Ion & Co. at it again

[DotEleven]

Hear, hear! Arthas is the only reason this game became as popular as it did with Warcraft III. He's the face of the franchise. the Michael Jordan. The Babe Ruth. The Steve Austin. The Tiger Woods of this franchise, and all of Shadowlands should revolve around him. Whenever there is a scene not involving Arthas, every character should be going, "where's Arthas? What would Arthas think about this?"

Frostmourne should be reforged into the Legendary of the expansion for Death Knights.

The expansion should end with Arthas sticking a sword through Sylvanas belly, then proclaiming The Maw free.

Then Arthas is welcomed back into The Alliance with open arms, and crowned King of The Forsaken of Lordaeron, but instead of getting back with Jaina, he puts a hand to her face and says, "sorry Jaina... I can't watch you do this," and strut over to Vereese Windrunner, and plant a big smooch and say "let's make some half high elf/human babies, baby," and BAM, playable High Elves and Half-Human customization.

You know you want it, haters.

I was going back and forth wondering if this was legit or sarcasm and honestly, I'm still not sure...

[Divinex]

I swear the biggest boomers ever make these types of threads

[Chromell]

While Illidan resolved in a good fashion, I'd say him making an appearance was Blizz throwing everything they got at that expansion after the whole WoD thing.

I don't think they should push their luck with all these legacy heroes suddenly getting revived after they were supposed to be dead.

But they're saying Arthas won't have a big storyline, it doesn't seem he'll get any considerable spotlight. It makes sense for him (and many others) to appear in the Shadowlands, what they'll make of him we're still to see, but I don't believe they're doing anything brash. It's worth pointing out that he's also the most recognizable antagonist in WoW.

[Doffen]

People saying you are not locked to the Azerite Armor...

I have used the same Azerite Armor in 8.3 since middle of February. Can't get any better. Exactly the same as tier gear. You get the best and then you forget about it since those pieces are locked just like tier sets. At least with tier sets I could swap around if I got better off pieces. There is no off pieces for Azerite Armor. The only thing that is better is that it is 3 pieces instead of 4, but on the negative side you won't ever swap them.

So whats the difference and why are Azerite Armor better in this regard?

[Dalinos]

People saying you are not locked to the Azerite Armor...

I have used the same Azerite Armor in 8.3 since middle of February. Can't get any better. Exactly the same as tier gear. You get the best and then you forget about it since those pieces are locked just like tier sets. At least with tier sets I could swap around if I got better off pieces. There is no off pieces for Azerite Armor. The only thing that is better is that it is 3 pieces instead of 4, but on the negative side you won't ever swap them.

So whats the difference and why are Azerite Armor better in this regard?

That's what I don't understand either. From Vanilla till Legion, Tier sets were an iconic part of the game. They worked. In OG vanilla as a 13yr old my 1st goal was to get full Wildheart on my druid from dungeon grinding. When I saw that 8/8 become yellow instead of grey I was ecstatic. Fast forward to tanking my way through 15 years of content, I look back at all my tier sets with fondness. Maybe it's different for us tanks? I mean, why would you NOT want to get and keep a good set-bonus, as a tank, if it meant you became a stronger and better asset to your raid team? Because it doesn't get replaced easily? So what? You don't raid to get gear, you get gear so you can raid, I thought that was a given, apparently not. The excitement comes from playing with your community, downing bosses, having fun, bantering on discord etc etc - loot/gear is simply the tool that allows you to do that without dying horrible deaths on each and every pull.

Also, one of the best feelings in a raid is seeing your raid-mates get upgrades, and how happy they become. Have people become so selfish that they cannot share in the excitement of someone else getting loot? Guess what - when YOU are chilling at X/Y tier set, and something drops that you don't need cause you're X/Y tier set, it'll go to someone else in the raid! That someone else will be happy! And, ideally, so will you, cause your raid team just got stronger.

It's like, why would you care that some of your armour slots are locked because you have obtained the *gasp* BEST POSSIBLE ITEM AVAILABLE FOR THAT SLOT!? Are we going FULL retard mode? Can people not play and work with set bonuses that have an impact on the rest of one's gear-set? I honestly can't understand, maybe it's different for DPS, maybe they want to see those stats go higher, but as a tank, tier-set bonuses often changed how you played your char. There was one set bonus in Legion that made Frenzied Regen have a base amount of healing done, even with 0 rage. That set bonus was amazing, for doing mah WQ's, my low lvl M+ keys, and no amount of +Agi/haste/crit/versa/mastery would be good enough to offset the fact that I got healed by Frenzied Regen while having 0 rage.

