Patch 4.3 - On a Deathwing and a prayer

[SurfD]

Epic gems will drop in the new raid in Normal and Heroic only. Each player gets a geode when a boss is killed which has a small chance to contain an epic gem, most will have rare gems. It is rare enough to take all of 4.3 to replace all of your red rare quality gems with red epic gems.

Yeah, awesome.  Absolutely NO way to "farm" or aquire epic gems on a decent scale. Expect to see them going for OBSCENE amounts of cash in the AH if anyone is crazy enough to list them.  Hopefully the patterns to cut them will ALL be available through the JC daily tokens, or the first person who gets an AGI / STR / INT cut recepie drop is going to be an instant millionaire.   Sucks to be you if you were one of those people who stocked a bank tab or two full of pyrium stacks in the hopes of prospecting for them.

[luckton]

Epic gems will drop in the new raid in Normal and Heroic only. Each player gets a geode when a boss is killed which has a small chance to contain an epic gem, most will have rare gems. It is rare enough to take all of 4.3 to replace all of your red rare quality gems with red epic gems.

Yeah, awesome.  Absolutely NO way to "farm" or aquire epic gems on a decent scale. Expect to see them going for OBSCENE amounts of cash in the AH if anyone is crazy enough to list them.  Hopefully the patterns to cut them will ALL be available through the JC daily tokens, or the first person who gets an AGI / STR / INT cut recepie drop is going to be an instant millionaire.   Sucks to be you if you were one of those people who stocked a bank tab or two full of pyrium stacks in the hopes of prospecting for them.

Can't say I'm disappointed.  That was the annoying thing about Wrath was to see rares not mean anything and greens non-existent.  Maybe in Pandaria they'll find a way for JC's to 'want' to make greens 

[Sjofn]

I would suggest putting some damn socket slots on the 85-through-whatever leveling equipment, then. I'd totally buy greens for that shit, but it doesn't exist.

[luckton]

I would suggest putting some damn socket slots on the 85-through-whatever leveling equipment, then. I'd totally buy greens for that shit, but it doesn't exist.

What if they made the sockets only accept certain quality level gems?  Not ilvl, but, for example, my rare-quality boots I just got has two sockets that can only accept green-quality gems?

[SurfD]

The main problem with gems in leveling gear is that 99% of the time, it's a waste of a gem (even if the gem only cost you 2g), because you are probably going to replace that piece of gear in 2 or 3 hours, or 20 quests down the road anyway.  Heck, even gems in "dungeon progression" gear once you hit max level are often ignored due to the same though process (Ie, why gem this iLevel 346 pant piece i just got in this heroic when i am just going to replace it with an iLevel 359 piece after I earn another 500 JP anyway).

[Tannhauser]

"Heroic Deathwing will eventually be made easier after the top guilds kill it so that more people can experience it."

Have they ever said anything like this before?  I know they nerf content, but to announce a new raid and announce it's nerfing 'eventually' smacks of desperation to me.

[SurfD]

"Heroic Deathwing will eventually be made easier after the top guilds kill it so that more people can experience it."

Have they ever said anything like this before?  I know they nerf content, but to announce a new raid and announce it's nerfing 'eventually' smacks of desperation to me.

I dont know.  That's sort of like Ford or Toyota outright telling you "you are going to spend 25 grand on this spiffy new car, and it is only going to be worth 5 on the re-sale market 8 years from now".  Everyone already knows this.

Everyone already knows that blizzard nerfs their raid content (in some form or another) after it has been out for a while, this is just the first time they have actuall said "yeah, it will happen".

[Merusk]

The game direction and PR decisions are now being made by a combination of Ghostcrawler, Satan, and the BCS computer system.

You missed Mike Brown & Jerry Jones.

[Merusk]

So now what, we've got ilvl gear from:

Questing/Crafting
5man normal
5man hard
10man raid normal
10man raid hardcore
25 pickup raid
25 raid normal
25 raid hard

You've got 2 additional tiers in here.  10 and 25 man normal & hard drop the exact same gear now.  So it's actually:

5 N
5 H 
25 PUG
10/25 N
10/25 H

Only one more tier than it is right now.   My assumption is the new heroics will probably drop whatever ilevel the 1st Tier normal raid were, with the 25 PUG dropping the ilevel of current normal raids.

I haven't followed the numerization game, since I've PVP'd for gear since I started playing again.  It's much more interesting and entertaining than the bullshit slog of Heroic dungeons these days.  I had an hour before bed last night, joined a heroic queue with some guildies and we got ZA with 2 PUGs.. 45 mins later I was logging off without having killed a boss.

Yet I'm told it's better than at launch. 

[Hawkbit]

That's not so bad, I suppose.  I thought 10s and 25s were dropping different ilvls. 

From someone whose raiding peaked in Vanilla, though, it sure as hell seems like a lot of work to figure out what best-in-show gear drops from where, then actually get the people to run it, and then hope that the damn item actually drops.  Maybe I've been away too long from MMOs.

