Will Netherlight Crucible bring "hardcore" m+ grinding back?

[jearle]

I don't think you understand how expensive later levels get. You cannot do it in 9 months. You can't even do 100-101 in 9 months.

Level 100 alone costs 200 trillion AP. To do that in 9 months, you need over 700 billion AP daily. That's over 100k before AK. Total cost is more than 4 times that.

The last few levels are unreachable before Legion ends at currently available AK levels.

Does anyone else besides me think that the numbers on this AP bullshit are just ridiculous? Blizzard really didn't look ahead at how stupid the inflation on AP was going to get throughout the course of this expansion.

Seeing dailies give X hundred million AP as you grind towards a X trillion AP is just ludicrous. Then you log on to a fresh 100 alt and get 20 AP out of chest. I use the think the HP and Damage Values were crazy, but AP makes that shit look tame comparatively speaking.

[huth]

Except nobody is talking about 100 in the part you quoted? The relevant point is 75, which you can get by November

Nah, i just messed up and quoted the wrong part. It was in regards to the second sentence, not the first.

- - - Updated - - -

Does anyone else besides me think that the numbers on this AP bullshit are just ridiculous? Blizzard really didn't look ahead at how stupid the inflation on AP was going to get throughout the course of this expansion.

Seeing dailies give X hundred million AP as you grind towards a X trillion AP is just ludicrous. Then you log on to a fresh 100 alt and get 20 AP out of chest. I use the think the HP and Damage Values were crazy, but AP makes that shit look tame comparatively speaking.

So what? It has no actual impact on the system. Blizzard did look ahead, and rightly decided it wasn't an issue, because it doesn't actually matter. Even less so than HP and damage because there is no reason to do any on-the-fly calculations with AP.

[rhorle]

This is where I feel cheated by blizzard, I assumed that artifact ranks are not as important anymore since there's almost no dps gain from grinding it.

That is what happens with assumptions. You can be wrong. Also the way the Crucible works has not changed since they first announced it so if you are as hardcore as you claim to be you or your guild should have been up to date on the news. It really isn't that big of an issue though since every week will make you catch up faster with new ranks of Artifact Knowledge (it unlocks weekly with out doing anything).

[Tojara]

If the math works out, from what I saw, the first AK we get on patch day is a 4x multiplier from what we have now. Basically those 30 million AP tokens from ToS turn into 120 million AP tokens on that day, which is massive. From my calculations, each additional AK after that first one is 30% more than the previous one, which is still a lot when you're multiplying it by the new base value from AK 41.

Not really worried about it because it takes three weeks for the crucible to unlock, and any advantage that those who have mid 60s from the previous patch will be erased to a certain degree. At a certain point however it basically goes back to what we feel like traits are worth now, which is super marginal.

Honestly I don't know when the last big power trait ends at and what's 'reasonable' for people to achieve by the time the crucible is unlocked in 3 weeks. As such it will be a 'grind' because there are some fairly significant power boosts early.

Basically it will be grindy and matter to those of us still working on ToS and racing to finish it, as the power gains are substantial enough to matter in regards to helping people push to the finish. It won't matter however for 7.3.5 when the Argus raid is out, because nearly everybody will have all the giant traits, and it will just go back to getting marginal gains from the old concordance ranks, like it is now.

Just think of the 7.2 progression system that introduced new traits/talents like the new ones being thrown out in 7.3. If you're done with the major raiding content it literally doesn't matter. It only matters to catch people back up, and as long as you play a reasonable amount (not grinding at all), you should approach the major power points before the next raid comes out. Kinda like most people who just chugged along had concordance and for all intent and purpose were done with their major power gains from AP before ToS even came out.

[Teri]

I don't think you understand how expensive later levels get. You cannot do it in 9 months. You can't even do 100-101 in 9 months.

Level 100 alone costs 200 trillion AP. To do that in 9 months, you need over 700 billion AP daily. That's over 100k before AK. Total cost is more than 4 times that.

The last few levels are unreachable before Legion ends at currently available AK levels.

You're likely right, we'll see, even if it's just 1 crazy person hitting 90+. right now someone is at 67 traits and thats probably not their only weapon.

Never know if we get a 7.3.6 or 7.4 that might raise AK again.

