Is Blizzard actively trying to kill the raiding scene?

[ItsTiddles]

Since I've seen people talk about azerite pieces being raid only, I'd just like to point out that in the deep dive panel the examples were for dungeons. The way I understood it was that once you unlock the azerite traits, everything in those slots will be included.

[Yunaqt]

The best Azerite pieces (that cannot WF/TF) will still come from Mythic raids, so I think it is a fair exchange. Now, they only need to cap M+15 gear to the level of the current HC raid, and have WF/TF stuff drop only in raids. One can dream, of course

Interestingly they did say these slots could not WF/TF so you would expect at face value that you couldn't get them from the weekly cache (providing this stays a thing in it's current iteration), since the cache takes your highest M+ and TFs the base ilvl minimum, in which case we would be able to get TF items in these slots contradicting this statement.

I'm assuming they'll go with a similar gearing philosophy to Legion where you can get gear from a myriad of different sources but raiding is the most lucrative due to the amount of drops and a much higher base ilvl; eg. ToS; 930-940 base ilvl gear to M+; 910.

[Soon-TM]

No, they're trying to kill pvp.

Then I guess they have succeeded indeed.

[BananaHandsB]

just a different way of enjoying the game.

why does raiding have to be the only way to progress ur char?

It is in no way the only way to progress your character. I raid mythic and the only 5 items I use from raids are my tier and 1 trinket thanks to the new age of gearing.

[ONCHEhap]

With the announcement of eliminating tier sets, it feels like Blizzard wants to kill off raiding. I know what you are thinking, another player screaming "the sky is falling". But, with BfA and other changes from Legion, it seems Blizzard is steering the game to a more casual, open world sandbox and away from a structured game style, which is what raiding is.

Loot and gear is raining down all over the game. You can even obtain better gear from non raiding content as compared to raid drops. I am a heroic raider but my character probably about 50% non raid gear equipped. These pieces are from my mythic weekly caches, bonus week caches, emissary quests and relinquished gear from the Argus vendor. Heck, if you get lucky enough you can even top mythic level gear from some sources. Really, the only gear that is obtainable only from raiding is tier gear.

Ion said they are not getting rid of titanforging and other mechanics to increase item level from drops. This mechanic plus all the new sources for gear that is equal to or better than raid gear and eliminating tier sets, tells you where they want to take this game.

Raiding is about testing yourself against some of the toughest content in the game. Raiding is what brings people back week after week in order to progress and finally kill the end boss. But loot and gear was the carrot on the stick. It kept you coming back. And the satisfaction of finally downing that boss your team has struggled with is the reason we raid. But getting that epic tier piece, weapon, trinket, etc was the icing on the cake. Tier sets are unique to raiding. If you look at a player and see they are item level 930 but have no tier you can tell they dont raid. But if you look at a player with item level 930 and you see heroic or even mythic tier gear, you know they have beaten some of the hardest content in the game.

It's been very clear now that m+ is how Blizzard intends endgame content to be,they already gave more spotlight to m+ in one expansion than they did to raids since WoW launched
Removing tier sets is but another blow they took to put raiding below m+,the first one being titanforging and the second one being making all items from m+ besides from tier and trinkets far superior to raid equivalents,there will be many more until raids are actually dead and gone

[Frozenbeef]

Hopefully they succeed in killing it and think up something better, raids have always been the weakest part of wow for me.

[CogsNCocks]

Hopefully they succeed in killing it and think up something better, raids have always been the weakest part of wow for me.

What can be better than teaming up with other players and taking on really hard content?

Guild Wars 2 and Barbie Horse Adventure and other casual games are over there mate---->

[Tharkkun]

1. just a coincidence that so many hardcore guilds stopped rading in legion. (the addon that is so good as everyone says).
2. story can easily be moved into 5man content (what i think will happend over time now).
3. yeah so locking down 3 slots now with the same balance issues is somehow better.. not to mention that they probably will move all the good transmogs into the blizzardshop now because its just cosmetics. and the theme of the raids and dungeons will drop WOD LFR style gear.

Guilds quit raiding every expansion. Some merge, some breakup, others go casual and some make a comeback the following tier. It's going to happen with the difficulty of Mythic raiding. The artifact power system however added a lot more pressure to waste your time outside of raiding farming. This burned out a lot of raiders when you add it to split raids and mythic+ for gearing up multiple characters.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Azerite pieces can't titanforge, and have tier-like bonuses. This just means you can get guaranteed progress towards tier and you're guaranteed to get the best tier gear in the game by playing a lot and raiding mythic.

[Pooti]

If you are raiding only for gear, and not because you think raiding is fun, then you should be happy to not have to do it for gear anymore. If you are raiding because you enjoy it, nothing is changing.

[Daiju]

Power to them, raids have been more or less dead since LFR launched anyway. Maybe now they will show the important bits of story of the game in a different way than locking it behind raids.

[Trend]

Power to them, raids have been more or less dead since LFR launched anyway. Maybe now they will show the important bits of story of the game in a different way than locking it behind raids.

Just curious, how many hundreds of thousands of people need to be raiding at heroic or higher for you not to say it's dead? Or by "dead" do you just mean it's not something you do?

[Rafoel]

Its incredible. Blizzard removes tier sets, and the main complaint on forums is that armor will look worse. HOW ARE THESE TWO EVEN CONNECTED? Like wtf is wrong with you. There is even a guy crying how transmo will now be sold on Blizzard shop.

[Eothedk]

Have you ever bothered to look into how getting rid of tier sets is a good thing?

[Choloz]

as a cutting edge raider I'm honestly pretty happy with this change. set bonuses have made gearing pretty frustrating this expansion, especially with so many specs running 4/2. it's just not a fun mechanic having to juggle around 9 locked in slots (2, soon to be 3, legendaries. 6 set pieces, artifact)

[Maarius]

[kheath812]

as a cutting edge raider I'm honestly pretty happy with this change. set bonuses have made gearing pretty frustrating this expansion, especially with so many specs running 4/2. it's just not a fun mechanic having to juggle around 9 locked in slots (2, soon to be 3, legendaries. 6 set pieces, artifact)

they could have just made it so that 2pc 4pc wasnt an attractive option by nerfing the old sets when a new set came out, but in true blizzard fashion, they had to nuke the whole system because of a few miniscule problems...

[Mirishka]

no what blizzard is getting ready for is introduction of lootboxes into wow

its pretty obvious in world where titanforging is the king

get ready to join the gaming ad2017 where microtransactions are absolute must in every game.

Speak out of the correct end of your body please.

[Grimlokh]

What can be better than teaming up with other players and taking on really hard content?

Guild Wars 2 and Barbie Horse Adventure and other casual games are over there mate---->

Really hard content. Lol'd at that. Thanks

[Onikaroshi]

If you are raiding only for gear, and not because you think raiding is fun, then you should be happy to not have to do it for gear anymore. If you are raiding because you enjoy it, nothing is changing.

You can raid for both, but removing incentive to raid means less people feel the need to raid, which means less raid teams overall.

Honestly they can remove tier, who gives a crap about tier as a whole, but they need to add raid specific azerite traits that help raids and m+ azerite traits that help M+. Doing raids gets you better gear to do raids, doing M+ gets you better gear to do M+. Incentivize both without one stepping on the other.