I need to be able to like there needs to be scale in
taking. Don't be too optimistic, those
Demon Hunter bugs have been in the game since Legion.
Oh good. So from there, I guess we could
talk about potential solutions and I've got some incredibly
radical ones. So I want to go with Sean
because yours is probably going to be more within what is this,
the Overton window of tank solutions Anyways, go ahead.
Yeah, so I so for me, there's two things I don't want.
I don't want to live in a world where we are in the, you know,
vanilla and BC days where you were constantly battling for
threat and it was the only thing a tank could focus on was threat
and nothing else. That is not engaging and that's
not fun. The biggest cause for a lot of
tank deaths in bugs. If you're running bugs and your
tank dies suddenly you're not sure why, go back and see if
ADPS pulled threat. Because the way tank brain works
is as soon as somebody's nameplate changes and that mob
goes to run after somebody else, they forget everything else and
they're just trying to get that mob back.
Which means they're probably turning their back to the other
mobs. They're probably missing a tank
Buster, they're probably missing defensives, all in the name of
trying to get the threat back. So I don't want to live in a
world where I am constantly playing that game of chasing
threat down. I also don't want to live in a
world where I tagged them once with a Thunder clap and then I
can kite them to the next boss. That's not fun or engaging for
me or anybody else. So those are the two things you
want to avoid. But there is a nice happy medium
and, and part of this is through fellowship.
The way fellowship works is you get bonuses for executing things
in correct sequence. So there's a there's one of
their characters who it works like jazz, like temponic jazz.
And it's like boom, boom, boom. And you go through it's like
ability ability, another like you hit these abilities in these
certain key points, you know, like 12123121 that and and doing
this gives you these bonuses. So obviously Warcraft isn't
designed that way, but Warcraft is designed for some abilities
to work together naturally in your in your proper rotation.
Brewmaster monk, for example, you cake smash first because
that covers the enemies in in alcohol.
Then you do the fire breath, which then lights that alcohol
on fire. Then you can like like swirly
leg kick thing. I don't play a lot of
brewmasters, my least hair tank, but that is AI think it's
elegant in the way that their rotation works in that, you
know, you could think about that like, oh, I cover them in beer.
I like the beer on fire. This is how I progress, progress
this and you know, keep it going.
You mixing your blackout punches and whatever.
So what I would like to see is a world where one when a tank, I
think the the the highest point of risk of a tank losing threat
should be when the mobs are away from the tank.
So on pull, if you're pulling at range and then going to them,
you have the potential there that DPS could pull off.
This is what incentivizes DPS to wait till the mobs are grouped,
which is sort of where we're at now.
But I think once, once any tank is in melee range of any mobs,
as long as they're executing their rotation correctly, there
should. And we, and we have like
Blizzard has a set rotation that they expect people will do for
like a dam rotation because it's in the one button rotation.
And this I think matches with it elegantly because you could bake
it into the one button rotation. If the tank is executing the
rotation correctly in the correct order, they get a
amplifier to threat and they can like they will not lose threat
to those mobs outside of a taunt as long as they're in melee
range and they're executing the rotation in the correct order.
Then if they go to kite, which we may have to do in mythic plus
obviously we get to levels where the damage gets so high.
You do have to kite occasionally.
Start of the season you have to kite occasionally.
When you start to kite and you pull away again you that's when
you come to risk with losing threat.
Either we can have threat diminish at distance or just by
threat, not by not gaining threat because you're moving
away the other DPS their threat raises so that you're not
infinitely kiting. You can just kite for small
periods of time. This incentivizes proper play
for players. It double s down on, you know,
the correct rotation, which Blizzard is implementing
themselves into the game that each class has a correct
rotation. And this eliminates that that
feeling of I'm, you know, I hope my dev, I hope my Devil Volcker
doesn't crit because then he's going to pull threat and then
I'm going to be screwed here because I don't have an AOE
taunt because only two tanks have an AOE taunt.
What if he pulls all the mobs? And I think that is an elegant
way to both keep tanks engaged because it lets you focus on
making sure you're executing your rotation and you're still
thinking about your defensives, You know, And tank is the the
most complicated job in the dungeon.
And I think by removing this one layer of that constant fear that
threat is going to just be ripped is a nice way to keep it
still complex, but but keep it, you know, so that it's open for
new players to join. And then if a new tank wants to
play, Flex says, Hey, I want to start try tanking.
They can use the one button rotation initially to to get
that to hold and maintain threats.
So they learn how to use defensives, how to pull packs,
what routes to do. And then once they've gotten to
the point that they're comfortable doing that, then
they graduate from the one button rotation, maybe to button
assist or maybe right into the rotation where they set it up
like a super cool Achille like Manny did, which I still think
is the most elegant use of the one button rotation I've heard.
But that is where I think a nice happy meeting will be.
