Easier to farm old raids now or in Shadowlands?

[majinbebi]

Simple question: will it be easier to farm old raids like mythic nighthold now with all this corruption etc or will it actually get harder once shadowlands releases and we lose corruption even though we gain levels etc, like first tier of shadowlands in December?

[Cerus]

Simple question: will it be easier to farm old raids like mythic nighthold now with all this corruption etc or will it actually get harder once shadowlands releases and we lose corruption even though we gain levels etc, like first tier of shadowlands in December?

You’re asking if old raids will be harder once you gain 10 more levels and gear far better than endgame BFA gear?

Is this a joke? Corruption is just the new TF. No different than farming old raids after a new expansion releases. They get easier.

[Nzx]

You’re asking if old raids will be harder once you gain 10 more levels and gear far better than endgame BFA gear?

Is this a joke? Corruption is just the new TF. No different than farming old raids after a new expansion releases. They get easier.

Except that SL also brings with it the AoE cap and removes corruptions like TD that will randomly annihilate entire instances for you. It'll probably get easier once you are 9.2 endgame geared sure but I imagine it will feel substantially worse for many classes in the short term.

[Cerus]

Except that SL also brings with it the AoE cap and removes corruptions like TD that will randomly annihilate entire instances for you. It'll probably get easier once you are 9.2 endgame geared sure but I imagine it will feel substantially worse for many classes in the short term.

People have been farming most mythic legion raids long before corrupted gear.

The AOE cap doesn’t apply to all spells and isn’t really a big deal.

It will be easier with dungeon blues simply because of ilvl, overall power and those raids will be knocked down to legacy difficulty due to the hidden buff. Once you’re 10+ levels above it becomes substantially easier.

Legion will be trivial in SL like WoD is trivial now.

[Shelly]

We honestly don't know yet.

Right now you can solo up to the bounty hunter boss in normal Antorus without difficulty at 470 iLevel. (Or at least my Fury warrior can.) I can also handle heroic Tomb of Sargeras, I think Mythic Tomb is doable as well up until Avatar. Maybe I'll try tonight.

Anyway, they'll increase the passive damage buff they give to legacy content if the ability to solo instances from two expansions ago becomes too difficult. Until Shadowlands launches though and the first raid is out that buff would be on the back burner.

[Toybox]

We honestly don't know yet.

Right now you can solo up to the bounty hunter boss in normal Antorus without difficulty at 470 iLevel. (Or at least my Fury warrior can.) I can also handle heroic Tomb of Sargeras, I think Mythic Tomb is doable as well up until Avatar. Maybe I'll try tonight.

Anyway, they'll increase the passive damage buff they give to legacy content if the ability to solo instances from two expansions ago becomes too difficult. Until Shadowlands launches though and the first raid is out that buff would be on the back burner.

I just tried Mythic Garothi on the beta my BiS geared Warrior as both Arms & Fury. Aboslutely no chance at all of dropping it, compared to live where it's actually pretty comfortable.

No idea how it'll be at 60, though.

[Calfredd]

You’re asking if old raids will be harder once you gain 10 more levels and gear far better than endgame BFA gear?

Is this a joke? Corruption is just the new TF. No different than farming old raids after a new expansion releases. They get easier.

I mean, when they performed the stat squish they had to add a buff to all pre-Mists raids that increased your damage and healing because people had difficulty soloing them than they had been pre-squish.

[Wardley]

Actually - another question on this.

With pre-patch and the level squish, we're all going back to Level 50. And all expansions are going to cover from level 10 to level 50. Does that mean that all raids are going to be 'current' again during pre-patch as Level 50 raids?

And would the 'end of expansion raids' (ICC, SoO, Antorus etc.) therefore be comparable (and as hard) as Nyalotha and the gear drops from those raids similar to gear dropping from there? Is it worth farming those raids now to get the gear from them so during pre-patch it'll get reset and suddenly you've got a nice gear set ready for Shadowlands?

