r/wow • u/Legitimate_Shift5700 • 15h ago
Complaint Can we not do this every single midtier patch?
What even is this venomstone grind? You need 40/50 of them for each of your characters, which is like 20+ hours of straight gameplay. Maybe at the start of the patch it makes sense, but I don't want to run 30 hours of m+ or 20 hours of prey/raid/delve/m+ to max out my character mid season, especially when none of that content drops anything else useful anymore. This same thing happened last patch, where the voidstones were released as a ridiculous grind, before nerfing them. And now out of nowhere blizz decides to just more than double the grind for fun.
EDIT:
Why does this matter? The 2-3% extra damage is the difference between timing a key by 30+ seconds and deplete. It can be the difference between being in vs benched in raid prog. But the reason why it sucks most of all is that the people to who those 2-3% makes a difference are not doing delves and +10s at this point. They are pushing high keys or raid logging, and I guarantee you they don't want to go back to running 10s or heroic raid or delves at this point in the season.
So either you can make use of the venomstone, and its ass to go back. Or you don't care about them for your seasonal goals and it doesn't matter either way to you. In fact you can read the comments, there is nobody going "Hey I actually like that they gave me a reason to go back to doing 10s and world content", which should really say everything you need to know about this system.
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u/MulliganedBrainCells 8h ago
Im just mad that classes that use one handed weapons need an additional 10 compared to two handed classes like come on that sucks
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u/hermitxd 7h ago
They really ought to fix this kind of shit.
Especially the stuff around crafting weps and crest for upgrading. The weapons slot needs to count as a slot maybe instead of individual items
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u/ChaoticNature 1h ago
I’ve long believed we should use the artifact system of single-slot weapons with an insertable upgrade that changes its transmog, ilvl, and secondaries. They could be removable and reusable in the event you want to swap them.
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u/Gukle 15h ago
I don't know why they always turn a good system into a shittier version and then revert it and call it a "I heard y'all loud and clear and here's the change".
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u/Scrooge- 15h ago
They do this on purpose to farm goodwill from the community
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u/SlapDashAshOle 14h ago
Is blizz the colin Robinson of game devs... Coz they have nearly drained me of any positive energy towards them.
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u/JodouKast 13h ago
I’m so fucking glad people are finally picking up on this. If everything corporate is metrics, you bet your ass they’re baking “good faith” into every change they make now. “See! We listened!” is becoming so overused it’s obvious what little mind games they’re playing now. Don’t buy it, just quit in disgust. Only time they ever stop is when players quit the game for good.
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u/altriun 2h ago
It's not goodwill, people just hate them more for it. It's the same for legion expansion which was shit for how much grinding and randomness it had. Then they apologise and say they will do better just to repeat it in BFA with azerite grind. And then later in Shadowlands with anima grind or other things. Only after many people left they thought to make it less grinding in Dragonflight.
Some manager on Blizzard sides doesn't understand how the market works and makes the worst decision by thinking more grinding in games = more play time = more money for me. Which is obviously wrong.
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u/Fleedjitsu 14h ago
They'll have financial objectives/constraints from Corporate to keep players playing.
Grinding incentives have worked in the past. It has always been just a matter of finding the sweet spot of tolerance in the playerbase.
Chances are, they already had a target they wanted to set the grind at but have overshot it first simply to cool off the player response when a comparison is consider.
People will complain less when they believe the change is a compromise that they've supposedly won.
Also, these are developers. Their job relies on them continuously developing. If they made a perfect final product they'd be sacked. Happens in any dev environment - it's why stuff like Reddit gets a shitty rework every few months that doesn't help at all.
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u/altriun 2h ago
Their job relies on them continuously developing. If they made a perfect final product they'd be sacked.
No they wouldn't? In what world do you live? Do you think if they made the 'perfect' patch, people would just continously play this and not demand new things or stop playing?
If developers would make a perfect product, the company would get much more people playing the game and earn more money. So it would be in their interest to do it.
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u/FinnNyaw 14h ago
I swear they made so much alt character grind better in TWW only to make it so painful again what's the point of doing an alt if I need to do another 15 hour worth of content
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u/vthemechanicv 12h ago
If you recognize the catch-22, you'll understand better.
If Blizz makes content for people with alts, the person with 1 or 2 mains have nothing to do.
If Blizz makes enough content for people with 1 or 2 mains, people with alts can't keep up.
The pendulum swings too far in one direction, one group complains. When it swings in the other direction, the other group complains.
I would also ask does your 4th tank need a full kit of voidstones? People seem to think their alts need to be equally geared as their mains (or it seems like they argue that). It's okay to let an nth alt just be a lfr hero.
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u/sandpigeon 10h ago
Most of the consternation is because they feel like they have to grind it out this week asap. We still have 4 months left in the season and mythic hall of fame is closed. The only aspirational thing left is mythic+ title in which only the last couple weeks really matters. Everyone has sooo much time to gear out whatever alts they want to push with. The time pressure is self inflicted.
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u/Knifferoo 4h ago
There are some easy solutions that don't make it worse for one group, though. Crests are a good example. Who would be hurt by increasing the amount that drops?
Your main is capped every week before vault is even filled, so there's no difference there. However, starting an alt after week 3 suddenly becomes a lot more doable.
