1009 Maw of Souls runs needed to max out Artifact in 7.2

[Deleted]

Personally dont see a reason to invest any points into The Paragon traits since in 7.3 or 7.4 the bonuses granted by it will be made baseline to everyone just as will happen in 7.2.

[Raelbo]

Your post is just one of many who apparently have no idea how mythic Nighthold is tuned.

It's tuned to require people to spend more than 2-3 weeks to clear the place. You're acting as though you "need" full artifact to clear the place when that is patently false because the last few artifact levels are nothing more than a dps bump. Ten levels of Artifact power is basically the same dps increase as 2-3 ilevels of gear.

So really, what Artifact levels actually translate into is a bit of time saved on progression. If you don't have your artifact at level 54 yet, and have it instead at say 49, then that basically means that you're about a week behind where you could be because you'll need to compensate with slightly higher ilevel.

The point I underlined is demonstrably false. Even the cutting edge players and raids (skill and effort-wise!) that are doing split runs to complete heroic ilevel 4-set bonuses are struggling with many of the DPS requirements. Essentially after the first 3 bosses, which are incredibly easy so a lot of guilds (nearly 2k!) already killed them, if you don't have a lot of players at 50+ traits and a lot of set bonuses, you will struggle with the enrage timers/dps requirements of Krosus, Botanist etc. That is the real problem and it will happen to more and more players.

And as players increase their ilevel, as will happen every week, and as they continue to gain a few Artifact levels, their dps will slowly get to where it needs to be. Of course if someone has spent a lot of time grinding AP for the last 4 months they'll get there a week or two earlier. Which is fine. The whole point of the Artifact design is exactly that, to help the people who have put in more effort to clear the content a little bit faster, while allowing other people to continue to slowly get more powerful over time. It's NOT to block people from ever getting that content down until they have level 54.

Only a tiny fraction of players play on a level that allows them to kill these bosses without 4-set bonuses and only 40-45 traits. We are talking about players that are probably as good (or better than some) as any of the Method/Serenity/Exorsus players just with less time available. And that is only for the bosses 4-7. Star Augur, Elisande and Gul'dan seem to be even more crazy.

If everyone and their dog kills Gul'dan in the first month then we end up having 6 months of "there is nothing to do" threads. This is why it's fine to require people to take time to progress, gathering a few gear/AP upgrades every week.

And that's why this is a huge problem. Blizzard demonstrated (even with Helya back in ToV) that they will tune mythic to the absolute maximum (good legendaries, set bonuses, close to the max possible traits), which spells big trouble for anyone who cannot bring all these things to the table - plus playing well.

Having all those things maxxed out at the start of a tier gives you a head start. Not having them doesn't mean you won't be able to clear the content. It will just take a bit longer because your gear and dps will increase the more time you spend in a new tier. This would only be a huge problem if you are unable to kill the bosses required to earn you better gear.

It also limits the degree to which you can outgear the content. If it is already super hard with 50+ traits, 4-set and decent legendaries, where will the "gradual nerfs through gear" come from? This basically means a lot of guilds will need to wait for nerfs to progress.

You don't need to wait for nerfs. That's the whole point. Every week you'll be gaining a few gear upgrades and a few AP levels. I really am not understanding the problem here. All I am seeing is a mental block in which some people seem to have convinced themselves that there is no other way to play the game except to max out your artifact before the start of a raid tier while the design intent is quite clearly the opposite - you're meant to power up your artifact over time, at your own pace, according to how competitive you are.

[Vasortflam]

Okay okay let's step back a little shall we?
First, the "majority" of the playerbase are not raiding, and they do not care about 1-2-5% dps upgrades.
This is a solid point we can all agree on.

Following this, because we, the "raiding minority" is only a few percent of the playerbase, Blizzard should not care about us or our needs because ~80-90% of the players do not care about these upgrades.

