PST - Episode 105

[Lore]

This week:
3:32 - How will the Valor upgrade system affect entry into future tiers?
9:48 - Wouldn't a spectator mode open the game up to cheating?
13:29 - Why don't we see any PvP dailies?
18:59 - Do the recent updates to scenario rewards make them worth doing?
24:57 - Will we see rings, necks, etc. with gem slots in MoP?
30:17 - Would server mergers have been better than cross-realm zones?
35:37 - Why did Blizzard remove the indicator telling you how many bosses were killed in your LFR queue?
40:47 - How do I handle loot for offspec raiders in 10mans?

[Korrok]

Totally agree on the CRZ issue with high-levels in low-level-zones. I'm not sure though if splitting the world up even more is the right answer. It would feel weird farming herbs/ores in a zone and not meeting a single person who is leveling. Would be great if people could only attack players who are less than say 4 levels below theirs. This would do away with some of the frustration when leveling. Or go even further and downgrade everyone to the appropriate level of the zone. Much more interesting world pvp right there!

[tawnos]

I have done a huge number of LFRs and I always take the partial queues - I have only been queued into a LFR one time where the only mob left was one I couldn't get gear from. I have also never been queued into a LFR where I had to re-kill mobs I had already done to get to mobs further into the zone unless I had previously dropped from a LFR prior to finishing it. The one time i did get requeued in was right after Garalon was released in LFR and i think it was more of an issue of 'there are 999 out of 1000 HOF all stuck at 2/3 and you've been in the queue for over an hour and a half so our system gives up'.

They really need to add a feature to allow you to queue as one role but roll on gear as another - I am spending sometimes multiple hours per LFR in the tank queue and sometimes I just have to give up and be a dick and queue as a dps but stay in tank spec doing horrible dps.

[Marco]

I would love to see an option where after an LFR finishes, you could stay in the group, backfill it, and restart at the beginning. Then it wouldn't matter where you queued in initially; you could do all of the bosses in one queue (with some backfill delay, but backfilling is fast now that people don't have a reason to refuse queues).

(And, yes, I think tanks in particular need a way to be able to queue in as DPS-or-tank and get tank gear. Separate issue, though.)

[Mashone]

Lore love the shows keep up the good work. also keep growing the beard you're starting to look like a Hobbit panda hybrid lol =D hope you feel better soon.

[Nagassh]

There was a gem-socket neck in firelands, and as you say, it remained BIS in T13 for some casters thanks to epic gems.

[Flipp]

There was a gem-socket neck in firelands, and as you say, it remained BIS in T13 for some casters thanks to epic gems.

No, it remained BiS for Mages and Warlocks in T13H because there was no neck with Intellect and without Spirit at ilvl 410/416. I am fairly certain that the necklace from Morchok was BiS for all hybrid casters: While Flowform Choker had 10 more Intellect (with an epic gem), Petrified Fungal Heart had 112 more secondary stats if Spirit was useful for you. Granted, it was better than the available 397er neck, with 35 more Intellect and only 48 less secondary stats. The cloak is kind of a similar story: There just were no cloaks in DS. All you could get were ilvl 397 cloaks for Valor. So yes, those items were technically better than items from the next raid tier but that was only the case for heroic loot from the old content and normal loot from the new content. I don't see that as a problem.

About the item upgrade system (which I really REALLY like), I think it creates a rather big problem: balance. Getting a complete set of BiS gear for T14H will take roughly 6 month (16 slots á 1 500 VP are 24 000 VP which are 24 weeks of capping or slightly under 6 month), if you are able to upgrade at least one item every week. That being said, only the very top guilds will be able to obtain that vBiS gear if the next content is released close to about 6 month from now. If Blizzard balances T15H for that vBiS gear it will be nearly impossible for guilds without that vBiS gear and if they don't balance it for that vBiS gear it will be far too easy for guilds with that gear. You might argue, that the differences are small, but having 8 itemlevel more on average is a HUGE deal. I really don't see a good solution for this problem. Maybe they could wait with releasing the content for a month or two, which would allow more guilds to get that vBiS gear but that would only lessen the problem, not solve it. Or they balance most bosses for normal gear and then the last two for vBiS gear, which then has the same "wall"-effect that Ragnaros had in T12.

