The Bench Podcast

All right, welcome back to episode 55 of the bench. And tomorrow, Squishy's got a deadline for me. He said that I have to be done with a tier list ranking all the DPS in Mythic Plus. But I believe that Blizzard's not done doing class tuning. Discuss, Squishy. Well, people want to see a tier list, and you're the one you're the you're you're the best one for the job, surely. Right. >> I If I'm the best one for the job, we got to get more people on the job. my fear. What's up, Growl? How's your week been, buddy? >> Uh, it's been chill. It's been chill. I've been uh dabbling into Submissive Pandaria Classic, leveling up my guy, and learning the different mage specs, and just kind of chilling. >> I've been I've been I spent a lot of time on PTR, and I'm kind of getting burned out of it like I always do. So, now I'm kind of like taking a break and chilling. >> I saw an interesting tweet by JB and with the launch of Mr. Pandaria Classic. I've actually seen this discussion point brought up more and more where people are talking about, you know, talent trees related to Mr. Pandaria versus retail. And JB tweeted out, he said, "I admit I thought the D dragonfly talent tree revamp was cool. I was a big fan of all the choices, but I was wrong. It's too much for the devs. I can't even blame laziness or understaffing. A thousand people couldn't balance this now, especially with the hero trees. Scale it way back, keep it manageable." As somebody who's playing Mop Classic right now, what are your kind of thoughts on the talent trees? Has it actually changed your opinion on this kind of thing? Where where are you kind of landing on this stuff? >> Oh jeez. I Yeah, >> I feel so commonly asked nowadays now that more people are exposed to it with mod. >> We're starting off the yapping hard. We're one minute into the episode and it's already time for a growl filibuster. >> Oh gosh, where do I start? So, first of all, I think it's funny talking about this off of the back of what I think is was one of the most balanced seasons of all time in terms of Mythic Plus and Raid. Not that Blizzard couldn't do a better job, not that there weren't some specs neglected. I would say the balance last season was incredible. Um, I think the dragonfly talent trees are great for leveling. I think it's cool to like constantly make your guy power up. Um, I actually like the mop talent trees in terms of simplicity and explaining things and like just the choices that you have. like a lot of the choices are so much more clear and you kind of like I don't know you open up your talent tree and you make decisions off of like oh do I want cauterize which is a cheat death or do I want ice barrier which is like a shield you know that'll get more value and help more against rot fights you know like whereas nowadays it just feels like everybody has everything so in that regard I I do like the mop talent trees better or all the way up until BFA right like that was the era for that talent Right. And I do kind of like those better just cuz the choices like the tradeoffs are much more clear. Like everybody knows, everybody hates this trade-off, right? Where you have to decide, do I bring group utility or do I get 4% more damage and it's like your group, everyone in your group wants you to bring the freaking stun or the whatever it is, the soothe or whatever, right? But you're just like, and then it leads to, you know, it it leads to like this weird scenario where like you want everyone else in your group to bring utility and then you bring damage and I don't know, like that's it's an interesting trade-off, I think, when it comes to like solo content and more casual content. But when you get into like especially pug highlevel group content or like even like mid-level stuff like, you know, heroic raids or like twelves, it becomes very very frustrating to make those choices and trade-offs. >> I mean, do you actually think that there are choices being made right now? because I feel like that's one of the more interesting things. Like I feel like whenever the dragonfly talent tree revamp started, there actually was a decent amount of choices, but not for every single spec in every single class. And then whenever some had the choice, some had choices that they had to make and some didn't, people got very mad about it how it could have felt. >> No. Yeah. Choices. It also I think it it's definitely um leading to the point of there's too many choices to the point where like you feel like you don't even understand your own tree enough. And it's like you know like looking at certain DPS specs like you have so many modifiers and things that overlap on other things and buff other things. And it's like it's really really hard to theory craft unless you just don't really care about the results and you're just having fun like to try and come up with the best build. Like you literally just need to run Sims, right? Like how do you even understand any of these things on the tree and these trade-offs these nodes make, you know? >> Yeah. Uh for for me, like it's funny cuz I posted a screenshot. I was talking about this last week where I just said these tele are literally just the mop ones but more confusing because realistically like I I play a couple specs. I I pretty much just net deck or just copy the class talent tree or the spec talent tree. I don't think I touch those at ever like on any spec. But for the like the the general tree, the the class tree, yeah, there's some probably some utility stuff that I change around every so often. Like at a vocer, do you want the bleed dispel? Do you want a little more healing? Do you want deep breath stun? Like there's some choices that can be done there. And I and that's generally the case for a lot of specs as well. But the spec tree, I don't think many people do anything with that anymore. It's like choose how you want to do your damage, but that is a solved equation. >> Yeah. >> It's like if you were if you play any like card game, you you usually copy like the 80% or 90% of the deck that is fundamental to your deck and then they have a sideboard where it's like pick five of these 10 cards based on what you want. And that's like what I feel like these talent trees are and they could probably be reduced down to what is essentially utility options >> five points that you're making decisions on. >> Exactly right. Like you could break it down into just the mop tree. The thing and again I don't I I'm just dabbling into it. Like I'm not super knowledgeable about mop, but a lot of the decisions that you make in the talent tree feel like really really intentional. Like okay, here's a line that a mage has. Every mage and mop will know this. There's a line with living bomb. One of the living bombs is really good on single target, but it's not good on AoE. The next living bomb is good on cleave. It's good like you it it bounces around a little bit like a chain lightning. And then one of them is like an uncapped AoE bomb that s like pretty much sucks on single target but is really good if you're like mass pulling, right? That's it. Like that's the choice, right? Any you could literally be playing mage for 20 minutes and you could open that up and understand the choice that you're making and decide how you want to play as a mage. Whereas like that's not really how the current trees are. Like you can fixate on certain little choices or if you're super knowledgeable, you can make those choices, but for the most part, you're like, "Okay, what's my M plus build?" And then you just load up the M plus build from Wowhead or your favorite streamer or whoever linked it to you in your guild, right? And then that's it. And you you like hardly even look at it or pay attention to it. It just like the mage community right now when it comes to arcane is literally like just waiting around in the discord for the whoever the blessed mage theory crafter is to drop the new mage build and then everyone just click copy click paste go into ptr and run it and it's like I don't really know if that's how talent