PST - Episode 84

[Knighterrant81]

They are normal 90s.. they call it heroics just because people are used to that, but it's same difficulty as let's say Halls of Origination normal. They did level 90 versions of the level 85-89 dungeons as well, but they are not meant at all to be difficult.

They'll technically be heroics because they will still give valor points, that's what label you'll see on the achievements, and they will be tuned to match the *heroic* versions of the leveling instances. They call it heroics because otherwise what would you call the scaled up versions of the leveling instances? Not-challenge-mode-but-harder-than-the-original-tuned-for-level 90-with-level 90-loot-and-equivalent-to-level 90-normal-mode-ics?

You have:

Leveling 85-90 Normal modes
Gearing up at 90 Heroics (which now means "tuned for level 90")
Challenge/Achievements at 90 Challenge modes (this is where the "heroic" term from BC would go)

In this new paradigm, a normal mode at level 90 makes no sense, because a dungeon designed for a level 90 is automatically a "heroic", even if it has no normal mode analog.

I'm actually really looking forward to challenge modes just thinking about this

[Kagitaar]

Not if they were separate. Technically if you look at it that way the system we have now is redundant; you get points for doing stuff, you buy gear with points. There's just a division between PVE and PVP points.

While they both buy gear, they are on separate tables for separate purposes, if VP and CP both did the level boost then there would be no need to have two point systems as they would then be doing the same job, not just a similar one. As far as I know, honor will still purchase base PvP gear with CP buying the good stuff; just add in a trickle of VP like everything else has and you are set.

Oh, and even with the new Power and Resilience, unless the weapons have enough Power to off-set the iLvl boost of a VPed raid weapon, the raid weapon wins. The issue comes in if the PvP weapons CAN compete, then would they have so much Power to negate any possibility of using them in PvE? They can do it, I'm sure of that, but the PvP gear in general is going to look crazy underpowered, even if it isn't, and we know that the perception of the community tends to screw towards panic before reason.

@Toypop

I don't think that not having two sets of PvE gear to buy with points is going to prevent people from running 5 mans. Hell, with Challenge modes we might see more overall 5 man activity.

@lauragnome

They are baking the Blast Wave mechanic into Flamestrike for Fire now. Also, do you really need to keybind Arcane Brilliance?

They are normal 90s.. they call it heroics just because people are used to that, but it's same difficulty as let's say Halls of Origination normal. They did level 90 versions of the level 85-89 dungeons as well, but they are not meant at all to be difficult.

That would be challenge modes.

They will still be called heroics and use the same single lockout afaik; they don't have to be teeth-pull difficult to use the heroic descriptor.. Are the HoT and Zandalar dungeons not heroics because they don't have normal versions?

They'll technically be heroics because they will still give valor points, that's what label you'll see on the achievements, and they will be tuned to match the *heroic* versions of the leveling instances. They call it heroics because otherwise what would you call the scaled up versions of the leveling instances? Not-challenge-mode-but-harder-than-the-original-tuned-for-level 90-with-level 90-loot-and-equivalent-to-level 90-normal-mode-ics?

This.

[Lrot]

I'm curious to see how far a given piece of gear can be upgraded with VP. Presumably they will already be at the upper limit of pieces of the same item level. That would presumably mean that they could theoretically be upgraded to be as good as an item of the next higher level, say, heroic dungeon gear could equal to (maybe even surpass?) LFR gear, and so on.

Looks like interesting times ahead.

[Knighterrant81]

While they both buy gear, they are on separate tables for separate purposes, if VP and CP both did the level boost then there would be no need to have two point systems as they would then be doing the same job, not just a similar one.

Having the two systems would keep PVP and PVE separate. If you could spend VPs (at the same rate as CPs) to upgrade your gear, then you could just run raids to gear up for PVP which is...odd.

[Tengenstein]

Well we know you can upgrade each item 3 times. and if the Hot>LFR>Norm>HC levels stay constant is +8, +13, +13. We also know that typically valour gear is equal to normal mode so one would assume you get ~8 ilevels per valour upgrade so at the full upgraded dungeon gear equals un upgraded normal raid loot.