I want to be able to play alts, but I just don't have the time for it early in the season because my main keeps me busy. When I'm done farming items from 10s and don't need to run heroic raid any more, I'm suddenly staring down the barrel of having to farm 600 crests to catch up.If catching up in crests didn't mean doing 40+ keys or whatever the number ends up being I would be playing way more characters. Now I just end up raidlogging on my main instead.
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u/altriun 2h ago
I wish I could do the hardest content on a different role than dps from time to time. But I can't because my main can only dps and getting even one alt the gear needed takes forever.
I've never complained in WoW that there isn't enough to do. Not sure where this is coming from. The best feeling in WoW is if you have finished the content and there isn't anything else really to do.
You have time to do other things outside of WoW or even do old content or play alts more. Not sure why this would be bad.→ More replies (18)7
u/Deadagger 12h ago
I’ve dropped alts entirely this season. Not only are my characters A WHOLE MONTH behind, I have to do this dog shit grind just to get some of my upgrades.
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u/Zealbol334 10h ago
TWW and Midnight have really pulled back the curtain for me on the treadmill and meaningless rewards. Absolutely nothing is a challenge or rare outside of top 5% mounts or 1% titles. Delve boss weeks 1s have gotten easier and easier with kyveza being the outlier. World content achieves are just "do activity x times" And what are the rewards? Pets that have no use anymore, mounts that now are nearing 1500 or housing items that are so niche
The first month or two are great for raid progression but m+ pushing is rendered obsolete until the .7 patch if you are going for a top reward
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u/seanphippen 5h ago
I miss when name titles were super rare and you could easily tell when someone worked their ass off for one
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u/OddColours 8h ago
Remember back in wrath when having the highest mount achievement meant you had nearly every mount in the game? Now it's always 'log in, never try, never rep grind, never anything, and complete'
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u/Deerbos 15h ago
I stopped until next patch
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u/EmuDry4890 14h ago
I’m just choosing not to do it
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u/fenrirsbasketball 10h ago
Revolutionary. Truly a concept no one else in this thread seems to understand
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u/Blubomberikam 9h ago
How would you feel if you were on say, a baseball team. A teammate decides "Eh, I'm good enough" and doesn't go to practice. Sure, 1-2 practices aren't a lot, but your teammate who did go to practice are that much better.
It's not a compulsion in the psych version of the word, its my commitment to bring the best I can to my team. I am not going to chain grind out 50 of these things, but there is no reason a system exists that makes me feel like I am letting my team down.
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u/Alain_Teub2 8h ago
My guild is almost done with Mythic Coiled I cba farming so much for a nuked Ulatek
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u/Jobjoboj 9h ago edited 6h ago
I hate how there is no stop to the powerlevel grind, I loved how it was in dragonflight, you get the ilvl of the patch and thats it you are prepared to at least start on heroic next patch. Now if you miss a midpatch you are behind again, and even if they do catchup, its systems on top of systems. Its kinda overwhelming if you are taking a break
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u/ZealousidealFront782 7h ago
20 for all items in S1 were fine. 50 are not. Seems like a desperate attempt to push up player count
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u/Legitimate-East9708 6h ago
Yeah, and all it’s going to do is drive up resentment and make people tired of the groundhogs day tiers we have had for five years now.
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u/ZealousidealFront782 5h ago edited 5h ago
Yep. I disliked the turbo boost of TWW because it was like: you done farming 1200 Myth crests? Have fun farming 400 more. Cores were way better because I could get them with delves and so on. I wasnt forced to go M+.
But the change this season is just stupid. Even more with the fact that M+ gear is so much worse. First addon I stopped raiding Mythic and Im done healing 18s and I cant get into 19s because there are healers with raid gear that have 4 more itemlevel. So I wont bother getting these venomstones.
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u/Michelanvalo 4h ago
Remember they weren't guaranteed at first in S1. So they planned on you taking 10 qualifying activities to get your upgrade. But we bitched until they made it guaranteed.
Now though, it only gives 6 ilvls instead of 9, which is what I'm more annoyed by.
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u/ZealousidealFront782 4h ago
Didnt remember that 😄
But Im surprised by the fact that there werent more complaints this season about the 50 "activities" for all items. Pissed me off right from the first time I heard about it
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u/doctordragonisback 6h ago
It's ironic that they think this will increase retention. At the start of the season I planned on pushing 1% title but decisions like these have made me want to just stop after 3600 because I don't want to have to grind a bunch of extra bullshit just to be fully optimal.
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u/charging_chinchilla 11h ago
on the one hand, yes it's a lazy attempt to boost engagement metrics and keep people subbed
on the other hand, it's an MMORPG. the game genre is practically defined by endless grinds for gear.
it's unreasonable to expect to keep your alts completely caught up when you barely play them. as it is right now, you can have them in all heroic gear and slowly accumulating myth track gear with barely any playtime at all. that seems pretty reasonable to me. if you want them to be 330+ ilvl and ready for the hardest content in the game, then you're going to have to play them to actually finish gearing them. that's just the way MMORPGs work.
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u/AnderZM 10h ago edited 9h ago
Reading comments here makes me think people just don't want to play the game. They are addicted to a bit of dopamine by having some pixels and have FOMO. I'm running for resil 20 on my main and getting venomstones passively from the content I'm doing. No one in my team is worried to rush it. It's refreshing to have a reward at the end of the dungeon again when doing the high keys. Gives some power "passively". My alts can stay in champion/hero gear because I can do heroic/m+12 on them easily. It doesn't matter at all.