trees are supposed to feel right like it's supposed to feel like oh like what choices do I want to make? How does my how do I want my character to feel? Not like did you search on the internet and find the best build? >> I I was talk it's so funny. I was talking my stream about exactly this today. I I brought up the fact that I felt like stats felt very similar to how you're also describing talents where in the past and I and I understand why they changed this. So I thought that stats were actually more interesting in the past. Remember there was more opportunities to do unique things with your stats where like in Legion, you know, Fire Mage wanted 34% crit because there was a crit break point that they wanted to hit. You know, holy paladin won a 51% crit because there was a crit break point that wanted to hit. Uh, shadow priest and moon both had, you know, surrender demand as his haste break points for third void torrent. Moonkin had one with the legendary where there was haste break points on like being able to generate enough resources within time period to be able to spend fast enough. Those things have largely gone away because Blizzard has deemed it to be too complicated for most players, which it's kind of I mean it's not they're not wrong whenever they're saying stuff like that, but also to me in my opinion all stats kind of feel the same. Like I don't I don't notice a difference between mastery or versatility or haste. I feel like to me haste is the only effect that actually does anything. It's for some specs it's it's cool down reduction and cast speed reduction. So it feels a little bit different. But more often than not I feel like most stats if I'm playing with 50% crit or 20% crit I wouldn't really notice the difference. It's just kind of like this number that's made up that my my you know simulation craft has told me that I need. There's, you know, and there's stat DR penalties, but you don't interact with stat DR penalties. You just get less stats after a certain point. It's like an invisible thing that you don't ever really think of. It's just some madeup number that happens on a spreadsheet that, you know, again, the Sims tell you not to go above that, but like I didn't. >> Yeah. What do they For some reason For some reason, the word is failing me. What do they call it in bowling where you put Is it bumpers where you like put them in the gutters so like you can't miss? >> Bumpers. That's what that's what the stats feel like currently is like, >> okay, they just want you to be able to equip anything and use anything and it's not that bad, right? Like you'll see small differences, but I I don't even I don't know. See, I dis I disagree with them saying that stats were complicated. Like even looking back at I just feel like stats were much more intentional. So like I'm sorry for continuously using mage mop examples, but my knowledge base is limited of previous WoW. So, fire mage like loves crit. It just wants so much crit. If your piece doesn't have crit, it sucks, right? And it's like to me that's not that complicated, right? Like, you know, okay, every time you get a piece and you get a bunch of crit, it makes your gameplay feel a little better and you feel good when you get a piece of high crit. Like, you know, okay, sometimes you might get a piece of loot that's doesn't have crit on it and it's like, oh, that's kind of a bummer. But it's like, I don't know. It's not really complicated or convoluted, you know? It's just like I feel like stats nowadays are so much more like they just want every piece to be good for everybody and you just if you can equip it, you just put it on and that's it. >> So, so to me, the reason that at least in my opinion, the the you know, the stats are too complicated argument fails is because people who are going to be willing to sim their character were already a more hardcore version of the player base. The people who aren't willing to send their character don't care about stats anyways. they're just going to equip whatever items the highest item level anyways. And that's not even a bad thing. That's there's no problem with doing that either. I think that if you start to believe that there's a problem with just blanket equipping the highest item level piece without thinking about the ramifications of secondary stats, yeah, maybe there's a problem. But I think that like once you really start to get into the minutia of it and like want things like stat break points, like sure, it is a a little bit more of a complicated game. But at least it in my opinion hopefully it would make stats feel better than where they currently stand where it's like yeah I mean I guess I got a lot of mastery doesn't really do anything. It just makes me makes me do a little bit more damage whenever I have mobs dotted like cool >> stats I think are more easier to understand than talents in my opinion. like talents. There's the like sometimes when you have too much choice, it actually prevents choice because you're just like, "Oh my god, like I have so many like you know there's that meme of like the guy who opens the POE skill tree for the first time and like looks at the skill tree." It was just a massive like I don't even know how many nodes, but like that is what I I almost think the Wow talent tree has turned into. But like stats, it's like well do I want to attack faster? Do I want to do more damage? Do I want to also do more damage? Or do I want to crit more? Like those are pretty self-explanatory in my mind. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I just don't think I just agree. Like I just think stats are like it makes sense. Like I don't think break points necessarily are that complicated. And like Squishy said, if you're somebody who just >> literally cares so little that I'm not okay for like I'm not even going to look up what the hit breakpoint I need is for 100% hit. Like okay then who cares, right? Then it doesn't you know why? If anything, I think the current system actually makes it harder for somebody who's like the average player, right? Who maybe doesn't want to run a bunch of like I would assume the average person who plays WoW is this, right? You care about your damage. Like you want to look up, okay, would I need like this much crit or is there a break point, but you're not going to like sim every single iteration and look at every single talent, right? Like you know what trinkets to get and what stats your character generally wants, but you're not like crazy in the weeds, right? And I feel like the current system is worse, right? Whereas the old system, I mean, it's an RPG, right? Like, at some point there should be some, okay, you're using your brain and looking at your stats. And that's kind of why the talent system annoys me is because I feel like the talent system is too complicated. So, you can't really do that, right? Like, you can't really use your brain in the new in the current dragon play talent system. You can in like some iterations, right? Like sometimes there's like, oh, do I need this spell in this dungeon, right? But when it comes to like your barrage does 20% extra damage to the nearest four targets versus you know this other it's like how do you even know you know with all these modifiers and stuff. So I think like to me I guess the more like we always we were talking about weak auras and like not using add-ons and just sort of like playing natty, right? To me this is like playing natty, right? design like deciding what to do with your character should be as natty as possible and you just like use your brain and figure it out and you should be able to get good results. >> I will say that you know if if you made stats a little bit more complicated it would be harder to play play natty but it's not like I mean if you care enough you're already simming your character as is. It's not like that I think that there just kind of reaches a threshold like like you kind of talked about you talked about the natty player that was me playing Augoker in season one. I wasn't simming my [ __ ] And I was