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[The Lamonster]

So I just resubbed last night. Haven't logged since 2014.

Do Arcane Mages not have any buffs anymore? Is rotation still basically arcane blast until 4 charges then arcane barrage? And should I wait until I have all 3 charges of arcane missiles before I use them?

Also, are there any helpful .ini changes I should make? Is there still a setting to increase view distance beyond the interface options limit or a setting to improve screenshot quality?

 

[Tacitus_]

Do Arcane Mages not have any buffs anymore? Is rotation still basically arcane blast until 4 charges then arcane barrage? And should I wait until I have all 3 charges of arcane missiles before I use them?

Most maintenance buffs got scraped away from all classes. While I'm hardly an expert on Arcane, the basic gist of blast -> barrage is still relevant outside of burn. Go to 2 or 4 charges depending on your mana levels & regen. For missiles, try to save them for while AP/artifact skill is up and burn them there. If you get to three procs just fire one off so you don't waste any.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

This. This is what my life has come to.

And it's only for 4 damn characters right now.

Still other stuff to add in later too as I remember or the need arises. I wanted to do some other fancy conditional formulas to color out emissaries if it wasn't that day of the week yet, but that would've taken awhile for minimal gain.

Also need to put the general to-do list back in.

 

[TheYanger]

Game took pity on me for throwing the fucking drapes at me a few days ago.

 

[BreezyLimbo]

Game took pity on me for throwing the fucking drapes at me a few days ago.

I hate you

 

[v1perz53]

This. This is what my life has come to.

And it's only for 4 damn characters right now.

Still other stuff to add in later too as I remember or the need arises. I wanted to do some other fancy conditional formulas to color out emissaries if it wasn't that day of the week yet, but that would've taken awhile for minimal gain.

Also need to put the general to-do list back in.

Hah I used to have a similar spreadsheet in WoD for garrison stuff, random old raids I was farming, and legendaries. Don't have that anymore, but I DO have a spreadsheet for my "loremaster completionist" alt, where I'm trying to do every quest and get exalted with every rep. Huge multi page spreadsheet about my rep levels with various factions, as well as how much rep I can earn per day and how many days to finish that rep/achievement/area. The spreadsheet grew exponentially when my alt hit Pandaria, so many daily quest hubs and acheives that require you to do things X times with Y stipulations that I need to track.

 

[Lomax]

This. This is what my life has come to.

And it's only for 4 damn characters right now.

Still other stuff to add in later too as I remember or the need arises. I wanted to do some other fancy conditional formulas to color out emissaries if it wasn't that day of the week yet, but that would've taken awhile for minimal gain.

Also need to put the general to-do list back in.

It's hard to ask this without sounding snide or judgmental, but do you enjoy that? Because the point I realized I was basically living a second job in WoW doing the same rote tasks over and over was when I quit the first time. Is the habit and ritual fun for you? I'm genuinely curious.

 

[Anoregon]

Use: Learn the secrets of taming Feathermanes, a family that includes hippogryphs, gryphons, owlcats, wolfhawks, and wyvern. On PTR only.

Hunters getting some new friends?

 

[v1perz53]

It's hard to ask this without sounding snide or judgmental, but do you enjoy that? Because the point I realized I was basically living a second job in WoW doing the same rote tasks over and over was when I quit the first time. Is the habit and ritual fun for you? I'm genuinely curious.

I can only answer for myself, but because I do something very similar I will. And the answer is, kind of? I don't so much enjoy doing all of my daily "chores", but I also don't dislike doing them that much. But I definitely really do enjoy getting that one thing I've been hunting for, or finishing a long grind. For example, finally getting a Mim's head, or the Valentines Day rocket was AWESOME, felt so damn good. Sure, doing Ulduar 25H on 11 characters per week at the time was annoying, and doing the Chemical Co event on 27 chars per day was pretty boring, but the end result was worth it to me, at least personally. Sometimes it gets too annoying to keep up with a grind, like when I tried to get the god damn Blazing Drake from Deathwing in Dragon Soul, did that weekly on 11 toons for months, but when it became too much I stopped. I'll probably try again soon though. Even really boring tasks, like doing Ogri'la dailies every day (no real rewards for this faction) feel really good to me when finished, I feel accomplished and there is pseudo-enjoyment in not having to go do those dailies again (which, despite being clearly the absence of a negative rather than a positive, still feels good). As far as Legion "chores" it is the same way, doing Emissaries on multiple toons is kinda boring, but getting a sweet legendary feels great, and to me the pro > the cons, though I do have lapses where I don't do them for a while.