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u/botk0 14h ago
I returned to retail month ago, boy o boy the amount of trash currencies introduced is mind bogling. God knows what is used for what. So annoying.
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u/LaffintyEU 14h ago
Returning to retail after a few months break is always sooo overstimulating lol, just so much stuff and most of it isn’t even that fun, it’s just stuff. More stuff for the sake of more stuff lol.
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u/Makorus 13h ago
If only you could hover over it and it said what it's used for.
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u/SystemofCells 14h ago
I don't understand how people still don't see it.
Blizzard designs WoW for engagement. They want to keep giving you carrots to chase so you keep logging in every week and stay subbed.
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u/EvilOverlord1989 11h ago
Also every big PvE podcast is constantly asking for some type of infinite grind for character power again. But if they do that again, people complain about falling behind, so they do it in waves (time gating) so people don't burn themselves out.
And then people run 40 +10s on patch day (and a HC clear) and burn themselves out anyway. Last season it was people running 100 lv1 Ritual Sites before they buffed the drop rate on harder content.2
u/Ok-Key5729 3h ago
People will optimize the fun out of anything then complain about the lack of fun. For most people playing the game, these "grinds" take care of themselves in a reasonable amount of time.
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u/shalnath 12h ago
Of course they see it, they're the ones asking for it. I want my new consumable content and I want it now!
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u/Legitimate-East9708 6h ago
All they’re doing is driving up burnout. I like grinds but not when they’re just moved goal posts with no new content/encounters.
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u/SystemofCells 5h ago
Apparently there's a core group of people who will just keep playing so long as you offer them something to chase. Otherwise Blizzard would have changed tact a long time ago.
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u/NipplyT 12h ago
As a new player I’ve never played an MMO where people bitch so much about having to grind for gear and actually do content to get upgrades.
Coming from OSRS, getting top gear in this game is actually pretty straightforward and easy. If you don’t have the time to get the best gear…then you just don’t get the best gear? Like shit man, at this point why even have loot at all, characters should all just be the same from day 1 of the season.
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u/Competitive_Sun_9094 12h ago
As a guy who’s played since late TBC. I just like to read it. This made me chuckle
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u/Munno22 9h ago
People don't want their top gear to come from mindless slop content. If all of my Mythic gear came from killing Mythic raid bosses I'd be happy, instead, I have to go grind Heroic/M+/Preys to get these stupid upgrade tokens.
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u/NipplyT 7h ago
Hey man, what if I told you the venomstones also drops from mythic raid bosses? Mind blown right?
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u/EndlessBreadsticks 3h ago
You clearly have a complete lack of understanding of how mythic raiding works. Most mythic raid guilds are deep into coiled alter prog or ulatek prog. With the way mythic lockouts work you will kill 0 mythic bosses for months while progging the most important bosses to have the venomstones for lol. Very snarky comment with 0 practical understanding.
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u/Legitimate-East9708 6h ago
By far the most efficient way to get venomstones is doing delves and prey. Delves and prey are not fun. There are thousands of single player games I would rather play than do delves and prey.
I don’t think venomstones should drop from these sources and I don’t think 50 is a reasonable number to farm.
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u/BlackHeeb 3h ago
Do the stuff you enjoy, and get the venomstones passively. Who cares what the most time efficient method is?
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u/__Kegheimer__ 7h ago
Prey and Delves are fun, up until the moment you eclipse them and stop running them. This then causes the prices on roots and tantalum to go up.
There's nothing wrong with adding more player power to the system to keep the prices of flasks and armor at an affordable price.
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u/justalittleplague 5h ago
In OSRS, you have a cap on skills. Imagine if every few months, they increase that cap.
In WoW, you get the best gear. Then a new patch comes out with even better gear, to bring you closer to the same strength you had in the previous expansion. Last patch comes, and you're right back where you were in the previous expansion. Then the next expansion drops and you have the raw unbridled power of a chicken nugget. Then you grind back to 10% of where you were half a year ago. Then a new patch comes out with even better gear...
Permanence of power does not exist in this game. Some people are starting to realize that this system sucks ass, because the grinds to get back to a fraction of their old strength are now stale and boring.
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u/Acaexx 1h ago
Just piggybacking on this to point out that you actually FEEL weaker every time a new expansion comes around because your haste percentage goes down. Even if at level 90 you have more haste than at 80, the percentage that your cast speed is increased by goes down so you literally throw spells slower every new expansion. It's the main reason that as a caster player I have stopped preordering and started waiting a few weeks for gear to be available so I don't have to play as much turtle gameplay
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u/Ghworg 11h ago
OSRS is a fundamentally different gameplay style. You win at OSRS by investing time, there is some level of skill required but time is the main limiting factor in progression. Retail wow has switched to a more skill based progression system, you do mythic raids - you get mythic gear.
Trying to put back long grinds for gear just feels like the game is regressing to something most retail players don't want anymore.
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u/Simaster27 11h ago
It's a massive community difference. WoW players have only grown more entitled over the years crying about not having the best piece of gear that will get vendored in 6 months. OSRS players will see you complain about going 3x dry and tell you to get back to the red prison.
