WoW: Battle for Azeroth (8.3)

Enix wrote:

8.2 comes out June 25. At the link, there's a 2-minute video on the features in the new patch.

Here's the Wowhead roundup of key features.

This is a big one. Buckle up.

Aww blizzard, that's the best birthday week present!

The grind is real my friends.

Nazjatar feels like an appropriate challenge at ilvl 400. Get ready to be bombarded by all kinds of activities.

Also, Mechagon is kind of a strange rep grind. There is only like one world quest a day for 850ish rep (plus tough pet battles) so if you value flying as fast as possible, you'll want to log in daily.

Edit: world quest per day. There are several daily quests around the island.

I am confused about the heart of azeroth changes.
Have they completely scrapped the old system?

fangblackbone wrote:

I am confused about the heart of azeroth changes.
Have they completely scrapped the old system?

Nope. They're adding to it, sort of like they did with the Netherlight Crucible at the end of Legion.

Now that 8.2 is out, you can level your neck piece again. (It was stuck at 50 for a while; slackers get theirs boosted to 35, and AP requirements to level have been nerfed to the ground.) You get essences as you do stuff in WoW -- rep, quests, raids, dungeons, BGs, etc. -- and you unlock essence slots as you level the neck piece. Essences have ranks that you unlock by doing stuff.

There's a bread crumb quest line to unlock essences when you step into Nazjatar. Follow that, then start killing stuff like you always do.

The Wowhead writeup looks pretty good. The one thing I'm not clear on (but Reap probably knows) is how the essences change or not when you swap specs.

Enix wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:

I am confused about the heart of azeroth changes.
Have they completely scrapped the old system?

Nope. They're adding to it, sort of like they did with the Netherlight Crucible at the end of Legion.

Now that 8.2 is out, you can level your neck piece again. (It was stuck at 50 for a while; slackers get theirs boosted to 35, and AP requirements to level have been nerfed to the ground.) You get essences as you do stuff in WoW -- rep, quests, raids, dungeons, BGs, etc. -- and you unlock essence slots as you level the neck piece. Essences have ranks that you unlock by doing stuff.

There's a bread crumb quest line to unlock essences when you step into Nazjatar. Follow that, then start killing stuff like you always do.

The Wowhead writeup looks pretty good. The one thing I'm not clear on (but Reap probably knows) is how the essences change or not when you swap specs.

I think it stays active in the slot but only functions if you are in the essence's designated role.

Reaper81 wrote:
Enix wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:

I am confused about the heart of azeroth changes.
Have they completely scrapped the old system?

Nope. They're adding to it, sort of like they did with the Netherlight Crucible at the end of Legion.

Now that 8.2 is out, you can level your neck piece again. (It was stuck at 50 for a while; slackers get theirs boosted to 35, and AP requirements to level have been nerfed to the ground.) You get essences as you do stuff in WoW -- rep, quests, raids, dungeons, BGs, etc. -- and you unlock essence slots as you level the neck piece. Essences have ranks that you unlock by doing stuff.

There's a bread crumb quest line to unlock essences when you step into Nazjatar. Follow that, then start killing stuff like you always do.

The Wowhead writeup looks pretty good. The one thing I'm not clear on (but Reap probably knows) is how the essences change or not when you swap specs.

I think it stays active in the slot but only functions if you are in the essence's designated role.

You flying yet? I'm staying far, far away until the crowd dies down.

I think it's gonna be a bit before most people are flying. Unless i'm missing something there's a limit to how much rep you can get per day (there's no rep grind-able mobs for example)

The zones really favor discovery and exploration. I try to prioritize the WQs and dailies and then do the storyline / requisition missions.

I am up to honored in both. It will probably be about three weeks total. Darkmoon Faire next week will help.

The Ashes of Al'ar mount dropped for me tonight! I've only been farming it for seven years.

Nice. That's the one from Tempest Keep, right?

ruhk wrote:

The Ashes of Al'ar mount dropped for me tonight! I've only been farming it for seven years. :P

Gratz. I farmed for that thing for forever and finally gave up this expansion.

Sydhart wrote:
ruhk wrote:

The Ashes of Al'ar mount dropped for me tonight! I've only been farming it for seven years. :P

Gratz. I farmed for that thing for forever and finally gave up this expansion.

Same! Big congrats on that one.

I did get the bear ground mount this weekend from Darkshore WQ. That made me quite happy as black bears hold great personal significance.

Edit: I got flying shortly after the reset. I had a toon parked in Icecrown for a LONG time trying to camp unborn valkyr battle pet spawns and I finally got one. First one I ever saw, I caught.

Not joking, I had a near-panic attack.

Reaper81 wrote:

Edit: I got flying shortly after the reset. I had a toon parked in Icecrown for a LONG time trying to camp unborn valkyr battle pet spawns and I finally got one. First one I ever saw, I caught.

Not joking, I had a near-panic attack.

Grats! That one was a PITA to get.

If you're still on Blackhand and in the need of specific battle pets, hit me up. I've got a bunch stored in the guild bank and on one of my banking toons.

@ Ruhk: Grats on the mount! RNG that goes in your favor is immensely satisfying.