Lastly, people forget 1 thing. Tier set bonuses were a way for Blizzard to balance out the output and performance of classes in specific tiers, without bringing sweeping changes through a patch with class-updates and class-changes. Fury Warriors are lagging behind in the DPS? No problem. Make their next tier set bonus a tiny bit better than everyone elses, and bring them up to par. Problem solved.

From 8/8 Stormrage in Vanilla, to 8/8 Thunderheart in SWP, to 5/5 Lasherweave from ICC....tier sets were amazing. I honestly cannot see why people would want to see them gone, in the name of "less customization". Game has proved it was better, more popular, more engaging in the past when each raid had its own iconic tier, instead of being constantly bombarded with loot. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go back to Classic where my Choker of the Firelord form Ragnaros and my Mish'Undare, Circlet of the Mind Flayer from Nefarian won't get replaced till TBC-classic.

[DeusX]

Jesus everytime one interview with Ion pops up, there are sudden 10 hate threads created...

The way this guy drives the game, I am amazed there aren't 20 hate threads created.

[Feuerbart]

I wonder why there has been no real wow killer, given that there are so many people out there that know better then Blizzard how to do it properly.

[Kendros]

Bla bla bla arthas boner bla bla bla

[Zantera]

People saying you are not locked to the Azerite Armor...

I have used the same Azerite Armor in 8.3 since middle of February. Can't get any better. Exactly the same as tier gear. You get the best and then you forget about it since those pieces are locked just like tier sets. At least with tier sets I could swap around if I got better off pieces. There is no off pieces for Azerite Armor. The only thing that is better is that it is 3 pieces instead of 4, but on the negative side you won't ever swap them.

So whats the difference and why are Azerite Armor better in this regard?

The main difference is the set bonus. You don't need 3 very specific unique Azerite pices that together form a bonus which you want unlike tier-sets. The problem with the tier sets was that usually maybe half the pieces had stats you didn't want, but together they formed the 4-set bonus and that made it worth it. I think tier sets were fine for a long time but with the addition of legendaries in Legion it definitely got pretty bad. Most specs had 1 of their bis legendaries be one of the tier-slots (whether that was helm, shoulders, chest, legs or gloves) and that meant the other 4 were carved in stone because you needed that bonus. There was just no way around it.

Going from that to Azerite in BFA has been an improvement because the pieces aren't tied together and they are more like regular items where you replace them if you get a better one and you don't worry about breaking a tier bonus.

[Kynario]

Fuck Arthas, leave his story arc as it is, I don't want another fucking redemption story.

Let old characters and story arcs be... create and introduce us to NEW characters.

[Doffen]

That's what I don't understand either. From Vanilla till Legion, Tier sets were an iconic part of the game. They worked. In OG vanilla as a 13yr old my 1st goal was to get full Wildheart on my druid from dungeon grinding. When I saw that 8/8 become yellow instead of grey I was ecstatic. Fast forward to tanking my way through 15 years of content, I look back at all my tier sets with fondness. Maybe it's different for us tanks? I mean, why would you NOT want to get and keep a good set-bonus, as a tank, if it meant you became a stronger and better asset to your raid team? Because it doesn't get replaced easily? So what? You don't raid to get gear, you get gear so you can raid, I thought that was a given, apparently not. The excitement comes from playing with your community, downing bosses, having fun, bantering on discord etc etc - loot/gear is simply the tool that allows you to do that without dying horrible deaths on each and every pull.

Also, one of the best feelings in a raid is seeing your raid-mates get upgrades, and how happy they become. Have people become so selfish that they cannot share in the excitement of someone else getting loot? Guess what - when YOU are chilling at X/Y tier set, and something drops that you don't need cause you're X/Y tier set, it'll go to someone else in the raid! That someone else will be happy! And, ideally, so will you, cause your raid team just got stronger.