just like, "Yeah, you know what? It's got mastery on it. It looks good enough." >> That's every player except for like two of them. >> I I think so. Like if I had to redo talent trees, I I don't like the aspect of it's like I want this talent, but in order to get this talent, it needs to be a connected node. >> Yeah. >> But this connected node kind of sucks. And it's like, well, do I take this better node that's connected to this other node that's like slightly worse, but maybe he's better overall or not? Like if I were to do talent trees again, I would just have like a bucket of the talents and you could just take like X number out of the bucket. >> Dude, to me there's just so many of these stupid filler talents, too. I I guess filler is probably the only way of describing them. It's like >> 2% moodfire damage. >> Exactly. Perfect example. It's like, yeah, you get the DK one that we looked at a couple weeks ago that we thought might be a raid buff, the 2% haste one. How is that a [ __ ] node? Like, are we serious? Like, it's just they passively just have 2% more haste. Do we need that node like anywhere? Like no. >> Yeah. >> And before it turns to like a rogue like talent trees I think belong in like a rog like type game where as you slowly progress you start to unlock more and more things like then then the then the the percentage points start to build up. You feel more powerful throughout your run and stuff like that. It just it just feels odd in WoW now cuz >> that is level that's not where to go. Retail leveling is not the game anymore. Retail is all about the endgame. >> So like does the leveling experience of talent trees actually matter in the long term? And that's going to be a controversial question no matter who you ask. >> I I mean I think that's a that's a question for like Blizzard almost to answer, right? It kind of depends on how many people are interacting with the the in like with endgame versus leveling. I think if you have, you know, a large portion of your player base beyond the scope of, you know, I leveled my characters up from 80 to 90 or whatever the hell or 70 to 80 is if if you're interacting with leveling beyond that scope, yeah, I think that for Blizzard, it's probably of kind of utmost importance for them to maintain some level of leveling cohesion. But at the same time, I I don't know. Oh, I just don't something about it just doesn't seem like a lot of people are out here just leveling as their main source of content in current retail. >> Yeah, I agree. I think that Blizzard a long time ago sort of I mean I think the content in WoW was like not necessarily leveling but like gearing up for the raid, right? Like gearing up for the raid and then doing the raid. Like that's sort of the content and Blizzard has pushed that almost entirely away from leveling, right? Like you don't even care about your gear really when you level. like you just most people just try to level as fast as possible. I think even the more casual community. And then it's like, okay, once you're max level, that's that's when the game starts, right? Like, okay, now I'm level 80. Like, then you do delves and world quests and you might do the theater troop and then eventually you might cue some dungeons and then blah blah blah, right? Like, to me, that's the game. And so, like, yeah, I think the talent the old school talent system just applies way better to the end game. How >> How did you feel about leveling in Miss Pandaria, though, where you didn't get like talents per level? Obviously, I've seen a lot of complaints about mob leveling just because it's so slow. Uh >> yeah, it was pretty slow. Also, I got trolled and I decided to try and play fire mage and fire mage without gear is absolutely terrible. Like it was essentially like almost as bad as leveling as a healer. Um, I just recently started playing Arcane and it's like, you ever like play a dog [ __ ] spec and then you play something that's like actually good and you do like one game with it or one dungeon, you're just like, "Oh my god, how was I playing that my whole life?" You know what I mean? >> Toast. There was I had that experience with Torast. Some specs were just so bad at toast. >> Yeah, that was me. So, I I just recently switched to Arcane and I think I would have had a much better time if I played it. I don't really mind uh the le I thought the leveling gets pretty streamlined when it comes to like it was basically exactly the same as Kata. Like you do quests, you just follow the main quest chain, you sit in a dungeon queue and every once in a while you do a dungeon, you make sure you do all of them to do all the quests and you know what I mean? Like I think I don't know. It's like whatever. I don't really mind it. Like to me, when a game is I think when a game is new and everyone's in the open world and you're like seeing people and everyone's logging in and your entire guild's online and your friends list is busy, like that's cool. Like I like that part of MMOs, so I don't really mind the like longer meteor leveling, but I mean it's like whatever, you know? It's not it's nowhere near classic where like classic is the entire game is the leveling, you know? Like you get to level 60 and some people are like, "All right, I'm done. I beat World of Warcraft." and they just log off. And that's the last time I've had characters like that in hardcore. So yeah, I don't I think yeah, it was all right. I don't know. I don't really mind it. >> All right. Any any final thoughts on talent trees or gear or secondary? >> I So I will I will mention a little bit of negative things about MOP cuz I know the retail Andy audience hates when I only say good things. While it's true that, you know, I'm talking about the intention intentionality of the choices of like the talents and the stats and stuff, the gameplay and the rotation in in retail is just so good. Like, I know I complain about things being too complicated, but like, okay, here's your AoE rotation as a mage in classic. You press cone of cold and then you press arcane explosion. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. That's that's all I do. I just want when I'm when I'm doing dungeons, I just press cone of cold and then I spam Arcane Explosion and I'm just watching a video on my other monitor until the pack's dead. Sometimes I'll be arcane explosioning one mob just sitting there because I'm just so not paying attention to what's going on because like there's there's enough finesse to the classes like it's definitely not turbo easy but like the gameplay in retail is just so it's so unique when it comes to RPGs like how complex and and like that is a that is all I complain about it but that's also a very good part about retail as well. I mean, retail classes have been built off of Legion Legendaries, Shadowlands, Covenants, Soul Binds, Conduits. We have hero talents now. Uh, every, you know, previous legendaries, >> essences, all the tier set bonuses, some like many way every tier set bonus, the history of ever like that. All of that [ __ ] is back. And I think that that makes a lot of the the talent trees. And so it's like basically every single class right now is Blizzard's biggest hits for your spec. Okay. Uh Squishy, what did you want to talk about with levers? Because I think we had a little bit of time to check out how the lever system works a bit more on the PTR. You wanted to bring this up this week. What did you want to say about it? Uh, well, I wanted to ask you guys for an update because you guys have been doing a lot of keys on the PTR and I wanted to ask how is it because I have not tested it since like all this stuff got data man data mined. So, >> Tedles, your your face popping. What's going on? Are you flagged as a lever right now on the PCR girl? >> Yes, I'm flagged as a lever. Everybody I play with is flagged as a lever. Um, it is I what I will say about the deserter system is I think it's it has good intentions. Maybe once the season comes out, people are going to use it as it's supposed to be used where you you when instead