Mage Tower and AP

[Ozzayel]

Did 4 dungeons and got 1 token.
Mage Tower so good. Wow.

[Lucetia]

You're right. I can not possibly argue that AP literally does nothing for them. AP obviously does something and I didn't mean to say it that way. I should have phrased it as.

The change that Blizzard made is a huge quality of life improvement for the 1-10% that would have abused the broken system. The change that Blizzard made has literally no effect on the amount of AP that the casual 99-90% player would farm in a given timeframe and therefore this change has literally no effect on those casual players. Those casual players may read about this change and whine about it not realizing that it's effect is literally non-existent given how they play the game.

Except it does affect them. You want to believe it doesn't affect them because they aren't doing Mythic Raids and such. This is a false ideology. It affects everyone on the exact same level. Just because some players want to burn themselves out on farming stuff small power gains doesn't mean that everyone else needs to be affected. There are different ways they can handle it, but they choose to let it be open ended.

[Emancptr]

Except it does affect them. You want to believe it doesn't affect them because they aren't doing Mythic Raids and such. This is a false ideology. It affects everyone on the exact same level. Just because some players want to burn themselves out on farming stuff small power gains doesn't mean that everyone else needs to be affected. There are different ways they can handle it, but they choose to let it be open ended.

No, it does not effect everyone on the same level. This change for Mythic Raiders means that they will have 300-500 million less AP (than if this went unchanged). Mythic Raiders would have abused the living f' out of this broken system. Mythic Raiders would have been 3-4 traits ahead of where Blizzard wanted them to be. This would force Blizzard to tune Mythic ToS harder as a result. In turn, forcing those that didn't get this AP to make up the grind somewhere else or be left behind.

Casual Raider Jane will have 2-5 million less AP. Casual Raider Jane won't even notice that in her artifact because 2-5 million AP is sub 10% of a new trait. The AP that Casual Raider Jane has doesn't affect content tuning. This is because the AP that Casual Raider Jane can have is within a very defined range (when compared to Mythic Raiders that can have a huge range).

No, this change does not affect everyone equally. It literally does not affect casual players.

[Lucetia]

No, it does not effect everyone on the same level. This change for Mythic Raiders means that they will have 300-500 million less AP (than if this went unchanged). Mythic Raiders would have abused the living f' out of this broken system. Mythic Raiders would have been 3-4 traits ahead of where Blizzard wanted them to be. This would force Blizzard to tune Mythic ToS harder as a result. In turn, forcing those that didn't get this AP to make up the grind somewhere else or be left behind.

Casual Raider Jane will have 2-5 million less AP. Casual Raider Jane won't even notice that in her artifact because 2-5 million AP is sub 10% of a new trait. The AP that Casual Raider Jane has doesn't affect content tuning. This is because the AP that Casual Raider Jane can have is within a very defined range (when compared to Mythic Raiders that can have a huge range).

No, this change does not affect everyone equally. It literally does not affect casual players.

It does affect everyone, whether you want to think so or not. It's clear your mindset is only about the mythic raiders and that is it, everything else doesn't matter. So I'm just not going to go into it anymore. Point was it affects more than just Mythic raiders.

[Emancptr]

It does affect everyone, whether you want to think so or not. It's clear your mindset is only about the mythic raiders and that is it, everything else doesn't matter. So I'm just not going to go into it anymore. Point was it affects more than just Mythic raiders.

You want to get hung up on words be my guest. The fact is, this affects Mythic raiders 100x more than it affects casual players. Sure, keep whining about how it affects casual players. The magnitude to which it affects casual players is so little that this is a change worth making. The fact that you can't realize that is sad.

[Drish]

You want to get hung up on words be my guest. The fact is, this affects Mythic raiders 100x more than it affects casual players. Sure, keep whining about how it affects casual players. The magnitude to which it affects casual players is so little that this is a change worth making. The fact that you can't realize that is sad.

Quoting this for 2 reasons.

1) Casual player and mythic raiders aren't necessarily seperate ends of the spectrum. Stop treating them as seperate pools. As a mythic raider I wasn't planning on farming for hours for an extra trait.