It's like, why would you care that some of your armour slots are locked because you have obtained the *gasp* BEST POSSIBLE ITEM AVAILABLE FOR THAT SLOT!? Are we going FULL retard mode? Can people not play and work with set bonuses that have an impact on the rest of one's gear-set? I honestly can't understand, maybe it's different for DPS, maybe they want to see those stats go higher, but as a tank, tier-set bonuses often changed how you played your char. There was one set bonus in Legion that made Frenzied Regen have a base amount of healing done, even with 0 rage. That set bonus was amazing, for doing mah WQ's, my low lvl M+ keys, and no amount of +Agi/haste/crit/versa/mastery would be good enough to offset the fact that I got healed by Frenzied Regen while having 0 rage.

Lastly, people forget 1 thing. Tier set bonuses were a way for Blizzard to balance out the output and performance of classes in specific tiers, without bringing sweeping changes through a patch with class-updates and class-changes. Fury Warriors are lagging behind in the DPS? No problem. Make their next tier set bonus a tiny bit better than everyone elses, and bring them up to par. Problem solved.

From 8/8 Stormrage in Vanilla, to 8/8 Thunderheart in SWP, to 5/5 Lasherweave from ICC....tier sets were amazing. I honestly cannot see why people would want to see them gone, in the name of "less customization". Game has proved it was better, more popular, more engaging in the past when each raid had its own iconic tier, instead of being constantly bombarded with loot. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go back to Classic where my Choker of the Firelord form Ragnaros and my Mish'Undare, Circlet of the Mind Flayer from Nefarian won't get replaced till TBC-classic.

I can understand the pros and cons with tier gear, but I just don't get why people say its different with Azerite Armor. It got the same issues. You get the best piece, then you won't replace them before the next tier. The reasons for Tier-gear being gone is offset by the Azerite Armor more or less.

- - - Updated - - -

The main difference is the set bonus. You don't need 3 very specific unique Azerite pices that together form a bonus which you want unlike tier-sets. The problem with the tier sets was that usually maybe half the pieces had stats you didn't want, but together they formed the 4-set bonus and that made it worth it. I think tier sets were fine for a long time but with the addition of legendaries in Legion it definitely got pretty bad. Most specs had 1 of their bis legendaries be one of the tier-slots (whether that was helm, shoulders, chest, legs or gloves) and that meant the other 4 were carved in stone because you needed that bonus. There was just no way around it.

Going from that to Azerite in BFA has been an improvement because the pieces aren't tied together and they are more like regular items where you replace them if you get a better one and you don't worry about breaking a tier bonus.

But you worry about getting the best traits, and when you got the best traits you are done. You didn't "need"(of course you did) the set bonuses either, but same as Azerite, you want the best gear possible so the same logic applies there, and when you get that you are locked to it.

I mean, I was kinda glad that tier-gear was gone as well, until shortly into BfA where I noticed it's the same thing more or less. The difference is so small it's not really game breaking. It's first now in Shadowlands that they really deliver on that promise. If they make the tier-gear which they have discussed, it will most likely be cosmetic only(one of the interviews lately, can't remember which one) and that I am fine with myself.

[TorAndre]

Yep, people blamed Chris Metzen a lot. Now we remember it foundly but the forums were set ablaze every now and then because of him.

And now people say that he keeps talking like lawyer trying to drag his old job into his new, which is pathetic.

Ion having a career as a lawyer is only positive. Then we have a game director that know how to talk to the higher ups people trying to convince him of crazy things like when Activision investor dude says: "Why don't you just put tier sets on the shop? My 17 year old daughter wants a tier set, but she has only played the game for 3 weeks because recruit a friend!"

[Dalinos]

I can understand the pros and cons with tier gear, but I just don't get why people say its different with Azerite Armor. It got the same issues. You get the best piece, then you won't replace them before the next tier. The reasons for Tier-gear being gone is offset by the Azerite Armor more or less.

- - - Updated - - -


But you worry about getting the best traits, and when you got the best traits you are done. You didn't need the set bonuses either, but same as Azerite, you want the best gear possible so the same logic applies there, and when you get that you are locked to it.

I mean, I was kinda glad that tier-gear was gone as well, until shortly into BfA where I noticed it's the same thing more or less. The difference is so small it's not really game breaking. It's first now in Shadowlands that they really deliver on that promise. If they make the tier-gear which they have discussed, it will most likely be cosmetic only(one of the interviews lately, can't remember which one) and that I am fine with myself.

Ι'll use a more cynical approach - the removal of tier gear also means much less art/animation resources used. It's different designing 10 different sets per raiding tier, than designing 1 Plate 1 Mail 1 Leather and 1 Cloth armour set.

