WoW: Battle for Azeroth (8.3)

I’ve settled into my usual routine of checking mission and quest rewards and mostly just bothering to log in for raid sessions. I’ve also taken some time to level and gear my old main so’s I can hang out with my old guild some. Now that that’s mostly accomplished I’ve actually managed to play some more on my GWJ Alliance alt. I just finished up all the faction-specific stuff I could find in Outland and have headed to Bornean Tundra. The first bits of Alliance story in Northrend are pretty good so far.

Azerite armor is a little underwhelming so far, but the way the system is built they can scale it up over time. Remember, at this point in Legion you had about one legendary and maybe two branches of an artifact tree, so Azerite is a little simpler, but not by much. And we’ll get new traits as they add gear, so we hopefully won’t hit that wall where Artifacts got boring once you filled the tree. That said, I do find it frustrating that I always seem to be two levels away from actually unlocking anything new on any of my gear.

We'll really have to see how the whole Azerite system shakes out in the next big content patch. The biggest issue to me over the Artifact Weapon system is that you were always making your artifact more powerful. Because of how the traits unlock, there's a perceived weakening when you get a new more powerful piece of gear because you need to grind out higher AP to unlock trait. This is all assuming that the traits you get aren't so bad that your weaker gear is in fact more powerful because of powerful traits.

So there is no incentive anymore to level up to 70 before you use your 120 boost correct? If that's the case I think I'm going to boost my Lightforged Dranei Paladin. Are paladins pretty good tanks in BfA?

Paladins are good tanks in BfA. They did not change much from Legion and mostly play the same.

Sydhart wrote:

So there is no incentive anymore to level up to 70 before you use your 120 boost correct? If that's the case I think I'm going to boost my Lightforged Dranei Paladin. Are paladins pretty good tanks in BfA?

I boosted a Horde pally and was able to jump right in. The only reason to play through the old content is if you haven’t seen it before or want the heritage armor.

Unless you also want heritage armor which you can’t get from a boosted char right?

Not that there's a ton going on at GWJ-Alliance these days but ... when Hurricane Michael went racing through NC, it took my electricity with it. Even after I get the lights back, there's no telling if the internet will work. So if there's any guild biz to be done, hit me up here.

Enix wrote:

Not that there's a ton going on at GWJ-Alliance these days but ... when Hurricane Michael went racing through NC, it took my electricity with it. Even after I get the lights back, there's no telling if the internet will work. So if there's any guild biz to be done, hit me up here.

Were you able to get on? I thought I saw you last night but maybe it was my imagination.

Sydhart wrote:
Enix wrote:

Not that there's a ton going on at GWJ-Alliance these days but ... when Hurricane Michael went racing through NC, it took my electricity with it. Even after I get the lights back, there's no telling if the internet will work. So if there's any guild biz to be done, hit me up here.

Were you able to get on? I thought I saw you last night but maybe it was my imagination.

Nope. I got back on Sunday night. Thank the light that the internet worked. Lots of folks here have power (finally) but no cable or internet. Hurricanes suck, and we got just the tropical storm remnants of it here, so my complaints are mild in the face of what a lot of other folks are dealing with.

I did my first invasion last night and ... it was fun! I went as a healer, so I felt like I was contributing (especially when the group I was tagging along with pulled two bosses close to the Horde keep).

The beauty of waiting so long to do this stuff is that most everyone else knows what to do already. I have no idea what I was supposed to be doing. I went in a cave, killed some things, gathered some rocks (but had no real clue what to do with 'em), picked up a quest, turned it in, then found some folks to heal. I think there were objectives to capture, but it seemed like other people were grabbing those.

The whole exercise felt like a larger version of the garrison invasions back in Draenor. Anyone else get the same vibe?

There's a lot of hate on them right no, but I don't really mind them. It's a decently fun time waster that I don't have to do more than once (but can do more if I feel like it) very two weeks.

I only sub at the moment, as I decided to level a new toon all the way to level 110.

Surprise, received a free trial to BoA, nice !

