Going from casual to seriously playing still sucks ass

[protpaul]

Pretty sure ppl were clearing mythic without perfect corruption in fact they had less

Also can do +15s

The essences are a 3 week grind

TBH though I’d just prepare for shadowlands

Find a good guild now even if it’s not a 12/12m guild because come next expansion you’ll be set with a spot

Level your alts and get them farming gold
Use that for flasks and the 1min potion to speed leveling

Not really no... you can look at the logs. In fact most of the early kills were done with better unnerfed corruptions from buying up all the trash boes.

The early kills had less gem slots ,weaker cloak procs and less equipped corruptions though.

[Dalinos]

I don't think that's true. You don't need BiS Corrputions, Essences, Traits, etc to do serious content. Sure, you will never be "the best", but you can be in the top 10% even with suboptimal Corruption, Essences and Traits. And you've got the time. Week after week you unlock more essences; each week you amass more Echoes, etc.

No, you don't need the PvP Essence to clear mythic Nyalotha. Would it be easier with the essence? Probably. But having good gear still is enough, coupled with skill.
The only problem here is, that you can't raidlog anymore. You have to invest 2 hours each week to do a +15, run one or two visions and then some time to catch up on essences.

Having to have BiS right from the start is entirely unnecessary and just a mental barrier. You just can't expect to be on par with players who play seriously for months without pause right away.

Ι used to tank alot of M+ in Legion. Alot of it. +17s/18s/19s. Never hit the 20's, but I'm a very experienced tank with over 10 yrs of hardcore raiding under my belt. I'm the type of player who walks into a brand new dungeon, sees the mechanics and says "Yup, this is a combination of what Illidari Council did in BT with some Lei-Shen platform movement along with some Sindragosa debuff-management. Aight, I got this, we good".

I started BFA like a month ago. My mates wanted to have a stable tank for M+, so they talked me into it.

Let me just say that without a decent level of Twilight Devastation, I am LEAGUES behind what I could be. I can only imagine what my dmg will be when I have a rank 3 TD and a couple of rank 1's as well. It's insane how important TD is for tanks that do M+.

Essences too. I mean, holy shit. I'm playing with the major essence that gives me the AOE taunt (Thank you Blizzard for removing Challenging Roar from baseline abilities, I only had that button for...ALL MY FUCKING LIFE) because Blizz removed it, and I want it back, since I'm way too used to having 2 taunts (my normal Growl and Challenging Roar, F and Shift+F respectively). The difference ever since I got that essence is MASSIVE, since they improved upon it too, by giving the user +15% dodge for the duration and 50% more dmg to all targets affected. It's a great ability for making massive pulls without dying and making sure stuff sticks on you (just like old-school Challenging Roar). When it comes to minor essences, I saw a WORLD of a difference when I got my rank 2 Conflict & Strife, that stacks Versa, and the rank 2 Deep Water essence that gives flat Versatility depending on amount of mobs near you.

So...I dunno about healers/DPS, but for tanks, and tanks especially in M+, it is VITAL to have the correct corruptions/essences. Literally unplayable without them, if you wanna do anything higher than M+15.

[Revamp Man]

Not really no... you can look at the logs. In fact most of the early kills were done with better unnerfed corruptions from buying up all the trash boes.

The early kills had less gem slots ,weaker cloak procs and less equipped corruptions though.

That was kinda my point

I mean you have people expecting to need the absolute best

World first bought every boe

Ppl hitting mythic nzoth now don’t really

To be honest it’s an easier grind now

[SirCowdog]

Yes and no.

Pre legion it required far less time to be in even a six to eight week full clearing mythic guild. Since AP the time spent has climbed drastically for how long it takes to be mythic ready assuming he player has the skills.

AP is just the evolution of the game bending to the imperatives of the subscription model.

[Kathranis]

AP is just the evolution of the game bending to the imperatives of the subscription model.

I mean, AP (or Alternate Advancement in general) is something they've wanted in the game for a long time. That's what Path of the Titans was going to be in Cataclysm, and they mentioned at the time that they had been wanting to do a system like that for a while.

