I'm digging the expansion, but the system is so alt/reroll unfriendly it turns me off

[Saverem]

I enjoy the way this expansion is doing "dailies" in the WQ formation and I dig the PvP using talents.

However, the raiding aspect is pretty shit.

So I've only been playing one character (I'm in a decent raiding guild at 2/7M right now) and gearing him up with AP and a legendary. But I decided that a Shaman is more my cup of tea. Well, in order to get my Shaman up to par, I'll not only need to level him to 110 and gear him up, I'll also need to get a shit ton of AP and farm legendary to even COMPETE with the other healers in my guild who literally ALL of at least one.

It's practically impossible. I could be the most skilled dude on the planet, but I WILL be beaten by an average player of my class with 25+ AP points and a legendary. And for me to catch up, it's going to take a shit time longer than just farming Mythics at 110.

So right now, I'm basically stuck with a decision. Keep playing my current "main" or reroll and invest ALL of my time on my new main which will basically gimp me for raids and even if I do raid, it would be weeks from now when I have the appropriate number of AP to be competitive.

[mahesvara]

welcome to wow finally differentiating between mains and alts.

alts should be behind mains instead of being pretty much a second main. Yes you should be a few weeks behind characters who have been progressing since day one.

[Eats Compost]

A word to the wise; just start AK research on the alt. That's the major time gate behind AP, and past a certain AK level your current AP will be meaningless.

[SteveRocks]

What's the rush?

[Spazlord]

Back in BC I had an alt, took months to level, then I had to get revered with about 5 factions for various enchants and crap, quest my face off and run legit hard heroics for the attunement to Kara, then spent a fortune on crafted gear to boost myself to raid ready. Legion is fine, I levelled my alt enhance shaman in a week, had 840 ilvl in 2 days, WQ open, Suramar on the go. It's probably even easier than WoD especially with the M+ option.

Farming legendary lol. I mean sure farm it but lacking a legendary is hardly making it alt unfriendly. If we all had legendaries they wouldn't be very legendary now would they.

[rulee]

Farming legendary lol. I mean sure farm it but lacking a legendary is hardly making it alt unfriendly. If we all had legendaries they wouldn't be very legendary now would they.

That's what they used to say about epics.

[Spazlord]

Yeah I thought that too hehe. Here's hoping legendaries remain somewhat rare!

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

I guess you should just get a free legendary and X amount of AP gained... (whatever your main has earned thus far) ..... right?

[Osinin]

Back in BC I had an alt, took months to level, then I had to get revered with about 5 factions for various enchants and crap, quest my face off and run legit hard heroics for the attunement to Kara, then spent a fortune on crafted gear to boost myself to raid ready. Legion is fine, I levelled my alt enhance shaman in a week, had 840 ilvl in 2 days, WQ open, Suramar on the go. It's probably even easier than WoD especially with the M+ option.

/agree

You do catch up on AP pretty quickly thanks to AK. No maybe you can't be a help to your progression in one week, but you aren't exactly that far behind.

I just think there is lots to do in Legion, which is great! But yes means lots to do on alts to.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

/agree

You do catch up on AP pretty quickly thanks to AK. No maybe you can't be a help to your progression in one week, but you aren't exactly that far behind.

I just think there is lots to do in Legion, which is great! But yes means lots to do on alts to.

Thats the issue, lots to do = harder for alts to catch up. You can really only have one.

[Drish]

I wasn't sure whether I wanted to raid on my druid or on my priest in my alt guild. So I level'd both for the artifact knowledge. All 3 characters have cleared mythic +8 or higher so i'm not terribly certain what the issue is, the game practically throws gear at you to 845ish.

My pally healer hit 4/7 mythic without a legendary so I don't see the issue there either.

Being several traits behind gimps some classes harder than others, but the sheer # of traits on healer weapons doesn't buff overall healing throughput like it does damage throughput by a flat %. Unless grinding hard for it most people are in the 21-24 range, and it doesn't take horridly long to get there.

[chronia]

Even not putting in hardcore hours one alt seems perfectly fine to manage. My alt is 3 traits,5 ilvl and 1,5 AK level below my main, who sits at 23/13/0 and ilvl 856. Keeping (alot) more alts at the same level probably would require alot more effort and putting in hardcore hours. But one alt at a decent powerlevel do raid / M+ with seems not that difficult.