If you're talking about the organization/spreadsheet, it is kind of similar. To me, it always felt bad to forget to do something that I planned to do daily/weekly, and trying to keep all plates spinning on alts was frustrating. Spreadsheet just removed that frustration and gave me an easier way to track things, so it helped a lot. Always prefer being organized.

 

[davepoobond]

i've realized that every time i've gotten a legendary has been a complete let down. the system isn't made to reward you, it is made to torture you.


i just received the healing legendary mail pants on sunday and i wanted to die. useless shit.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

It's hard to ask this without sounding snide or judgmental, but do you enjoy that? Because the point I realized I was basically living a second job in WoW doing the same rote tasks over and over was when I quit the first time. Is the habit and ritual fun for you? I'm genuinely curious.

So part of it is trying to get organized in my life activities in general (school/assignment/etc. schedule) right now. My WoW activities in the spreadsheet here are just sort of a test run I guess.

Because I have a lot on my mind with school going on as well, and having it all written down lets free up a significant amount of the mental processing power used for remembering things.

Will I do all the things listed in a given week? Probably not. Hell, there's other things that aren't on the WoW sheet that I probably could add, but won't because it would add too much stress/compulsion to complete them. But just being able to visualize all my potential tasks is a really useful tool.

If you're asking if I actually had fun creating the spreadsheet, then yeah, I kinda did.

I don't think I'm too close to burning out though. There are some things in WoW right now that I would consider " mandatory chores", but I have before and still maintain the ability to cut back on what I actually accomplish in a given week. I still have plenty of regular old fun, besides the grindy things.

There is some habit/ritual in all of it, especially main raid times, which definitely help keep me to a schedule, practicing time management. Not much different than other extracurricular activities.

I mean if you're playing purely for relaxation/immersion/escapism fun, you almost certainly won't get to the point of mathematically hammering out a spreadsheet, but those aren't the only reasons I continue to play WoW personally.

Also -- I'm studying some game design right now, so having something like this is actually somewhat educational for a couple other reasons, such as breaking down the game's systems, practice with spreadsheets, etc.

--------

I think that about covers it for now, typing the response fairly quickly before class here.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

And of course, people making spreadsheets detailing game mechanics is pretty damn nerdy, but I know for a fact that people have taken it further than I have with spreadsheets alone (e.g EVE Online economics), let alone actual 3rd party applications or addons.

If I was capable, I could probably develop an addon or advanced spreadsheet that connects to the armory API that tracks all I want to keep track of, but better because it would have direct access to information in-game, and be automated, rather than having to manually update a checklist. Though I'm not even sure if certain things (like emissaries) are in the API.

 

[Einchy]

Guy in my guild got his 7th legendary. i mad

Shit ton of people got their 6th this week, too.

 

[Tacitus_]

Oh, maybe I'll get my 4th soonish then. ._.
Maybe it'll even be a DPS legendary.

 

[BreezyLimbo]

Oh, maybe I'll get my 4th soonish then. ._.
Maybe it'll even be a DPS legendary.

I'm right there with you

I already have a billion ways of utility

I don't need another shield

blizzard plz

 

[Asmodai48]

Got sephuz today on my holypriest... Feelsbadman

 

[Syf]

Here I am still waiting on my 2nd ;-;

 

[Metroidvania]

Man, I will say only that it's pretty interesting (in the Chinese sense of the word) to see Blizz flailing to address the AK power disparity curve between the 36-40 trait people, and the 54 people.