[BenBos]

Yeah a new player will always be miles behind. I returned in May, previously played during the launch then unsubbed. I'm within about 10 ilvl of the best geared players, but the best geared players have much higher corruption resistance, optimised corruptions, sockets on almost every piece and maxed out essences. Catching up with just cloak corruption resistance is months (6 per week), catching up with sockets and corruptions even longer.

There is just a mountain of stuff to, you could grind yourself into unsubscribing again to speed up that process but you can't overcome the time-gating, with Shadowlands getting closer and closer makes that a waste of time as it will all be soon removed.

I agree 200%...

Having left WoW for almost 2 expansions, I leveled my main recently to level 120 but the moment I hit that max level you are miles behind everyone else.

Classic WoW brought me back to WOW and I think the difference is that in Classic you have all the time in the world to get something as it is not going anywhere in the next few years. It surprises me my classic server is heavely populated with new characters.

As to retail almost anything you do NOW with a new MAX level is a waste of time and energy in view of the upcoming expanson.

ODDLY enough I had GREAT fun when leveling through PvP in Retail as you automatically get X9 level in each BG... but the moment you hit 120 you stand there with 55K health versus … dudes with 500K health

So the only thing for me to do is level up a Hunter from 104 to 120 through dungeons and create a Mage from scratch with my free 110 Gift and level them to 120 basic.

---
It surprises me that Classic WOW is still feeling very EPIC compared to all these new whistles and bells in Retail WOW. YES it is so much easier to dungeon crawl and find a group in Retail, but …

Retail's pace and rat race has some very bad side effects too…


As such Blizzard should find a solution with the new expansion to find a correct balance between long term play, the control of the rat race and not losing too many casual players….

I still believe WOW Classic can be a temporary bridge between the HUGE gear gaps in its Retail end game so people keep their subscription any way.

[Athulua]

Too many systems that are all time constrained. Heavily time constrained in fact, especially rank 3 essences and corruptions.
The systems are designed in a way, where it's relatively easy and effortless to benefit from them, but it does take a hefty amount of time to actually complete it.
I mean, how hard is doing emissaries and 0 mask visions for echoes of nyalotha? How hard is completing a bunch of low keys for rank 3 iris? It's not hard, it's just dependent on time, as you only get progress on a strict time rule, set by Blizzard.

This created the situation, where those systems are required to get into groups that push high keys, mythic raids or high rating in PVP. And a player that recently returned, or a player rolling an alt will be months behind. If you cap your cloak today, you won't reach the current corruption resist cap until SEPTEMBER. You will be behind for 3 months, and that's taking maximum possible gain each week into account.

This shit started in MOP with the inclusion of legendary cloak quest. It took months to complete. Then it was WOD legendary ring, also took months to complete and additional months to upgrade it. Legion was a little more lenient, as artifact power was available easily and you could reach the cap (level 75 in 7.3) quite quickly. Yes there were relics too but you could treat them as weapon drops. You needed those every expansion, including vanilla. Then BFA dropped down which combined Legion AP system with time-consuming essence system AND another time consuming cloak/corruption system. That's like 3 systems stacked on top of each other, two of which have heavy time gates imposed on them.

Give me a fucking break, I just want to go back to Cata system.
Hit level 85, run some heroics, purchase missing gear from justice and valor vendors
Then run some normal modes, get gear drops, get tier set
There, character ready for pushing progression / rating.
If you are a good player that wants to raid on alt, this could be done by carrying you through farm content on guild raids. You could have a progression viable toon in 2 weeks if you wanted. Now even if friends help you with carry through farm you still need to contend with those stupid time constrained systems. It's not like your char sucks without them, but with them it's SO MUCH more powerful that it's silly.
There were some legendaries pre-MOP but these were available for just a few classes. And guild effort to actually get them. Not a mandatory requirement to get into any remotely decent groups. Last real legendary item was 4.3 rogue dagger quest. Then they decided to create those very long grinds that become mandatory for everybody, because you can get them even in LFR and any class can get them.