2) an extra 5% on vampiric touch will affect both pools of people by the same percentile. Some traits are obviously bigger than others, some will only be useful in raids while some only see use in world quests (armor for moonkin form whee). Every point gives every player stamina. If you want to nitpick about each individual point go ahead. but the overall arc will affect everyone the same. Just because a mythic raider may squeeze more overall value out of a trait doesn't mean that a world quester won't feel the effects, they add up. Use a new weapon or new alt (feed it gear mythic raiders do this all the time) and do literally anything and tell me that there isn't any difference to your flushed out weapon.

[Donald Hellscream]

in 3 mythic 0 dungeons I got 1 tome and 22 of the normal tokens that each give half of what the tome gives, so that was still about 5-6 million ap for about an hours work, not too bad.

[Lucetia]

in 3 mythic 0 dungeons I got 1 tome and 22 of the normal tokens that each give half of what the tome gives, so that was still about 5-6 million ap for about an hours work, not too bad.

So basically you got 1 out of 22, because those 22 you would've have gotten even without mage tower. Going from 50% chance to drop to 4.5% chance to drop (based on earlier stats and your stats there) isn't "not too bad", it just makes the tower worthless really if it wasn't for artifact challenge.

At that rate and the time it took, it'd been better to activate World Boss / Craftable Legendaries or possibly even the follower stuff.

For me I just ran six heroic dungeons. Got about 26 of the Jewels, but zero of the Legionfall items (0/26 for 0%). But hey, a few select minority believe this is more balanced because we aren't all Mythic raiders so tough luck, right? :P

[Emancptr]

For me I just ran six heroic dungeons. Got about 26 of the Jewels, but zero of the Legionfall items (0/26 for 0%). But hey, a few select minority believe this is more balanced because we aren't all Mythic raiders so tough luck, right? :P

It is more balanced. Now there isn't a period where if you no-life you get 3-5x the normal AP rate. This change literally benefits the casual players because now the gap between them and the people that hardcore no-life is smaller. This makes it easier to balance (the high end isn't as high) for Blizzard tuning as well. This change literally benefits you and it benefits the game as a whole (hence why Blizzard did it).

You can complain about it being screwed up in the first place and people benefiting from that (see WQ rollback that happened in 7.0). But you can't possibly be so dumb as to not realize that narrowing the AP gap (by limiting the amount hardcore people can farm) is good for you.

[Lucetia]

This change literally benefits you and it benefits the game as a whole (hence why Blizzard did it).

You are right. Running six dungeons throughout the day and seeing not one single bonus AP item benefits me and the entire game. Yup, getting nothing from a buff is definitely benefiting me. Might as well give me a buff that says "Increases out of combat regeneration".

[Emancptr]

You are right. Running six dungeons throughout the day and seeing not one single bonus AP item benefits me and the entire game. Yup, getting nothing from a buff is definitely benefiting me. Might as well give me a buff that says "Increases out of combat regeneration".

All you can think about is yourself and not the whole picture. The whole picture is everyone farms less AP. The Hardcore Players farm way, way, way, way, way less AP. This means that the gap between hardcore players and casual players is smaller. This means that casual players benefit the most from this change because they are closer to the "top."

If the buff had gone in the way it is currently you would literally have no complaints. Because you would just assume that the proc rate is low. The only reason you give a flying f' is because you heard that it was higher before. And now the pretty little buff isn't as pretty because you heard somewhere the buff was prettier before.

Literally that is your problem with the buff right now. You don't actually have a legitimate complaint.

[Lucetia]

All you can think about is yourself and not the whole picture. The whole picture is everyone farms less AP. The Hardcore Players farm way, way, way, way, way less AP. This means that the gap between hardcore players and casual players is smaller. This means that casual players benefit the most from this change because they are closer to the "top."

Actually, not even thinking about myself. If people who raid Mythic want to farm dungeons 24/7 to get as much AP as possible then why shouldn't they? Oh well if Mythic raids will have to be tuned higher, it's not the end of the world. I mean I literally see zero issue with people who want to farm as much as they want to be able too. Sure they'll be ahead of others, but it's a time investment for a reason.

