World of Warcraft - Battle for Azeroth
Hello everyone, Battle for Azeroth is finally amongst us! Thus far into the expansion people are enjoying it very much! Although it is still very early into the expansion and it might be too soon to make any judgements people are liking the changes that were made overall.
Today we are going to discuss the general public's opinion this far into the expansion based off pre-patch knowledge, beta knowledge and the current days of the expansions release. We will also discuss some major and minor changes made to the game, that are generally important and you should be made aware of. Also be running through the best ways that I and many others have personally found to actually work.
Pre-raid Gearing and Leveling Up
Alright let’s get into the topic of the most effective methods for leveling and gearing up this far into the expansion, and we will also assess a daily and weekly checklist.
Here are all of the things you want to achieve in a day before you do anything else, just to assure you are doing the most effective things.
-- World Quests, Daily Heroic Dungeon, Mission Table and Alchemy Transmutes.
Assuming you can achieve all of those things above each day, that will guarantee you the best results for receiving the most optimal gear for any given specialization and class. Next let’s make sure you do these things on a weekly bases.
-- Island Expeditions and Mythic Dungeons.
Here is some advice I have for you when completing any of these things above to also make sure you are not just completing these things, but also getting the most out of them. Whenever you’re doing World Quests make sure you have a Contract up at all times for the reputation of your choice. Complete Champions of Azeroth World Quests as they are the rarest. They are arguably the most important faction as they provide a piece 355 Azerite Armor at Exalted and bonus item levels on your Heart of Azeroth at each reputation breakpoint. You also need to make sure you complete World Quests on the opposite faction’s continent for Honorbound or 7th Legion reputation to unlock the full war campaign (Alliance or Horde) and a new Dungeon. Complete your Emissaries before they expire, unlike in Legion you will know exactly the reward you are getting, which even could be a piece of Azerite Armor.
The Daily Heroic Dungeon part of the checklist is arguably one of the most important, you will receive 300 Azerite (which turns into artifact power) daily for you Heart of Azeroth. These first few weeks, you will be wanting to get your Heart of Azeroth to at least level 18 to unlock the outer ring of Azerite Armor. You’ll need a minimum of Item Level 305 required to queue for a random Heroic.
You should check in with your Mission Table at least once a day to see what rewards it is offering. It could be rewarding bonus Artifact Power or even bonus reputation with certain factions.
Island Expeditions are the best source of Artifact Power, especially due to the weekly quest Azerite for the Horde or Azerite for the Alliance which awards an insane amount of 2,500 Azerite. You’ll need to collect 40 thousand Azerite in Island Expeditions which will take at least 5 Islands every week.
-- Normal Expedition caps at 6k Azerite, Heroic Expedition caps at 9k Azerite, Mythic Expedition caps at 12k Azerite.
Mythic Dungeons will unlock with each region’s weekly reset. Make sure to complete each dungeon once every week for potential upgrades and Hydrocores, a BoP Crafting Material. One dungeon will need to be unlocked by the Alliance / Horde War Campaign. You may not be able to complete this dungeon in the first week, but make sure to do it in future weeks!
Thoughts and Opinions
Firstly let’s talk about the stat squish. Prior to the pre-patch we were seeing unheard of item levels, on items throughout Legion. In which we have never experienced in World of Warcraft before. The general population ranged anywhere from 940 ilvl - 980 ilvl during Legion. Which in most people's opinions was totally ludacris, because these crazy outlandish numbers and stats in gear were also causing unseen dps and healing meters. Good players on average were pulling anywhere from two million damage upwards to three million damage, which is the highest damage from us we have ever seen in World of Warcraft. All this being said, Blizzard felt it was necessary to take action and completely obliterate our item levels and bring us back down near the 300’s and probably ranging near the 450’s-600’s closer to the end of the expansion (which is very far away). They felt this was a necessary change due to the fact that damage dealt, healing done and damage received were not quick and easy to read at a single glance. An example they used was, we feel it is much easier to read 4,000 (4k) damage, versus 348,839 (348k). Now I and many other people can agree and take Blizzards side here, however this drastic of a change in the game that maybe some of the new players in which this is their first expansion and don’t understand how dramatically the game usually changes with each new expansion to come it can be pretty confusing. When they are used to seeing themselves doing two million damage, dropping all the way down to twenty thousand damage, it can be quite the buzz kill. Not only is it exciting to see these huge numbers when damaging bosses and other mobs, it just flat out feels good.
Most everything in World of Warcraft revolved around gear, and your current gear equipped. When a dramatic change such as going from 970 item level to 280 item level it affects everything else in the game. It changes your health, the stats of the items, the rarity of certain items, the health of bosses & other creatures alike, and honestly much more.
Due to all of these things being said, there was huge backlash from the community at the beginning of the pre-patch and still to this day of the new expansion. Because it made people feel their efforts were for nothing, and not only that, but to be dealing significantly less damage (in the eyes of numbers). Because of-course everything is scaled down, you technically are not actually doing less damage so it is rather hearsay. Which was causing a ton of people wanting refunds and unsubbing, nearly fifty percent of pre-ordered customers were demanding and shouting these things on the World of Warcraft forums.
Now to be quite frank, these requests and claims are very outrageous, for any veteran players, we understand that these changes are often dramatic and generally not permanent with new expansions. Now getting into the topic of Blizzard actually listening to its players on recommended ideas, is not a very good idea, BUT for the most part when a new expansion is released and there is a blatantly obvious error on their end in a game change that the whole community can see and point out, including streamers, youtubers and the mass population on the forums, they are fairly quick to accommodate to our liking, or simply make a compromised change.
Thank you all for taking the time to read this article, and I hope to see you all in the next one, good luck out there and best of luck on gearing and leveling up!
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