[LordVargK]

No, I did not mean Ny'alotha.

If you can bypass it with gold, then it is a bad gatekeeper. And how do one get gold? Grinding - whether it be AH, Boosting or farming.

Also, I didn't mention Corruptions at all, but you did need to grind AP.

My point was still that even method has to rely on gear to get anywhere, they have skill, yet they have to grind more than you and me.

Your point is true, of course. Since we are talking about Corruptions, Azerite and Essences here, what I meant by "good gear" was "gear with the right traits and corruptions". And all of those things could not be bought at that time.
On the topic of gatekeeping: If you have to spend hundreds of millions of gold to aquire your gear (and you can still lose), then the system is working as intended. It's not that anyone with enough gold can do it. You also need your personal skill.

[Dalinos]

Too many systems that are all time constrained. Heavily time constrained in fact, especially rank 3 essences and corruptions.
The systems are designed in a way, where it's relatively easy and effortless to benefit from them, but it does take a hefty amount of time to actually complete it.
I mean, how hard is doing emissaries and 0 mask visions for echoes of nyalotha? How hard is completing a bunch of low keys for rank 3 iris? It's not hard, it's just dependent on time, as you only get progress on a strict time rule, set by Blizzard.

This created the situation, where those systems are required to get into groups that push high keys, mythic raids or high rating in PVP. And a player that recently returned, or a player rolling an alt will be months behind. If you cap your cloak today, you won't reach the current corruption resist cap until SEPTEMBER. You will be behind for 3 months, and that's taking maximum possible gain each week into account.

This shit started in MOP with the inclusion of legendary cloak quest. It took months to complete. Then it was WOD legendary ring, also took months to complete and additional months to upgrade it. Legion was a little more lenient, as artifact power was available easily and you could reach the cap (level 75 in 7.3) quite quickly. Yes there were relics too but you could treat them as weapon drops. You needed those every expansion, including vanilla. Then BFA dropped down which combined Legion AP system with time-consuming essence system AND another time consuming cloak/corruption system. That's like 3 systems stacked on top of each other, two of which have heavy time gates imposed on them.

Give me a fucking break, I just want to go back to Cata system.
Hit level 85, run some heroics, purchase missing gear from justice and valor vendors
Then run some normal modes, get gear drops, get tier set
There, character ready for pushing progression / rating.
If you are a good player that wants to raid on alt, this could be done by carrying you through farm content on guild raids. You could have a progression viable toon in 2 weeks if you wanted. Now even if friends help you with carry through farm you still need to contend with those stupid time constrained systems. It's not like your char sucks without them, but with them it's SO MUCH more powerful that it's silly.
There were some legendaries pre-MOP but these were available for just a few classes. And guild effort to actually get them. Not a mandatory requirement to get into any remotely decent groups. Last real legendary item was 4.3 rogue dagger quest. Then they decided to create those very long grinds that become mandatory for everybody, because you can get them even in LFR and any class can get them.

You forgot Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest. Dragonwrath was an amazing caster legendary, with an awesome quest-line, and that was Cataclysm.

[Hashtronaut]

Too many systems that are all time constrained. Heavily time constrained in fact, especially rank 3 essences and corruptions.
The systems are designed in a way, where it's relatively easy and effortless to benefit from them, but it does take a hefty amount of time to actually complete it.
I mean, how hard is doing emissaries and 0 mask visions for echoes of nyalotha? How hard is completing a bunch of low keys for rank 3 iris? It's not hard, it's just dependent on time, as you only get progress on a strict time rule, set by Blizzard.

This created the situation, where those systems are required to get into groups that push high keys, mythic raids or high rating in PVP. And a player that recently returned, or a player rolling an alt will be months behind. If you cap your cloak today, you won't reach the current corruption resist cap until SEPTEMBER. You will be behind for 3 months, and that's taking maximum possible gain each week into account.

