All things considered...BfA had some pretty nice RPG-like fun customization

[kaminaris]

If you were farming for years for specific legendaries, then you weren't really farming at all, and you probably weren't even playing regularly. It might take a few months to grind the BiS legendary for your spec (again, only a few specs like Fire Mage were actually hampered by a missing legendary), but they were relatively easy to farm if you played consistently. This is compounded with minor improvements to the drop system that were implemented with almost every patch.

No, your this is completely false. It took me 8 months to get bis leggo, and during that time i did 800 bosses (all difficulties including lfr), lots of M+ and emissaries each day.
So having year to farm leggos is not really exaggeration.

And you are absolutely completely wrong about netherlight, it was way more rng than azerite. Azerite has exactly zero rng since you drop specific pieces from raid and you can buy specific pieces from vendor.

[Magical Mudcrab]

so you're here on Beyonce's internet saying that netherlight crucible was less rng than azerite?

lmao okay

This is a weird level of moving the goalposts that makes me positive that you're a troll. In case you're not actually a troll, I'll break this down for you in a way I hope you can comprehend.

The initial post you responded to can be boiled down to regarding to farming BiS traits/items in Legion vs. BfA, responding to a post where someone was complaining about a lack of customization (given that the "customization" simply penalized people who did not farm for the right items). Nowhere did I mention RNG in Azerite, the only RNG in Azerite as of 8.1+ is in raid drops; it just takes a very long time to farm because of Titan Residuum drop rate in M+ chests. It's effectively time-gated and frustrating to finally grind out vs. something like the Legion Legendaries, which you could grind passively via normal play.

That said, Corruption is the most impactful RNG-dependent system we've ever had. Corruptions like Infinite Stars can deal 20-40% of some classes overall output for a single piece of gear. This eclipses both the Legion Legandary and Netherlight Crucible systems in terms of impact, with the latter not even being very impactful overall in regards to your damage. For reference, as a Fire Mage, Netherlight Crucible options ranged from a 0.5-2% dps increase, so you would generally only get about a 3-4% dps increase in the best circumstances per relic.

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No, your this is completely false. It took me 8 months to get bis leggo, and during that time i did 800 bosses (all difficulties including lfr), lots of M+ and emissaries each day.
So having year to farm leggos is not really exaggeration.

And you are absolutely completely wrong about netherlight, it was way more rng than azerite. Azerite has exactly zero rng since you drop specific pieces from raid and you can buy specific pieces from vendor.

Again, people need to work on reading comprehension, I did not mention RNG in Azerite.
As someone who focused on H/M Raids and did a lot of M+, I didn't have that experience. I was able to get my Pyromancers relatively quickly, and didn't see anyone who played semi regularly go through that kind of drought in my guild or groups I ran M+ with. If that did happen, that sucks, but my experience was that is not the norm.

[kaminaris]

Again, people need to work on reading comprehension, I did not mention RNG in Azerite.
As someone who focused on H/M Raids and did a lot of M+, I didn't have that experience. I was able to get my Pyromancers relatively quickly, and didn't see anyone who played semi regularly go through that kind of drought in my guild or groups I ran M+ with. If that did happen, that sucks, but my experience was that is not the norm.

Just because you got lucky doesn't mean it worked like that. I personally saw guy getting 2 leggos from two consecutive bosses. So what if usually it took 3-5 weeks depending on the amount of framing. We were at top ~200 back then, yes it was common. 3-5 weeks was common.

[Biggles Worth]

Fun? Big no.

[guisadop]

that's not customization, that's RNG

[Magical Mudcrab]

Just because you got lucky doesn't mean it worked like that. I personally saw guy getting 2 leggos from two consecutive bosses. So what if usually it took 3-5 weeks depending on the amount of framing. We were at top ~200 back then, yes it was common. 3-5 weeks was common.

Conversely, I could say "just because you were unlucky doesn't mean it worked like that." Both statements are largely unhelpful. That said, I can totally accept that our difference of opinion on this comes down to personal experience, and may just not be reconcilable because of this.

[Kehego]

This is a weird level of moving the goalposts that makes me positive that you're a troll. In case you're not actually a troll, I'll break this down for you in a way I hope you can comprehend.

The initial post you responded to can be boiled down to regarding to farming BiS traits/items in Legion vs. BfA, responding to a post where someone was complaining about a lack of customization (given that the "customization" simply penalized people who did not farm for the right items). Nowhere did I mention RNG in Azerite, the only RNG in Azerite as of 8.1+ is in raid drops; it just takes a very long time to farm because of Titan Residuum drop rate in M+ chests. It's effectively time-gated and frustrating to finally grind out vs. something like the Legion Legendaries, which you could grind passively via normal play.

