Shadowlands grind compared to Legion and BfA

[Oblider]

Hi, I took inspiration from other (mostly whiny, pointless and absurd shitposts) that ranted about Shadowlands' grinding, and I want to ask you beta-players what's the grind all about. A Bullet list would be optimal, and perhaps a direct comparison to Legion (early stages mostly, as they were much more grindy than late ones) and BfA (overall, or maybe specifically 8.3-wise as it feels like the highest amount to grind ever in WoW's history)

[LostLocket]

Sure I can help by giving you my experience though it is somewhat limited as I haven't properly been on to test conduits this past week or two.

The grind is heavily time gated this time gated this time around in most cases with only conduits being the outliner.

Ap= renowned ( It used to be called anima power but I guess they didn't like ap being the short hand for grinding)
Pretty basic it fills up the same way AP does currently by doing dungeons, dailies quests,etc Overall I would hazard to guess it will take most players one to three hours of a gameplay a week to cap it depending on playstyle. You need renowned to unlock soulbinds that act as your artifact weapon for the expansion

Conduits = essences: These are the cock of the expansion for a colorful term. So far we don't really know 100% how the methods for acquiring these will be beyond farming the maw. What is the maw you ask? It is the zone that is launching incomplete and is currently empty, dull and realistically exists because they needed a place to put the torghast portal. You will want to be there everyday* to farm boring toothless elites and mobs to get currency to upgrade your conduits. You only ever upgrade your lowest level conduit and that is only after you unlock all of them so your going to be doing this day after day week after week month after month to power up your classes three actual conduits you care about. It is rather annoying that it kicks you out of the zone after a while making you value certain tasks over others.It also doesn't seem to have a catch up mechanic though I hear the idea is you can farm the same content conduits drop from to get higher levels as well... if true it won't be all that painful you will just be running a specific dungeon a hundred times give or take.

Legendary patterns at least on beta drop rather rapidly in mythic+ content or are buyable with honor. So far it looks like you will get the leggo best for your content then simply move on. No one is really expecting this to be a big grind and are comparing it to grinding a rep bar you will randomly complete in a few hours to a few mins depending on the rng of getting your best.


I think that mostly covers it... a lot of farming conduits will depend on if the "EYE OF THE JAILER" resets daily or weekly as that is the method they are using to stop people from powering through the conduit grind and just getting it done and over with.

[Thenadrys]

Grinding is something they put in to try to keep players subbing, but I think it inevitably ends up backfiring since people who will grind to raid top tier are such a small proportion of the playerbase. I have a feeling anima and conduit grind will be significantly reduced either before release or in 9.1

[Oblider]

Sure I can help by giving you my experience though it is somewhat limited as I haven't properly been on to test conduits this past week or two.

The grind is heavily time gated this time gated this time around in most cases with only conduits being the outliner.

Ap= renowned ( It used to be called anima power but I guess they didn't like ap being the short hand for grinding)
Pretty basic it fills up the same way AP does currently by doing dungeons, dailies quests,etc Overall I would hazard to guess it will take most players one to three hours of a gameplay a week to cap it depending on playstyle. You need renowned to unlock soulbinds that act as your artifact weapon for the expansion

Conduits = essences: These are the cock of the expansion for a colorful term. So far we don't really know 100% how the methods for acquiring these will be beyond farming the maw. What is the maw you ask? It is the zone that is launching incomplete and is currently empty, dull and realistically exists because they needed a place to put the torghast portal. You will want to be there everyday* to farm boring toothless elites and mobs to get currency to upgrade your conduits. You only ever upgrade your lowest level conduit and that is only after you unlock all of them so your going to be doing this day after day week after week month after month to power up your classes three actual conduits you care about. It is rather annoying that it kicks you out of the zone after a while making you value certain tasks over others.It also doesn't seem to have a catch up mechanic though I hear the idea is you can farm the same content conduits drop from to get higher levels as well... if true it won't be all that painful you will just be running a specific dungeon a hundred times give or take.