of zoning out of a dungeon, you just type slashabandon. But it is if you're just playing the same way you have for the past eight years, it is really really easy to get flagged to the [ __ ] lever right now. um like you just zone out, somebody resets the key and then you get flagged as a lever or you like you know you drop group or you know the dungeon's over for whatever reason and instead of you know waiting to slash abandon you just drop group because that's more natural and then you just get punished because of it. Um >> I mean personally >> isn't that wasn't that our speculation though that like for high keys the lever system isn't going to matter because it's not built for you guys. Yeah, but like pretty much everybody has is flagged as a lever on the PTR right now. Like >> for hikes, I don't think that matters. >> Well, for hikes it doesn't matter, but like um >> yeah, I I don't know. I think that like there there are nice QS that that's attached to slashabandoning the dungeon where like it stops the run immediately. It ports you directly out. Um it doesn't reset the dungeon for you, but in theory it could reset the dungeon for you as well. >> Oh, I thought it does. >> Oh, maybe it does. Oh [ __ ] >> I think I think I think slashabandon ports everyone to the start and resets. >> Okay, if it resets, >> which there was some feedback that they didn't want that, right? Like imagine imagine you're somebody who's like doing a key and then your team just abandons, but you like at least wanted to see something, right? Like maybe it's like, okay, let me test a weak aura or let me look at the spot or let me I'm a tank and let me try this pole. You literally get taken out of the dungeon by your team and you can no longer enter it, which I think is a little bit silly. >> Yeah, I know Evade was upset with that. Ape was upset with the fact that it like stuns your character and like it it just like locks you down. >> He doesn't even want to test stuff if others are, you know, if the keys over. He was like, I want to I want to do stuff. Like >> I think he gets more upset that people four people vote to abandon the dungeon immediately when he's not done. >> Yeah. I mean, it's it just feels very unnatural. Like I Dory and I always mention this on stream when people say things and we're like, "Wow, isn't an MMO?" You know, cuz it like really isn't, right? like it's such an instancebased, you know, highlevel competitive PVE. Yeah, it really is like a lobby game nowadays, you know, and it does, you know, like at the end of the day is stopping people from leaving runs good. Um, probably. But, you know, we are scratching away at all of the things that, you know, made the game magical MMO in the first place, you know, like do we really need to do we really need to like make it feel like League of Legends where it just pops up a window and then there's all these votes and [ __ ] and then you just all ending ending match and then you like why why is there even a town anymore? Like why not just give us a you know a main screen or whatever a menu? It's >> just going to be your house, bro, >> right? >> Yeah. Jeez, future. >> Um, >> uh, yeah. So, I'm not the one thing I'm really curious about the lever system, and they can't really give details about this, I don't think, because, you know, they're not going to want people to abuse it or figure it out or whatever, but like, so, how does it work? Like, okay, let's say you've been playing World of Warcraft for 15 years. Like, are you going to have to have good standing and not leave? Like, can you build up good standing across seasons? Like let's say you never you hardly left any keys in season one and two, but then now season three started and I had this issue with my power supply in my computer and I ended up dinging in a few keys. I eventually stopped keying, right, and figured it out, but I didn't quite understand like if that happened to me at the beginning of the season. Now, am I just do I just have this giant red marker on Jen and I can't even get press on the first week cuz everyone thinks I'm a lever or is there like I'm just cur cuz like right now in PTR, you mentioned it, right? everybody has this marker mainly because nobody cares. But I'm also kind of wondering like well you know I mean we're copying a character over so in theory it should have a history but I guess none of the history matters. Like it's going to start and then now all of us are on a clean slate when it comes to levers but then what happens in the next expansion or the next season, right? >> Yeah. I'm getting to the point where I'm like does this matter? Like I I I really don't think that this matters. um or or rather this I don't think this is actually the solve for the problem that they're they're trying to tackle. Like I do understand that it's a community solution for a community problem. The issue is like I feel like there's a lot of people who can get flagged as a lever who's just, you know, you're just playing the game naturally. Sure. Instead of instead of slash abandoning the dungeon, you just [ __ ] pieced out. I don't know. There's going to be some retraining. I think I I bet in the first season it might be completely boned where everybody's just like flagged. >> Yeah. So, if I was designing the system cuz obviously we like Gar said, we can't know how much it works. If I was to designing it, it would be X like percentage of keys completed in of the last X keys like of the last 10 keys of the last 20 keys or something. So it's like a rolling last key system because realistically if you did 600 keys instead of leaving every key after like you should be probably flagged as a lever no matter how many keys you did previously. You should also have a way to climb out of it. So eventually you know you start increasing your success rate of your recent keys. Like that's how I would design it, which I'm guessing that would be around how they would design it too cuz they said that in order to remove the flag, you need to complete keys, which would indicate increasing your success rate. >> Is this necessary? Like I guess that's it's a better question for me. It's like is it is was this really necessary? >> I don't know. the the big problem with all the like basically every solution or like ideas is I truly feel like while it may be the case, you know, I can't speak for how many of these people there are generally, you know, when it comes to levers, like there's going to be a select few people that are like probably complete terrorists, right? Like there's probably some people that are absolutely miserable key after key and like, you know, you just play with this guy and you're like, what in the world is this problem? And like hopefully the systems can like target those people and then everyone knows who those people are. But like yeah, I don't know. Or or is is it just meant to be like a preventative measure to Yeah, I don't know. I guess I I think Squishy's point and I'm starting to agree like man, it just feels silly, right? Like is this really doing anything? Like what what is it accomplishing? I guess here's the thing though. I think Ted's made up a a good point too is that it's absolutely not for me, right? like someone who pugs high keys, you know, and generally the community knows each other and you know, you deplete a lot of freaking keys. Like, you know, we have the we had the conversation about resilient keys with Farfa, right? And it's like we engage with the game so differently, right? Like when you log into World of Warcraft and do like, you know, a couple keys a couple days a week, like, yeah, I guess, you know, having a key depleted really, really [ __ ] sucks and you don't really care about the whole progression system as much as someone like I do. And like for someone like that too, like you know, if someone is continuously leaving keys and they grief one of your keys, like it feels really bad, right? You really don't, you know, you would really like if one of those people got flagged and maybe in that in that range of like, you know, >> tens