That said, Corruption is the most impactful RNG-dependent system we've ever had. Corruptions like Infinite Stars can deal 20-40% of some classes overall output for a single piece of gear. This eclipses both the Legion Legandary and Netherlight Crucible systems in terms of impact, with the latter not even being very impactful overall in regards to your damage. For reference, as a Fire Mage, Netherlight Crucible options ranged from a 0.5-2% dps increase, so you would generally only get about a 3-4% dps increase in the best circumstances per relic.

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Again, people need to work on reading comprehension, I did not mention RNG in Azerite.
As someone who focused on H/M Raids and did a lot of M+, I didn't have that experience. I was able to get my Pyromancers relatively quickly, and didn't see anyone who played semi regularly go through that kind of drought in my guild or groups I ran M+ with. If that did happen, that sucks, but my experience was that is not the norm.

i like how you just forgot that legendaries were capped till ToS but okay
and if you do 15 keys you get 2 pieces every 5 weeks.
That's higher than legendary acquisition rate.

[PaladinBash]

Essences were the only fun customisation option and that was largely because there were multiple interactions and builds for them and you can have 4 of the fucking things now (albeit with 1 Major). If you could have ONE, there'd only be a good one, a situational one (maybe) and the rest would be trash. The large breadth of it means it works because face it, if you're going to use Diablo 3 systems, you need Diablo 3 options and that includes a huge range of shit to choose from. Yeah like 3/4 of it at least is awful most of the time but that's still better than the alternative.

The others are all "this is good or shit" the entire time too with a few exceptions of "any of this is really good and none of it is instantly useless". That's not really customisation.

[DemonDays]

i like how you just forgot that legendaries were capped till ToS but okay
and if you do 15 keys you get 2 pieces every 5 weeks.
That's higher than legendary acquisition rate.

Uhhh. It was possible to get a Legendary every 1-2 weeks.

Legendaries were also an extremely moronic system. Whoever decided talent and glyph like power should be locked behind RNG drops should be shot.

[Magical Mudcrab]

i like how you just forgot that legendaries were capped till ToS but okay
and if you do 15 keys you get 2 pieces every 5 weeks.
That's higher than legendary acquisition rate.

I assume you're referring to the Legendary "Soft Cap" that removed bad luck protection if you had some number of Legendaries (don't remember the number off the top of my head), which is a fair point and definitely was a bad call by Blizzard. That said, I think the patch that fixed this was launched before ToS, I think during 7.1.5.
Re. Azerite, how are you coming to 2 pieces every 5 weeks? A +15 gives 2.9~k per chest and a specific piece is 20k, unless you're referring to the gamble which can be done bi-weekly?

[Amariw]

I've not seen anything different with trinkets this expansion than any other. Armor and Weapons with specials is far and few between. The essence system is hot garbage when it makes you do one form of content that has absolutely nothing to do with the other to be viable in said other form of content. Corruption is absolute hot garbage in the fact that it's mostly completely RNG. Azerite Gear I actually have no qualms with.

When the majority of your progression systems are tied to RNG, it's not fun. This expansion has not been fun.

Just quoting this for truth.

[Kemsa]

Flexible Transmogs / New Alter Racers / New Toys / New Thematic Gear (uldir titanforge transmog) / did i say High Elves on crack on Alliance? // Brown Orcs.

And probably Shadowlands are going to add more.... thats RPG Like Fun Customization... because
Azerite gear and corruption, are Systems that going to last 1 expa, not evergreen systems BY THE WAY.

And not fun at all.

[cparle87]

Totally Agree

I've seen posts and videos where people have complained that there wasn't enough RPG in the game.
This expansion has seen some, Corruption has been a lot of fun for me.
fun risks of balancing Death/Power

My current project is balanced the damage per corruption. I've found for my spec at least that's a bunch of low corruption but good passives, like +crit and the bleed damage, when added up do more damage than the big hitters like twilight devastation for the amount of corruption they cost. I'm working on new builds now.

Like say devastation is 70k dps (throwing random numbers) and costs 75 corruption.
And there's one that costs 10 corruption but does 20k dps and one that costs 15 and gives 25k dps. Two of the former and 3 of the latter would give me 65 corruption and 115k dps. Devastation might be the best single corruption, but it's not the dpc.

[Gaidax]

I think corruptions is a decent system that fell prey to the bane of BFA existence - balance and acquisition.

Just like Azerite and Essences, Corruptions, in theory, give some pretty sweet and even fun customization options, really.

The problem is as usual - balance rearing its ugly head where much of the freedom is pointless, because there is a correct answer for every situation and incorrect one (even if at times delta is really narrow). What's worse though and is painful in particular with corruptions - inability to target whatever you want that leads to this being more frustrating than it should have been. I think it's time they cave and next expansion start adding currencies that allow direct purchase of such power-ups.