[Tojara]

The thing about the expansion is at the start it's not alt friendly, but it will be pretty alt friendly in a month or so. I grind AP like crazy and I'm only at trait 27, the game is essentially telling me to stop with AP because I'm too far ahead of the curve. Realistically most people should be around 21-24. Artifact traits do make a difference, but if it's an alt, who cares?

I have 2 alts right now and how I play them is if I have time I do the emissary daily, if not I'll just do them more efficiently once every 3 days. I scope the map for WQ that give potential upgrades. At this point I do dungeons if I want to, if not I log out. Why would I bother farming AP on an alt? Really doesn't make sense unless I want to use it, and baseline with minimal playing my alt is still pretty effective, it's just not going to be as effective as somebodies mains. That's honestly decent design.

At the end of the day I think it's a good thing that people are complaining that it's alt unfriendly because it means there are actually things to do in the game on your main. Having things to do is better than not. Also I disagree that this expansion is hard to reroll a character on. It's potential the easiest. Mythic+ is a great source of gear and you can get somebody heroic/mythic raid ready in a really short amount of time if you're determined enough. You really can't do that in any other expansion without actually raiding, which is based on weekly lockouts. Again, only thing you would be behind on is traits, but it would only be several, you would still be effective.

[Speedlance]

finish emerald nightmare on your current main than switch after when farming it because by the time 7.1 come out you should have 3rd relic and be close enough on artifact to compete. You shouldn't use too long to clear.
You can progress your alt/new main relatively easy after raiding hours.

[Deleted]

In WoD, if your spec was underperforming, you rerolled and could still be viable if you had a guild and they funneled gear.

However, if you reroll now because your spec was underperforming (ele for me), you get massively punished by missing AP.
Even if you do have good AK on your alt, you still won't have nearly as much AP as your main.

"But you will catch up eventually"
True. But the damage is already done for people affected, ie rip raidspot.

[Meiffert]

In WoD, if your spec was underperforming, you rerolled and could still be viable if you had a guild and they funneled gear.

You are wrong, AP progression is the equivalent of legendary cloak/ring quest chains from last two expansions.
If your main had a 795 ring and you decided to level a new alt, you would be months behind.
The shortening duration of of artifact knowledge research makes swapping mains arguably easier than it used to be. (Although to be fair the droprate of legendary questline quest items was increased later in the expansions before, just not straight during the first tier.)

[Super Kami Dende]

I have Zero issue with it. If you want an Alt you put in the work.

Why should someone that starts 6 weeks after you be able to be hit your level of progress in 1 week.

Also, Raids are Balanced before Legs/Traits. Unless you are pushing top 100 Alts aren't that unfriendly.

[Tojara]

If you're in a position where you need to care about rerolling, it's unlikely that getting a reasonable amount of AP is going to be a problem. If your guild is at 24 traits on average, you aren't going to be getting 24 instantly. Can you get 19-21 pretty reasonably? Yeah you can, and for most classes that doesn't set you behind that much.

What makes rerolling easier this expansion in my opinion is that M+ exists and is a way to get gear outside of raiding in a smaller group setting, and not bound by the confines of weekly lockouts. How do you quickly get geared up in an expansion like WoD or any of the previous ones, if you show up to the raid to get gear funneled to you and nothing drops? My DH was 852 last Tuesday and with only running M+ with 2-3 other leather users in my group I was able to boost her iLvL to 866 in 2 days. Could that happen in other expansions? Yeah. But you had to hope things dropped and you had to raid.

So what if you're behind a few traits this early? Some of them are big yeah. But if you were to reroll at the start of HFC you would be way more behind considering you would likely be 20-30% behind everybody else because you didn't have the ring. Sames goes with the cape in MoP (although not as large).

Artifact power/knowledge is strong, but people put way too much thought into thinking they are way behind on an ALT compared to their mains when truthfully it's not nearly as big of a gap as you might think.

[Larynx]

I have Zero issue with it. If you want an Alt you put in the work.

Why should someone that starts 6 weeks after you be able to be hit your level of progress in 1 week.

Because not everyone plays this game for gear progression. Some people play it for, you know, actual progression.

[Super Kami Dende]

Because not everyone plays this game for gear progression. Some people play it for, you know, actual progression.

If they play it for "actual" progression it makes my point even stronger.