It lets DPS play without constant fear that they're going
to get a crit and then die. It lets tanks play and keeps
them engaged with fighting the mobs.
And I would like to see a shift towards something like that
where we get those bonuses in combat.
Yeah. That's it.
So I, yeah, I do believe that is like the one of the more
straightforward ways that they could, they could fix it.
Obviously it is a balancing act. It is how much threat they need
to like bump it. And that will change over the
course of an expansion as DPS get higher numbers and the
damage between tank and DPS gets further and further.
And so I guess that's sort of where they're at right now.
We're yes, sometimes they will have to adjust it in the middle
of an expansion. Hopefully they can make those
adjustments with the launch of a patch and not when they start
noticing people getting smeared across the floor.
Now the other, the other thing that I was thinking of was a
more active threat engagement. This is something that they used
to do in the past. They used to have things like
wind shear that would reduce your threat for a certain period
of time. Rogues had tricks of the trade,
and I think they still do to hand it over Hunters.
Again, having their misdirect and having some classes have
that sort of sort of stuff would become a utility that would
shake up metas in terms of mythic Plus where you'd be like,
oh, OK, not only do we need the bloodlust, the battle rez, we
also should have some sort of threat misdirection, tricks of
the trade because that will allow us to pull more, more
effectively and do those do those things.
And what I want or what I am suggesting here is that the
threat game not be purely on the tank and not be something that
is not something that is constantly a worry of one
player. I think that as they are looking
to adjust difficulty and move it out of one place and put into
another, threat is a place where it could become part of the
game. I just don't think that threat
with the current meta is really something that tanks and DPS
should be worried about because there's so much going on in the
game or so much that you need to be paying attention to that
threat on top of that is too much.
But if you're going to adjust the game, if you're going to be
like, hey, maybe not everybody needs to be 100% on top of their
interrupts every pull. If you're going to to do that
sort of stuff, then yeah, you could have maybe a healer that's
like, hey, as long as I've got this buff on you, it lowers your
threat by by a certain percent or all all focus because all
focus need need some love right now.
What if while they are giving you like a particular boost,
they they like lower the threat from those people who are
getting that or boost tank threat for certain period during
that. That can work alongside Tricks
of the Trade, that can work alongside Misdirect.
And I think though that sort of use is something where it's
like, OK, let's do the big poll, let's have the big burst go
down. Because really the the time that
you are most likely to lose threat right now is those big
burst moments. I think that when people, the
DPS and the tanks are equally geared and no other variables
are in there, the IT is when the procs go off, when the mastery
is going at its fullest that that tanks are having having the
issue right now. And so if you could cover those
moments with intelligent play, then threat becomes good again.
If like the tanks that have the AOE taunt are like, OK, like
I've got my AOE taunt and the other tanks have like, here's my
like big boost threat to buff where now like I've reflect the
damage and any damage reflected is suddenly like way more.
And so they go like, OK, like I can do stuff like just different
ways of playing of like being able to play with threat, but
not in a way where it's so micromanaged.
I think that that's something and I I want to talk about
gameplay options over perhaps like UI things because they are
trying to tear away from the UII wouldn't want threat meters to
now have to be baked into everything and now everybody's
watching their threat meters. Just do name plates you can do.
I mean we do it now with plater, so instead of having to.
I actually think your solution is really quite elegant, having
it be a total group puzzle to solve as opposed to one player.
Because rogues have faint, priests have fade, you know, you
can faint out that kind of stuff.
Tricks of the trade is OK. Those abilities would need a bit
of a rework because misdirect on BM hunters does nothing.
It's the pet damage isn't included for some reason.
It's just the Hunter's damage, which is like nothing.
But I do think that's like, that's a really interesting way
to tackle the problem of, you know, everyone.
So it could be like a case of, you know, your elemental shaman
gets a proc, he hits a sentence, you know, and then, you know, he
starts blasting and then halfway through he's got a wind shear.
Like I actually think that's because the tank might not
recognize, Oh, he proc this is going to get weird.
I actually think that's a really, but I think it's a
really interesting way to do that.
And yeah, I wouldn't want nobody wants to be watching threat
meters. That's insane.
But name. So right now name plates change
color based on threat in Plato, not in the base UI, because the
base UI name plates were written in 2003, but the plater name
plate, they're reworking them. I'm interested to see what they
do. But plater name plates, you have
them so they change color and you can it'll say like, Hey, you
are a boat. If you're tanking, it's you have
threat, you don't have threat or you're a boat to lose threat on
this mob. And for DPS, it's you have
threat, you don't half threat or you're about to get threat on
this mob if they just bake that in.
I think your solution works really well there.
And then it becomes, you know, it's still the tank's
responsibility, but it sort of takes a little bit off the
plate. I like that.