Legendary patterns at least on beta drop rather rapidly in mythic+ content or are buyable with honor. So far it looks like you will get the leggo best for your content then simply move on. No one is really expecting this to be a big grind and are comparing it to grinding a rep bar you will randomly complete in a few hours to a few mins depending on the rng of getting your best.


I think that mostly covers it... a lot of farming conduits will depend on if the "EYE OF THE JAILER" resets daily or weekly as that is the method they are using to stop people from powering through the conduit grind and just getting it done and over with.

So in all cases you're either weekly capped (and thus, time-gated in some way) or just gated behind conduit drops (which are required to drop only once, they don't get destroyed correct ?)

Now, do you have any idea how intense these things are ? We talking about early legion/late bfa levels or just some average wow grind ?

Thank you for your time

[LostLocket]

So in all cases you're either weekly capped (and thus, time-gated in some way) or just gated behind conduit drops (which are required to drop only once, they don't get destroyed correct ?)

Now, do you have any idea how intense these things are ? We talking about early legion/late bfa levels or just some average wow grind ?

Thank you for your time

The conduits level up so you need them to drop repeatedly. I think they cap out of level 40? So you need whatever amount to get to that point.

I would say less then bfa but more then legion barring the first few weeks of legion if you raided mythic and needed all your talents unlocked asap. It feels like some weird mismatch between legion and mop weekly valor cap.

[Accendor]

Hi, I took inspiration from other (mostly whiny, pointless and absurd shitposts) that ranted about Shadowlands' grinding, and I want to ask you beta-players what's the grind all about. A Bullet list would be optimal, and perhaps a direct comparison to Legion (early stages mostly, as they were much more grindy than late ones) and BfA (overall, or maybe specifically 8.3-wise as it feels like the highest amount to grind ever in WoW's history)

You have 2hours of grind a week, if you do not count m+. Basically most people will run out of stuff to do very fast, once Torghast gets old.

[LostLocket]

You have 2hours of grind a week, if you do not count m+. Basically most people will run out of stuff to do very fast, once Torghast gets old.

Depends on how conduits end up. I Think it will be more then that since I think they want to make the maw an attractive place to go.

[Oblider]

You have 2hours of grind a week, if you do not count m+. Basically most people will run out of stuff to do very fast, once Torghast gets old.

This goes in direct contrast to what LostLocket said tho, who's right now ?

EDIT: what are those 2 hours of grind about ?

[LostLocket]

This goes in direct contrast to what LostLocket said tho, who's right now ?

EDIT: what are those 2 hours of grind about ?

I think he is referring to renowned (ap) alone. In that case I agree with him. Conduits are the wildcard and to be honest even the most informed player is guessing at this point to the best of my knowledge. It will come down to a combination of drop rates and how easy it is to target them compared to relying on the maws currency to buy the item to upgrade your lowest leveled one.

He is dead on for renowned but isn't taking into account conduits or at least that is my guess.

[Jastall]

Depends on how conduits end up. I Think it will be more then that since I think they want to make the maw an attractive place to go.

If you run high tier content Conduits will basically be Relics from Legion, just another piece of gear basically and not much in the way of an added grind. The Maw's currency is glorified bad luck protection and also a way to unlock/advance Conduits for people that don't venture in said high tier content.

Other than that, the "grind" is two weeklys to cap out Renown, and a Torghast run for Legendary currency. A fresh alt will grind more because Renown can be caught up by various activities until you hit the present cap, but that's the nature of the beast.

[LostLocket]

If you run high tier content Conduits will basically be Relics from Legion, just another piece of gear basically and not much in the way of an added grind. The Maw's currency is glorified bad luck protection and also a way to unlock/advance Conduits for people that don't venture in said high tier content.

Other than that, the "grind" is two weeklys to cap out Renown, and a Torghast run for Legendary currency. A fresh alt will grind more because Renown can be caught up by various activities until you hit the present cap, but that's the nature of the beast.

I mean.. no?

They level up that makes them drastically different then relics as you don't need more then three relics.

I how to go to work but can get into it more later. I did forget about needing to run torghast but that takes almost no time to do.

[Jastall]

I mean.. no?

They level up that makes them drastically different then relics as you don't need more then three relics.