[luckton]

That's not so bad, I suppose.  I thought 10s and 25s were dropping different ilvls. 

In Wrath, yeah.  Then they pulled their heads out of their asses for at least a minute and said "Fuck it.  Make it all the same loot, and have more loot drop in 25."

And then Greg stuffed their heads back up 

[caladein]

From someone whose raiding peaked in Vanilla, though, it sure as hell seems like a lot of work to figure out what best-in-show gear drops from where, then actually get the people to run it, and then hope that the damn item actually drops.  Maybe I've been away too long from MMOs.

Gearing as a whole is more complicated now than in Classic because sets are smaller, there are a few more stats, and reforging but the "where" of gear is much easier.  Because of armor specializations, inflation, and tighter drop tables, where your best gear drops (with very few exceptions) is in whatever the highest raid your group can do is.

At heroic gear levels, you're looking at one alternative piece per slot if that and it's all off the same bosses and a vendor or two.  Compared to Classic where there was an overlap in item levels between up to three instances and PvP at points even before dealing with resistances, percentage shenanigans, and dropping down armor classes.

[luckton]

I remember the time when Druid gear had Str, Agi, Sta, Int and Spi on it 

[Sheepherder]

At that point it didn't matter what they worse because the class was such a shitshow.

They should actually return to that sort of itemization, and give each class a reason to give a shit about all four of the primary stats not stamina.  Sort of like what they tried with mastery, but without making the "new" balance on the stats quite so ridiculously fucking broken.

[Special J]

I don't understand why they won't let you transmog a legendary appearance onto a normal item. Isn't that the perfect example of what people want transmog for?

Yes, because I want to join a BG where everyone running around with Atieshs, Sulfuras hammers and Shadowmournes.  Why don't we just give everyone foam swords instead?   

Oh please, please let me transmogrify that.

[Merusk]

No go, it's a grey.  I imagine it would have been excluded even if it wasn't.. much like I expect the cloth pumpkin heads (which are rares and do have stats) to be excluded.

[Lakov_Sanite]

No go, it's a grey.  I imagine it would have been excluded even if it wasn't.. much like I expect the cloth pumpkin heads (which are rares and do have stats) to be excluded.

The halloween gas mask would be pretty boss.

[Paelos]

So you're allowed to play dress up, but not funny dressup?

[Sjofn]

Correct. We don't want to get too silly here. 

[Paelos]

I don't think Blizzard understands the point of dressup.

[koro]

I haven't really been following 4.3 that much, but why is loot that you get via the raid finder at a lower ilvl than even the Normal raid version stuff? Does using the raid finder make dungeons easy mode or something?

[Evildrider]

Yes, but only for the 25 man random raid.

[caladein]

Yes, LFR is supposed to be a lower difficulty (and 25m only) than the normal version of the raid.

[koro]

Okay, that's not bad then. I assumed the worst and figured that Blizzard would throw the LFR people into the Normal raids for shittier loot as a sort of final :fuckcasuals:.

[Simond]

4.3 PTR is going up soon (this week/next week): http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3229085851#2

Yes. We're intent on getting the 4.3 Public Test Realms up potentially within the next week. :)

As you mentioned, there's still a lot of work to be done on this patch, so a lot of the content will be rolled onto the test realms over time. Transmogrification, Void Storage, some balance changes, and several UI updates/improvements will likely make the PTR right away. The dungeon/raid content, legendary questline, Dungeon Finder updates, and especially Raid Finder are still very much works in-progress.

[Tannhauser]

Serious question.  Do you think Blizzard should make old raid content do-able solo?  I enjoy LOTRO's epic questline that you can solo all the way thru Moria.  Rift has done so already.

I'd resub just to do old raids and see the content, I never even got to kill Onxyia. *sniff*

[Fordel]

Some specs can already solo 60 raids.

[Merusk]

60? Some can do 70 or 80 raids that don't involve mandatory group mechanics or insta-kills.

[Lantyssa]

Yes, but they can't do so as part of their normal progression.  While a bit more useful with Transmorgrification coming, it's not really something that matters to most of the players as it currently stands.

[Fordel]

60? Some can do 70 or 80 raids that don't involve mandatory group mechanics or insta-kills.

Blood DK's don't count 

[Merusk]

Nah, i know a lock and a pally who do BC content solo. I don't know if they've tried WOT

Ed: Oh.. and my poorly geared hunter did Forge of Souls solo on normal.. tho I haven't tried Heroic yet I can probably do some of the simpler stuff on heroic.

[Lantyssa]

Blood DK's don't count 

[Fordel]

That's like saying my Prot Pally can solo stuff, well no shit!

[Rokal]

60? Some can do 70 or 80 raids that don't involve mandatory group mechanics or insta-kills.

Most classes can solo 60/70 raids at this point.

[Sheepherder]

There aren't many raids that you can get through without hitting some sort of a "you need two people" cockpunch.  The only ones I know of are MC and Magtheridon.