DF tier forge won't unlock for six weeks after mythic raids open.

[Celement]

I don't get the point of this... I had to bench myself in s3 because I had extremely bad luck finishing my tier that did a massive amount of my classes overall dmg.

What is the point to time gating tier when it's been made so impactful it essentially acts as part of your classes tool kite? Is it for the world first race? If so its moronic as they are going to have loot funnels and rerolled characters so it wont effect it.

It feels like they are treating tier like it was for most of classic wow. Something that adds a little dmg and doesn't make or break classes.

[Arkthugal]

The set bonuses this time at least look like they won't be so hilariously overpowered.

But yeah, it does suck to have to wait six goddamn weeks to get your set bonus if you're unlucky. Week 4 would be better, I think.

[Coldkil]

Yeah, the six weeks timegate is just stupid to me. I'd wait till the wf race is over to avoid strange shenanigans, but after that, it's free for all.

In six weeks of playing regularly chances are most people will have their tier set done.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

I don't get the point of this... I had to bench myself in s3 because I had extremely bad luck finishing my tier that did a massive amount of my classes overall dmg.

What is the point to time gating tier when it's been made so impactful it essentially acts as part of your classes tool kite? Is it for the world first race? If so its moronic as they are going to have loot funnels and rerolled characters so it wont effect it.

It feels like they are treating tier like it was for most of classic wow. Something that adds a little dmg and doesn't make or break classes.

Yeah this is probably the worst thing they have announced that's completely inexcusable.

Just a completely raid or die game for the first two months, and even then you can still get unlucky.

[Relapses]

This is the wrong way to get players to interact with raids.

[Celement]

The set bonuses this time at least look like they won't be so hilariously overpowered.

But yeah, it does suck to have to wait six goddamn weeks to get your set bonus if you're unlucky. Week 4 would be better, I think.

Maybe if they are turning them but so far just as an example most crit classes have bonuses like improve your crit chance by 10% on your main spell then improve your crit DMG by 10%.

This isn't like old tier sets with small gains this is arguably better then most of the end cap dmg talents. You will see a drastic dmg difference between people with 4 set lfr and a fully geared mythic raider without.(assuming the rest of the non tier pieces are mythic)

[Relapses]

Maybe if they are turning them but so far just as an example most crit classes have bonuses like improve your crit chance by 10% on your main spell then improve your crit DMG by 10%.

This isn't like old tier sets with small gains this is arguably better then most of the end cap dmg talents. You will see a drastic dmg difference between people with 4 set lfr and a fully geared mythic raider without.(assuming the rest of the non tier pieces are mythic)

Wha...? I agree with your OP but you're grossly overstating the power of these set bonuses. They're intentionally a lot less powerful than the ones we had in SoFO because it's an introductory Tier.

[Celement]

Wha...? I agree with your OP but you're grossly overstating the power of these set bonuses. They're intentionally a lot less powerful than the ones we had in SoFO because it's an introductory Tier.

Those are exactly what they do others give you a trinket like effect 8% increased dmg on critical strike. Arcane improves your crit chance by 10% each crit stacking 4 times.

These are not minor bonuses.

[Relapses]

Those are exactly what they do others give you a trinket like effect 8% increased dmg on critical strike. Arcane improves your crit chance by 10% each crit stacking 4 times.

These are not minor bonuses.

I'd argue that just means that Arcane's current set bonus is probably too powerful and should be toned down. Across the board these bonuses should only be around 6-8% damage. If it's more then Blizzard runs into the issue where last Tier's set bonus remains more powerful than the next Tier's. It's usually the last raid Tier of an expansion where we see ridiculous set bonuses like we did in SoFO.

[saixilein]

Totally agree. They should give us tsets immediately, just for logging in.

[Delekii]

Those are exactly what they do others give you a trinket like effect 8% increased dmg on critical strike. Arcane improves your crit chance by 10% each crit stacking 4 times.

These are not minor bonuses.

It improves the crit chance of arcane barrage by 10%... not your crit chance overall by 10%. I dont know anything about how the spec is balanced (either in live or in DF), but looking the top parse from the top arcane mage on sepulcher, first 3 fights or so, Barrage is ~20-25% of your damage, and blast is 10-15% of your damage.

So...
40% crit on barrage * 50% bonus damage * 20-25% of your dps = 4-5% dps increase.