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u/Legitimate-East9708 6h ago
Imagine that OSRS comes out with a new skill and the best way to farm that skill is just doing agility grind again.
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u/PseudoX1 9h ago
OSRS is fundamentally different. It doesn't have the same gear treadmill.
Your current gear isn't invalidated by iLvl increases. You don't have to grind a new barrows tank set after each new raid is released.
OSRS doesn't release near the same amount of content as other MMO's, so new BiS gear is uncommon.
You can buy the BiS gear off the GE. Get lucky on a Third Age pick? Go treat yourself to a Tbow.
OSRS is such a unique MMO that is often misrepresented when compared to other MMO's.
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u/Boempowered 11h ago
A lot of vets don’t actually enjoy the game anymore, but keep playing purely out of habit.
Note: this isn’t a commentary on the state of the game or me saying it shouldn’t improve.
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u/Overall_Kiwi_7370 11h ago
I’ve been playing for years and I can never understand it. The game is literally throwing gear at players at this point, god forbid it requires you to actually play the game to get it.
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u/Legitimate-East9708 4h ago
The best way to farm venomstones is doing the easiest, most braindead content in the game. I dont play wow for delves and prey yet blizz keeps making it the best use of my time?
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u/Kronuk 10h ago
Yeah I don’t envy Blizzard, they keep caving to the people complaining and it makes the game easier and easier and those same people still complain and yell. They are at this point handing out things that used to take much more effort and time to get and now the game feels worse.
They spend too much time catering to the less skilled players who feel like they should be able to complete all the content and unlock everything even though they are 10x worse than other players. All this they justify from having to pay a sub, they want to feel like they can earn and complete everything.
At the end of the day, I believe there should be plenty of chase goals that require nothing more than someone to improve their play to accomplish. No nonstop nerfing until everyone can do it. M+ for example has become way too easy to get to 10s for myth gear vault. Before that used to be somewhat difficult, now on a fresh alt you can start at running those and skip all key numbers below.
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u/woahmanthatscool 8h ago
For real, gives me something to do with a little more power, no reason to no life grind it if you don’t want
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u/psnGatzarn 14h ago
Dude I've been playing pretty religiously up until turbo boost turned into mid season power gains like items or voidcores. It feels like you cant stop playing if you want to get your gear. Its so exhausting. The game FEELS designed to keep you playing. So it hit a point where I just cant do it anymore. Additionally, hopping in now, thinking of the stuff I need to do.. just makes me not log in
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u/ProfPhinn 4h ago
What if I told you that you don’t need to burn through the content as fast as humanly possible so that you can then bitch about how there is nothing to do.
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u/Accendor 12h ago
It's really not as bad as you people make it out to be. 5 from Bountiful Delves, 2 from Preys (+ 1 more for each hero soul you have) which is like 30-60 Minutes + 10 from raids (which are like 2-2 1/2 hours of playtime) is easily 17-20 with 3-4 hours play time. Split that up to 2 weeks and it's barely nothing.
If you think you need to gearbout 15 alts weeks one, I can't help you.
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u/Legitimate-East9708 4h ago
It’s not that bad guys just do the most meaningless and brainless content in the game that you don’t want to do outside of preseason! I’m so thankful for this power gain!!!
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u/Accendor 4h ago
You can also do the hardest content which did not reward you at all before but does now...
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u/Legitimate-East9708 4h ago edited 4h ago
Delusional. I’d have a more positive opinion of the game if they had done literally nothing for the past three weeks. I guess kithix is fine.
Retail is being killed by incompetence and complacency.
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u/ZzyzxDFW 8h ago
What are those hero souls?
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u/Accendor 7h ago
They drop at the end of delves after youvreached a certain rank of the prey journey. Using them immediately finishes the Hunting part of the next prey you start, so you can immediately go and fight the boss, significantly shortening the time you need to finish a prey. Then there are epic ones that additionally grand you a heroic prey chest upon completing your next delve.
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u/spachi1281 10h ago
There's also the megadelve (Labyrinth) which is basically a Bountiful delve that is always up and can reward up to 3 per run (assuming you clear out all 9 rooms). And if you have excess keys - you can basically run this back to back.
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u/Th1s_On3 14h ago
Its a tiny ilvl upgrade, hardly make or break necessity. Just let them accrue as you play and not make everything in to a grind.
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u/hermitxd 7h ago
I don't mind doing it for my main guy.
But please make it warbound or something so my alts have an easier time
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u/skapoww 6h ago
Not gonna lie. I fell behind this season due to illness and life. I main a survival hunter. I can do over 200k overall consistently depending on the dungeon of course. But because I’m about 2900 rating, it’s damn near impossible to get into 13s and a giant pain to get into 10’s. My guild is basically done clearing and is only progging. Having to gather 10 of these shits is a straight-up demoralizing affair to me. I have to either pug the raid or apply for hours to get into a couple 10’s. I’m pretty sick of it. My motivation to play is low af. I’m busy IRL to make it even worse. I’d rather not even have the boost tbh.
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u/Delicious-Idea1183 5h ago
You can get atleast 4 a week from nightmare hunts using a scroll to go straight to the prey with the bonus chest. It takes longer to fly to the boss than it does to kill it.
