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Despite being called alpha, it's further ahead along than previous alphas where there would only be one or two zones up for testing. Specs are most likely only locked due to artifact questline stuff and not issues with the specs themselves.
I expect Aszuna and the last 5 specs to unlock next build, which seeing as we've had a build every 2 weeks will probably be next week. There's several new systems that are going to need testing (PvP stuff, new CMs, the adventure/bounty system), as well as heavy revisions to some current ones (professions, class order halls are heavily reworked garrison command tables) on top of the usual dungeon and raid testing.
I'm expecting prepatch around the time of the movie and then expac in July.
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United Kingdom20275 Posts
Despite being called alpha, it's further ahead along than previous alphas where there would only be one or two zones up for testing. Specs are most likely only locked due to artifact questline stuff and not issues with the specs themselves.
They're still making pretty huge iterations/overhauls on some specs (which is good!), while others are barely working or missing major things. Spec feedback threads just went up what like two days ago?
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51449 Posts
How many of the zones are available out of the ones listed? in Alpha currently? + Show Spoiler +
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Is it just me or do the enhancer changes look amazing?
Might this be the first time since proc-praying in Classic when Enhancement shamans might become competitive in PvP?
Can we discuss the current expansion here as well?
I just dinged to Level 100, wanted to ask two questions:
1. What happens with my Garrison when the expansion comes out? 2. Are mythic dungeons as difficult as mythic raids and drop accordingly?
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1) no one knows. I expect rewards to be nerfed into the ground but with 4+ months left its a good amount of gold for now. 2) no but they are significantly harder then hc dungeons.
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Italy12246 Posts
Adding on to 2), for reference heroic dungeons are completely and utterly faceroll with current gear. They were somewhat sort of kind of challenging on the first week with terrible questing/t16 gear, but since then they have been very very easy.
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United Kingdom20275 Posts
1. What happens with my Garrison when the expansion comes out?
You leave it, gold rewards are nerfed and there's little to do there
2. Are mythic dungeons as difficult as mythic raids and drop accordingly?
No, they're soloable by most geared DPS classes. It's a huge pain without 2 or 3 people (to chain pull without waiting for any cd's and handle bosses). If you have a group of mythic raiders you can go start to end in about 4-10 minutes depending on the dungeon (4 minutes being grimrail herpaderp runs).
For reference, Warlord Zaela (last boss of UBRS) has 11.49 million health on Mythic. That means as a marksmanship hunter i can solo kill her in about 25 seconds without being lucky by blowing cooldowns and then standing on the spot running through a damage priority. With two DPS, 15 seconds is easy. With four, it's dead before it's finished yelling the aggro line at you.
Mythic dungeons now are a lot easier than Heroic dungeons were on the expansion launch, which was reasonably challenging for an uncoordinated group not doing tactics well or using CC but not that much more than that. It was not a TBC or Cataclysm.
It's mostly a gear thing, since in shit gear you do 15k dps and in mythic raid gear you do 200k dps on overall meters. And you have a shiny button that more than doubles your damage for 15 seconds in case any boss or trash chain pull is going to be at all difficult
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Three zones are currently available on Alpha: Val'Sharah, Highmountain, and Stormheim.
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51449 Posts
Ok so we still quite away from having it beta ready then. 5 zones plus the level 110 zone right? I guess the 110 zone can be added later on in the beta but still.
Also how is raid testing going on with only 3 zones up lol
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On February 17 2016 06:51 Pandemona wrote: Ok so we still quite away from having it beta ready then. 5 zones plus the level 110 zone right? I guess the 110 zone can be added later on in the beta but still.
Also how is raid testing going on with only 3 zones up lol 3 zones to go (Azsuna, Broken Shore and Surama) Frost Mage, Destro Lock, Feral Druid, Brewmaster Monk, and Assassination Rogue are not in yet.
Raid testing can happen because these days they scale everyone in testing to a default template anyway so while your missing some specs they can still test mechanics ect.
The naming (alpha as opposed to beta) is for unknown reasons, they previously had beta's with zones and classes still missing.
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On February 17 2016 07:00 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2016 06:51 Pandemona wrote: Ok so we still quite away from having it beta ready then. 5 zones plus the level 110 zone right? I guess the 110 zone can be added later on in the beta but still.
Also how is raid testing going on with only 3 zones up lol 3 zones to go (Azsuna, Broken Shore and Surama) Frost Mage, Destro Lock, Feral Druid, Brewmaster Monk, and Assassination Rogue are not in yet. Raid testing can happen because these days they scale everyone in testing to a default template anyway so while your missing some specs they can still test mechanics ect. The naming (alpha as opposed to beta) is for unknown reasons, they previously had beta's with zones and classes still missing.
The naming is more accurate this time. Betas are typically feature complete.