The Warfront(s) feel more like a WC3 simulator in WoW with easy AI. The fun/uniqueness wears off pretty quick and the rewards are not worth much since the requirement to get in them is so ilvl high. From what I have seen of 8.1 I lost all my desire to play and un-subbed. I do not like the direction the story of BfA

Spoiler:

Saurfang feels like re-hashed Pandaria story

is going which was the last interesting piece of the game. All the things in BfA have been a huge fail. Azureite armor, Warfronts, Islands, class GCDs and the story all fail. I had fun leveling the first 4 weeks then there was nothing drawing me in.

This rant, a little long, but sums up BfA for me pretty well.

Is this 8.1 on the Public Test Server?

Yeah they are currently testing The new raid and Darkshore Warfront among other things. It has been in test for 2 weeks about.

I wish I could listen to Asmongold without hearing "I am so smart, S-M-R-T" so I could actually listen to some of his points, but getting even halfway through that video, he's still such a f*cking asshole who relies way too much on hyperbole.

Peak idiot moments:
'You can just completely change the system, you're God.' - guy who has zero idea about iteration, game design, time management apparently.
'Don't worry, I went back and retook that class I failed and quit on and aced it.' - Can't have a story that doesn't end with how awesome I am.

Actual good point:
'Missing working progression system.' Yup, I miss having badges or whatever to actually be able to accumulate and account for sh*t luck. So far for raids I haven't gotten a single piece of azerite gear or weapon or trinkets, and my DPS and HPS depending on the fight shows that pretty hecking clearly. :\

Yeh I find him hard to listen to as well, similar reasoning.

Many people seem to hang on his every word - that's fine, I'm sure he makes plenty of good points. Just not for me thanks

I tend to be out of the loop on youtube 'celebrities', only heard about that guy around when BfA released. He seems super annoying.
Attacking BfA is pretty easy right now though. You pretty much cant be wrong, no matter which part of the game you choose to hit at

The Uldir raid has been pretty darn good. Normal took us a bit of effort, but we got to see the whole thing in a timely manner. Now Heroic is proving to be an enjoyable challenge. And item progression has slowed just enough that I actually unlocked a new tier on a piece of armor last night. That actually felt pretty good, and supports my hypothesis that the problems with Azerite are mostly about balancing the numbers.

Demosthenes wrote:

I wish I could listen to Asmongold without hearing "I am so smart, S-M-R-T" so I could actually listen to some of his points, but getting even halfway through that video, he's still such a f*cking asshole who relies way too much on hyperbole.

Peak idiot moments:
'You can just completely change the system, you're God.' - guy who has zero idea about iteration, game design, time management apparently.
'Don't worry, I went back and retook that class I failed and quit on and aced it.' - Can't have a story that doesn't end with how awesome I am.

Actual good point:
'Missing working progression system.' Yup, I miss having badges or whatever to actually be able to accumulate and account for sh*t luck. So far for raids I haven't gotten a single piece of azerite gear or weapon or trinkets, and my DPS and HPS depending on the fight shows that pretty hecking clearly. :\

As I understand it, he’s a pretty notorious troll / dirtbag.

And NOTHING he is saying is new, original, or unique to him.

He’s whole “I said 12 years ago that WoW is a Skinner Box and people said I was crazy” as though he came up with that is such sh*t. About a billion other people said the same thing during vanilla beta.

And I’m pretty sure people said the same thing about other similar games.

He does raise valid points about BfA, but again, pretty low hanging fruit.

Reaper81 wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

I wish I could listen to Asmongold without hearing "I am so smart, S-M-R-T" so I could actually listen to some of his points, but getting even halfway through that video, he's still such a f*cking asshole who relies way too much on hyperbole.

Peak idiot moments:
'You can just completely change the system, you're God.' - guy who has zero idea about iteration, game design, time management apparently.
'Don't worry, I went back and retook that class I failed and quit on and aced it.' - Can't have a story that doesn't end with how awesome I am.