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u/Blacklist3d 14h ago
Unless you're a title pusher they're really not important. If you sim it each item gives about 500 to 1k ST. The content is doable without the upgrades. This is just a boost to help those who can't finish. You can just collect them organically.
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u/Revolutionary-Eye716 11h ago
They are literally giving us items to make our gear RIGHT below the top mythic raiding guilds, and you are complaining? Blizzard has given you far too many handouts. You have to EARN some things in this game.
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u/0sebek 11h ago
I earned my gear already, why do I need to grind 50 of these just on my main that im raid logging mythic coiled altar on? Having to do 50 m+ runs/delves/heroic bosses on a char thats bis geared outside of mythic raiding is so unfun its making me want to unsub, which i might just do after Ulatek is dead.
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u/DigitalBladedJay 12h ago
I don't like that it's 10 when last season it was 5. Where I'd have upgraded 3 items, I've only gotten one and had to log off out of sheer exhaustion. Last season I upgraded things for shits and gigs week one, now I'm planning on not even using it on my hero pieces because that's another 2-3 hours of pugging dungeons I don't wanna do
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u/Mellend96 7h ago
The “if you don’t like it don’t do it” take is so cooked man. It follows the inherently dishonest take that your enjoyment derives explicitly from the gameplay. Which isn’t true.
Some of us have friends we play with, or a guild. Not keeping up with the monotonous chores they spam us with directly affects those people, which can have a negative effect on your experience with them.
“Just play with people who match your expectations”.
This follows that social mobility is solely dictated by goals. You may not mesh well with people more aligned with your gameplay for whatever reason, may not play at similar times. It’s a far more volatile variable than Blizzard simply saying, “Yeah, this sucks.” And nerfing the grind to a reasonable value.
No one complains about grinds if they’re fun. The problem with these grinds is that you either do interesting content, and miss the window in which your power gain is most tremendous, or do incredibly tedious content that is more efficient for whatever reason.
They could make different content drop different amounts of stones. Why does Nightmare Prey which people can do in leveling greens, give similar rewards to a 10 or raid bosses?
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u/Altruistic_Run_2880 14h ago
I expect 2 upgrades per week with my current playtimes, and i am not getting anxiety from it. It's fine for me.
I swear some of y'all want to get done with your checklist and don't play a game you are paying monthly.
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u/Lawn_Dinosaurs 11h ago
The numbers a little high but you do passively get them from doing all content. You DON’T have to get them all in one day. Coming from a player who does high content no one really cares.
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u/FareweII 10h ago edited 10h ago
Yeah i feel like i'm getting fucked with with all this venomstone "outrage". It's 6 ilvls on 4-5 items, why do you so desperately need them right now? What content are you doing? The first 15-20 stones are fairly easy to get just by doing your early weekly stuff, so just upgrade a weapon and whatever sims highest out of the other slots. Then you either grind or just leave it for next week and then likely you'll get all your items upgraded and will be done.
The only people i can see that need this are guilds that extend on Ulatek and don't have coiled mythic gear, the rest either already have 344 items or don't do content that needs all the upgrades this week.
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u/Doogiesham 10h ago
You don’t have to grind it all at once if you don’t want to. It’s not really designed to be done all at once
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u/TeamOverload 9h ago
But they need to get it done right away to not finish a mythic raid or fail +12 keys, cut them some slack lmao
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u/Legitimate-East9708 6h ago
the game would be better if blizzard literally did nothing for the past three weeks.
I’m fine with a carrot on a stick, but this carrot is FIVE YEARS STALE. The 8 week cycle is so formulaic.
Also, making prey and delve the best way to farm ilvl power slop is fucking atrocious. I hate that content and I hope they stop putting dev time into it. People that play wow for a single player experience have something wrong with them
If prey and delve actually had legs to stand on, blizzard wouldn’t need to make it by far the best way to gear alts and do their slop grinds.
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u/defalt86 15h ago
Just play the game. You dont need to grind them out on day 1.
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u/Big-Bag-6043 14h ago
I do. My guild is stuck on Ula'tek, and once that dies, I'm out. The only reason I have to farm for these is to upgrade my gear further to increase allowed margin of error for Ula'tek. In S1, I would be basically done with it this evening. In S2, I'd have to spend a lot more time to get to the same point.
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u/vthemechanicv 12h ago
my guild is struggling on Heroic Ula'tek. ILvl is not the problem, and no amount of gear is going to solve why we haven't killed it yet. You didn't say whether you're AOTC or CE, but I suspect at this point, no amount of margin of error will fix your guild's problems either.
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u/BlackSoap2032 14h ago
If you would be done in 1 evening in s1, that means you have to spend 1 more evening to be done in s2.
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u/Big-Bag-6043 14h ago
Nope. S1 - do the raid on Heroic, do the bountiful delves, do the nightmare hunts. That's 14 shards out of 20 maximum required, do 1 M+ run for 15. Finish it tomorrow with light M+ or another set of delves. 1 evening to 75%, some light play next day to 100%.
S2 - do the raid, do the delves, do the hunts. That's 16 shards out of 40 required. Raid is locked till next week, hunts are locked till next week, delves are 4 a day. 1 evening to 40%.
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u/Legitimate_Shift5700 15h ago
Just play the game, except I do mythic raiding and high key pushing. We are extending on ulatek and high keys would take forever to do the 50. Not to mention its pretty grief to not grind out 3(?) avg ilvl before pushing. So for me I should do anything but what I want.