to 15s or something, right? Where it's just like not necessarily bad people, right? But just people that don't spend a lot of time playing mythic plus, but value their, you know, don't want to have their time wasted when they do spend it in there. You know, I think maybe those people would benefit. But yeah, for someone like like if you're pugging 18s, it's not like it'll be interest I'm just I'm very interested to see how people engage with it, right? Like are people going to care? Is it like you know is everyone going to have it? Is no one going to have it? Like are you going to get decline from 18s? Like you know I think genuinely the system might work okay in like you know again that like 12 to 15 sort of range, but I'm interested to see how everyone else engages with it. I will say that I I pulled my chat and was talking about this with with chat the other day and I asked them like how frequently do you encounter somebody who's like toxic to your group? Like how how frequently does like a toxic do you encounter a toxic player? And on average they said somewhere between every 20 and 30 keys they'll encounter somebody who's toxic, you know, whether it be being an [ __ ] or whether it be intentionally griefing by leaving the dungeon. And and that to me is like that number and it's not a it's not a ton of people, right? like you've been you've interacted with say 80 80 people, one of them is going to be a dick. I mean, you know, it sucks. It does suck whenever it happens. At the same time, I don't think that this this deserter system flag penalty is the real solution. And I I do question as to whether or not it's going to be applied to people who aren't exactly chronic leaders. Yeah, I think it's really relative to what level of content that you do. Like I'll actually say that I've encountered more toxic [ __ ] doing mop heroic dungeons in the last week than I do at Mythic Plus, right? Cuz these are people who are just like, for lack of a better word, right? Like just random civilians, right? Like these are not people who like appreciate the game or study the game or whatever, right? Like these who even knows what in the world, dude. In when you do a heroic dungeon, you get kicked for 30 minutes or for you get banned for 30 minutes. I' I've been kicked by now from three different dungeons. One like and I just don't even understand. People are complete [ __ ] about it, too. And it's just like Yeah. I it's it I think it's completely down to like what level of content you do. Like obviously there will always be some bad apples, but I think if you're doing something at a high level, generally the community is like very positive. I think it's when you're in the trenches especially is when you run into the the real problem. Like I bet >> it's like your platinum equivalent to League of Legends. It's like those are the people who who are like you know they're good. They're like good enough but they're [ __ ] but they it's like holy [ __ ] these people are insane. >> Like uh sorry. Go ahead. >> I was going to say like for me I think it's good that Blizzard's trying something cuz it's really easy to rip the system out if if it's no good, right? Like >> that's true. That's a good point. >> This isn't like we're giving everyone Dors and JK we're taking it back. This is like okay you guys didn't like it. we're just going to remove it and we're going to go back to the way it was with no like no harm, no foul. So like to to me this is like a very >> we'll see how it goes for a season. If it sucks, we'll never we won't see it again for a bit. >> It's really low stakes. I do think I I tend to agree with that. >> So >> I hope that's the case. I do feel like when it comes to especially the bigger gaming companies though they are way too slow and stubborn with systems to say it was a like what what was the last system that Blizzard said okay this was a failure we got rid of it like do you remember like they even said that with Covenants going into Shadowlands and they're like no we know there's going to be problems like how long did it take them to you know what I mean so that's I I completely agreed with you on a surface level but then I'm thinking about it I'm like my history with game companies is They never want to be admit that this was bad. Let's scratch this. >> The downside of this though is that everybody in the world has flagged the lever red and nobody cares. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> It'll be a fun badge of honor. >> Yeah. I mean like I think for a certain level it will work. What that level is I don't know. But for you guys doing like coordinated keys or for me doing guild keys, it'll just be like a meme more than anything. like, "H, Tedle's got the lever penalty. What a goober." Like, that that's it. That's the end of the system for us, but wasn't made for us. So, >> and maybe and maybe it's due the fact that you just re like how you do keys on PTR is just makes it conducive for everybody to have the lever penalty, but so many people have it on the PTR that I think that's it's more just like you're so accustomed to playing the game a certain way, it's like a hard habit to like break just like leaving the key whenever it's dead, more or less. and instead you're slamming slabandon. >> Not that I mean not that again it's not even like bad to slam slab abandon. Like there are benefits to doing it. It ports you out of the dungeon. It's kind of nice. You you don't have to use a hearth, right? But uh I don't know. It's just like getting getting comfortable doing that maybe. And it might end up being like pings where whenever I remember when pings came out everybody was like these are useless. Who's going to ever use these? And then as time goes on everybody's like wow pings are sick. >> Yeah. I fought for pigs no matter what, dude. >> Yeah, I don't know about that. I think I agree with you. I agree with you. >> They were severely underutilized for sure when they first came out. Like I think nowadays if you don't have a ping keybind or whatever and you're like not used to using it, you're crazy. Like that's a that's a weakness I think. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Agreed. I think that and and the lever system might end up being similar to the ping system where initially it comes out and you're like what in the but then as time goes on everybody's like everybody starts to play around it and use it more and more and everybody kind of it just kind of ingrains itself with the ecosystem and then everybody's like yeah this is fine. >> Yeah. Yeah, one thing I want to add if if uh any of the listeners haven't engaged with the any of the PTR content yet. Not that this is a spoiler, but it is a very like it is you know when they're levers. Like people know when you're a lever if you're in the pug community. So basically the way it works is when you sign up for L like in LFG there are like these big like red X's by your little thing. >> It's unironically a flag. >> Yeah. Like it's a it's a literal red flag. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's and then when you go to sign up for the group, it literally puts this text box in the middle of your screen that is like there are one or more people marked as a lever. Are you sure you want to join this group or whatever? And it's just like it really goes out of their way to like demonize those people, which is kind of why we're memeing about like the system, right? Because if imagine you just open up LFG and just everybody's got a red X or whatever, like it's just going to look ridiculous. >> Yeah. Okay. In other news, uh we've seen some BOE changes with how BOE's are are being distributed in season 3, and they now have random secondary stats. And so there's there's, you know, as it's currently been, there have been specific pieces of gear, whether it's been like one tier piece and one non-tier piece for most armor types, and now instead of being specific stats, they are now random stats. There's also a ring that has I guess it's listed as no stats. So, uh, I I I've been told that this this is a BOE and it uses the old like the old naming convention from classic grow >> of the fever flare. >> Oh, suffix a Yeah, prefix and suffix. Yeah. >> So, what do you guys think of this? >> So, my first thought when I was looking at the BOE's, I was like, this is going to be a nothing burger. Mainly because everybody's going to want the boots that buff the cape, right? So a lot of the BOE's in the raid I noticed are boots. So it's main I don't know if BOE's are it's mainly just going to be like oh if you have a lot of gold and you just want to like gear up item level really fast then you buy them and I don't really think you're going to care that much about stats and a lot of the other pieces too like pants or whatever shoulders you can catalyze them and that's how most people use those BOE's right you get a BOE from the raid and you catalyze it. >> So I think for the most part it won't matter. However, now that you confirm that the ring like it is a BOE ring that has stats on it, that's going to be I think a very big deal where like right there are some classes or just situations where you really really need certain stats, right? And you're going to be you're going to be on the if you're one of those classes that want that myth track really, you know, whatever stated ring like you're going to be on there searching for it. >> Well, what is the most popular combo? Is it crit mastery? It's haste mastery. It's it's it's haste mastery and it's I don't know if it's mastery heavy or if it's haste heavy, but it's one of the two of those. >> Ah, I don't I'm pretty sure the least popular is verse haste, right? >> Verse crit I think is [ __ ] useless, too. No. >> Uh I I know bear used to be verse haste and brew master is verse crit or something. >> Something like that. >> Yeah, I think most classes do not like verse generally unless it's a uh unless it's a tank. >> Yeah. versus pretty dead. >> Even then, there's a lot of tanks that like really need the haze. >> I mean, dude, my gut reaction with all this is like, wow, bas are going to be super expensive now. But I started thinking about a little bit more while you were talking. At the end of the day, like you can craft like most of these slots at like a three item level loss with professions, with just how so overpowered profession crafting is. More often than not, like I don't even I wouldn't even bother buying something off the auction house for millions of gold. Like whenever I can craft something three item levels lower, like do I really need three item levels on a ring? Like do I really care? Not really. >> Yeah, it's very small. But I mean, you know how wild people are with minmax. >> True for like not only are they going to do that, right? But also think about tertiaries, right? Like imag like to be able to buy every class will technically be able to buy a bisatted ring with tertiaries. Like that's going to be >> you're talking gold here though. Yeah, this is something that, you know, again, not most people will not care about or be able to afford, but it will exist in the game for sure. >> Yeah, like it'll probably matter for what Easter World first raiders. >> Well, BOE's are not BOE's at the beginning. >> Well, you think about hero track, you know, of best stats. >> Oh, yeah. True, I guess. Yeah. Um, >> so that that will be very interesting though, like to have what is essentially random drop loot from lieutenants. So you're going to want to do the lieutenants again, assuming they that they keep that, which I think they are. >> What's your gut reaction to this? I mean, do you think people in might are going to buy these pieces of gear that are trying to get their best stats? >> Uh, realistically, only the ring, I think. Maybe maybe the tier piece if they really want a myth tier piece >> and they have a free catalyst, but like you're going to be limited on catalyst early on. You're going to have the boots and three of the four BOE's are boots for some reason. >> Only one isn't. I think it's the leather one. So like three of the BOE's are just dead. >> And then there the leather one is a belt or something. >> It is what? Yeah. So So the reason he said boots are dead is because uh Demon Hunter Council boss has the 50% rushi wrap power boots that pretty much everybody wants to wear as Turbo Abyss. That's so strange. I didn't even I didn't even I >> Yeah, it's definitely really odd. >> I'm going to be honest. BOE's to me have not mattered since Nylotha. I have not cared one bit about BOE's since that one time that we could buy corruption BOE. >> It's not bad for like gearing alts. I will say if you have the gold, you can like let's say you like buy a really cheap you buy the the the worst stated helm or like your tier piece. That's a that's a myth track piece right off the bat for a new character. It's actually not that bad. >> What's the cost? >> We're talking like at the end of the season especially like couple hundredk. >> What does it cost? What does it cost to buy a raid boost for like four bosses or something >> right now? >> Blade boost. >> Uh right. Right now I think an eight of eight is like >> five to six million. >> It's just so funny to think like imagine anybody who would need a raid boost having five or six million. Like either you do some other sort of boosting or you bought the gold with >> swipe swipe >> like you know what I mean? Like it's just so ridiculous when I look at the raid prices. >> Yeah. >> I mean not just raid like mythic plus is out of control too. I've been completely out of the loop with sales this season. >> Sales are garbage in my opinion. Like >> Oh yeah. It's so it's so bad for the game. >> It's it's one of the things that like I interact with it cuz I need the [ __ ] gold. But like man it is so bad for the game. Like and if it if sales went away, I would not I would not shed a singular tear for that. Like I think that sales are so actively bashed for the game like you're saying. It just >> Yeah. It's like kind of a neat thing from a guild perspective because it's like okay, we can all do this together and we're all earning gold and then like it gives a it gives a little incentive to like okay a really squeaky clean run guild can like you know give more to the raiders or whatever. Like it's a little bit reminiscent of like the old school, you know, guild like money or the not money but gold mattering and guild community stuff, but the fact that you're carrying people's rat characters through the raid is terrible. >> Yeah. I mean, it was also kind of spurred on this time by the dinar system where you need to just kill a boss once to unlock all the stuff. So, like it's been I mean, dude, this been a thing as long as I played the game. >> Yeah. Yeah. But it was definitely made worse. I feel like right like it was in my opinion made worse because of the dinar system this time around cuz people just wanted their one kill to get their cool sick loot and then there you go. >> I mean back in the day people just used to RMT just like straight up. >> Yeah. >> Oh yeah. I mean back in Yeah. Back in the day you just pilot accounts, people would just pay money. Like there was a hilarious thread on Reddit by the way. I'm not going to uh link it or show it uh for because I don't want this person to get bullied or whatever. But basically, somebody made a post on Reddit. It it wasn't really that much of a brag post, but it was essentially like I work so and so hours a week and I still manage to do it all and it's like a screenshot of them getting like some rank in PvP and then like AOTC and then the 3K IIO and all this stuff, right? And then I looked at the top comment and the guy showed that he actually bought his Galley Wix AOTC and he bought some of the 13s that were on the the Raider IO and it was just like, bro, what are you doing? Like you buy the stuff and then you brag on Reddit about it. Like dude, I don't care if you're like, oh, you know, I just can't do this 13 brew B brewery. Like I just give up. I'm gonna buy it because I don't care. But then to go on Reddit and