[Toybox]

I mean, when they performed the stat squish they had to add a buff to all pre-Mists raids that increased your damage and healing because people had difficulty soloing them than they had been pre-squish.

Nothing like that is in the game yet it seems, or at least, if it is, it's nowhere near enough to tackle Legion raids as comfortably as it is on live. I'll go take a peak with my premade 60 character & see if anything is different at level cap, but there's nothing like the 6.0 fiesta where you could run Firelands 25HC in 10 mins.

Actually - another question on this.

With pre-patch and the level squish, we're all going back to Level 50. And all expansions are going to cover from level 10 to level 50. Does that mean that all raids are going to be 'current' again during pre-patch as Level 50 raids?

And would the 'end of expansion raids' (ICC, SoO, Antorus etc.) therefore be comparable (and as hard) as Nyalotha and the gear drops from those raids similar to gear dropping from there? Is it worth farming those raids now to get the gear from them so during pre-patch it'll get reset and suddenly you've got a nice gear set ready for Shadowlands?

I'll go check a few now.

Edit:

At Level 50
ICC mobs are level 30. Bosses die as fast as they do on live. Naxx mobs are 34... No idea why.
Dragon Soul mobs are level 35. Bosses die as fast as they do on live.
HFC mobs are level 40. Bosses die as fast as they do on live. Blackrock Foundry mobs are level 41... Again, no idea why.
Goroth in HFC Mythic is simply undoable. The damage is way too high to manage as a Warrior if I'm trying to just brute force my way through it.

Gear drops from all of em are absolutely irrelevant. HFC mythic last two are dropping iLvl 47 gear, almost a third of the max ilvl stuff in BFA.

TLDR: It's pretty much as it is now, just with the AoE cap potentially slowing some stuff down. Legion is seemingly a lot harder because it's not yet flagged as a legacy raid & the stat squish has made pumping bosses more difficult, but that should be fixed at higher levels. Will test that now...

At Level 60
I'm guessing the above rings true for everything pre-Legion, but once again, Goroth mythic is impossible. Hell, I feel like my level 50 character did better thanks to its Azerite traits/gear scaling etc. Only had a few attempts as Fury, but couldn't even get it sub 80%.

Still, this should be fixed when it's flagged by Blizzard as a legacy raid.

[Nzx]

The AOE cap doesn’t apply to all spells and isn’t really a big deal.

Doesn't apply to all spells but will make it significantly slower to clear old raids on a Rogue, for example. Currently you pull everything from start to finish and hit a single AoE button one time and all the trash dies, now you're going to be standing there spamming your AoE killing 5 mobs at a time.

and those raids will be knocked down to legacy difficulty due to the hidden buff. Once you’re 10+ levels above it becomes substantially easier.

Assuming this actually occurs, yeah. There's been no communication confirming it though.

I don't think this question is answerable with as much certainty as you're giving it tbh. Corruption is so far and above the power level given by titanforging (or realistically any gear-based system we've ever had in this game) and the AoE cap is such a significant change to the way the game has worked for the last 16 years AND we're being level squished which has never happened before, I think there are enough variables there that it might not be guaranteed easier immediately.

[minkage]

Theres been a few times where prepatch hit/systems changed/scaling where it absolutely made soloing old content harder.

I would absolutely imagine its gonna be alot harder to solo legion content next xpac.

[Kuja]

Speaking of tit forging, is that back in shadowlands? Or some other mechanic replacing it, like corruption did in late bfa.

[OrcsRLame]

Doesn't apply to all spells but will make it significantly slower to clear old raids on a Rogue, for example. Currently you pull everything from start to finish and hit a single AoE button one time and all the trash dies, now you're going to be standing there spamming your AoE killing 5 mobs at a time.



Assuming this actually occurs, yeah. There's been no communication confirming it though.