[BiggestNoob]

possibly, we'll see, even if it's just 1 crazy person hitting 90+. right now someone is at 67 traits and thats probably not their only weapon.

That's equivalent of someone hitting 86 with AK 55 assuming they continue to scale at 30% per level after 41 (and 41 being 4x of 40). The cost per unlock also scales at 30% per, so 19.28 more 30% jumps from AK levels means you're just going to see +19 more unlocks (with any previous grinding basically reset due to it being 51x more efficient to gain AP at 55 than at 40).

I highly doubt anyone is going to to go above 90 in this expansion, if they even reach that.

[Zyky]

Ehm, m+ is still the best way to get AP and if AP matters people will do it, even raiders.

Hate to break it to you, but M+ was heavily nerfed in AP gain, its now more worthwhile to clear your map of AP quests and you gain more AP per hour that way as well then to spam run M+. This is proven and fact, M+ only benefits if you have extra time outside of WQs and Raiding to preform extra tasks, which most people playing today do not.

[SFBayGamer]

related note: are we saving all relics now to be "empowered" by the crucible? Should I just stop slotting into the weapon until the crucible is fully unlocked or does the crucible enhance relics already in the weapon?

[barackohmama]

Hate to break it to you, but M+ was heavily nerfed in AP gain, its now more worthwhile to clear your map of AP quests and you gain more AP per hour that way as well then to spam run M+. This is proven and fact, M+ only benefits if you have extra time outside of WQs and Raiding to preform extra tasks, which most people playing today do not.

Hate to break it for you but people serious about AP gains still run m+ since you can't do quests and raid 24/7 for the simple reason they run out. You have to be a huge casual not to have time for anything else than raids and wqs every week, and then why care about AP in the first place.. Only reasons would be if you had massive amount of alts, then it's understandable of course. Every top AP hardcore grinder people still run m+ 24/7. Currently you can debate the value of it vs just keeping multiple alts geared and having a few points in concordance, but that's another topic.

[Zyky]

Hate to break it for you but people serious about AP gains still run m+ since you can't do quests and raid 24/7 for the simple reason they run out. You have to be a huge casual not to have time for anything else than raids and wqs every week, and then why care about AP in the first place.. Only reasons would be if you had massive amount of alts, then it's understandable of course. Every top AP hardcore grinder people still run m+ 24/7. Currently you can debate the value of it vs just keeping multiple alts geared and having a few points in concordance, but that's another topic.

So basically you didn't bother reading what I said cool story, I'm just going to leave it there since you're an invalid that didn't read my whole post.

[PointerToAddress]

related note: are we saving all relics now to be "empowered" by the crucible? Should I just stop slotting into the weapon until the crucible is fully unlocked or does the crucible enhance relics already in the weapon?

You don't empower relics, you empower relic slots. You can sawp whatever relics you want, you will still get the trait points for each slot tree. If a relic drops and it's an upgrade now just slot it in. The only reason people are looking to hoard relics it's because of the RNG traits in Tier 3 of the Crucible, but by the time you unlock those traits the new raid will have already dropped and you'll get better ilvl relics that way. So unless you have crazy AP level and somehow manage to farm AP that you get to 75 before November and get lucky enough to get multiple copies of your relics at their current, or better, ilvl then I would say don't worry about it and just equip whatever upgrades you get.

[Deleted]

No it won't. AK will solve that. Every week we gain ranks we'll be able to "farm" maybe 1 or 2 traits sensibly and then the gap becomes too big so you'll just wait for the next AK level.

Since 7.2 the days of farming or grinding AP are gone. Pre 7.2 you had an argument for the large power increase and especially stamina increase (often necessary to deal with mythic mechanics), but those days are over.

[kamuimac]

Except nobody is talking about 100 in the part you quoted? The relevant point is 75, which you can get by November

and then when raid will be out blizzard will put another 5-15 AK levels to catch up

nobody sane will farm those untill AK will be 55 in 15 weeks - only nolifers and nobody care about those.