This shit started in MOP with the inclusion of legendary cloak quest. It took months to complete. Then it was WOD legendary ring, also took months to complete and additional months to upgrade it. Legion was a little more lenient, as artifact power was available easily and you could reach the cap (level 75 in 7.3) quite quickly. Yes there were relics too but you could treat them as weapon drops. You needed those every expansion, including vanilla. Then BFA dropped down which combined Legion AP system with time-consuming essence system AND another time consuming cloak/corruption system. That's like 3 systems stacked on top of each other, two of which have heavy time gates imposed on them.

Give me a fucking break, I just want to go back to Cata system.
Hit level 85, run some heroics, purchase missing gear from justice and valor vendors
Then run some normal modes, get gear drops, get tier set
There, character ready for pushing progression / rating.
If you are a good player that wants to raid on alt, this could be done by carrying you through farm content on guild raids. You could have a progression viable toon in 2 weeks if you wanted. Now even if friends help you with carry through farm you still need to contend with those stupid time constrained systems. It's not like your char sucks without them, but with them it's SO MUCH more powerful that it's silly.
There were some legendaries pre-MOP but these were available for just a few classes. And guild effort to actually get them. Not a mandatory requirement to get into any remotely decent groups. Last real legendary item was 4.3 rogue dagger quest. Then they decided to create those very long grinds that become mandatory for everybody, because you can get them even in LFR and any class can get them.

Well thanks for the heads up I was thinking about coming back to gear up and do some arena. But if it’s rly 3 months before maxing corruption resist cap (whatever that is) to be competitive. That’s a big NOPE.

[Malix Farwin]

You don't go from casual to seriously pushing mythic raids or high keys/high pvp ranking in a week ( unless you get carried ). You find a guild or some group and gain experience first.

I would assume by serious he meant seriously trying by doing said things and he isnt wrong. Essences are keeping people from coming back because the grind is VERY long. Hell you cant even get serious because essence grind forces you to be casual because of the time gating.

[Gorsameth]

That was kinda my point

I mean you have people expecting to need the absolute best

World first bought every boe

Ppl hitting mythic nzoth now don’t really

To be honest it’s an easier grind now

Do you need the absolute best? no obviously not but the issue is not that you need X to beat the raid.
You need X to compete with your teammates.

The fun of beating encounters only gets you so far as a player, and even less so when your returning 4-5 months into a tier. For the most part your tagging along re-clearing with a guild that has already had the fun of learning and beating the encounters.

A lot of the fun is also in competing on dps meters with your teammates. And this is where you run into a solid brick wall in BfA.
Yes you can complete the encounter but there is no real way to catch up to your teammates who have all the best corruptions and a full upgraded cloak. So your stuck dead last on dps for the next several months. While having to constantly grind to try and shorten the gap.

Previously there was only gap between you as a returning player and the established players.
Gear. (ok, two, skill aswell).
And that gap would generally close rapidly as you get fed a ton of gear no one else needs anymore, and the few top best pieces others are still missing might pass you by but you'll get 90% of other players power in short order.

Thanks to Essences, corruption, cloak ect that is gone. And that gap staring you in the face feels bad and is going to make people quit again in short order.

In an attempt to keep the more hardcore audience playing consistently Blizzard have shafted returning players and I seriously question if it was worth it. Because how many of those hardcore players who keep up with the grinds previously lapsed their subscription? I would guess not many. They were playing anyway, and would have kept playing even without essences, corruption or the cloak grind.
But those returning players who are now instantly turned off by the brick wall in front of them would have otherwise stuck around a little longer before most likely leaving again to return the next patch. And now they might not bother coming back at all.
Because the last time felt so bad.

[Easyclassictopkeklel]

bullshit post.
I started a second account weeks ago. Zero achievements, zero gear. Levelled three chars and geared one to 474, only doing pugs for ALL of the content.
EVERYTHING is possible, but don't expect a 475+ group to carry people without achievement...you have to put in some work. Finding pugs doing at least the first 3
bosses in mythic is piss easy too, even more bosses are possible. There also are a fkton of communities for undergeared people, there are grps running raids for beginners
or to help people get curve etc etc.
Also it gets WAY easier if you look for a guild and make internet friends. But who cares about social aspects in a MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER game right?