I how to go to work but can get into it more later. I did forget about needing to run torghast but that takes almost no time to do.

They level up when you get new ones. Say you get a rank 4 Conduit from (example) a Mythic+0 dungeon. Then a few weeks later you get the same one rank 6 from a Heroic raid boss, as Conduits are said to have multiple possible sources. You go back to your Covenant's forge and the Conduit in your library is updated to rank 6. More or less exactly like a Relic except that you have a library of them and they're interchangeable rather than destructible. The Maw currency also allows Conduit upgrades, but at a slower pace and more random. Finally, Renown grants extra Conduit slots over time, but again it's heavily time-gated rather than grind-gated unless you're way behind the curve.

Sauce on how the ranks are tiered so far, by the way. The system as of now is future proofed until rank 15 at ilvl 330, so close to what I assume will be our ilvl towards the end of the expansion.

[Nyel]

Is The Maw really that bad? I've read only negative opinions about it and right now it feels like Broken Shore or Tanaan Jungle before they added content to it. I don't know if I want another expansion without a dedicate endgame zone again...

[MrLachyG]

I mean.. no?

They level up that makes them drastically different then relics as you don't need more then three relics.

I how to go to work but can get into it more later. I did forget about needing to run torghast but that takes almost no time to do.

https://www.wowhead.com/news=318276/...d-to-drop-rank

You can target grind for conduit ranks, which helps

[Accendor]

This goes in direct contrast to what LostLocket said tho, who's right now ?

EDIT: what are those 2 hours of grind about ?

Its around 1h of Torghast and 1h of renown farm.

I am not including things like conduit farming in this calculation, simply because it is nothing recurring. You get your conduit and you have it, maybe get a new one from a higher difficulty, but this can (as far as we currently know) not be called a grind at all.

- - - Updated - - -

Is The Maw really that bad? I've read only negative opinions about it and right now it feels like Broken Shore or Tanaan Jungle before they added content to it. I don't know if I want another expansion without a dedicate endgame zone again...

Yes, right now, it is really that bad. It feels like they just ran out of time to do something, anything, with the zone.

[Krakan]

Is The Maw really that bad? I've read only negative opinions about it and right now it feels like Broken Shore or Tanaan Jungle before they added content to it. I don't know if I want another expansion without a dedicate endgame zone again...

It's just empty. It feels like a first draft of timeless island. It's not terrible in terms of difficulty or grinds it just feels empty and contrived.

[Nyel]

Yes, right now, it is really that bad. It feels like they just ran out of time to do something, anything, with the zone.

Not sure if this won't backfire a lot. The Maw was pretty hyped and to have it in a barebones state... well.

[schwarzkopf]

I think, just like Legion and BfA - there will be no grind required.

However - just like Legion and BfA - there will be people that go out and kill a million boars to get 10 somethings and then complain about the grind.

[MrLachyG]

Not sure if this won't backfire a lot. The Maw was pretty hyped and to have it in a barebones state... well.

Isn’t it meant to be kinda a barren wasteland? One semi friendly vendor and lots of monsters. Kinda like how Desolace is barren. I also think that when we’ve sorted out the issues in the four zones that we will start to fortify the Maw in preparation for the raid there

[Alroxas]

Like others have said, the grind is basically minimal when compared to Legion/BFA.

Renown is the progression system. And you're capped to doing 2 weekly quests to advance it.

• Filling your covenant's sanctum with Anima
• Rescuing souls from the Maw for your covenant.

For your "legendary" grind, you need to do Torghast and cap out the 100 Soul Ash.

Conduits come from many different sources but once earned, you don't need to regrind unless it's for a higher one.

Recipes for legendaries (called memories) come from different places but like conduits once earned, you don't need to regrind.


Now because of the Great Vault, you may choose to grind more. Defeat up to 10 raid bosses, complete up to 10 M+ and earn up to 875 conquest (through PvP) to get up to the cap of 9 choices to pick from the Great Vault (remember you can only pick 1 item regardless of how many choices you farmed up).

Most players will likely do some amount of those to a certain point.

If (for some reason) you're behind the Renown cap, other activities can also contribute to renown but that's ONLY if you're behind.