If the buff had gone in the way it is currently you would literally have no complaints. Because you would just assume that the proc rate is low. The only reason you give a flying f' is because you heard that it was higher before. And now the pretty little buff isn't as pretty because you heard somewhere the buff was prettier before.

Literally that is your problem with the buff right now. You don't actually have a legitimate complaint.

Yup, I'm so glad you know exactly what I'm thinking. I did a few LFR's this morning while it was in the state it was in and it was actually rewarding and felt like the tower actually gave something that wasn't limited to a select few.

Now that the buff literally gives you barely anything it is extremely unrewarding. I wouldn't care if it was at 10-25%, but being close to 0% for some, 1%, 5%, etc just shows that Blizzard has no idea how to adjust it accordingly.

I think ultimately the reason you think it is ok is because you now don't feel "forced" to run dungeons in order to maximize. Which seems to be the reason a lot of these things occur because most people say they are "forced" to do it to stay competitive. Either do it because you want to or don't. Choice is yours and no one is forcing you to do it.

[Emancptr]

Now that the buff literally gives you barely anything it is extremely unrewarding. I wouldn't care if it was at 10-25%, but being close to 0% for some, 1%, 5%, etc just shows that Blizzard has no idea how to adjust it accordingly.

If it's sub 10% then they probably over-adjusted, which is Blizzards mantra. I'll agree to that. But if it's 10% that is a reasonable amount for it to be giving and still prevents Random Heroic spamming from being the go to. I still think having 25% proc rate+mirroring the token the dungeon drops is the best format. It continues to reward players equally for whatever activity they were already doing. Whereas with a static value token (current implementation) there are activities that become much more lucrative.

I think ultimately the reason you think it is ok is because you now don't feel "forced" to run dungeons in order to maximize. Which seems to be the reason a lot of these things occur because most people say they are "forced" to do it to stay competitive. Either do it because you want to or don't. Choice is yours and no one is forcing you to do it.

I'm chain running dungeons without the buff, but it's nice that you know what i've been doing/thinking. I will run the dungeons with and/or without the buff because I enjoy it.

What you don't understand is Mythic Balance. If this was not changed then Blizzard would have to balance around it and it would completely destroy the balance that they're going for. The Mage Tower Buffed AP rate before the hotfix was 3-5x anything else in the game. If that was left in the game for multiple occurrences of the mage tower (at higher AK levels) the Concordance traits would no longer be an infinite grind, but something attainable. As soon as the Concordance traits are attainable they have to be balanced around. And that isn't fun for anyone.

[Rankstar]

The nerf to the Mage Tower AP does indeed have a bigger impact on Mythic raiders than casuals. they are two different types of players on a spectrum.

Several of our mythic raiders are significantly ahead because of the mage tower AP tokens. The extra traits they have will make a major impact when we go back to prog on GME and Guldan because of the way these fights are tuned, you must execute perfect rotation while dealing with mechanics. The damage numbers are fixed in mythic.

Versus casuals who want to kill heroic guldan, those players are held back by casual jane who dies in p1 every pull because she stood in fire for 10seconds. There is a difference. These players are not going to feel any difference in their progression because the content they are trying to do is not tightly tuned and is more mechanical, i.e move out of fire.

[Drusin]

Lame nerf, I look forward to seeing how often mage tower is up in the future now.

[meumaxu]

Wait....so now only the ones who raid Mythic raids matter? Is that what you are saying? If so, I'm just gonna shake my head and walk away because of how bad that is.

yes AP matters for those doing endgame content.. casuals shouldnt worry about rushing ap atm

[Deleted]

just a quick overview

let's assume ToS comes out 11 weeks after 7.2 (somewhat hinted at by the bluepost posted here on mmo-champ on the 29th march) and you have finished the artifact questline for AK26 on the first day, then you would have 77 days to get up AK until these 11 weeks are over.