THEN WHY THE HELL are they in the game? Who decided to implement a systemt 90% of the players simply don't care about?
The casual player who logs in to experience the lore, pet battles, quests, to hang out, fish, etc. should not care for a few percentage of upgrades.
Know what they don't care either? Raids! They don't care about set bonuses, raid trinkets, which relic is good, how should they level their Artifacts, etc.
Shall those systems be excluded too? Just delete them?

No.

This % Infinite system is implemented BECAUSE of raiders. We are _THE_ reason it exists in the first place, because we wanted "something to do".
Therefore, we, the audience, should speak up about it and Blizzard should cater to us and not the casuals who simply don't care.

I hope you can understand this.

I get your point. But: there is a huge difference between having a goal to reach to motivate you for the whole expansion, or feeling that this goal needs to be reached asap in order to play the content you actually want to play. Its just 2 different perspectives on the game, and I can assure you I know exactly how you feel about it, was once a hardcore myself (10 years ago though ) so I know about the need of min/maxing. But as I said just a minority looks at the AP grind in the way you do, and my point was that it is totally understandable that Blizzard tries to create a game that suits the majority and not a minority (they should try to do both ofc, but if they have to choose its obvious which they will choose).

Anyway I am really curious: Is there a number of how many players reached 54 traits so far? Because that number would pretty much indicate the relevance of the whole grind is a "must" thing. For those who have 54 traits now, it is an issue for those who don't its not (more or less).

[Deleted]

I really am not understanding the problem here. All I am seeing is a mental block in which some people seem to have convinced themselves that there is no other way to play the game except to max out your artifact before the start of a raid tier while the design intent is quite clearly the opposite - you're meant to power up your artifact over time, at your own pace, according to how competitive you are.

Quite apparently you don't. Even though I explicitly said it in my post that you fully quoted. Here is the short Version for you AGAIN:

The bleeding edge players who are doing split runs for set pieces, have 50+ artifact traits and 900 ilevel gear have real trouble meeting the requirements on these fights. There is not much more power you can gather as a player and not even close enough power to overcome the fact that the rank 800+ (chose whatever number you wish) guilds play significantly worse than the top 0.5%.

Like I said, you obviously have zero idea how close to "if you are not close to perfect as a player and raid you need 54 traits and all the gear you can have to beat this" Nighthold is on mythic, just purely based on the numbers required.

[Hctaz]

So you literally just made my point. Nerfed because it was overtuned and tuned around players having the best Legendaries and max AP. Thanks for making my point then trying to look smart to discredit my post.

No, it wasn't that they tuned around players having best the best legendary items and max ap, it was that they were aiming for something lower but accidentally tuned it too high so they adjusted it to fit in line with where their goals were. They nerfed it immediately meaning that they realized they fucked up and missed their mark. The bosses were not supposed to be tuned to that level and the later tier bosses aren't either except MAYBE Gul'dan but he's killable with a 905 item level which puts him perfectly balanced in my eyes. You should always be able to clear the content in the gear that the content gives you. 20+ item level extra is just a bonus that makes things even easier.

[Raelbo]

Quite apparently you don't. Even though I explicitly said it in my post that you fully quoted. Here is the short Version for you AGAIN:

The bleeding edge players who are doing split runs for set pieces, have 50+ artifact traits and 900 ilevel gear have real trouble meeting the requirements on these fights. There is not much more power you can gather as a player and not even close enough power to overcome the fact that the rank 800+ (chose whatever number you wish) guilds play significantly worse than the top 0.5%.

Like I said, you obviously have zero idea how close to "if you are not close to perfect as a player and raid you need 54 traits and all the gear you can have to beat this" Nighthold is on mythic, just purely based on the numbers required.

I don't think you are trying to understand what I am saying. If you want to be in the top 0.5% then yes, at this stage you probably need 54 traits. If you want to be in contention for having killed Gul'dan, or be getting close at this time, then sure, you probably need 54 traits. But I am not arguing against that.