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u/johnduff_tv 15h ago
Yeah same. You know the gear isn't that big of a deal but it feels like your griefing your raid by not getting them and pushing is not an activity that rewards stones, so you can't "just play" your way through it.
I also just don't understand that upgrade stone thing in general. Raid has the weekly buff, and it does nothing for keys except for artificially inflating the key level everyone can do. I don't see the appeal at all.
I get that progressing your character is the draw to a MMO and venomstones are that, but it feels sooo lazy and boring. The new items from the new raid being good is a much better way to achieve that IMO.
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u/the_axxias 14h ago edited 14h ago
you can close this grind out fairly easily if you have coffer keys for delves
bountifuls rotate daily, even at zero coffer keys and assuming the coffer key shard weekly cap is the limitation; that's 6 venomstones per week just from bountiful delves.
include the 2 you get from nightmare prey, that brings you to 8 venomstones per week.
include the 10 from heroic raid (venomous abyss + tidebound grotto + unbinding of kithix), it brings you to 18 venomstones per week.
do your 8 dungeons for homework keys and you are comfortably sitting at 26 venomstones per week, some of which are super quick to grab
grinding m+ for em is super uneccessary, especially given in a week or two if you play the game at all, you will likely have more than you know what to do with
personally, i had some crest farm to do to finish capping upgrades; after grinding dungeons for that and doing world tour nightmare prey/bountifuls/labyrinth, i am very nearly done with venomstone upgrades before stepping foot into heroic raid
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u/thrustidon 10h ago
M+ players whine about absolutely everything in this game. How terrible that you have to play the game to upgrade some gear.
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u/GrabKlutzy9716 11h ago
Hi, if you do nightmare prey and have those items that immediately complete the hunt you get the venomstones very quick. After doing my weekly 3 nightmare hunts with the instant complete item, I had 5 of them in my bags. Didn't even realize it. Do the speedy tier 11 delve with valeera as a tank spec as dps and those take 10-15m each. It isnt too bad. Remember, if its not something you enjoy doing you dont have to do it. Its a game, and at the end of the day you shouldn't force yourself to do something you dont want to. If you arent pressed for time, you'll have tons of venom stones before you know it without having to really grind them out. Last patch i had so many extra stones I didn't use.
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u/CajunSissyfuss 15h ago
Let me get a coin and a piece of loot out of the vault, the coin every time feels boring
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u/Southern-March1522 14h ago
There's no way they're keeping the coins in the vault next season after this
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u/No_Tackle8188 14h ago
They can 100% keep the coin as an option they just need to make so if you take loot from the vault it removes it from the coin loot pool too
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u/vthemechanicv 12h ago
yeah, screw those rogues and warriors. Or anyone that might want the same weapon or armor but with different enchants.
I don't disagree with the idea, but there's downsides to it too. The coin just doesn't belong on the vault. I'd rather it turn into a button that rerolls the vault. Everything sucks? Hit the button for a second chance.
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u/No_Tackle8188 11h ago
Yeah I forgot about those fury warriors dual wielding two maze-roas, it really screws them over! I’d like a reroll vault button option but then that has just as many negatives as my suggestion, everyone will just reroll if they don’t get a bis and then complain when second roll didn’t have bis either
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u/Scyths 14h ago
100%. That is how Blizzard rolls. "We've made gearing a little too easy due to not implementing this simple change ? Better remove the whole system instead of fixing it". Instead of making it so that anything you take from the vault is removed from the bonus roll loot table, they will 100% remove the entire bonus roll being available week 1. Always 1 step forward 2 steps backwards with them.
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u/IWearHats11 14h ago
So as always, there are always different groups asking for completely different things. I imagine this was them listening to the group of people saying that gearing is too fast and easy and there's no one doing m+. The side effect of this being so grindy is that there are a ton of people doing m+ again to grind out their stones. I was instantly filling groups on my alts where previously it would be me and my friends staring at an empty queue before we ultimately decide to do something else after 10m.
So yes it's super grindy, but even if most of us are doing it begrudgingly, it's nice to see people actually playing the game.
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u/meecan 13h ago
I agree with what your saying, but it doesn't really help with m+ engagement imo, and I think blizzard must understand that?
Like 1 fragment per 30mins of m+ is by far the least efficient thing you could possibly do, everyone seems to be smashing out raid bosses, preys, delves, and the labyrinth. In a season where M+ already feels fairly irrelevant, keys only dropping one venom stone per just cements that.
Like there are currently 14 raiders online in my guild, none of them are in a dungeon, they are all doing HC clears, kithix, nymrissa, delves etc.
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u/Oktoberfists 12h ago
Sure, weekly key numbers are going to go through the roof.
But, I was doing PUG 12s last night with a full 3750-3900 group... it's not like the players doing higher tiers of content are going to start inviting the people who actually WANT to be doing 10-12s at this point of the season. Post a 10-12 key atm and it's insane the amount of 330+ people queuing
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u/dumxblonde 13h ago
You would be very wrong. Every person intending to push 0.1% and 1% were absolutely spamming 10s all night and no one liked it or is having fun.
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u/Lethean_Waves 12h ago
Can confirm. Was a great night for my warrior alt to get into 10s and be a shout bitch though. Easy crests and got my maze-roa to 340 quickly.