[Xperiment68]

I personally didnt have the time to dedicate to raiding during cata so i focused on PVP. The class balances in PVP was unacceptably bad. I'm glad Blizzard made the PVE players happy with balance, but they need to do the same for the PVPers. Even if this requires making specs, abilities, and talents work completly different in PVP and PVE situations then they need to do that. Blizzard makes MILLIONS a month from subs so they can afford it!

[Kagitaar]

Having the two systems would keep PVP and PVE separate. If you could spend VPs (at the same rate as CPs) to upgrade your gear, then you could just run raids to gear up for PVP which is...odd.

Raids, or dailies, or challenge modes, or PvP; as long as Valor comes from everything, it doesn't matter where you spend your time to get it.

Well we know you can upgrade each item 3 times. and if the Hot>LFR>Norm>HC levels stay constant is +8, +13, +13. We also know that typically valour gear is equal to normal mode so one would assume you get ~8 ilevels per valour upgrade so at the full upgraded dungeon gear equals un upgraded normal raid loot.

You just killed an entire bag of kittens. All the numbers used in the example were for there for the strict the purpose of being an example. My personal prediction will be that you can upgrade in two increments of four, giving you a boost of just over half a tier; anything more and you risk completely negating loot from ever being used.

I personally didnt have the time to dedicate to raiding during cata so i focused on PVP. The class balances in PVP was unacceptably bad. I'm glad Blizzard made the PVE players happy with balance, but they need to do the same for the PVPers. Even if this requires making specs, abilities, and talents work completly different in PVP and PVE situations then they need to do that. Blizzard makes MILLIONS a month from subs so they can afford it!

...Having money does not equal having the time to dedicate to the fool's errand of perfect PvP balance. The goal is to be close, nothing more is obtainable in a game not 100% focused on PvP.

[Tengenstein]

You just killed an entire bag of kittens. All the numbers used in the example were for there for the strict the purpose of being an example. My personal prediction will be that you can upgrade in two increments of four, giving you a boost of just over half a tier; anything more and you risk completely negating loot from ever being used.

And if you paid attention to the numbers used in the MMO example you would see I actually ignored ALL the numbers presented with the exception of the upgrade it 3 times things. The MMO-C example lits its as 3x25ilvl upgrades. IF all gear can be upgraded the same amount you never run into negating loot form ever being used. Of course this is all an assumption. Which to any rational minded person should indicate is to be take with a grain of salt.

So less of laying kitten murder on me, and more reading comprehension, thank you.

[Kagitaar]

You used 3, therefore you used an example number and killed kittens; that is internet law.

A little more seriously, I really hope we get to see this system soon, there are just so many issues with it's implementation running around in my head.

[Thebis]

As a casual player (I don't have the time to put in the effort) I personally thought the Zandalari Heroics were a let down. Mostly because you were excited and then you died. Like there was just to many mechanics in the dungeon for me before getting to the bosses. I'd like to go through the whole push trash and think about the boss and wipe to the boss and not wipe to the fire breathing statues because your mindlessly running like you do in any other instance. On my Ele Shaman I was a fan of some gauntlets its just did ZG really have to be an Indian Jones movie of Traps.

[Nagassh]

Damned if they do, damned if they don't. People will complain about trash if it's mindless, if they remove trash people will complain about it being TOC, they tried spicing up trash with some interesting mechanics - that won't go over well with everyone.

I don't think they should make every instance have trash like that, but I don't think blizzard should be slated for a grand total of one heroic having easily predictable bursts of fire. Variety is good, chances are, if you didn't like something, someone else did. Variety is important.

[Kagitaar]

@Nagassh

Exactly.

[Leucifer]

I personally didnt have the time to dedicate to raiding during cata so i focused on PVP. The class balances in PVP was unacceptably bad. I'm glad Blizzard made the PVE players happy with balance, but they need to do the same for the PVPers. Even if this requires making specs, abilities, and talents work completly different in PVP and PVE situations then they need to do that. Blizzard makes MILLIONS a month from subs so they can afford it!

You touch on something that's bugged me for a while. PvP in WoW is just.... it's really taken a back seat to PvE and has suffered for it. Blizzard threw a big fat bandage on it in the form of resilience in it's current function and just kinda of walked away.