That doesn't mean that everyone needs to be there. Most raiders (not just world first contenders) are fine at 35+. We'll take a bit longer to clear the raid, and during that process we'll also get closer to rank 54, but this idea that you have to have it or you can't do anything is just silly. Hell, getting a lucky 925 Titanforged piece can do as much for your dps as 5 or ranks of your artifact. I'm not saying it doesn't help having your artifact up there, or that if you're a serious player you don't want it there, but there is a difference between need and want, and I am trying to argue that most players would be overstating their need if they're arguing that they need this.

Besides which, you are actually pulling the argument off on a tangent. The OP is trying to argue that you need 1000+ Mythic+ runs to get to level 70 after 7.2. Which is an immense amount of work. And he is arguing that any serious raider *needs* to do this. You're trying to argue that since there is (according to you) a *need* to have 54 traits for NH Mythic (a point we'll disagree upon because the facts you quoted don't actually prove what you think they prove) there will be a *need* for 70 traits for the next tier.

Now let's just think about this for a second. Having 50+ traits on one spec isn't exactly that difficult to have achieved by 7.1.5. There are people out there who have done 3x the amount of effort, having all their artifacts maxxed out. So the effort is certainly not anywhere near 1000 Mythic+ runs. So I would say the argument is faulty anyway. There is absolutely no reason to believe we'd have to put in orders of magnitude more effort for the next raid tier than we did this one, therefore there is actually nothing to suggest that people will need 70 traits to run the new Tomb of Sargeras raid any more than they needed it for EN.

[ro9ue]

At a certain point I just don't even think about Artifact Power or deliberated try to acquire it. I just look at it like it's stuff I'm getting as a byproduct of doing stuff I want to do.

[n0n3]

At this rate you will max out one of your artifact weapons when the expansions ends. That's some next level farming there. I think it is bad design and shouldn't be ingame unless they want raiders to ever see the sunlight again.

[Chaelexi]

If you use the term "forced", then you already lost any argument you were trying to make.
Do blizzard set entry requirements based on your artifact progression ?
No, players do.

But Blizzard does balance Mythics around max level artifacts. Look at NH dps and healing checks.

[BergErr]

How many wow players are doing mythic progression raiding? It is a very, very small minority ~0.1% of the playerbase. Why would Blizzard do anything to cater a minorty that small? If anything they are already doing more than you would expect. If you think the grind to raid on a level only a 0.1% of players even care to do is too much, just don't. If it makes you quit the game, Blizzard couldn't care less as long as the majoritiy of the 99.9% rest is happy with the game.

Mythic raiding is also keeping other players interested in raiding. All that try to reach mythic or dream about it would also be gone if we were left with hc as top tier (aka clear in one-two weeks for most). Also friends and familiy of the more hardcore players would take a hit.
The top end is uasually also the face outwards of the community. It usually end bad for games that dont cater to the 1% in their games.

[Deleted]

if they are disabling current AP tokens, that could mean that there will be new ones comming in 7.2 with higher base AP gain

[MasterHamster]

It's kinda amazing what level people imagine themselves being forced to do. When they feel this amount of frustration because yes, there will still be some way you can push another 0.1% dps if you spend the time. Welcome to MMOs. WoW fell into the trap of having these time-consuming character progressions removed due to the growing mantra of "nothing should be mandatory, give us a choice" (which in practice means all non-raid content does not reward character power) in WoD and the results still speak loud and clear. The onset of pure apathy among any non-serious raider mere weeks into release. Half of subs gone.

Some people feel anguish because they're not 54 yet, yet doesn't seem to realize that getting a single item upgrade probably has a larger effect overall as 10 million AP at that time. But no, there will always be the kind of player that, if he is not 100%, truly optimal, he feels non-competitive and gimped. And even if the Artifact system or Warforge system wasn't there, he'd be complaining about not getting a certain trinket, or not getting 4p bonus week 1, or not having the 2 best legendaries according to sims on ST, cleave and 4+ AoE... Or maybe find some profession bonus he MUST have to be competitive. Or whatever else these people find to complain about.