[ateup]

I'm not quite sure I agree that server mergers would just result in empty zones. If I'm not mistaken CRZ is just grouping realms within their own battlegroups. The realm I play on is already high-pop and IMO doesn't need CRZ. Of course server merges aren't perfect and have their own issues. I just feel that from my perspective, the problems that CRZ brings currently is not worth the feature. But I am really glad you brought up the point that zoning in high level characters into low level zones is not an example of good or desired world PvP.

[sifuedition]

The high pop servers participating in CRZ is necessary. Sometimes, even high pop servers have low level zones that are abandoned. Also, the high pop servers are necessary for the low pop servers to have anyone to merge with. The only real issues I see are the high level toons ganking the leveling toons but that has always been something of an issue anyways.

[ateup]

The only real issues I see are the high level toons ganking the leveling toons but that has always been something of an issue anyways.

The problem is importing high levels from other communities that you would otherwise never come in contact with. I don't have a problem with ganking as it was before. But ya, using high level characters to fill up low level zones is kind of asinine.

[tawnos]

About the item upgrade system (which I really REALLY like), I think it creates a rather big problem: balance. Getting a complete set of BiS gear for T14H will take roughly 6 month (16 slots á 1 500 VP are 24 000 VP which are 24 weeks of capping or slightly under 6 month), if you are able to upgrade at least one item every week. That being said, only the very top guilds will be able to obtain that vBiS gear if the next content is released close to about 6 month from now. If Blizzard balances T15H for that vBiS gear it will be nearly impossible for guilds without that vBiS gear and if they don't balance it for that vBiS gear it will be far too easy for guilds with that gear. You might argue, that the differences are small, but having 8 itemlevel more on average is a HUGE deal. I really don't see a good solution for this problem. Maybe they could wait with releasing the content for a month or two, which would allow more guilds to get that vBiS gear but that would only lessen the problem, not solve it. Or they balance most bosses for normal gear and then the last two for vBiS gear, which then has the same "wall"-effect that Ragnaros had in T12.

This won't be a problem for a very large number of people. T15H will be balanced (or altered to be balanced) for the absolute frontrunners no matter what. Content is really dynamically adjusted for what they do so the real definition of content balance at release is 'what they bleeding edge guilds can accomplish' rather than some absolute value the devs try to guess at. For anyone substantially behind this mark the answer is that non-raid gear released in the tier will be the balancing factor - both LFR and other sources will provide a few slots that bump people's ilvl up so that by the time they encounter the same things the top guilds could barely kill their ilvl will be quite a bit higher. Only a tiny sliver of the population who aren't quite at that high level but aren't going to be waiting several weeks to wade into the content will suffer any sort of negative effect.

[lionhearts]

I've been told that in most cases that medicine does not go bad. Usually, they are still safe to take after their expiration date, they are just less effective. How much less effective is probably dependent on a lot of factors including the manufacturing process and storage conditions. But I'm not completely sure on this as this what I've been told and stuff I've read on the webs. I did take some medication that was really old and I suspect it gave me a stomach ache later that day.

[Kagitaar]

No, it remained BiS for Mages and Warlocks in T13H because there was no neck with Intellect and without Spirit at ilvl 410/416. I am fairly certain that the necklace from Morchok was BiS for all hybrid casters: While Flowform Choker had 10 more Intellect (with an epic gem), Petrified Fungal Heart had 112 more secondary stats if Spirit was useful for you. Granted, it was better than the available 397er neck, with 35 more Intellect and only 48 less secondary stats. The cloak is kind of a similar story: There just were no cloaks in DS. All you could get were ilvl 397 cloaks for Valor. So yes, those items were technically better than items from the next raid tier but that was only the case for heroic loot from the old content and normal loot from the new content. I don't see that as a problem.

Pretty much this, it was less an issue of gems and more one of just not having an item to upgrade to. From the H Dreadfire Drape to the Batwing Cloak, the increase was only 6 iLvl, with no increase in agility (barring the extra gem slot), just an increase in secondary stats. In my case, the secondary stats were garbage at the time, but even if you liked them 67 more secondary points versus another 50 agi was no contest.

I've been told that in most cases that medicine does not go bad. Usually, they are still safe to take after their expiration date, they are just less effective. How much less effective is probably dependent on a lot of factors including the manufacturing process and storage conditions. But I'm not completely sure on this as this what I've been told and stuff I've read on the webs. I did take some medication that was really old and I suspect it gave me a stomach ache later that day.