I would be down for that. I think that will be an
interesting way to try it. Also makes it easier for range
to not have to spend like constantly be running in and
doing stuff like that, which could also open you up
potentially to more interesting mechanics if you can make range
a little bit more unique in what they have to do when they really
can't be in the group. Have we all ever agreed on
something before? This is crazy.
I'm I'm sure we have like I, I just, I think that there's so
many options and I would love if they would say like, oh,
healers, you can start like specking into this and then it
becomes like, Oh, now when I do like, let's say I am a resto
Jurid and I typhoon and that typhoon is like they get pulled
in. They're they lose threat on, on,
on on non tanks with my hots on them and stuff like that.
And then you would start using these sort of things in like
creative ways to like be like, OK, well, threats, threats, an
issue with this pack or whatever and play along.
I just think it's it's a part of the game that I wouldn't want to
completely remove and I don't want to throw it purely on tanks
because the current gameplay is so like tanks are dealing with
route, with routing, tanks are dealing with their defensives,
Tanks are already dealing with like the pace of pulls based on
how on like following DPS cooldowns and healer manner and
all of that. There's all this information
that tanks are dealing with and as Adpsi feel like DPS is
interrupt everything and do damage.
And I think you could, if you're removing that interrupt a little
bit, you could fill that void and make it just something else
to to deal with that isn't I'm going to die or it's a healer
problem. Yeah, that also because going
into the new mentality, the tonal shift we're making with
add-ons and complexity and dungeons and raids and the
direction Blizzard says they're going, you know, there is a
genuine concern for some people that things will be either the
if they hit the target that they're looking for, the things
will be too simple, it'll be boring.
And then by shifting this, you take some of that, you take some
of that complexity and keep it in.
But instead of the complexity just being make sure we a we
stop when we're supposed to, make sure we kick the cast,
we're supposed to it. It makes it a little bit more
robust. It's like, yeah, we're still
watching for big cast, we're still watching for important
stops, but we're also watching this aspect that we're all able
to engage in. Yeah, that's I I have not heard
anybody suggest that yet. I like that.
Might steal it for streaming tomorrow.
Go ahead, I will try and get this episode out after the
stream so that you look like the superstar with with that said,
that is tank threat. That is that is causing people a
lot of consternation. I do think that this buff I know
you said it might help, but it will help.
We just don't know to what degree I and I think that yeah
like looking forward to going into 11 point 1.7.
You did say though you did talk about the one button assists and
the rotation, the rotational assistant.
But I did want to say that having been on the PTR just
today, just testing to see what it looks like when it's going
live, it does follow our add on conversation that we're having
here that we've had in previous episodes.
It's a start. It definitely could benefit from
customization being able to tweak it to help me.
I do want to say there are very deliberate gaps that I think
that this is where they're trying to get that 96%.
We already talked about the increased GCD in the one button,
right? And last week we're talking
about how, hey, it does do updates as it goes.
But Hi Kelly is smarter than this because Hi Kelly is giving
you the next three and Hi Kelly is going by a rotation that has
been sort of mapped out, while this one is just seeing it's
basically a priority list based on what is active right now.
And so big one, I think a big one is pandemic.
Now for those of you who aren't aware of what pandemic is, it is
when you have a heal over time or damage over time and it has a
certain amount left, you can refresh it and that amount left
will get added on to the duration of the next one.
The rotational assistant does not understand that.
So if your dot is on, it won't tell you to refresh it until it
falls off. That is Adps loss for every
class. That has a hot with you know
what, there's probably some niche out there.
Please don't come at me. No, it's every class man.
He doubled down every class. That's the DPS loss for all of
you, right? If you disagree you can jump
over to the discord if I don't know the discord.
Yeah, it is the same thing with abilities coming off cooldown.
It like there are times where people will like hold off on
certain abilities to make sure it's within their cooldown
window and all. Like throw in and throw in a
filler. This one will tell you to do
your cooldown even if like you, you might be better off holding
it off. Or the the opposite where it's
like you're casting a spell, you are seeing what it's suggesting
next, but the next ability, but the better ability is about to
come off and cool down. And Kelly will obviously be
like, hey, listen, by the time the spell's done, go cast this
one. While this one will say, oh,
it's not off cooldown now and then you'll be halfway through
casting your your filler spell. And if like, no, no, no, this
one, this one. So there, there are limitations
to it. I think that those limitations
are are purposeful at this point.
They've done a lot to to fix it up so that it is doing what I
think it should have done all along.
It is a great thing for people who have maybe like, you know,
trying out a different spec or trying out a class for the first
time and you just get like a feel for it.
And so I think that in general, it is placed pretty, pretty well
for that. The one button assists, same
sort of same sort of thing there.
If you are just jumping on a class for the first time or like
let's say Lex, you are, you're doing your tanking and you want
to focus on the other parts of tanking like your defensive
cooldowns, like your pathing. This will help you with that.