Because there will always be something that makes your character better in some way. And either you come to terms to that, or stop playing for your own sake. Feeling like you have to farm 1000+ mythics is not a healthy mindset. The sense of being forced to do it is either personal, or an unhealthy requirement from your raid team. Blizzard, or any MMO dev, can not design endgame around people that feel like they have to be 100% at everything at all times. Well, meeting in the middle, these are the kinds of systems we'll get. If you really want to go the extra thousand miles, by all means do every single AP WQ and run MoS 5 times an hour for weeks just to get a few more percentages in output. That decision is on you.

[Eleccybubb]

if they are disabling current AP tokens, that could mean that there will be new ones comming in 7.2 with higher base AP gain

I'd imagine they are doing something if current ones don't work in 7.2. But it seems people are already hell bent on blowing it out of proportion without waiting to see what happens.

[Deleted]

if they are disabling current AP tokens, that could mean that there will be new ones comming in 7.2 with higher base AP gain

naa they are just same it will be like Garrizon honor/conqueror tokensaka once patch hits everything in your bags will became grey

[Zyky]

No, it wasn't that they tuned around players having best the best legendary items and max ap, it was that they were aiming for something lower but accidentally tuned it too high so they adjusted it to fit in line with where their goals were. They nerfed it immediately meaning that they realized they fucked up and missed their mark. The bosses were not supposed to be tuned to that level and the later tier bosses aren't either except MAYBE Gul'dan but he's killable with a 905 item level which puts him perfectly balanced in my eyes. You should always be able to clear the content in the gear that the content gives you. 20+ item level extra is just a bonus that makes things even easier.

They released the content exactly how they wanted to. Overtuned, you literally made my point. You're still trying to justify it, but the reality is it was tuned around people having max AP and good legendaries lol. Nothing you say changes that, you can make an 'opinion' that "they were aiming for something lower" but the truth is Blizzard hasn't released unkillable content since Vanilla, they tuned it specifically around people having the best of everything and actually requiring people to put some effort into the game(shocking). Your 'opinion' is proved false by what Blizzard actually did, if it was "too hard" because they were aiming for something lower, it would have been fixed with the first sets of hotfixes that went out, they waited for the race to be over meaning the specifically tuned around players having the best of everything. Even Exorsus and Method agree with everything I'm saying. Top world guilds saying content is tuned around having the best of everything HUH GO FIGURE.

[Hctaz]

They released the content exactly how they wanted to. Overtuned, you literally made my point. You're still trying to justify it, but the reality is it was tuned around people having max AP and good legendaries lol. Nothing you say changes that, you can make an 'opinion' that "they were aiming for something lower" but the truth is Blizzard hasn't released unkillable content since Vanilla, they tuned it specifically around people having the best of everything and actually requiring people to put some effort into the game(shocking). Your 'opinion' is proved false by what Blizzard actually did, if it was "too hard" because they were aiming for something lower, it would have been fixed with the first sets of hotfixes that went out, they waited for the race to be over meaning the specifically tuned around players having the best of everything. Even Exorsus and Method agree with everything I'm saying. Top world guilds saying content is tuned around having the best of everything HUH GO FIGURE.

No I don't think you're listening to what these raiders are saying and I don't think you understand how Blizzard works then. First off: They never alter the raids until the race is over for the sake of consistency. It doesn't mean that the bosses are up to snuff but people would throw a massive hissy fit if the bosses are altered in the middle of the race. It's how it has always been. It doesn't mean that they released it the way that they wanted to it just means that they're keeping consistent with how things have always been in the past. The only exception to this rule is if the boss is literally unkillable which has also happened in the past.

They don't adjust the content until the race is over for the sake of the race. It wouldn't be fair to the guilds who killed it while it was hard.

The top guilds also are not saying the content is only killable with the best of everything they're saying that the race for world first is this way and they do excessive things to guarantee that they meet those standards.