Their solution has at least some promise in lowering the amount given by repeated M+ runs (which meant that having any high level key other than Maw or maybe the Nightfallen ones meant no one would run it with you unless you had some really nice guildies), but replacing the flat % with a stat-based proc doesn't really feel 'better' insofar as they still think AP is like "oh good, I got some AP" at the end of a raid when nothing drops. Plus, it's another thing to have to track/balance trinkets around.

Sure, it's better than nothing change-wise, but....only just.

 

[vocab]

Man, I will say only that it's pretty interesting (in the Chinese sense of the word) to see Blizz flailing to address the AK power disparity curve between the 36-40 trait people, and the 54 people.

Their solution has at least some promise in lowering the amount given by repeated M+ runs (which meant that having any high level key other than Maw or maybe the Nightfallen ones meant no one would run it with you unless you had some really nice guildies), but replacing the flat % with a stat-based proc doesn't really feel 'better' insofar as they still think AP is like "oh good, I got some AP" at the end of a raid when nothing drops. Plus, it's another thing to have to track/balance trinkets around.

Sure, it's better than nothing change-wise, but....only just.

The guaranteed ap from each raid boss should of been in months ago. That alone helps way too much.

 

[Tarazet]

i've realized that every time i've gotten a legendary has been a complete let down. the system isn't made to reward you, it is made to torture you.


i just received the healing legendary mail pants on sunday and i wanted to die. useless shit.

Can't relate. All of the legendaries I got have had their uses, even the same one you're saying has you on suicide watch. Roots of Shaladrassil were a letdown initially, but they have good stats, help with survivability, and they were super useful in clearing through Brawler's Guild as an Enhancement Shaman. Without it, it can be incredibly difficult to keep yourself alive through some of the later fights.

Spiritual Journey was kind of shitty pre 7.1.5, now it is hilarious and great in 5 mans where I am constantly summoning new sets of raptors. It's like a meme that never gets old. Unfortunately it has crappy stats for Enhancement.

Emalon's Crashing Storm is only good for AoE, and it also has crappy stats for Enhancement, but it is good at its niche so I can't fault it for that. 10% more damage whenever you can cleave with Crash Lightning? Sure, can't see any downside to that.

 

[MetroidPrimeRib]

Looks like in 7.2 Afflictions Artifact Ability won't reset the timer but add to it.

Thats step one of fixing this terribly designed ability.

 

[Micapo]

Our GM got her 7th or 8th legendary during our normal NH clear last night. I'm still stuck at 3 and got my third just a week ago and none of them are spec specific. Legendary system is ridiculous

 

[lazygecko]

I still don't quite understand what PvP brawls are supposed to be. Are they an entirely new system of PvP? Is it just some kind of seasonal rotation of special battlegrounds? The messaging on this has felt unusually poor.

Do Arcane Mages not have any buffs anymore? Is rotation still basically arcane blast until 4 charges then arcane barrage? And should I wait until I have all 3 charges of arcane missiles before I use them?

I miss the old fashioned castable long term buffs. It was just something that felt good, and buffing random players you meet as a nice gesture just added a bit to the social element of the game. The entire genre in recent years seems to have shifted away from this design and instead replace it with shorter more powerful buffs that you have to actively use in your rotation. I honestly really dislike that type of design (looking at you, WoD enhancement shaman).

 

[Lain]

There is something I really don't understand and that is the group making tool.

What I don't understand about it is why people keep joining and dropping groups. Well, I sort of don't understand, as I get the suspicion people do it to server-hop but... it's still quite annoying.

 

[Mupod]

man the power boost from set bonuses and nighthold gear was significant enough that even a +15 teeming/necrotic/tyrannical Vault of the Wardens was fairly trivial for us. And aside from bonus rolled tier pieces I have actually kind of gotten jack shit from nighthold because our loot council hates me or something. Our DPS has gone up so dramatically that Necrotic in particular is far less of an issue. Still sucks, but I'm not kiting for my life every pull.

 

[vocab]

There is something I really don't understand and that is the group making tool.

What I don't understand about it is why people keep joining and dropping groups. Well, I sort of don't understand, as I get the suspicion people do it to server-hop but... it's still quite annoying.

Cross realm assist looks for open groups that dont require an invite for easy server hop.