brag about how you work x hours a week and you accomplished all this when you just bought half the [ __ ] on there. It was so funny. It was one of one of the best like competitive WoW subreddit threads I've seen in a while. >> I think that to me is exactly why I don't that's why I don't think sales are like healthy for the game. Not not because some you know people are bragging or whatever about their achievements like everybody has achievements that they care about but it's more just like the thought process of there is that shortcut. It's kind of like what Growl said like it doesn't matter if you brought the 13 Cinder Bum metery that you couldn't get. I think that that does matter. Like I actually I actually think that that does matter that you couldn't get that 13 Cery and and your your reaction instead of getting good and getting that 13 cider is I'mma buy this [ __ ] I think that that is bad. >> Yeah. Yeah, there's been very few things that I like actively go to the like Blizzard people or community discords or whatever with, but one of the big ones is dude, I hate so much how much the sales stuff is thrown into the faces of people who are newer players. Like that newer player experience, the the stuff in LFG is still bad, but it used to be worse. The fact that you can just like, dude, imagine you're like playing some class, you're like, "Hey, this class looks fun. You know, feral druid. I like being a cat." And then it turns out your class isn't that po, you know, popular, so it's harder to find groups. And you're just sitting there trying to find groups and just every other group want to sell 20, you know, you just search for keys and it's just advertisements in the group finder. Like it is so gross. And then it also throws you into you like go into trade chat or like whatever chat and everyone just spamming. Like it is just disgusting the the spam from all the people running all the like chat add-ons and bots and stuff. And it's like they like I I don't really care so much that that's that stuff exists cuz it's always going to exist. But dude, get that out of the way. Like it bury it in a hole somewhere so you have to go you have to go out of your way to find it if that's what you want. Like stop throwing that in the faces of people who are just trying to play the game. >> Need a better LFG system. You can just probably just filter that cuz right now the only way to do it is by add-on, right? Yeah, just filter at WTS or something. >> Surely there has to be a way of getting them out of LFG from Blizzard Z. That's not that already a like it's already against the terms of service. It's just >> I mean Yeah. Okay. Not that it's against the terms of service, but Blizzard just like not letting you list a [ __ ] group like that. >> True. >> Yeah. I mean I I don't know. I've been I've been people have tried to tell me that it's a harder it's a hard problem, but like I just don't see how hiring one intern on their lunch break to go through the LFG and just literally just start handing out insanely severe punishments to every account doing that. Like I I it's just it's just so bad for the game. What if you just What if you just can't list a group in LFG unless you have like a mythic plus keystone or have done or have done some form of endgame content? Cuz these are all like fresh level one accounts sitting in Ordermar and Stormwind when doing this stuff, right? >> I don't know exactly. I think yeah I think a good thing to do would be to have a filter where you can just filter out anybody with zero IO >> but you got listed if you don't have like your account uh authenticated or whatever too. >> Well yeah no no well I can't I can't I so people made fun of me on stream. I haven't had an authenticator for like months. I actually just recently set it up again but um >> you can't change your title authenticator. Yeah, but they they have custom titles, I'm pretty sure. Right. Or do they not? >> Are there titles like what to sell blah blah blah? >> Oh, yeah. And it's just so rampant. Like I don't know. It just it feels like massive incompetence for me on their end. I remember I noticed some when I've been playing recently, anytime I'm in LFG, I always just spam report them. And dude, it's just the same names. Like it's not even like like h how is the fact that I'm spam reporting the same [ __ ] druid every day when I'm trying to find a 19 cinder on poor Jenbby and then it just it keeps appearing in my group over and over and over again. Like I get it right. I get oh you know growl you can download an add-on and get rid of it. Like again my I'm not that annoyed by it because I don't care that much. I'm annoyed by it because it's terrible for the game. Like I'm not I'm not their target audience, right? Like I'm mad about it because I know I just I hear the outcry from the comments and my chat about how tough LFG can be and it's like I I that that stuff annoys me. That's one of my big pet peeves in the sales people. >> Maybe it does bother me a lot. But it bothers me personally. >> Growl's angry. >> Well, no. Like it sounded like maybe you knew more about the authentication stuff. Uh, as far as I know, you you just need to apply an authenticator and then you can change the title, which realistically if they're creating a new account, they need a new email, which means you just sign up for Google authenticator, like, okay, so maybe there needs to be more >> I I have I have Google Authenticator. Like >> there maybe needs to be more strict requirements on their ability to be able to list an LFG or something like Like realistically, no level one should ever need to list a >> in anything a custom dungeon finder like in my opinion. So that could probably be something. >> Yeah. All right. In other news, we got uh new necklaces. There's a versatility and crit necklace that has been added to priority of the sacred flame and a mastery versatility necklace. So Blizzard finally taking a crack at dungeon loot a little bit trying to make sure that there were there was going to be enough necks in this season. Unfortunately, these are both awful stat pieces. Dude, I saw Re was so happy these got these necks got added. >> Well, yeah, he's a brew master monk. Like, of course he is. He's like they made them for him. >> I mean, I think it's good they're looking at loot pools, honestly. like this was definitely something that they were missing. But the other necks, uh, there are two in Tazh. Both have haste. >> Okay. >> One's haste crit, one's haste verse. Um, there was one more I think in was it Halls? Yeah, Halls has the haste mastery one. Heavy haste. And what's the guy? I thought there was one more. >> Uh, I don't I don't know. But we're just talking about like dungeons here, like for the dungeon people. Yeah, >> I think that was it. It was just like three necks and they all had haste on them, which is why probably these got added. >> I mean, you you would be forced to craft them then at that point. Right. >> Right. Which isn't exactly great. Like, if you don't like haste, then the dungeon loophole just kind of sucks. So, like now we have five total necks, which I think is pretty healthy. Like, I I'm a fan of them doing this. I don't know how you guys >> Yeah, it's good. I feel like they've had a problem with this this whole expansion and I don't ever really remember this being a problem. I remember season 1 it felt like it was very very hard to get like the smaller pieces like wrists and belt and stuff like that because there were so many like random dog [ __ ] trinkets and weapons in the pool. And then season 2 there was like no necks or like certain jewelry was missing and it was like very very hard to get the right jewelry. I remember doing like 40 Motherload runs or something to get the one ring that was like good stated for my disc. And yeah, I don't know. It just it I don't remember this ever happening in previous seasons of M plus since I've started playing where it's just like there are just weird shortages of items. >> I mean this season and next there's two, right? Cinder. >> Oh