You're wrong. GG

[Zyky]

No I don't think you're listening to what these raiders are saying and I don't think you understand how Blizzard works then. First off: They never alter the raids until the race is over for the sake of consistency. It doesn't mean that the bosses are up to snuff but people would throw a massive hissy fit if the bosses are altered in the middle of the race. It's how it has always been. It doesn't mean that they released it the way that they wanted to it just means that they're keeping consistent with how things have always been in the past. The only exception to this rule is if the boss is literally unkillable which has also happened in the past.

They don't adjust the content until the race is over for the sake of the race. It wouldn't be fair to the guilds who killed it while it was hard.

The top guilds also are not saying the content is only killable with the best of everything they're saying that the race for world first is this way and they do excessive things to guarantee that they meet those standards.

You're wrong. GG

Are you seriously that ignorant? lol. They have altered content mid race before. Many times. Look at Siege for example, they altered Heroic Norushen every week for 3 weeks completely changing the fight each time. I take it you didn't even bother to read the Exorsus interview with Method? because they literally said everything I've been saying about how the game is a one big grind and how the content requires you to have a maxed out artifact and how it requires you to have gear that you shouldn't need to kill certain bosses. If a boss requires a higher average IL than the base IL the boss drops to kill, that's the problem. And it's exactly what happened. Exorsus has been talking about disbanding/quitting the game because of how much of a grind this game is. So if you're really that ignorant that you feel your statements are correct when people in top guilds, doing the content before anyone else, are saying otherwise, you might need a reality check. Because "gg you're wrong" not them.

[Eleccybubb]

Are you seriously that ignorant? lol. They have altered content mid race before. Many times. Look at Siege for example, they altered Heroic Norushen every week for 3 weeks completely changing the fight each time. I take it you didn't even bother to read the Exorsus interview with Method? because they literally said everything I've been saying about how the game is a one big grind and how the content requires you to have a maxed out artifact and how it requires you to have gear that you shouldn't need to kill certain bosses. If a boss requires a higher average IL than the base IL the boss drops to kill, that's the problem. And it's exactly what happened. Exorsus has been talking about disbanding/quitting the game because of how much of a grind this game is. So if you're really that ignorant that you feel your statements are correct when people in top guilds, doing the content before anyone else, are saying otherwise, you might need a reality check. Because "gg you're wrong" not them.

If I recall didn't they alter Throne of Thunder as well during progression? If I remember because Ra-Den went untested it was a mess when guilds got to it? Along with a couple of other bosses. Could be wrong though.

[Usernameforforums]

I disagree, this expansion it's so easy to gear an alt.
- You start at AK20 as soon as you hit 110 followed by getting your 3 golds in a day due to the insane AP gains.
- Hit AK25 after 2weeks (which i't too bad since you're still gearing anyway) If you love your alt enough hit up Suramar at 50k - 250k AP a quest, can easily go from 35 - 38 doing all the stuff prior to being exalted.

Then gearing is beyond a joke with how fast you get your first legendary now, within a week of doing stuff.
WQs, Mythics, Mythic+, Raids (which is great as people actually do the older raids now since they have AP, Legendary chances, Titanforging which previously died when a new raid came out only touched by horrible pug groups).

Rerolled 3weeks ago to heal again and it took no time to not only catch up but pass my old main by just enjoying playing the game.
Maybe gearing wont quite go up at this extreme, depends how much you love your new alt. But nevertheless It's not the chore people think it is even with the "AP grind", especially as an alt which will atleast hit 35traits after only a couple of weeks.

Reference:
15/01/17 First raid@838ilvl https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...1&type=healing
12/02/17 Last night@896ilvl https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...0&type=healing

Yeah legion maybe the most alt friendly imo. I just leveled my alt last week to 110; now she is 886 at 36 traits and 2 legendaries at 2 days played.

[Zyky]

If I recall didn't they alter Throne of Thunder as well during progression? If I remember because Ra-Den went untested it was a mess when guilds got to it? Along with a couple of other bosses. Could be wrong though.

Ra-den is a bad example I feel, While untested, the first kill also got his "kill him without wiping or losing any players" achievement. But I think they nerfed uhh Heroic Megaera week one.