It's time for Rank 1 Essences to be account wide

[Khaza-R]

Rank 1?! What's the point? They are pretty much free anyhow.
Rank 4 on one character should unlock the rank 3 essence account wide.

I back this 100%. I would further elaborate that rank 2 and above should unlock 1 rank lower on all your alts.

[Nevcairiel]

Rank 1 and 2 were absolute trash for almost everyone.
But then Rank 3 was almost everyone's best major essence for DPS.

But thats a good argument for having to earn those. The best and strongest shouldn't be free.

I would fully support unlocking rank 1 baseline (as soon as you earned it one character), and maybe up that to two if you have rank 3/4?. But rank 3 is really powerful, and should be earned.

Alt-Catchup gear is entry-level, not end-game. If you want end-game power, you need to work for that.

[Jester Joe]

But thats a good argument for having to earn those. The best and strongest shouldn't be free.

I would fully support unlocking rank 1 baseline (as soon as you earned it one character), and maybe up that to two if you have rank 3/4?. But rank 3 is really powerful, and should be earned.

Alt-Catchup gear is entry-level, not end-game. If you want end-game power, you need to work for that.

Because they're NOT actual power gains as much as people want to argue it.
Not in the way gear is.

This would be like arguing people should have to earn their artifact ability in Legion.

The classes are balanced around having the rank 3s.

[Nevcairiel]

Because they're NOT actual power gains as much as people want to argue it.

Of course they are. You can get rank 1 or even 2 for all I care so that you can get the "gameplay", if you want the full power, earn it.

This would be like arguing people should have to earn their artifact ability in Legion.

But you did have to earn your artifact, and unlock its perks. You didn't just get it for logging in.

The classes are balanced around having the rank 3s.

Thats like saying classes are balanced around having trinket X, or back in the day having the set bonus. You still had to collect the set.

[ashblond]

Essences shall not be account wide. They shall just be removed.

It is a retarded system to begin with.

[Lucetia]

Here is what happens with a 120 boost char just doing the questlines and some WQs:

This is just silly, unlocking rank 1 essences for all alts will open for more character progression instead of regression.

A simple change with no downsides that will open up the progression for all our characters and make the game much more enjoyable.


What are your thoughts on this?

I don't mind Rank 1 being unlocked account wide, however, Rank 1's are pretty easy to unlock and most can be done quickly. Few exceptions apply like raid ones take X lockouts (unless higher levels give more pieces) and the BG one where you have to wait a week to loot the chest. Either way the effort required to get each is very minimal to where it wouldn't have much impact. To make life easier you can always check out what Top 4 essences sim the highest and unlock only those since you don't need them all unlocked.

[Ardourdan]

This is the first expansion my alts have stayed at the starting level. There is far too much to grind on your main. Which is a shame because I'd really like to try Holy Pala M+.

[Corroc]

Here is what happens with a 120 boost char just doing the questlines and some WQs:



This is just silly, unlocking rank 1 essences for all alts will open for more character progression instead of regression.

A simple change with no downsides that will open up the progression for all our characters and make the game much more enjoyable.


What are your thoughts on this?

Do islands for Worldvein rank 1
Do one run of horrific visions for Spark of inspiration
Do one run of Mechagon (heroic is fine) for the Mechagon essence
Do any quests in Mechagon for for purification protocal (spare crates)
Do dailies for Memory of Lucid dream

You can even choose which one of these is good for your spec. You dont even have to get everything.

[Ange]

Honestly the essence gating is probably the best filter for PUG's. With account wide everything and gear easily bought or used the cath-up system, you never knowed how much time some players actually spend on a specific character.

With essences I can just inspect a random player and know pretty much how much time was spend in pvp/pve/world with this specific character.

The quality of PUGs in BfA is on another level and even with my 1900+ days /played I dont even remember any time in WoW where you could actually tell this easy if a random player knows his class on a basic level or not.

I actually hope for some similar Shadowlands MAIN>ALT gating, because outside of the crybaby threads in the forums, the actual game got much more enjoyable for PUGing.

[Aeula]

"nExT yoU'lL WaNt FrEe 475 gEaR oN LoGiN"

But seriously, make ALL ranks account wide, dear god it's such a dull thing to re-grind. I want to focus on gear, not essences.

[Alvito]

Yes my friend, but you don't understand... doing the brain draining grind of getting and upgrading the essences instead of doing actual worthwhile content is increasing the MAUs!

Of course the problem with that train of thinking is if people quit or hate a part of the game they register zeros for that.

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Explain how it matter for MAU if I log in for grinding essences, progressing through hard content or doing laps around Dalaran.