 

[Lomax]

Cross realm assist looks for open groups that dont require an invite for easy server hop.

Which is stupid, because server hopping basically doesn't work any more. Blizzard really should just break those addons so people quit using them.

 

[v1perz53]

man the power boost from set bonuses and nighthold gear was significant enough that even a +15 teeming/necrotic/tyrannical Vault of the Wardens was fairly trivial for us. And aside from bonus rolled tier pieces I have actually kind of gotten jack shit from nighthold because our loot council hates me or something. Our DPS has gone up so dramatically that Necrotic in particular is far less of an issue. Still sucks, but I'm not kiting for my life every pull.

I find I much prefer Tyrannical to Fortified for Necrotic as well, not having that extra HP on trash pulls just makes them go so much quicker and limits stacks. Some bosses are still super annoying on Tyrannical/Necrotic, like 2nd boss in VotW if you get unlucky and he spawns the big group of adds on the 2nd teleport, or 1st boss HoV since there's no good reset point, but overall if it has to be Necrotic I'd always prefer Tyrannical. Though WTB patch making Necrotic drop out of combat, so tired of waiting 7 seconds to pull to drop my stacks, or trying to do some PUG runs having one of the random DPS pull the next pack when I'm at 30 stacks and 5 seconds left because he wants us to go faster, and raging when I don't tank the mobs and he dies.

But I definitely agree on the power increase, I remember when we didn't even bother doing our weekly +15s in time unless they were a good run, this week we 2 chested a +15 HoV with TEEMING! (though we are god damn experts at that shitty place now since it has been our +15 3 of the past 5 weeks..) And none of my group even raids, so we have no tier, but our DPS does PUG NH heroic, so they have a few trinkets between them.

Which is stupid, because server hopping basically doesn't work any more. Blizzard really should just break those addons so people quit using them.

You just have to be in the same zone as them and cross realm works fine. A bit more random since things are combined and sharded in a weird way now, but it almost makes it easier to hop to a new shard since they are dynamically created. CRA addon just looks for people in the same zone as you if you use it, just kill something near you and it is easy to tell if you hopped to a new shard. Also, please don't break those addons, if they changed anything regarding how CRA works, it would break WordQuestGroupFinder, and I think I might quit Legion if that functionality was broken (or at the very least stop doing WQs). WQGF is awesome, and how WQs should work baseline honestly.

 

[vocab]

Which is stupid, because server hopping basically doesn't work any more. Blizzard really should just break those addons so people quit using them.

Yes it does.

 

[Lomax]

Yes it does.

You just have to be in the same zone as them and cross realm works fine. A bit more random since things are combined and sharded in a weird way now, but it almost makes it easier to hop to a new shard since they are dynamically created. CRA addon just looks for people in the same zone as you if you use it, just kill something near you and it is easy to tell if you hopped to a new shard. Also, please don't break those addons, if they changed anything regarding how CRA works, it would break WordQuestGroupFinder, and I think I might quit Legion if that functionality was broken (or at the very least stop doing WQs). WQGF is awesome, and how WQs should work baseline honestly.

It certainly doesn't work in the "you can just join any group and hop" like it used to, and I haven't seen any indication the addons discriminate like you're describing, because I see joiners all the time that aren't even in the same continent as me, much less the same zone.

Also totally agree that world quests should auto group you like that, it's how the invasions worked and it seems like they've used that tech for nothing else. The utter failure of world quests to be anything like the invasions is still my biggest disappointment in Legion.

 

[Syf]

Here I am still waiting on my 2nd ;-;

Aaand Feretory of Souls drops the very next morning lol

 

[Immortal Technique]

I miss the old fashioned castable long term buffs. It was just something that felt good, and buffing random players you meet as a nice gesture just added a bit to the social element of the game. The entire genre in recent years seems to have shifted away from this design and instead replace it with shorter more powerful buffs that you have to actively use in your rotation. I honestly really dislike that type of design (looking at you, WoD enhancement shaman).