I don't think this question is answerable with as much certainty as you're giving it tbh. Corruption is so far and above the power level given by titanforging (or realistically any gear-based system we've ever had in this game) and the AoE cap is such a significant change to the way the game has worked for the last 16 years AND we're being level squished which has never happened before, I think there are enough variables there that it might not be guaranteed easier immediately.

I 100% agree that it's not a certainty that old raids will be easier, but I would like to point out AoE caps have existed in the past. Most AoEs has a hard target caps in vanilla/TBC/LK. (Think Whirlwind, Thunder Clap pre LK, Multishot, etc.) In vanilla unlimited target AoEs like Blizzard had no cap, but somewhere along the line, (I think in TBC) they added a soft AoE cap to the damage of AoE spells.

The AoE cap for things like Blizzard was actually pretty bad. You could hit an unlimited amount of targets, but Blizzard had a maximum damage per tick that it could do. Say your max was 10k, if you had 10k mobs in your Blizzard you would hit each mob for 1 damage. And this cap did not scale with your gear so as your gear got better it became easier to cap out your AoE damage.

AoEs were revamped, if I recall correctly, in Cataclysm. Most AoEs were made unlimited target but their dps was vastly reduced to compensate. This was about when I stopped enjoying melee. In LK for example, Whirlwind hit 4 targets and was the hardest hitting single target move for Fury warriors. So was a warrior it was in your single target rotation but adding more mobs just made it better. This was called incidental AoE and it was one of the things Blizzard killed going into cata.

So I'm not inherently against an AoE cap on spells, as it's existed in the game before and it's been fine. However, the tuning must be right and that's where I'm skeptical. Generally speaking, abilities that have a small AoE cap need to do extreme amounts of damage. Like back when Divine Storm was the hardest hitting ability for ret paladins.

Basically if you're hitting your max amount of targets, that should be your situation where your spec is topping the meters. So if Divine Storm only hits like 4 targets, then ret should be god tier in 3-4 target cleave but should start to fall off at 8+ targets.

The balance will not and cannot be perfect, but I think if Blizzard errors on the side of making the small AoE cap spells the best then the game will be in a pretty good spot. And I say error on that side rather than making the uncapped or high capped spells better because if Divine Storm is only mediocre in 3-5 target cleave then ret is just going to be a meme, but if Starfall is mediocre with 8+ targets you still have the advantage of actually being able to dps all targets. Neither is ideal but one of those is a lot worse than the other.

Personally I am in favor of AoE caps but only if we're adequately compensated.

- - - Updated - - -

Speaking of tit forging, is that back in shadowlands? Or some other mechanic replacing it, like corruption did in late bfa.

Totally gone as far as I know.

[zetitup]

I just tried Nighthold Mythic on Beta with a ilvl 190 (pvp geared) monk, which is abit better than Mythic dungeon gear in SL.
Bosses goes down really really slow. Heals seems to be low when needed etc. Chronomatic Anomaly was kinda hard since i could not burst it down (aka pass phases) etc. the healing required filled my entire HP bar, i have around 27k hp, heals doing around 5k, it got really really hectic with the time slow and healing debuff and even caused me to wipe. Scorpyron was also abit annoying, since you seem to do the same dps to the boss as you do at lvl 60 mobs, with him at 1.6M HP it took some time to kill and you really noticed the AoE cap if you got alot of scorpions.

[Snowcharm]

Speaking of tit forging, is that back in shadowlands? Or some other mechanic replacing it, like corruption did in late bfa.

UUU Tit forging. Nice !

[Wuusah]

I just tried Nighthold Mythic on Beta with a ilvl 190 (pvp geared) monk, which is abit better than Mythic dungeon gear in SL.
Bosses goes down really really slow. Heals seems to be low when needed etc. Chronomatic Anomaly was kinda hard since i could not burst it down (aka pass phases) etc. the healing required filled my entire HP bar, i have around 27k hp, heals doing around 5k, it got really really hectic with the time slow and healing debuff and even caused me to wipe. Scorpyron was also abit annoying, since you seem to do the same dps to the boss as you do at lvl 60 mobs, with him at 1.6M HP it took some time to kill and you really noticed the AoE cap if you got alot of scorpions.