20% crit on blast * 50% bonus damage % 10-15% of your dps = 1-1.5% dps increase. That's assuming permanent 4 arcane charges, which isn't ever the case.

Maybe there are some absurd interactions with crit that arcane has that I don't know about? Because if not, that 2p set bonus is a complete turd, and the 4set is below average.

They shouldn't withhold set bonuses at all from M+ players (or pvp players), raiding should be off its pedestal. That said; let's not overhype the strength of these bonuses; the best ones are still quite small and the worst ones are god damn awful.

[CalamityHeart]

I would guess that the 6 week unlock is because after week 6, I believe LFR is then fully unlocked, and the raid is thus fully accessible to everyone, and everyone gets equal value out of the function. At least, that's how it comes across to me, an LFR raider.

The value I get out of the Catalyst being available immediately is so low and limited, that it truly might as well not exist for the first few weeks. That said, and I don't really know off the top of my head how the LFR wings (or tier-dropping bosses) are being divided, but if it's yet another case where the final boss gets their own wing to themselves, then I can imagine pulling the Catalyst unlock forward by two weeks to go alongside LFR wing 3 to be acceptable, probably.

*shrug* I dunno. In any case, the Catalyst doesn't seem to be the kind of thing that's really worth all that much to have available immediately, so not having it for at least a few weeks doesn't really bother me all that much.

[Celement]

I'd argue that just means that Arcane's current set bonus is probably too powerful and should be toned down. Across the board these bonuses should only be around 6-8% damage. If it's more then Blizzard runs into the issue where last Tier's set bonus remains more powerful than the next Tier's. It's usually the last raid Tier of an expansion where we see ridiculous set bonuses like we did in SoFO.

They released the list.. fires is 10% more crit and 10% more dmg from hot streak if the numbers are high they are all roughly as high.

- - - Updated - - -

Totally agree. They should give us tsets immediately, just for logging in.

If its gonna be the core of classes they should ilv doesn't matter.

- - - Updated - - -

It improves the crit chance of arcane barrage by 10%... not your crit chance overall by 10%. I dont know anything about how the spec is balanced (either in live or in DF), but looking the top parse from the top arcane mage on sepulcher, first 3 fights or so, Barrage is ~20-25% of your damage, and blast is 10-15% of your damage.

So...
40% crit on barrage * 50% bonus damage * 20-25% of your dps = 4-5% dps increase.

20% crit on blast * 50% bonus damage % 10-15% of your dps = 1-1.5% dps increase. That's assuming permanent 4 arcane charges, which isn't ever the case.

Maybe there are some absurd interactions with crit that arcane has that I don't know about? Because if not, that 2p set bonus is a complete turd, and the 4set is below average.

They shouldn't withhold set bonuses at all from M+ players (or pvp players), raiding should be off its pedestal. That said; let's not overhype the strength of these bonuses; the best ones are still quite small and the worst ones are god damn awful.

Its blast not barrage....

[Delekii]

Its blast not barrage....

2) Set Bonus: For each Arcane Charge, Arcane Blast critical strike chance is increased by 5% and Arcane Explosion critical strike chance is increased by 3%.
(4) Set Bonus: When Arcane Blast or Arcane Explosion critically strikes at least one target, the critical strike chance of your next Arcane Barrage is increased by 10%, up to 4 stacks.

If it was blast, it would be even worse.

Functionally speaking, the 2 set is (less than) 20% on blast, and the 4 set is (less than) 40% crit on barrage.

The fire set is harder to directly analyze, but it's not likely to be any stronger. Direct damage wise, the 4p gives extremely little, but the 10% crit is quite strong early on when you have lower crit for generating hot streaks. The 2set is comparatively strong depending on how much damage comes from hot streaks, but generally speaking this number is significantly lower early in the expansion when crit chance is very low.

[Relapses]

I would guess that the 6 week unlock is because after week 6, I believe LFR is then fully unlocked, and the raid is thus fully accessible to everyone, and everyone gets equal value out of the function. At least, that's how it comes across to me, an LFR raider.

The value I get out of the Catalyst being available immediately is so low and limited, that it truly might as well not exist for the first few weeks. That said, and I don't really know off the top of my head how the LFR wings (or tier-dropping bosses) are being divided, but if it's yet another case where the final boss gets their own wing to themselves, then I can imagine pulling the Catalyst unlock forward by two weeks to go alongside LFR wing 3 to be acceptable, probably.