Balance is a pickle that will never be solved, there will always be meta so it's a lost fight, but maybe at least they can at last lower RNG somewhat when it comes to acquisition.


Honestly, I really hope in Shlands they will go ahead and add to each boss you take out some sort of currency drop that would allow to purchase all the relevant items/powerups of that tier with whatever ilvl or magnitude you desire, just like Azerite armor. Make that currency drop increase based on difficulty and heck, even make it random amount within some range with some lucky rare double or quad usual amount or such (just like Islands doubloons, basically).

It is time they cave and do it.

[Kehego]

I assume you're referring to the Legendary "Soft Cap" that removed bad luck protection if you had some number of Legendaries (don't remember the number off the top of my head), which is a fair point and definitely was a bad call by Blizzard. That said, I think the patch that fixed this was launched before ToS, I think during 7.1.5.
Re. Azerite, how are you coming to 2 pieces every 5 weeks? A +15 gives 2.9~k per chest and a specific piece is 20k, unless you're referring to the gamble which can be done bi-weekly?

You're gambling.
remember that you couldn't buy specific legendaries before 8.0

[Magical Mudcrab]

You're gambling.
remember that you couldn't buy specific legendaries before 8.0

The problem with the gambling is that a lot of bad items that you cannot use.
For example, let's say I'm a fury warrior. I need Cold Steel, Hot Blood on an item for it to be competitive DPS wise, and I'm looking for a helmet. Out of the 6, 4 of the helmets available have that trait, fantastic. Now I need to pair that with another good trait. The M+ helmets are fairly limited in what the have, Unbridled Ferocity (granted I don't have that trait already, as it stacks badly), Tradewinds, and Dagger in the Back aren't strictly bad, they're all OK. This means that 3/6 of the helms have some combination of traits that are good for me. This means that I can either:
a) Spend 5-6 weeks and get 1 item that I know will be good
b) Spend 4 weeks and gamble, reasonably expect to get my preferred trait, possibly paired with a relatively competitive second trait

It would be more reasonable to assume 1 piece every 4~weeks, assuming you have a similar distribution of traits as Warriors do. Lots of classes have some mandatory traits (like Warriors with Test of Might / Cold Steel, Hot Blood, Mages with Flash Freeze / Blaster Master, DH with Furious Gaze, etc.) that Azerite pieces are effectively worthless without.

[Maruka]

Its great for every hour i play i spend 3 hours on wowhead reading about procs and essences.

[Kehego]

The problem with the gambling is that a lot of bad items that you cannot use.
For example, let's say I'm a fury warrior. I need Cold Steel, Hot Blood on an item for it to be competitive DPS wise, and I'm looking for a helmet. Out of the 6, 4 of the helmets available have that trait, fantastic. Now I need to pair that with another good trait. The M+ helmets are fairly limited in what the have, Unbridled Ferocity (granted I don't have that trait already, as it stacks badly), Tradewinds, and Dagger in the Back aren't strictly bad, they're all OK. This means that 3/6 of the helms have some combination of traits that are good for me. This means that I can either:
a) Spend 5-6 weeks and get 1 item that I know will be good
b) Spend 4 weeks and gamble, reasonably expect to get my preferred trait, possibly paired with a relatively competitive second trait

It would be more reasonable to assume 1 piece every 4~weeks, assuming you have a similar distribution of traits as Warriors do. Lots of classes have some mandatory traits (like Warriors with Test of Might / Cold Steel, Hot Blood, Mages with Flash Freeze / Blaster Master, DH with Furious Gaze, etc.) that Azerite pieces are effectively worthless without.

good thing those are on raid drops

[TheramoreIsTheBomb]

corruption would be fun if it weren't for the RNG and ranged unfriendly backlash

[Nzx]

The artifact with 0 customization, but also ensured you did not need to farm weeks upon weeks for a specific set of Azerite traits or Corruption effects in order to have comparable dps to your peers. Granted, the Legion Legendaries for some classes had similar issues (like Pyromancer's Bracers for Mages), but for the most part the effect wasn't as exaggerated as Azerite or Corruption has been.

People have some real fairytale memory when it comes to Legiondaries. Fire mage bracers/ring, shaman gloves, shaman boots/shoulders, monk shoulders/helm/whatever the kegsmash/breath combo thing was, DH ring, warlock helm/bracers/ring - all of these were complete game changers to the point that you may as well not even try to raid on the character until you had them, and that's just for the classes that I played. I'm sure there were more. Yes, BFA's gearing, particularly corruption absolutely sucks, but lets not pretend Legiondaries were "good" at any point up until you could just choose which ones you wanted. I once got a BIS legendary for my warlock from a blingtron, but it took my shaman right up until the vendor came out to get his gloves. Oh now you want to play ele? Too bad until you RNG your way into boots AND shoulders.