It depends on the type of medication, if it can sit on your counter for example, then it is unlikely to do anything other than have a diminished effect after it expires.

[basto]

Scenarios can reward 450 or 463 blues and 476 purples.

I have been running both scenarios and dungeons with my warlock since 5.1 to get my ilvl up to 460 for raid finder. Perhaps it's bad RNG but I have not gotten anything from dungeons other than valor and I have gotten 4 things from scenarios.

Also with the scenario queue being instant it is the most efficient way to get valor before you can get into raid finder.

I personally prefer playing scenarios to dungeons.

[Focii]

If you think about it from an overall progeression perspective a switch healer/dps should be lower priority for gear that is pure healing and pure dps. The reason is that when they are healing their dps gear is unused and when dps their healing gear is unused. They should be higher priority than OS for this gear then the pure healers or pure DPS. Finally to make things fair they should be top priority for gear which can be used as both dps and healer.

Gear Priority order
1: Combined healer and DPS gear for switcher
2: MS gear for pure healer and MS gear for pure dps
3: Pure healer and pure DPS gear for switcher
4: OS gear for pure healers and pure DPS

[hp2]

Lore, I think the community needs to be better educated in how to use scenarios. Consider the following:

1) The first random scenario you run a day is worth double valor: 2 * 20 = 40 valor.
2) The first random dungeon you run a day is worth double valor: 2 * 40 = 80 valor.
3) Scenarios have an instant queue since there is no group composition requirement: zero minutes spent waiting.
4) You can queue for random dungeons and scenarios at the same time. *Most importantly*, the time spent running the scenario counts for your dungeon queue. If you're queueing as a DPS and the minimap icon says that your wait time is 11 minutes, then queue up for a scenario *at the same time*. The scenario queue will pop instantly, you spend maybe 10-15 minutes running the scenario. As soon as the scenario finishes, you're at the front of the dungeon queue: zero minutes spent waiting.

See how that works? 120 valor a day with no time spent waiting in a queue.

45 dailies per week (to charm cap) = 45 * 5 = 225 valor.
Five LFR segments per week = 90 * 5 = 450 valor.

1000 - 450 - 225 = 325 valor left. 325 / 120 = 2.7 -- You only have to run daily+scenario like I described above three times a week to cap out. *This is one of the most time efficient ways to cap valor*. You spend no time waiting in queues other than for LFR -- even then, you can run scenarios while waiting in the LFR queue and earn even more valor.

This is my running gripe with how you keep portraying scenarios and dailies in a negative light. Blizzard added these things to do so that while you're waiting for dungeon queues and waiting for LFR queues, you can be doing something productive that will increase the power of your character. You have reminisced before about how you enjoyed farming elemental plateau to prepare for raids in your spare time. Nowadays, while you're waiting for queues, you can do something productive like dailies and scenarios to prepare for raids in your spare time and both of those activities are superior to just farming whipper root tubers and night dragon breaths (remember those?).

As I listed above, you only have to run the dungeons/scenarios for their max bonus three times a week. I think the community just needs to be better educated instead of constantly griping out of ignorance.

-HP

[Deandia]

Good luck with that 2 PST's each week thing.

[Takethecake]

My main issue with CRZ lately has been the for pet battles. The conditional spawning pets and to a lesser degree the rare pets are extremely hard to come by without just camping a character in that zone and sitting there half afk all day. The easiest fix for this I think would be to have CRZ only be for level appropriate characters, and level 90's (of even characters a healthy leap above the zone's level range) go to their server's version of that zone. Generally the only reason a level 90 is in a lower zone is to either farm mats, farm pets, or burn through loremaster quests... none of which warrant CRZ. Where as lower level characters are there to actually quest (possibly in addition to the other reasons).

This would solve both the super high levels ganking and the gathering / wild pet issues.

[Airowird]

But if you group with a friend at that level, you'ld still get put in the same zone, so it's not as if it suddenly becomes impossible for a 90 to gank low level players, especially because it can help keep others away from the quest objectives his low level friend needs to gather.

[Fetzie]

You spend no time waiting in queues other than for LFR -- even then, you can run scenarios while waiting in the LFR queue and earn even more valor.

Since when can you queue for two different things simultaneously?