[TorikSAn]

Just little maths.
7.0/1 Base AK 25 <====> 65mill (full Traits)
7.2 AK40 = 160 * AK25 <====> 52 traits just 2.228 mill / 160 = ~14 mill (in AK 25 scale), and if we use previous 65 mill * 160 = 10.400 mill (58 traits 10.868 mill)
7.3 AK55 = 160 * AK40 <====> 75 traits 943.376 mill / 160 / 160 = 36.85 mill (in AK 25 scale), and if we use previous 65 mill * 160 * 160 = 1.664.000 mill (77 traits 1.594.332 mill)

If just compare AP grinding. In patch 7.3 we will need to "grind" ~2 times less than in 7.0/1 (for full traits), but ~2.5 times more than for 52 traits in patch 7.2...
So it's easier than in "vanila" 7.0/1 Legion, but harder than 7.2 (if you stop at 52 traits)

[Thagrynor]

If you have good RNG/play a class where no relic is above 2 ilvl.... then your basically max at 70 is what I was meaning.... Like MM hunter where the highest relic is 3.2 ilvl and next like 5 are all 2.5 ilvl... so as long as I get any of 6 relics in the first slot i'm max dps at 70..

I think you are misunderstanding how this works. You will gain a trait with each relic slot in the 3rd Tier. It isn't that the left most trait option for all 3 relic slots opens at 70, giving you high luck to get your 3 best in that left most slot in Tier 3 in all 3 at 70. You get all 3 options for the first relic slot at 70. The 3rd Tier of the 3rd Relic Slot unlocks at 75. You cannot put any points into getting an additional trait in the 3rd relic slot until 75. That trait, by your admission above, could be 1 of 6 that will be guaranteed to add DPS, so your max dps is not until 75. You cannot be max dps at 70.

[theburned]

Just little maths.
7.0/1 Base AK 25 <====> 65mill (full Traits)
7.2 AK40 = 160 * AK25 <====> 52 traits just 2.228 mill / 160 = ~14 mill (in AK 25 scale), and if we use previous 65 mill * 160 = 10.400 mill (58 traits 10.868 mill)
7.3 AK55 = 160 * AK40 <====> 75 traits 943.376 mill / 160 / 160 = 36.85 mill (in AK 25 scale), and if we use previous 65 mill * 160 * 160 = 1.664.000 mill (77 traits 1.594.332 mill)

If just compare AP grinding. In patch 7.3 we will need to "grind" ~2 times less than in 7.0/1 (for full traits), but ~2.5 times more than for 52 traits in patch 7.2...
So it's easier than in "vanila" 7.0/1 Legion, but harder than 7.2 (if you stop at 52 traits)

These numbers are ignoring a very important part of the equation though, 7.2 values where actually pretty easy because of a lot of extra influx of AP through dungeon changes, broken shore etc.
But in return we had a reduction in amount of AP we gain from doing raids, dungeons is getting lower due to being scaled back to 10 (guess this happened for 7.2 aswell.) legionfall farming wont be as productive anymore. Might be some new income from argus that I dont know about ofc, the thing here is that without knowing anything about increase or decrease in AP gain, its hard to know exactly how much harder its gonna be, and well you are probably right that its harder.

[Riistov]

However, hardcore progression through ToS is mostly over, plus it will only get easier with power upgrades from 7.3.

For .1% of guilds maybe. There are still a ton of guilds in the "hardcore" category that are progressing on KJ/Avatar

[Khallid]

For .1% of guilds maybe. There are still a ton of guilds in the "hardcore" category that are progressing on KJ/Avatar

Yes, and I consider missing one or two bosses to be mostly over. I don't think there is any strong incentive to start farming AP much harder, mid-way through the time ToS is the main raid, and when AK will start going up.

[SFBayGamer]

You don't empower relics, you empower relic slots. You can sawp whatever relics you want, you will still get the trait points for each slot tree. If a relic drops and it's an upgrade now just slot it in. The only reason people are looking to hoard relics it's because of the RNG traits in Tier 3 of the Crucible, but by the time you unlock those traits the new raid will have already dropped and you'll get better ilvl relics that way. So unless you have crazy AP level and somehow manage to farm AP that you get to 75 before November and get lucky enough to get multiple copies of your relics at their current, or better, ilvl then I would say don't worry about it and just equip whatever upgrades you get.

THIS is why this community is so awesome. Thank you, this makes the entire situation abundantly clear.

[theburned]

For .1% of guilds maybe. There are still a ton of guilds in the "hardcore" category that are progressing on KJ/Avatar

Question is should they really be in the "hardcore" category if they are still progressing?