*shrug* I dunno. In any case, the Catalyst doesn't seem to be the kind of thing that's really worth all that much to have available immediately, so not having it for at least a few weeks doesn't really bother me all that much.

The main issue is that this essentially requires cross-pollination within segments of the playerbase which don't always gel with each other. As an M+-only player for the last two expansions I can say that it felt like ass at the beginning of S3 to see so many raiders getting a red carpet treatment just because they... y'know... raid. I get that the weekly box is supposed to make up for this but it's still a pretty bad feeling for the beginning of a Tier and it sucks that they're doubling down on it.

- - - Updated - - -

They released the list.. fires is 10% more crit and 10% more dmg from hot streak if the numbers are high they are all roughly as high.

I stand by what I said. I think you're overestimating the actual benefit (and purpose) of these bonuses to stoke outrage. It will, indeed, suck to wait 6 weeks but it won't suck as much as it did in S3 because the bonuses aren't nearly as impactful (by design).

[Coldkil]

These are not minor bonuses.

It all depends on the damage profile of the specs, and we don't know anything about it yet - tuning is just started and theorycrafting follows.

We don't know the impact of these set bonuses - they can range from broken to useless until final numbers are out. This said, they look to be sensible increases without going overboard and mostly "passive" due to the new talents so i wouldn't worry at all about those.

This said, the Catalyst being unlocked after six weeks is a shit move, it should be opened much sooner. Let players play, getting the set fast is not a problem.

[minteK917]

This is the wrong way to get players to interact with raids.

Yeah i have no idea where their brain goes with stuff like this. This idea that if people get their gear they stop playing the game, i dont know where they keep getting that. When the game was in its prime its rare your most geared player would just up and leave because they are bis, most people stillnliked to show up weekly and flex their power in the farming raids. When they leave is when that thing has been farmed for 3 months and no new content. They just need to get out of their fucking brain that it needs to be part of their development to control player time allocation. You only care about the sub, give people reason to keep subbing, let the content fucking speak and play itself. Im not sure which metric blizzard claim they track in the background, but we all have states that show people raid less and less now. So clearly what ever metric tell them to keep doing this shit is not the correct metric.

Its almost as if someone at blizzard doesent understand RPG at all. BIS for people doesent mean they are finished playing. It means they have become the top OP dog they grinded to be for that time frame. They are gona go pvp and smash face with it, gona go help friends in dungeons that you now smash. Almost nobody gets Bis for the sole reason to be ready for the next raid, we want it because being at our most powerful and overpowering the content is FUN. Hard concept to grasp FUN. What else do people do, make alts to get MORE character in BIS. If the game is fun, people will keep playing. Trying to manage people time and slow them down does not do anything for FUN and actually does not keep them playing.

[Echo of Soul]

Can't you just find likeminded players to play with who either don't care about tier or start raiding after 6 weeks? This seems like one of those community problems that are easily solvable by playing with people like yourself.

[CalamityHeart]

The main issue is that this essentially requires cross-pollination within segments of the playerbase which don't always gel with each other. As an M+-only player for the last two expansions I can say that it felt like ass at the beginning of S3 to see so many raiders getting a red carpet treatment just because they... y'know... raid. I get that the weekly box is supposed to make up for this but it's still a pretty bad feeling for the beginning of a Tier and it sucks that they're doubling down on it.

Yeah, I get you. At least, I think I do? If M+ focused or exclusive players had organic access to tier pieces somehow the way that raiders do, without needing to rely on the Catalyst six weeks later to plop themselves into tier in the absence of raiding, that would alleviate the issue a bit, I imagine? In my opinion, though, that's a change better meant for M+, rather than the timing of the Catalyst unlock. Correct me if I'm wrong, though; I think we're roughly on the same page, but I'm not sure.

[minteK917]

Can't you just find likeminded players to play with who either don't care about tier or start raiding after 6 weeks? This seems like one of those community problems that are easily solvable by playing with people like yourself.

You just have to ask yourself one question, why create a problem for no reason, where none really need to exist? What is the benefit for 99.9% of players that this does not open day 1? If you think about it just a little bit, you know the answer is nothing. The only answer is that blizzard for a decade now, seems to not be confident people will keep playing unless everything is gated in some way.