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u/YourDaddyStudmuffin 7h ago
Yep, can confirm i’ve been spamming 12s for crest/venomstone and HC.
Not even done and its dogshit
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u/_Llopis_ 4h ago edited 3h ago
I will easily get top 1% this season, and I did not and will not spend time spamming 10s for Venomstones. I'll get them when I get them.
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u/BlackSoap2032 14h ago
If they aren't useful, just don't do them.
This isn't even a cosmetic, it's only a minor power upgrade. If you've already done everything you want to this patch, just don't do them.
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u/BlackHeeb 3h ago
I’m fascinated by this whining. You get these stones from doing any “top” end game content. So what is the issue? You get them anyway by just playing whatever you were already playing.
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u/Affectionate_Sir9020 10h ago
Remember, you DONT have to do this grind. Override that lizard brain incentive to chase dopamine and play the game as you like. You’ll eventually earn enough. This expac still has a least a year on its life time. Jfc
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u/foxyfufu 5h ago
Yup, completing a 12 with less gear should be just as satisfying…. But it’s all a race. Be happy with where you get with what you get.
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u/Finances1212 6h ago
Just stop playing and vote with your wallet.
Retail is clearly an afterthought at this point - with how god awful the x.x.5 and x.x.7 patches have been in pretty convinced they just have Claude make them.
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u/jamdivi 5h ago
"he 2-3% extra damage is the difference between timing a key by 30+ seconds and deplete. It can be the difference between being in vs benched in raid prog. But the reason why it sucks most of all is that the people to who those 2-3% makes a difference are not doing delves and +10s at this point. They are pushing high keys or raid logging, and I guarantee you they don't want to go back to running 10s or heroic raid or delves at this point in the season."
I cannot possibly express how glad I am to be at a point in this game where I no longer care about my dps, or hps, or bashing my head against the wall for the perfect parse for the raid logs or forcing myself to do hours and hours of content that I don't enjoy just to make the numbers on the screen bigger. Life is so much better and less stressful on the other side. Remember ya'll, this is a video game that has absolutely zero impact on your life outside of the game. Don't make it a second job that you don't get paid for.
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u/Economy_Quality_3689 5h ago
My hot take is just go back to the system we had in dragonflight where the antique things items let you buy items with 20 or whatever levels. Its still beneficial to do higher tier raids because it saves tou crests, but it also allows people to curb their incredible lack of luck.
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u/justalittleplague 5h ago
Just taking a break until last patch.
Grinds? Gear? Mate, my ilvl in WoW doesn't help me in Valheim.
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u/Whiteshovel66 4h ago
The problem is you are trying to get them all in one day. This is not a problem at all just relax and get them when you get them.
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u/Key_Marsupial_1406 4h ago
Crests, gear acquisition, catalyst charges, sparks, etc are all carefully engineered to maximize whatever player retention or spend metrics the current bosses care about. They are not designed to be fun or interesting or anything like that. It's a carefully engineered hamster wheel that Blizzard will max out and weigh against negative community sentiment until it hurts the bottom line.
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u/SilverCyclist 3h ago
This is why I do nothing but PVP and achievement hunting...this game is designed by spreadsheet junkies.
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u/hesagunnyguyxd 2h ago
Play classic.
Retail is slop, I had more fun grouping up with strangers to kill red ridge monsters than doing M+
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u/hey_its_xarbin 39m ago
After playing to CE consistently from Amirdrassil through TWW and S1 of Midnight, 2 weeks ago I let my GM know I was taking a break. I havent logged on since and its felt amazing. First week I wanted to log in but seeing the pointless grinding, mediocre tier and crap dungeons not to mention if i wanted to raid s3 the previous tier would be invalidated anyway, it just was so easy to let go.
I promise if you dont log in you aren't missing anything and if your guild is your friend group you dont need to raid as an excuse to hang with them.
Now we just play marvel rivals, warzone and overwatch a couple times a week and its been such a relief.
Yall should genuinely try quitting.
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u/ElesJuanFTW 30m ago
Time to go outside and take a break from wow sounds like. Games are supposed to be fun if you're not having fun and someone is not paying you to play and not have a good time, stop. I tried to grind and get my ilvl way up to join guild stuff and it was stupid. Most of them are trash anyway with OBA outperforming them on similar gear scores and still progging on heroic and only choosing people to raid based on buffs is a joke. Play the game how you want and with people you like
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u/vthemechanicv 13h ago
I don't honestly have a problem with it. I'll run 20 or 30 m+ this week, full clear raid, do a couple delves plus the Labrynth, and possibly do a Prey or two, since I've got the auto complete tokens.
I'm going to put zero effort into the void stones and have more than 4 by next reset. Unless you're cutting edge, the ilvl doesn't matter anyway. And if you are cutting edge, you're already resigned to degenerate play anyway.
(by cutting edge I mean both mythic raid and top end m+ keys)
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u/RevolutionaryLaw8555 11h ago
I agree with you, but my goal here is to be uplifting and bring positivity here to reddit until I get banned, so ill just say keep speaking up about this stuff as a community and hopefully we can bring change. I really wish there werent so many currencies🫠
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u/LordVulpius 10h ago
For me, it is not an issue.