Of all the cool things that have been streamlined out of the game, this is one of the most puzzling

 

[v1perz53]

Of all the cool things that have been streamlined out of the game, this is one of the most puzzling

Eh, I don't think it is that surprising. The only true "purpose" of long term castable buffs in an MMO is to make you feel stronger in a group than when solo, they don't actually add anything, except to make you feel weaker when you don't have certain classes in your groups (and weaker after you rez in a BG). When they moved to mostly passive "you apply this buff passively as an aura to party members" you knew they weren't long for this world, they added virtually nothing. And they causes plenty of problems, such as balancing issues for groups that were missing one or more buffs. These issues were exacerbated by smaller group comps, like 10 man raids, and with the focus on M+ content in Legion it is understandable that they would want to get rid of another source of group comp issues that could lead to even wider variances in group power than already exist.

What are the actual pros of castable buffs? You feel stronger in a group, but conversely feel weaker solo. You provide something of benefit to the group that is useful, but conversely your group is weaker if your comp isn't ideal, and you provide nothing beneficial if the group already had that buff. You can cast on people in the world to be nice, which is about the only pro without a con that I can think of.

Personally, I think short term castable buffs are far more interesting than hour long "cast and forget" buffs like old Arcane Int. Things like current Moonkin Innervate. Though I think blizz is having issues with balance of these things as well, given the removal of Blessing of Might and the nerfing of Innervate. But as someone who was a raid leader in WotLK and ran in a 10 man hardcore group in Cata, long term buffs were a huge headache to come up with a good raid comp, and I'm not too upset that they are gone.

 

[Lomax]

It would be interesting to see non-combat style buffs. Like maybe make the human racial +10% rep castable on someone else. Stuff that would encourage some interaction but not become a requirement or impact balancing.

 

[Robin64]

Q&A live in about 30 mins. Watch Ion anger many people again.

https://www.twitch.tv/warcraft

 

[Data West]

'destro is fine'

 

[davepoobond]

Apparently I'm behind on the AP grind. I'm at 44 but most people are at like 50 for mythic raiding?

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

Apparently I'm behind on the AP grind. I'm at 44 but most people are at like 50 for mythic raiding?

54 for DPS is pretty much mandatory for Krosus. So yeah, 50+ for the first 3 bosses would be normal.

And if you can get down Anomaly, Trilliax should easily fall. Skorp is just a heroic boss that was mistakenly placed in a Mythic instance.

 

[Anoregon]

'destro is fine'

I'm well past hoping for changes to Legion Warlock design. I shelved mine for the expansion.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

I'm well past hoping for changes to Legion Warlock design. I shelved mine for the expansion.

I wanna play affliction at some point here

But I'm already running 4 characters right now to some extent. I'd keel over if I had to manage a 5th. (110 DK I'm ignoring at the moment aside)

 

[davepoobond]

54 for DPS is pretty much mandatory for Krosus. So yeah, 50+ for the first 3 bosses would be normal.

And if you can get down Anomaly, Trilliax should easily fall. Skorp is just a heroic boss that was mistakenly placed in a Mythic instance.

yeah, i feel that. i was just kind of letting the ap grind go since i had so much going on outside of the game. also havent been doing too many mythic +s recently.

 

[v1perz53]

The extra trait that rolls on these relics will always be a throughput trait (primary role enhancing traits).

That is actually awesome, and makes the random 2nd trait aspect of the relics way better. Though it continues the issue of relics that are already good being best, since they are guaranteed 2 throughput traits, versus ones with utility/healing traits guaranteed only having one throughput trait.

I wonder how this will work for tanks though, since I only really have 3 "DPS" traits, but every other trait can be considered "throughput" as a tank since survivability is my throughput. Though I wouldn't complain if they could only roll the DPS traits, but I doubt it.

 

[cartographer]

That is actually awesome, and makes the random 2nd trait aspect of the relics way better. Though it continues the issue of relics that are already good being best, since they are guaranteed 2 throughput traits, versus ones with utility/healing traits guaranteed only having one throughput trait.

I wonder how this will work for tanks though, since I only really have 3 "DPS" traits, but every other trait can be considered "throughput" as a tank since survivability is my throughput. Though I wouldn't complain if they could only roll the DPS traits, but I doubt it.