The legacy buff is not active yet, afaik. No use in testing right now.

Also, why are people whining about the aoe cap for old raids? Are you guys actually trying to fight trash?

[Wardley]

Nothing like that is in the game yet it seems, or at least, if it is, it's nowhere near enough to tackle Legion raids as comfortably as it is on live. I'll go take a peak with my premade 60 character & see if anything is different at level cap, but there's nothing like the 6.0 fiesta where you could run Firelands 25HC in 10 mins.



I'll go check a few now.

Edit:

At Level 50
ICC mobs are level 30. Bosses die as fast as they do on live. Naxx mobs are 34... No idea why.
Dragon Soul mobs are level 35. Bosses die as fast as they do on live.
HFC mobs are level 40. Bosses die as fast as they do on live. Blackrock Foundry mobs are level 41... Again, no idea why.
Goroth in HFC Mythic is simply undoable. The damage is way too high to manage as a Warrior if I'm trying to just brute force my way through it.

Gear drops from all of em are absolutely irrelevant. HFC mythic last two are dropping iLvl 47 gear, almost a third of the max ilvl stuff in BFA.

TLDR: It's pretty much as it is now, just with the AoE cap potentially slowing some stuff down. Legion is seemingly a lot harder because it's not yet flagged as a legacy raid & the stat squish has made pumping bosses more difficult, but that should be fixed at higher levels. Will test that now...

At Level 60
I'm guessing the above rings true for everything pre-Legion, but once again, Goroth mythic is impossible. Hell, I feel like my level 50 character did better thanks to its Azerite traits/gear scaling etc. Only had a few attempts as Fury, but couldn't even get it sub 80%.

Still, this should be fixed when it's flagged by Blizzard as a legacy raid.

Thanks for checking all that!

I think it's a bit of a shame really - they could've used this to get the old raids back into 'current' content again without having to Timewalk them and also avoid a big confusing lore mess between the dungeons and raids - for example in WotLK, I assume that means the Halls of Lightning and Halls of Stone dungeons will be available at a higher range than the Ulduar raid.

I think what they should've done with the new levelling experience is have the 'regular' levelling zones get you up to level 40, then 40-50 is the previous end game content. So, taking Legion as an example - at 40 you unlock Suramar and the Night Hold raid, 44 unlock the Broken Shore and Tomb of Sargaras and has 46, unlock Argus and the Antorus raid.

[Wuusah]

Thanks for checking all that!

I think it's a bit of a shame really - they could've used this to get the old raids back into 'current' content again without having to Timewalk them and also avoid a big confusing lore mess between the dungeons and raids - for example in WotLK, I assume that means the Halls of Lightning and Halls of Stone dungeons will be available at a higher range than the Ulduar raid.

I think what they should've done with the new levelling experience is have the 'regular' levelling zones get you up to level 40, then 40-50 is the previous end game content. So, taking Legion as an example - at 40 you unlock Suramar and the Night Hold raid, 44 unlock the Broken Shore and Tomb of Sargaras and has 46, unlock Argus and the Antorus raid.

It would make absolutely no sense to force players into raids to get level ups...

[Wardley]

It would make absolutely no sense to force players into raids to get level ups...

You'd level up through the Zone (just like any other zone) but the raid would be available if you want it - just like it is now at end game. You can raid, or you can do dailies.

[Wuusah]

You'd level up through the Zone (just like any other zone) but the raid would be available if you want it - just like it is now at end game. You can raid, or you can do dailies.

Endgame content doesn’t have many quests. It’s an introductory short questline followed by doing dailies/worldquests.

I understand that you want old endgame to matter somehow again but it’s not good leveling content because it was never designed to be.

Focusing on quantity over quality might make sense for a new MMO but WoW has long passed that point