I play a single class, since WotLK. My alts are just crafters mostly and sometimes, just timewalkers, so I do not NEED to gear them properly.
I got 3000 M+ rankings, thats enough for me. I can get 10 venomcores from the HC bosses in raid, then a few more from delves and preyhunting. So I will be done in about 4 weeks with this.🤷♂️
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u/AdamBry705 10h ago
I'm gunna be upfront. They out these grinds and make them shit in the beginning to piss you off but then change them after they get some backlash
Because it creates a PR thing where it says we are listening.
They do it. A lot.
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u/FancyMac 10h ago
Ohh my god, you have to play! Must be tough
Increase your time horizon. Enjoy your time in the game. Eventually everyone's gonna have it, and nobody's gonna play anymore.
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u/nerdmoot 9h ago
For 99% of us this complaint is not reality. This is like billionaires bitching about paying taxes. In OG WoW and TBC you were lucky to have all blues let alone a full set of purps.
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u/RecognitionReady1640 9h ago
I returned a month ago since dragonflight and have been taking it very easy. Tanking m+ and just yesterday started to do 10s… but today logged in to keep doing 10s and suddenly there is only people with 3,5k and even 4+k doing 10s. Had to look for a while to get into keys with people of MY level. I could join some 10s with people that are doings 20s and probably get carried but I haven’t even looked into high key routes yet and honestly I want to do the keys with people that need them for score and not just rush to farm
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u/Darth-Ragnar 9h ago
Maybe it's personal, maybe not, but I swear they're overcooking this expansion for some reason.
I played all of TWW and had some modest goals (1800 in PvP, KSM, AoTC) for most patches.
12.0 I went in with the same mindset and by 12.0.5 I just fell off. I don't know exactly what it is but the systems are starting to feel too convoluted again.
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u/papermoonskies 9h ago
I only got the option (Quest) to get them on my main, so I am confused about your mention of alts. None of my 7 alts have the option to grab the quest.
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u/Upper-Meal-9056 8h ago
The people who are still playing don’t care and the people who might care went off to play Star Wars galactic racer.
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u/Busy_Address_2125 8h ago
I’m just not doing it 🤷🏻♀️ I don’t even really understand it so I’m just levelling alts and running delves and stuff.
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u/Athrasie Not Aphoenix 13h ago
Brother… just because content exists DOES NOT MEAN YOU ARE MANDATED TO DO SAID CONTENT. No wonder people burn out… they’re gaslighting themselves into doing the stuff they want AND the stuff they don’t want.
If something doesn’t interest you, don’t do it. We’re at a point in wow’s lifecycle where you don’t need to do all content to stay competitive.
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u/Unlikely_Minimum_635 11h ago
Don't get it today?
Are you honestly saying you won't do 40 things for the rest of the patch and you have to grind it out this week?
Everyone and their goddamn grandma had them overflowing from their bags at the end of last patch.
There's nothing fucking wrong with a reward taking more than one week to fully goddamn unlock.
Don't do 10s to farm them, don't do world content. Just keep doing the content you already do and you'll get them over the next few weeks.
For fuck's sake, nobody outside of Mythic raiders can be in full myth gear yet anyway.
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u/Mediumsizedpeepee 15h ago
Then dont bother with it? These items are really only relevant if you wanna push as far as possible, 334 items are more then enough to do everything you want this season.
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u/viktorKurz 15h ago
Let's not defend bad chore tasks. They are bad for every single player who wants to push mythic plus. You want to be doing high level keys not farming 10s for a week so you can get back to the content you actually want to do.
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u/SHD_Tech 14h ago
Saying “then don’t do it” isn’t defending it. People continuing to participate in a crap system is more likely to perpetuate the crap system because Blizz sees people continuing to participate. You want them to stop making bad chore tasks, you have to be willing to show them that you’re not going to do those tasks, even if it costs you something. They don’t care if you like it, they care if you do it and add to the played hours metric they can show the shareholders.
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u/MissingXpert 14h ago
good luck getting invites to keys if all the DPS are 3 ilvl higher than you just because they bothered to farm.
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u/Legitimate_Shift5700 15h ago
Yes, my m+ friends and mythic raid team is going to be thrilled hearing I don't plan on getting "free" 6 ilvl on 5 pieces.
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u/Ok-Key5729 13h ago
It's for raiders and people who like Number Go Up. The M+ titlepushers are too few in number to care about.
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u/obscuregamer000 13h ago
I like the system just like I enjoyed it last season. I liked how it gave me a reason to farm 10s-12s to farm bonus rolls and upgrade my gear. It gave me something to do over time.
They didnt need to make it 10 slot, but if I remember correctly last season I had an abundant of stones I had no purpose in using it.
Hopefully they nerf it down to 5 again.
That being said I never thought turbulent power was healthy for the M+ scene but its whatever.
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u/notacyborg 6h ago
I am so sick of all these convoluted systems. Ion has got to go. The guy is high on his own farts with his elitist bullshit attitude. Dude is just out of touch with what an MMORPG should be.
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u/Manstein02 13h ago
If you fill your vault with M+ rins every week, you will basicly have all four pieces upgraded in four resets. Not the worst, is it? But sure, if uou want them all maxed first day, you need to do 40-ish dungeons today…
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u/Girthmasterlite 15h ago
5 felt so fair and needing 30 more feels so miserable