But I do think that for tanking and for healing, this might do
more damage than, I'm sorry, this might do this might
interfere with what you're trying to do more than you might
want. Because let's say you're you're
playing your warrior and you really should be pooling your
rage to use your defensive abilities.
But this thing's just constantly telling you to do DPS.
At certain point you're going to have to understand and preempt
it and say, Nope, I need to put put up my my defensive with
this, these resources instead of doing the execute and rage
dumping and so forth. So definitely good for DPS use
with care for healing and tanking.
With that said, what's the number one thing that you guys
are looking forward to with 11 point 1.7?
I'm going to give this one to you first, Sean.
I still lore walking but I do have to make a correction.
I'm I'm excited for the Rathi stories all but lore walking is
my number one thing. So there was an interview that
was poorly written that made it sound like Maria Hamilton said
that we were getting 38 lore walking stories but that is not
what she said at all. There are three lore walking
scenarios coming with the launch of 11 point 1.7 and there was a
fourth that was data mined that we may get at some point,
hopefully before 11.2. But more walk.
I'm very excited for lore walking.
I love those little mini bite size story things and also I'm a
big fan of Laura Walker Cho. Anytime we have a chance to
listen to Pooh Bear just makes me really happy.
OK. And Lex, are you also on the
lore walking chain or do you have something else that you're
looking to? I'm excited.
I'm excited for themselves. We'll see how much I actually
play them. I mean, I'm excited for the cute
little belt. I'm excited to feel special
because I'm a delves player and I get my cute little belt and
then my cute little belt is useful next season or it's not
and then I feel sad because I was excited about my cute little
belt. And I'm also obviously, as we
know, excited to get my dog to play with me.
It's not going to be an 11 point 1.7 though.
That's in the future. That's a future goal.
I am really sad about, OK, I'm of two minds of the belt.
I'm kind of sad because as it's positioned right now, it's about
like 10 item levels underpowered.
So whatever item level you have, just knock 10 and that's roughly
where it's at. But it already goes up to I
believe 700. Yeah, 694 I think.
Yeah, which makes it equivalent to the highest level we can get.
So like, it it it's it's something that you should get
leading into the next expansion as a rather the next the next
tier, but you're going to immediately replace it.
Which makes me think that Blizzard is probably going to do
exactly what they've done a million times before with this
borrowed power. They're going to buff it to the
moon and then part way through or like just ahead of the next,
the next patch, they're going to have to nerf it back into the
ground because it's over everything that we could get in
there. And you know what, it's actually
going to be part way through because they're going to allow
it to be oppressive until we're part way through progression.
And then we're going to have to go find new belts.
If we're lucky, Cersei circlet never got nerfed.
People are still nerfing Cersei circlet.
At 6:58, yeah, they're still wearing it, but it did get
nerfed after the nerf. It's still that good.
OK, I feel better. I thought that I was failing my
team. No, it's not.
You're doing great. I'm still wearing mine and the
only like you need your best at 684 ring and then even then some
classes are still just going to keep rolling with it.
So what's the lesser evil here? You know, I'm just going to say
just don't do them or you better yet just upgrade the ring so I
don't have two slots where I'm just like, this is not something
I want to deal with. It just feels really bad to.
I'm not wearing it anymore but it feels really bad to be.
I was wearing it up until like 2 weeks ago.
Like every other piece is 684 or 681 and your ring is 658.
And it's like, what are we doing here, man?
What are we? I remember a quote from a long
time ago, but we're going to put it in the the bin of quotes that
don't actually mean anything. That said, hey, we want you to
be able to loot an item that's a higher item level and equipment
immediately. Can we apply that at the rings?
OK, so except. For rings.
I feel like. Item level should always be
king, no matter what. If it's a higher item level, it
should be better than something that's lower rings.
No, sorry. I agree that item level should
be a general guide and item level should you should be able
to be like, OK, better item level.
That seems pretty cool. But I do think in certain
circumstances there should be an item where it's like, oh, this
thing is worth so much more of it than its item level.
And that is cool to me, but it has to be in very like niche
circumstances. It shouldn't be for this many
classes for this long. I think that we should do away
with item levels all together and everything should be vibes
based. I mean that used to be but like
I don't want to go back to vanilla or sorry I guess that
was BCA. Screenshot of trinkets for
tanks. OK.
And so while we are watching the that screenshot, we are actually
going to call this a show here. Oh I'll drop it on the discord
too, but the Tome of Lights devotion at item level 645 is
higher than any other trinket in the game right now at 684.
Good tuning. I love this drinking and it's
from dungeons so all my characters have it because the
DNR you only have to have 12 + 12 is done but it's crazy.
It's crazy. Yeah, remove the whitelist on
mastery. Anyways, let's let's call this
an episode here. Until next time guys, may all
your hits be crits.