Also, while I agree the grind for corruptions is tedious, you DO NOT need them for shit like hc raids or the beginning of mythic. (Arena is a different thing).
People always act like if the do not get bis gear instantly they can't participate...that's just bs.

[D3athsting]

Blizzard needs to ban any type of mod like raider.io, etc. That will help with getting rid of the elite snobs making judgements without even knowing one's skill or ability to adapt at higher levels of play.

It's easy peasy for blizz, they just need to stop giving mythic+ charts to 3rd party epeen meter sites

[Athulua]

Well thanks for the heads up I was thinking about coming back to gear up and do some arena. But if it’s rly 3 months before maxing corruption resist cap (whatever that is) to be competitive. That’s a big NOPE.

3 months is only if you cap your cloak at level 15 today.
If you don't even have the cloak, it's even more than 3 months. As it takes rather long time to reach that rank 15. At least 4 weeks of doing all dailies, assaults etc for vision tickets (and taking into account that you won't fail a single one which may be difficult to do at low ranks without getting boosted)

Then there's the essecne grind. They gave us account wide essences. Or so they thought. It has a grind attached, each rank3 essence costs 2500 echoes.
How much is 2500 echoes?
Well, it's your weekly M+15 cache (1500), a full vision clear (750) and one emissary (250).
That's for a SINGLE essence. You need four of them at minimum, just to fill sockets. That's 10 000 echoes.
Let's see how many you can grind in a week.
1500 from M+15 cache
~1000 from low rated PVP cache
4 vision clears, that's 3000
7 emissaries, that's 1750
20 arena wins, that's about 1000 (it's needed to gain the pvp chest)
A full Nyalotha clear, that's about 1000
Mythic 15 clear x4, that's 900

That's some heavy grinding to do just for bare minimum - essences. Realistically you need about 6-7 of them, so add another 5-8k echoes.

Then you need corruptions of course, because why wouldn't you. Pricing is even heavier there
Static stats corruption - 5000 echoes each
Good proc corruption - 7800 echoes each
Infinite Stars / Twilight Deva - 18000 for rank 3, 12000 for rank 2.

Yep, you need to grind really heavily for 2 weeks for just 1 rank 3 infinity stars corruption.

Players that played this patch since it came out already have almost everything. Optimized gear, essences, sockets on nearly everything, choice corruptions. These systems aren't hard, they're just...grinds. Time-gated grinds.

[Marrilaife]

In an attempt to keep the more hardcore audience playing consistently Blizzard have shafted returning players and I seriously question if it was worth it. Because how many of those hardcore players who keep up with the grinds previously lapsed their subscription? I would guess not many. They were playing anyway, and would have kept playing even without essences, corruption or the cloak grind.

Pretty much, I never felt the reason to quit because "I was just raidlogging", raids were the reason to keep my sub up, staying with the guild was. Then I could play other games outside of wow, spend time on other hobbies, or if I felt like it, play alts, fill my collections on wow, chase achievements. Now WOW started feeling like that jealous GF that hates the fact you even dare look at anything else instead of spending 100% time with her. And for that reason I'm seriously considering unsubbing, Shadowlands looks to have the same grinds again (anima powers, soulbinds, covenant assignments which is another name for emissary, on top of torghast, mandatory m+, probably mandatory pvp, and ofc raiding). With how much timeconsuming WOW became if you want to raid mythic, it feels like a deadweight at my neck rather than "entertainment". The biggest problem is all that "content" is not fun to me. I feel like I'm not the target audience. I was fine if I could mostly ignore it and let others enjoy it. But last 2 expansions it feels like Blizzard wants to force everyone to do everything.

Blizzard decided to cater to bad players at the end of the day...

All these accumulative systems at level cap exist for one singular purpose. To make Johnny only does dailies and lfr feel like he accomplishes something when he logs on dispite never challenging himself in anyway nor improving in anyway.

Rather then letting him be stagnant they invented a faux progression system just for him so he can be ahead of someone just starting out.