For example: Overwatch is missing a few features (ranked most notably), but otherwise the gameplay is finished and there is map and hero balancing as well as matchmaking testing that's the focus of the beta. If, for example, OW only had half of its heroes and 1 map, it'd be an alpha.
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On February 17 2016 00:25 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +Despite being called alpha, it's further ahead along than previous alphas where there would only be one or two zones up for testing. Specs are most likely only locked due to artifact questline stuff and not issues with the specs themselves. They're still making pretty huge iterations/overhauls on some specs (which is good!), while others are barely working or missing major things. Spec feedback threads just went up what like two days ago? The class feedback threads aren't made by Blizzard, they're made by players and have been around more or less since alpha started. Blues have just responded to the feedback saying "We're gonna change this" etc.
I'm like 90% sure that the only reason specs are being trickled through every update is because artifact questlines aren't done. Considering that specs that got significant overhauls (DK specs, Survival, Shadow) were open from the start and more are in (dps Shaman, Demo, Disc) while some that are mostly unchanged (Frost Mage, Assa) still aren't in.
Also seconding that Shaman looks really good. Currently my choice for main come Legion.
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United Kingdom20275 Posts
Gz
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Jesus christ they are actually going to make Legiondaries into the game and they think they are a good thing. I mean they realize they've to turn them off for when mythic opens, how can they not see why they are a bad idea.
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Looking at current Alpha, I don't think this expansion will live up to the hype and won't repair the damage by WoD. It definitely seems better than WoD though and I love the idea behind the classes change and making them feel unique again but some classes are very very underwhelming. A good example is Beast Master hunter which seems like an awful spec. The spec is basically 90% passives and focus feels completely useless. I understand it focus more on beast rather than hunter but when spec is 90% passive (including weapon talent tree)....ughh the class feels very hallow and 1 dimensional.
Artifacts, I believe they are going to be the garrison of this expansion. Many of the artifacts dont feel artifact at all. To me it doesnt feel like artifact are powerful at all and it make senses since the game is balance around them. It is almost as if the weapon itself is just a standard weapon and they just moved a passive you SHOULD of had in the first place and placed it on the weapon. Then paint it as artifact. Some artifact quest chain is also meh....very underwhelming for some of them, maybe this is why it doesnt feel as legendary? I think it would of been better if you start the quest at the beginning of the expansion and do the long artifact quest chain till max level and finally at max level you will get artifact. Then you spend end game to boost that weapon to max power.
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I don't understand this approach at all.
They introduce features that are cool in principle but lack depth and polish, and instead of working on them, they just abandon them as a bad job.
I liked the Garrisons conceptually, just as I liked the concept of pet battles, so I don't understand why they have to be replaced with a new, unpolished feature already.
The only reason I can think of is marketing. It's easier to sell a new feature than polish of an old feature, but I don't think a flashy expansion release every couple of years makes more money than a steady player base that buys game time, cosmetic items and now even gold.
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United Kingdom20275 Posts
I don't understand this approach at all.
They introduce features that are cool in principle but lack depth and polish, and instead of working on them, they just abandon them as a bad job.
Blizzard's not a fan of iterating. All over WOD there is stuff that could be good but is actually pretty awful because there's never been even a 5-minute design or balance pass over it.
Look at the class trinkets. Some class can never use them on any HFC fight, for other classes they are absolutely huge and BIS by a mile for multiple usable specs.
They've even been forgotten about with the valor upgrades and scaling - survival hunters used to have 95% chance to reset an ability with it, 100% chance with warforged. Since valor, that has become 104% chance to reset ability, 110% with warforged - literally useless to have over 100%.
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Artifacts won't be as bad as garrisons. Artifacts aren't singlehandedly killing professions and giving you hundreds of thousands of gold for no effort. In addition you upgrade them by doing the new dailies (bounties), dungeons, raids, and PvP rather than just clicking through a menu. It may suck to keep 3 artifacts up to date for raiding or something, especially if you also have alts, but that depends on how Blizzard sets things up.
Class Order Halls are basically Garrisons 2.0, trying to fix many of the things people disliked about them--they're no longer intended to be as overcentralizing. They're not tied to professions at all as far as we know, and the follower missions are used to unlock quests and give buffs to you while you're out in the world rather than just doing stuff for you.
Fuck the legiondaries though. I want to do mythic content at something resembling what it was tuned for, and if I'm not in a top 100 world guild it seems I won't have the chance to do that unless I were to somehow find a guild of people that all felt the same way and were good enough to actually handle it and all had a fitting schedule and no drama.
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Yeah the world drop class legendary thing is probably the worst idea they have ever had.
"people complain about having nothing to do so lets give them rare very powerful drops to farm all expansion long"... The fact they are even disabling them for the start of Mythic shows they know how stupid it is ><
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