1 lv of AK takes 5 days, so you would get 15 lv worth of AK and have 2 days left.
as you get 26 by completing the quest, you would be at 41 after 75 days.
since you want some time for farming, let's say you start farming right after getting to AK40

going by the value given on Wowhead, AK 40 will give 4 000 000%, AK 27 gives 130 000%, that is about 30 times more AP.

now, lets take my noobish monk with his crappy WW artifact as an example:

he has just bougt his 36th point today, so he has roughly 8.7 mio AP in his artifact. 8 766 330
in order to get all traits on 4/4 and the first point of Concordance, he needs 2 220 000 000 more AP

you stated that heroic farming with mage tower nets about 6-8 mio AP per hour at AK27 (i assume)

assuming an average gain of 7 mio AP per hour, times 30 (remember, AK40 gives 30 times more than AK 27), equals to 210 mio AP per hour.

finally, taking that gain and looking at the 2 220 000 000 AP my shitty monk still needs, that would be a bit over 10 hours of farming at ak 40.
do keep in mind that to profit from the mage tower bonus, you would ned to do the 10h farm while it is up
these are just some statistics. i leave it up to the readers to interpret them

and i HIGHLY doubt that they will tune around people having multiple points in concordance, as they intend for it to be a AP-dump

sorry for the long post, if there are any flaws in the math above, please tell me.

Its pretty easy to jump from trait 36 to your first concordance point if you have ak37+. It takes only ~50 m+10 like ap rewards (without any ap bonus included) what is really easy to get with very easy and slow farming. No one will have any issue to get one point in concordance. With unlimited burnout farming a handful of people will maybe have max 7 points in concordnce at the time kiljaeden is killed by the top10 guilds. The DR hits pretty hard. Even if you tryhard every day for the rest of 2k17 you will barely beat the 25th trait in concordance. With the current ak level cap not a single player will get 35 traits until the next expansion. Pain no gain.

[Donald Hellscream]

So basically you got 1 out of 22, because those 22 you would've have gotten even without mage tower. Going from 50% chance to drop to 4.5% chance to drop (based on earlier stats and your stats there) isn't "not too bad", it just makes the tower worthless really if it wasn't for artifact challenge.

At that rate and the time it took, it'd been better to activate World Boss / Craftable Legendaries or possibly even the follower stuff.

For me I just ran six heroic dungeons. Got about 26 of the Jewels, but zero of the Legionfall items (0/26 for 0%). But hey, a few select minority believe this is more balanced because we aren't all Mythic raiders so tough luck, right? :P

Well.. I thought it just meant a chance of more ap drops per kill in general and not necesarrily just the tome drops, because I killed several mythic dungeon bosses and got two symbols of whatever as opposed to just one.

[satimy]

It is more balanced. Now there isn't a period where if you no-life you get 3-5x the normal AP rate. This change literally benefits the casual players because now the gap between them and the people that hardcore no-life is smaller. This makes it easier to balance (the high end isn't as high) for Blizzard tuning as well. This change literally benefits you and it benefits the game as a whole (hence why Blizzard did it).

You can complain about it being screwed up in the first place and people benefiting from that (see WQ rollback that happened in 7.0). But you can't possibly be so dumb as to not realize that narrowing the AP gap (by limiting the amount hardcore people can farm) is good for you.

If you actually think blizzard does changes like this for any reason other than that they are petty brats you are wrong. It's not even a buff anymore ffs. And no lifers are going to have max traits before the meme proc before mythic tos launches anyway

[Dziubla]

It is more balanced. Now there isn't a period where if you no-life you get 3-5x the normal AP rate. This change literally benefits the casual players because now the gap between them and the people that hardcore no-life is smaller. This makes it easier to balance (the high end isn't as high) for Blizzard tuning as well. This change literally benefits you and it benefits the game as a whole (hence why Blizzard did it).

You can complain about it being screwed up in the first place and people benefiting from that (see WQ rollback that happened in 7.0). But you can't possibly be so dumb as to not realize that narrowing the AP gap (by limiting the amount hardcore people can farm) is good for you.

Sorry, but you are stupid. And I should use stronger word actually.

The only so called "benefit" for casual player, is that he is not as far behind hardcore players as he would be, if they didn't nerf it. But guess what? Casual player doesn't give a fuck what mythic raiders do. And if they didn't nerf it, casual player would get more AP/hour for his playtime than he currently is. So much downside for casual, right, guess they all did a backflip from joy when they've seen the nerf.