Actually if would be amazing incentive to get rank 4. I don't think many people care if one of their spells is rainbow.

Imagine the bitching about the mythic Azshara locked rank 4 then.

[Aliven]

The opposite. It makes the game not alt friendly. It's stupid that there's catch up gearing but nothing's done with regards to essences.

And as such, I just don't bother with alts.

Oh sorry then, missunderstud you.

[Jester Joe]

Of course they are. You can get rank 1 or even 2 for all I care so that you can get the "gameplay", if you want the full power, earn it.

If you want to go reobtain something that's just a time sink and not an actual skill based unlock, by all means, go ahead.

WoW is not, and hasn't been the game for that. Hence why they keep making more things account wide, along with stuff like the 45 ilvl boost being account wide instead of having to regrind the champions rep.

But you did have to earn your artifact, and unlock its perks. You didn't just get it for logging in.

I specifically said artifact ability. The thing you unlock as soon as you got the artifact.

And even the traits took like a day or two of play halfway through the expansion to unlock.

Not almost a month.

Thats like saying classes are balanced around having trinket X, or back in the day having the set bonus. You still had to collect the set.

Again, it's not gear though.

[Aliven]

Honestly the essence gating is probably the best filter for PUG's. With account wide everything and gear easily bought or used the cath-up system, you never knowed how much time some players actually spend on a specific character.

With essences I can just inspect a random player and know pretty much how much time was spend in pvp/pve/world with this specific character.

The quality of PUGs in BfA is on another level and even with my 1900+ days /played I dont even remember any time in WoW where you could actually tell this easy if a random player knows his class on a basic level or not.

I actually hope for some similar Shadowlands MAIN>ALT gating, because outside of the crybaby threads in the forums, the actual game got much more enjoyable for PUGing.

Since when time played is even closer in determining player skill?

[munkeyinorbit]

Not to mention that in the coming weeks with the increased Catch-up mechanic, alts may have neck at lvl 75 by just doing intro content.

Do mythic plus twice and you get another. Do 1 set of islands another. Do mech once, another. Why are you so lazy?

[Not A Cat]

Do mythic plus twice and you get another. Do 1 set of islands another. Do mech once, another. Why are you so lazy?

All of that stuff still takes a big chunk of time, I don't see how it would negatively affect anyone to atleast make rank 1 account wide

[TickerDS]

I have thought all along if you reach rank 3 on a toon with an essence, your account should unlock rank 1.

Rank 3 is completely doable for almost any singular one toon to do. (versus rank 4 being hard if not impossible for some players and the too easy of simply unlocking rank 1 for all toons if you unlock rank 1 on one)

[themaster24]

Do islands for Worldvein rank 1
Do one run of horrific visions for Spark of inspiration
Do one run of Mechagon (heroic is fine) for the Mechagon essence
Do any quests in Mechagon for for purification protocal (spare crates)
Do dailies for Memory of Lucid dream

You can even choose which one of these is good for your spec. You dont even have to get everything.

I think the idea is, from what I've gathered with people I play with, is Blizz has adopted this philosophy that power gains aren't tied behind old content. You can get the best possible gear in 8.3 without touching old content at all. For alts, this great, as you can join the fray without having to run old stuff. However, essences don't share that. For most essences, and for many their BiS ones, require you to do more than a little bit of old content. This is really only a problem because Blizz has created a precedent, as I've said, that you don't need to do old content for power.

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I have thought all along if you reach rank 3 on a toon with an essence, your account should unlock rank 1.

Rank 3 is completely doable for almost any singular one toon to do. (versus rank 4 being hard if not impossible for some players and the too easy of simply unlocking rank 1 for all toons if you unlock rank 1 on one)

Blizz could just do something similar to Heirlooms. You can unlock a rank account wide once you have unlocked it on one character, but at a gold cost. Say 2k for a rank 1, 5k for a rank 2, and 10k for a rank 3, requiring successive unlocks. Rank 4 is free, but you still have to unlock each rank. They could do the same thing but set it Mementos instead of gold

[Pillerina]

Should just make you autoget rank 3 when you get rank 1

[Corroc]

I think the idea is, from what I've gathered with people I play with, is Blizz has adopted this philosophy that power gains aren't tied behind old content. You can get the best possible gear in 8.3 without touching old content at all. For alts, this great, as you can join the fray without having to run old stuff. However, essences don't share that. For most essences, and for many their BiS ones, require you to do more than a little bit of old content. This is really only a problem because Blizz has created a precedent, as I've said, that you don't need to do old content for power.

Well the only one behind "old content" is EP essence. You cant think of this as black and white that everything added before 8.3 is old content.