Actual good point:
'Missing working progression system.' Yup, I miss having badges or whatever to actually be able to accumulate and account for sh*t luck. So far for raids I haven't gotten a single piece of azerite gear or weapon or trinkets, and my DPS and HPS depending on the fight shows that pretty hecking clearly. :\

As I understand it, he’s a pretty notorious troll / dirtbag.

And NOTHING he is saying is new, original, or unique to him.

He’s whole “I said 12 years ago that WoW is a Skinner Box and people said I was crazy” as though he came up with that is such sh*t. About a billion other people said the same thing during vanilla beta.

And I’m pretty sure people said the same thing about other similar games.

He does raise valid points about BfA, but again, pretty low hanging fruit. :-)

Good portion of his stream is basically dedicated now to "reactions" to basically every other streamer/YouTuber's videos... mostly him trying to prove how he's smarter than them.

Makes the clip of him failing the Mage Tower for Fury so many times extra fun to watch though, especially when you see fairly obvious failure states that he just doesn't see and keeps repeating (charging through Agatha's green pools of fire being a common one, so often during the phase switch, he'd charge back to her through 2+ pools and take about a quarter of his health off and die).

Back to Azerite though... looks like Blizzard has figured out the rarity and lack of progressive path towards victory towards that armor is being addressed with 8.1, where our favorite Ethereal is coming back to let you buy either a cache with a random piece at a certain ilevel (each tier being more expensive) or seek specific pieces for more currency (as of yet unnamed).

Thank the Titans.

The circle of WoW development can be cruel

I just cancelled my WoW account. I realized it wasn't worth paying $15 a month to login, do emissary quests, and logoff. I wish the game held my interest more but unfortunately it's just not for me. I really miss the artifact weapon. The azurite stuff is just so bland.

On a brighter note, I did buy a WoW token to add $15 to my WoW account and donated the rest to the guild I'm in so they made out pretty well

So it sounds like Horde players will have some choices to make in how they handle the story in 8.1. This sounds intriguing enough for me to continue subscribing, even if my Horde Belf is only 114.

Link to polygon story.

Also curious to hear if Alliance is also getting a choice or if we will continue to get the short stick in terms of BFA story.

The choice is not an impactful game decision, it is there for the crying Sylvanas fanbois . It will by no way matter in the story. The Horde revolution 2.0 will still happen, probably, no matter your choice. The choice is only a character role play choice, so you do it both ways on 2 characters if you want a toy reward.

Pointless choices can still feel good.
Please give me a choice between stabbing Sylvanas in the back 1 time or 10 + burn her alive (or undead, whatever).
Though I guess I dont really need the first one.

Well, I'm going to be switching to mainly playing Horde because Alliance can't seem to win random BG's hardly at all. Currently, my Alliance Demon Hunter is around a 31% win ratio while my Horde Rogue is sitting around a 72% overall win ratio (91% in the new BG). This is from keeping stats for the last 3 weeks. Even Alterac Valley, which used to be dominated by Alliance, I've won more on horde now than Alliance. It's painful to even try to farm 10 tokens on my Alliance.

Sydhart wrote:

Well, I'm going to be switching to mainly playing Horde because Alliance can't seem to win random BG's hardly at all. Currently, my Alliance Demon Hunter is around a 31% win ratio while my Horde Rogue is sitting around a 72% overall win ratio (91% in the new BG). This is from keeping stats for the last 3 weeks. Even Alterac Valley, which used to be dominated by Alliance, I've won more on horde now than Alliance. It's painful to even try to farm 10 tokens on my Alliance.

I used to think it was an Alliance thing until I rolled Horde and lost BGs there, too. And then I realized it was probably me.

A relevant diversion from Loading Ready Run:

Put me down as somebody who isn't particularly interested in Classic. I do like that it's going to exist though, just as a gaming history preservation thing. I have a moderate interest in the old raids, but not enough to level again the old way.

Still playing. Still having a good time. I hadn't played the game since Burning Crusade. So I have a ton of content to go through.