Sadly this mentality has caught on and spread. It used to be a fresh capped toon could be fully ready to start mythic raiding in roughly 2 weeks if the player knew what they were doing. Now that same feat takes closer to two months.... and why? So people who never do anything feel like they are achieving something.

Part of me still wishes we would go back to a pre legion mentality but I think those days are dead and buried.

Pretty much yeah. They killed my motivation to play alts, and slowly also to play my main too. This patch was SO MANY systems, AP, essences, cloak upgrades, sockets on gear and now corruption vendor it just feels too bloated and too many checkboxes to fill. You fill up one and you get another thrown to your face. And the performance of your toon depends on 1) whether you ticked all the checkboxes 2) were you lucky with RNG procs 3) are you playing any of the currently broken OP specs or something else, and only as the last point 4) your actual skill level and knowledge of the spec you play. Which feels super bad, because if "player agency" (which is the horn Blizz is tooting all the time) was the priority, then #4 should be on top.

[Moonsorrow]

And yes, you do less damage without corruptions. That's the point of them. But a skilled player won't need those, because he does enough damage by his skill alone. Corruptions are for casuals to offset their lack of skill. Sure, you won't log very high, but the boss will go down, even without corruptions.

Sorry but this is just not correct. IS / TD and previously EV are such a hugh amount of damage that is completly random and only proc-based. There is no skill involved beside the fact not to use IS in a cleave fight. On pure single target fights IS alone can be 30% of your overall damage and more depending on rng. This is something that canot be mitigated by skill, no matter the players skillelvel.

TD is the same, a few lucky proccs and trash packs in M+ just melt.

In my opinion this is very frustrating, for the returing players on the one hand because they will probably never be able to close the gap and for the ongoing players on the other hand, having variations in their dps of 20% in the same fight without changing anything only due to rng.

I can't wait for the clown fiesta that is corruption to be over...

[LordVargK]

Sorry but this is just not correct. IS / TD and previously EV are such a hugh amount of damage that is completly random and only proc-based. There is no skill involved beside the fact not to use IS in a cleave fight. On pure single target fights IS alone can be 30% of your overall damage and more depending on rng. This is something that canot be mitigated by skill, no matter the players skillelvel.

TD is the same, a few lucky proccs and trash packs in M+ just melt.

In my opinion this is very frustrating, for the returing players on the one hand because they will probably never be able to close the gap and for the ongoing players on the other hand, having variations in their dps of 20% in the same fight without changing anything only due to rng.

I can't wait for the clown fiesta that is corruption to be over...

You miss my point.
Most content is tuned to be done by skilled players WITHOUT any corruptions. But historically Blizz has nerfed content bit for bit at the end of expansions, or gave players buffs. Corruption is this buff. You don't NEED it to do the content, but the content gets easier if you have it. Or in the case of m+ Corruption gives you the means to progress even when there is no better gear to get.

You quote IS at 30% of your damage. This is about equal to the 30% Buff in ICC, DS and SoO. System is working as intended.

Of course it's more frustrating for players who need those buffs to progress. But they can easily catch up, since you get far more echoes and gear than you will ever be able to use, since the cloak has a very slow progression of 6 corruption per week. Do your 5 and 4 Mask run every week, run a +15 and do your desired content normally and you'll have all the corruptions you'll ever need and the echoes to target specific ones too.

Yes, Corruptions is inconsistant. But this only concers damagewhores. Btw IS gets weaker the better your raid gets, so at some point it might be better to go for passive Corruptions, meaning that you can avoid rng inconsistencies alltogether.

[protpaul]

AP is just the evolution of the game bending to the imperatives of the subscription model.

I don't think I agree with this...it feels more like blizzard chasing bad again. Much like when they went after the cellphone "gamer" market for wow in wrath.

The old model was successful people progressed at different rates. I am unsure how successful this new model honestly is. It could very well be that after a decade of change they alienated so much of their old audience that they now have a new far more smaller and fickle core of players then they used to.

[tmamass]

And I believe wow is still too simple

yes and its supposed to be that way as it was created that way to have more players then the hc single player game you dream of....