What you advocate at the end, I actually wholeheartedly support. Having the abilities work differently for PvP would almost be a good solution. It could be done in bg's pretty easily. Same with arena. They're isolated environments where mobs really aren't going to be an issue. The problem arises in world PvP... because it still exists, and you have to account for it. How do you have the "switch" kick on/off in that situation?

...Having money does not equal having the time to dedicate to the fool's errand of perfect PvP balance. The goal is to be close, nothing more is obtainable in a game not 100% focused on PvP.

Problem is Kag, it's drifting away from being "close" and getting progressively worse. As for the "fool's errand"..... it depends on how you look at things. PART of the problem was, Blizzard really seemed to dedicate its effort to ensuring PvE performance, and then turned around and looked at PvP as an after-thought. The problem with this is, what works great for zapping a 100mil boss and trying to heal a tank against that boss and its attacks, doesn't necessarily translate well over to PvP. To me, there's a big imbalance between 3 things: damage output variances between classes, heal output between classes, and how resilience interacts between these. Simply put..... "dps" for raiding doesn't translate over to PvP exactly. Neither does healing. Resilience is the band-aid thrown in that reduces the severity of the effects.... but at the point it's at now, resilience has become its own problem.

I'll kindly disagree. If you build with the idea of PvP balance at the core of things, I think you could actually tune PvE around that. However, building around PvE.... and making it what it has become.... and then trying to figure out how you're going to balance PvP.... is a recipe for failure.

[Kagitaar]

@Leucifer

That's exactly why it's a fool's errand. WoW was built as a PvE game with PvP as an afterthought and that has caused problems from the beginning, what with all the PvE needed to PvP in Vanilla. In BC, many had to PvP to PvE due to how easy it was to acquire upgrades (or to being a bear) and they added resilience to try to help with the whole burst issue; as we know, that did not work. LK waffled back and forth and had it's own debacle with DKs, but it started getting a little more balanced and refined. In Cata they continued trying to make everything work together, but debacles always arise with something that needs to be tuned perfectly.

Now with MoP they are trying to fix the gear issues of the past, but that right there is the crux of my arguement; you can't achieve perfect balance in a gear based game. This is why I call PvP balance a fool's errand, PvE gear bleed-over sends even the most finely tuned system out of whack and, coupled with choice, makes the whole issue infinitely more complicated. A game like LoL can be finely tuned due to it's narrow focus; all PvP, a limited set of skills, predictable power from items. WoW is trying to balance PvE and PvP, has myriad skills with many choices along the way (if not a bit more limited in MoP), and raid gear that works fine in PvE but when introduced to PvP causes giant problems. That is the weakness of not being focused, the more points of intricacy, the harder balance is to achieve.

[Kahmal]

I Think you were a tad harsh on Firelands. I thought it was the best raid of the expansion. Anyone that played WoW since Vanilla knows how repetitive a lot of encounters start to feel.

All of the Firelands bosses (except regular Ragnaros) felt very original and refreshing. The Spider boss with having to drop the spiders and climb up to a second platform.
Deal with Shannox's dogs. Lord Rhyloth complete original. Alstrayzor another double tiered fight with people in the sky and people dealing with the hatchlings.

At least from the perspective a tank I loved the place. I made a thread awhile ago about how annoyed I was that the off tank is normally just a taunting bot for some stupid debuff. In Firelands the Offtank had something to really do and if not, he could just respec DPS for the encounter.

Its from observing all these years that raids with non recycled boss models or zones are just of better quality. Also encounters just seem way more indepth and engaging when the off tank isn't just a damn taunt bot...

[Ranluka]

As far as suggestions, I don't know if they ever noticed my threads; Before we got Dungeon-finder, I was on the suggestion forum for about a year, asking for battleground-type ques for low-level dungeons. (basically dungeon finder) I was concerned about lowbies ability to find groups after a servers leveling waves were done. I was kinda surprised when they not only put it in, but had it apply to max level dungeons.

[Gregasaurous]

Oh, and Lore, btw. For the love of god don't do another random drawing beta key giveaway in the tank-spot forum comments for the video you just posted (D3 incident). It made it a pain in the ass to have any kind of discussion about the video.