If you are looking to catch an Unbork Valkyr, it looks like they've expanded on where they spawn. It used to be only at a couple of spots in Icecrown, and Storm Peaks, but now they're in a lot more places, like Crystalsong forest. I caught one just the other day down at the western side of the western most purple patch. It took less than a minute to find one.

Take a look at https://www.wowhead.com/npc=71163/un... for more maps of where to find them.

Hypothetically, let's say I haven't ventured into the new 8.2 worlds.

If I play a couple of hours each night, how long do you think it would take to knock out all the rep requirements for flying in BfA?

Hypothetically speaking, that is.

About 2 weeks I would say. The two areas can be done relatively fast, should be able to finish both in that time each day. Assuming you only need the two new reps that is.
One quest in Mechagon gives ½ the daily rep from Mechagon, so that should be highest priority. A zone-wide daily; stuff like kill 3 rares, open 6 chests etc. Also try to kill as many as the rares there as you can, as they each give rep the first time you encounter them.
Nazjatar is more small rep from each quest, and then once in a while getting lucky with Nazjatar being the Emissary daily quest.

Pet battling 1-time quests help both a great deal.

Shadout wrote:

About 2 weeks I would say.

Thanks!

I went out of town right about the time 8.2 dropped and took my sweet time logging back into WoW. Who knew Skyrim was so fun?

Reaper81 wrote:

Pet battling 1-time quests help both a great deal.

Ah, yeah, forgot about them despite having spent way too much time on pet battles

It took me about 2 weeks, spending 2 hours or so doing the daily quests about 6 days a week

Reaper81 wrote:

Pet battling 1-time quests help both a great deal.

how tricky is it to put togther a team that can reliably beat the elite pets? is there still a way to boost lvl1 pets up to max?

List of pet battles that gives decent xp - they are only up on specific days.
https://www.wow-petguide.com/index.p...

Most of the battles in Nazjatar and Mecahgon are quite straightforward. I use two pets that have swarm-type abilities as my standard group right now.
Like https://www.warcraftpets.com/wow-pet... , Black claw + Flock + another pet if/when Ikky dies is enough for most of them. But there are a few battles where you need more focused set ups.

thrawn82 wrote:

how tricky is it to put togther a team that can reliably beat the elite pets? is there still a way to boost lvl1 pets up to max?

*cracks knuckles*

Short answer, yes.

Long answer ... is longer.

You want the purple stone (i.e. the Ultimate Battle-Training Stone). That'll boost any pet to level 25. The blue stone (aka the Marked Flawless Battle Stone) will convert any pet to rare quality, which gives that pet better stats (like gear).

You can get both types of stones via doing a lot of pet stuff across multiple expansions. If you want to stay in the current BfA expansion, both stones are sold at vendors for Polished Pet Charms - 15 for blue, 60 for purple. You can get the Polished Pet Charms by doing pet battles out as BfA WQs or in quests at your war table. You can get, oh, 50 or so on a good day on one toon depending on what's up.

I haven't done any of the 8.2 pet battles, but the Wowhead guide for Naz seems pretty straightforward and actually easy if you have the pets. Getting those main six, however, could take some work. There seem to be some work-around strats that use easier-to-acquire pets. Or you could suss out your own. I'd also check Warcraftpets.com for alternate strats with more common pets.

If you're going to do lots of pet battles, Ikky, Unborn Valkyr and the Zandalari biters are must-haves.

If you can manage to combine the needed pets for one of the farmable pet battles that gives good xp, you can lvl up a pet from 1 to 25 in like 5-10 minutes (depending on available XP buffs). I believe that is more efficient than buying the lvling stones.
Not sure if the pets really have to be epic quality to do the nazj/mechagon pet battles, I doubt it. For the levelling strategies they probably do, those tend to be quite min-maxed, to allow one of the pets to be lvl 1.

Thank you Shadout and Enix! That was exactly the info i was looking/hoping for

Echoing what most folks said, two weeks or so and the pet battles helped a lot.

If you have the cash, you can buy already leveled pets on the AH.

If you are looking at pets, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of the pets Enix mentioned above: "... Ikky, Unborn Valkyr and the Zandalari biters are must-haves."

Thanks entirely to you guys advice and linkys i managed to snag an unborn valkyr, a zandalari kneebiter, realized i already had Ikky, and spent my cache of token getting all those up to epic and level 25, and then i won my first Nazjatar elite pet battle.

Patch 8.2.5 is in the pipeline. It's a very minor patch and, based on my reading between the lines (and commentary at other sites) it won't come out until November-ish.* That means 8.3 is a ways off.

* Which could mean sometime in October. Who knows?

This seems exceptionally minor to wait all the way until november for it. It has to either be coming earlier, or there's more to it that they aren't talking about yet.

also hooray bee mount! I hope it's not as exclusionary or the brain tentacle mount

Are they really making the bee mount alliance only? From what I have gathered that has been the most anticipated mount in all of BFA since it was first shown. I am sure that will go over well.

I would assume there is more war campaign stuff in the patch too, and balance changes. The list seems focused on new stuff. Party sync sounds like a quite big new feature.

I would expect it to arrive before november though. October probably. If nothing else, it has to be released before the 15th anniversary thing begins.