[Doffen]

Ι'll use a more cynical approach - the removal of tier gear also means much less art/animation resources used. It's different designing 10 different sets per raiding tier, than designing 1 Plate 1 Mail 1 Leather and 1 Cloth armour set.

That's my main grievance with it. I think the armor-sets in BfA has been lazy. Just lazy. The Season 1 and 2 pvp-sets from the Warfronts was a bit worked on, but the rest of them, tier-sets included except maybe Battle of Dazar'alor has been just bad.

Seems they are meaning to improve that with Shadowlands as well. I think it's funny that they need to learn something so many times. People like cosmetic. Legion for instance had ton of it, people like to look good. Then we go into BfA and we get what we got. Azerite Armor is boring in that regard too. If you use pieces from the Titan Residuum vendor you have looked the same the whole expansion. But good thing we got transmog right.

[Gaidax]

Hear, hear! Arthas is the only reason this game became as popular as it did with Warcraft III. He's the face of the franchise. the Michael Jordan. The Babe Ruth. The Steve Austin. The Tiger Woods of this franchise, and all of Shadowlands should revolve around him. Whenever there is a scene not involving Arthas, every character should be going, "where's Arthas? What would Arthas think about this?"

Frostmourne should be reforged into the Legendary of the expansion for Death Knights.

The expansion should end with Arthas sticking a sword through Sylvanas belly, then proclaiming The Maw free.

Then Arthas is welcomed back into The Alliance with open arms, and crowned King of The Forsaken of Lordaeron, but instead of getting back with Jaina, he puts a hand to her face and says, "sorry Jaina... I can't watch you do this," and strut over to Vereese Windrunner, and plant a big smooch and say "let's make some half high elf/human babies, baby," and BAM, playable High Elves and Half-Human customization.

You know you want it, haters.

Still better story than BFA.

- - - Updated - - -

Lets not forget Kalgan and Ghostcrawler for also getting all the shit in their time. As far as I remember with Kalgan it was the first time I saw these interviews from TV with dubbed over (or subtitles) jabs at class design...and ofc if you google him, right there is a "Why all the Kalgan hate" video from 2008

kekw...

As a paladin main in Vanilla, let me link this gem from 2005 to you. We had this shit all the way from the beginning.

[Varodoc]

Let old characters and story arcs be... create and introduce us to NEW characters.

But.... this entire expansion is about bringing back old characters whose story arcs already ended.

Because yes, people like Kael'thas and Vashj already had a definitive end to their character arcs, even if some people didn't like how they were turned into raid bosses.

[Eapoe]

Ι'll use a more cynical approach - the removal of tier gear also means much less art/animation resources used. It's different designing 10 different sets per raiding tier, than designing 1 Plate 1 Mail 1 Leather and 1 Cloth armour set.

This is cynical. Blizzard can still have multiple class sets while maintains no tier gear. That’s part of the issue and also the reason (possibly) that Blizzard takes players complaints/praises/suggestion with a grain of salt. When some people talk about tier gear, they are specifically talking about the set bonuses. Other people talking about it are talking about the tier appearances.
While I agree that Blizzard should have stuck to making class sets per raid tier, I don’t miss set bonuses. Azerite is a novel approach at removing them as the idea is that you could get same ilvl pieces with changeable traits for different facets of gameplay, such as raiding/PvP/m+, or even different traits for encounter design. It didn’t play out as well as what the idea was for, but as stated, it was a novel idea. Think if Blizzard could balance more or gave better trait design between cleave/AoE/ST on the Azerite pieces, and you then wouldn’t be locked in. Compare a ST designed tier piece going up against fights like Vexiona or Hive Mind vs fights like Wrathion or Prophet. Then compare the idea of Azerite pieces where you could swap ST for some added cleave or AoE. So, the idea is there, but it wasn’t fleshed out as well as it should have been. If Blizzard did that, Azerite might have been better received. If they had done that while keeping class tier appearances then these forum threads probably wouldn’t even be a thought.