Just to follow-up on the second trait thing, and how it would be accompanied by meaningful nerfs:

In the latest PTR update, Fatebringer for Outlaw received it's third nerf since Legion launch, 1 energy cost reduction per rank (vs previously 2, previously 3, previously 4).

So yay, playstyle gets less fun and less active because of OP relics. Fun.

 

[v1perz53]

Just to follow-up on the second trait thing, and how it would be accompanied by meaningful nerfs:

In the latest PTR update, Fatebringer for Outlaw received it's third nerf since Legion launch, 1 energy cost reduction per rank (vs previously 2, previously 3, previously 4).

So yay, playstyle gets less fun and less active because of OP relics. Fun.

Yea, this can get frustrating for sure. Honestly, I wish that instead of nerfing the best traits, they would do something similar to buffing the base trait to the point it would be with 1 relic, then removing all relics that impact that trait. Some traits are just too powerful to be able to boost to double their baseline effect, but nerfing them at baseline really hurts playability, and disproportionately affects people with no relics for that trait.

 

[Metroidvania]

Just to follow-up on the second trait thing, and how it would be accompanied by meaningful nerfs:

In the latest PTR update, Fatebringer for Outlaw received it's third nerf since Legion launch, 1 energy cost reduction per rank (vs previously 2, previously 3, previously 4).

So yay, playstyle gets less fun and less active because of OP relics. Fun.

This is honestly crazy to me. It just makes having the relics be even MORE important, right up until Blizz actually replaces the trait.

Any kind of 'ranking' math on how many ilevels that trait on a relic is worth? IIRC for Ret at the moment (or at least fairly recently), just having Wings/Crusade duration increase relic is worth between 15-20 weapon ilevels over higher relics with different traits (though admittedly, I'm not 100% sure on the math therein).

 

[Tacitus_]

54 for DPS is pretty much mandatory for Krosus. So yeah, 50+ for the first 3 bosses would be normal.

And if you can get down Anomaly, Trilliax should easily fall. Skorp is just a heroic boss that was mistakenly placed in a Mythic instance.

Oh, jolly. There's probably 5 DPS in our guild with that.

 

[Anbokr]

got my 5th leg today, warrior belt

pretty disappointing tho, kinda worthless. one step closer to the helm i guess tho?

 

[Einchy]

got my 5th leg today, warrior belt

pretty disappointing tho, kinda worthless. one step closer to the helm i guess tho?

While it sucks to not get the helm, the belt is pretty good for a few fights in NH and for mythics.

 

[cartographer]

Yea, this can get frustrating for sure. Honestly, I wish that instead of nerfing the best traits, they would do something similar to buffing the base trait to the point it would be with 1 relic, then removing all relics that impact that trait. Some traits are just too powerful to be able to boost to double their baseline effect, but nerfing them at baseline really hurts playability, and disproportionately affects people with no relics for that trait.

A suggestion I saw last time it was nerfed was just replace Fatebringer with some low impact trait and just bake the cost reduction in elsewhere (or just make it a 1 point trait that you can't get relics for etc). If it's apparently so much of a problem to be continually nerfed, then attempt to fix that without making the spec less fun.

This is honestly crazy to me. It just makes having the relics be even MORE important, right up until Blizz actually replaces the trait.

Any kind of 'ranking' math on how many ilevels that trait on a relic is worth? IIRC for Ret at the moment (or at least fairly recently), just having Wings/Crusade duration increase relic is worth between 15-20 weapon ilevels over higher relics with different traits (though admittedly, I'm not 100% sure on the math therein).

I believe Fatebringer is the realm of 44 ilvs with Fate's Thirst a little bit behind. Legendaries mess with it a little bit, of course, but those two are consistently well ahead of other relics.

-----

Meanwhile Lore's chosen another weird hill to die on.

 

[Einchy]

Man, we had a 3% wipe on Botanist. We keep getting bad RNG and the healers keep getting the debuff, so that really fucks us up.

[edit]

No kill this week.

That last phase is pretty goddamn crazy.