[Dalinos]

This is cynical. Blizzard can still have multiple class sets while maintains no tier gear. That’s part of the issue and also the reason (possibly) that Blizzard takes players complaints/praises/suggestion with a grain of salt. When some people talk about tier gear, they are specifically talking about the set bonuses. Other people talking about it are talking about the tier appearances.
While I agree that Blizzard should have stuck to making class sets per raid tier, I don’t miss set bonuses. Azerite is a novel approach at removing them as the idea is that you could get same ilvl pieces with changeable traits for different facets of gameplay, such as raiding/PvP/m+, or even different traits for encounter design. It didn’t play out as well as what the idea was for, but as stated, it was a novel idea. Think if Blizzard could balance more or gave better trait design between cleave/AoE/ST on the Azerite pieces, and you then wouldn’t be locked in. Compare a ST designed tier piece going up against fights like Vexiona or Hive Mind vs fights like Wrathion or Prophet. Then compare the idea of Azerite pieces where you could swap ST for some added cleave or AoE. So, the idea is there, but it wasn’t fleshed out as well as it should have been. If Blizzard did that, Azerite might have been better received. If they had done that while keeping class tier appearances then these forum threads probably wouldn’t even be a thought.

Ι dunno man, it all seems weird to me. Throughout my long raiding career, none of my guildies were ever bummed out that they couldn't wear items due to them being tier-locked. Everyone was always excited to get set bonuses, try them out, experiment with them, and in some cases, re-learn their rotation since some sets were so rotation-defining. Not once did someone complain that "Boo-hoo, I can't use gloves from Kil'Jaeden because I need to use my T6 gloves from Azgalor in Mount Hyjal". Wanna know what they said? "Great, gloves dropped from KJ, here, you take em, cause I don't wanna break set bonus, when I get Belt from Brutallus then I'll be able to wear them too!" You see what I mean? Is my point getting across well or did I do a shit job explaining?

[Eapoe]

Ι dunno man, it all seems weird to me. Throughout my long raiding career, none of my guildies were ever bummed out that they couldn't wear items due to them being tier-locked. Everyone was always excited to get set bonuses, try them out, experiment with them, and in some cases, re-learn their rotation since some sets were so rotation-defining. Not once did someone complain that "Boo-hoo, I can't use gloves from Kil'Jaeden because I need to use my T6 gloves from Azgalor in Mount Hyjal". Wanna know what they said? "Great, gloves dropped from KJ, here, you take em, cause I don't wanna break set bonus, when I get Belt from Brutallus then I'll be able to wear them too!" You see what I mean? Is my point getting across well or did I do a shit job explaining?

No, you did a shit job explaining. The point wasn’t what people felt like, it was about Blizzard attempting to move away from people being locked into specific set bonuses for an entire tier. Your example has nothing to do with the context of my post. Tier sets lock you into a playstyle, whereas Azerite was an attempt to allow people to tailor their playstyle based on fight design.
Also, with Blizzard introducing more slot pieces, it frees up an item slot or 3 for differing pieces.
So no, your point wasn’t really explained very well as it had nothing to do with what I was stating.

[Dalinos]

No, you did a shit job explaining. The point wasn’t what people felt like, it was about Blizzard attempting to move away from people being locked into specific set bonuses for an entire tier. Your example has nothing to do with the context of my post. Tier sets lock you into a playstyle, whereas Azerite was an attempt to allow people to tailor their playstyle based on fight design.
Also, with Blizzard introducing more slot pieces, it frees up an item slot or 3 for differing pieces.
So no, your point wasn’t really explained very well as it had nothing to do with what I was stating.

My question is simply - why? Why move away from Tier sets and Set bonuses when they worked just fine for 90% of WoW's lifetime? So what if some pieces are locked? On Classic at the moment I'm wearing Choker of the Firelord and Mish'Undare, Circlet of the Mind-Flayer, and I know for a fact I'm not replacing those 2 items till TBC-classic comes out. I also gave an example of how people actually enjoyed playing around with their gear sets. When SWP was released and T6 went from 5 pieces to 8 pieces, it was amazing. You could mix & match T6 and T6.5 gear to get the best setup, while progressing as a guild, as a team. Also, many have stated that Azerite pieces also keep you locked, so at the end of the day, they're not THAT different to tier sets in terms of locking your armour slots.

At the end of the day, I'm probably biased. As a maintank for decent-high lvl guilds, I always got my tier set on time, during the relevance of the content. I can understand casuals who didn't raid were always envious of organised raiders who got their tier sets promptly & on time. Maybe that's why they were removed, so people don't feel "left out".