yeah, that's Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's what I mean. This these two seasons. >> Oh, okay. Okay. >> Since besides this, I don't mean season three. Sorry. I meant so far this expansion, season 1 and season 2 had these weird item shortages that I don't remember this. >> I feel like this is I feel like this definitely happened in the past. Um I think it's one of those things that like since they are introducing us new dungeons, they need to really be more diligent about rebalancing the the legacy dungeons dungeon pool to make sure that we aren't missing so much loot like missing like a couple of pieces. There was one season, I'm pretty sure, there wasn't like an added pull arm on the vendor or on on the entire season in I think it was a dragonfight season where there's like wasn't an agility weapon or something and they had to add it in >> staff this last season. >> Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's no uh non cantrip weird like unstated staff cuz the only the only staves that are in the pool right now are the one from Rookery that has less stats but has that damage proc and then the mechagon staff. Yeah, which I mean as an arcane mage, great, you know, but as any other class, you don't usually like those. >> Yeah. I I think they whenever they're bringing back the legacy dungeons, I think they just need to be a little bit more diligent about making sure the dungeon pool is fine because I think whenever they make the dungeon pool, this this is just this is pure speculation. What happens, at least in my theory, is like they made the dungeon pool for all eight war within dungeons. They go, "This is great. This is a well balanced dungeon pool in terms of loot." And then they don't really think about it in terms of mythic plus at all. and they're like, "Yep, this is all eight dungeons." They think about all eight War Within Dungeons as loot together as opposed to how four of these dungeons being split up from the other four would make sense with four returning dungeons. >> Yeah, >> seems likely. Yeah. >> What was the There's been a couple dungeons historically that were brought back where they have like four total pieces of loot. >> Yeah. >> The older the older the dungeons are, usually the weirder the loot pool. I wasn't there a dungeon that had like eight rings or something in it and it's just like what the [ __ ] is this? >> There's three [ __ ] rings right now. >> Three. >> Yeah. >> No, no, I mean I'm pretty sure there was one that was like eight rings. It was just like some ridiculous like cataclysm dungeon or something. I don't remember which one, but I remember the and yeah, like you said, there are dungeons like that too that just have like three items on the loot pool or something. >> Yeah, I think uh Throne of the Tides was maybe the one that had weird loot. >> Oh, you might be right. Yep, that sounds right. >> Yeah. And then like the WAD ones, you can't even read the dungeon journal because how they did loot from dungeons in WAD was like there's one of every single piece of gear in WAD. So, they have to like completely redo the loot whenever any of those dungeons return, too. >> Yep. >> Oh, it was the WAD dungeon. It was um Shadow and Burial Grounds. That dungeon had like four pieces of loot. >> Oh, total? >> Yeah. I don't even remember. >> It was like I I remember running that dungeon so much. It was like a chest, shoulders, and something else. That was like >> Oh my god, I do remember. And I could get it down to three pieces of loot because I really wanted the uh the trinket that was like a healer. There was like a healer trinket from that dungeon. You could like you could uh I think spec balance and it was like it only got you down to like three pieces of loot that were required for that pool or something. So silly. >> Yeah, >> I forgot I have forgotten about that dungeon having no loot. It was so It was your It was great to run weekly and absolutely horrid for loot. Yeah, it is. It is. Um, another news, we got rushy rap buffs. Huge buffs to the rushy rap effects on the 11.2 PTR. I've heard reports of rushy wraps being bugged currently for tanks. Apparently, the tank proc is supposed to proc only once every six minutes, but it is procing more frequently than that, which uh if you're somebody from Blizzard watching this, you're not allowed to fix this. I if anything I want my tanks to be more survivable, not less. So, please God, do not go through and fix this. >> Yeah, I it's either they either mega buffed it or it's broken or both. I've been watching uh healer Greg do a little bit of PTR keys and he was doing like some high stuff and it was like one of his top healing was the cape. It was doing like eight or nine% overall healing, which I mean, all right, we complained about it being a nothing burger and now it's doing stuff. So, I'm not necessarily going to complain about this. It just is a little bit funny. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the c the cape uh the what we said last week when we were talking about the cloak was like our complaint was like it the procs themselves don't feel that great. I don't think this necessarily per se solves the procs not feeling great, but making them a lot more impactful to the point where you notice them every single time they proc. While it is this, you know, purely passive effect, it it is going to be something that at least you notice. And I think that that, you know, that gets it more in line with where people kind of expect artifacts to be. I I think this is fine. Like the DPS proc is about a million now, which is like a hefty number. >> A million DPS. >> No, just a million proc. Like it it's before before it was doing 300k, man. Like that [ __ ] is like one global. I'm pretty sure it's like 2.5% of my of my overall DPS in a dungeon run now, which it's definitely better. So 2.5% of course is around the 15th amount of damage stores for my character. >> Yeah, like it's not bad. The the one concern that I have is just like they do this all the time where DPS get a nice proc and tanks get defensive value and then for some weird reason, no one knows why, tanks start having threat issues again. Do you remember when like um remember in BFA when uh DPS the [ __ ] laser beam and tanks couldn't get that? For some reason the tanks couldn't hold threat for some reason despite having a 20 times threat modifier in that expansion. It's like I don't think a million damage proc is going to be super crazy. But like they're doing that thing again where they just don't give tanks DPS and they just put them in the like you your job is to survive category which just feels bad. >> I will say tanks on the PTR have had a better time uh maintaining threat than they have historically >> but now haters would say that's cuz they're doing a lot of damage and they would be right. But I think that that's totally fine. So I'm not going to complain about that. like you know the threat is a problem if tanks are doing normal amounts of DP like damage relative to DPS his where they're historically sit right now tanks are doing I I would say like 70% of a DPS's worth of damage in most situations. Now there are sometimes of course where you know a DPS can rip off of a tank particularly you know Ellie Shaman sub okay sub rogue without tricks it's like sub rogue without tricks Ellie shaman devoker of course they can rip off a tank but in general it seems like it's been better this ptr cycle about tank threat but that's most that's a lot of times due to you know perfection warrior has a lot of tank a lot of damage prop paladin does a lot of damage brew master monk does a lot of damage and vengeance demon hunter they recently buffed the hell out of vengeance demon hunter damage though. >> Hold on. I'm focused up. I just y this rare from this guy. I've been camping for an hour. He's pissed. He just stands right next. He's pissed. It's a It's kind of a scary rare though. It does like a thing. >> I'm going to die. Hold on. Just Just >> live. Get the live commentary. Come on. Keep going, girl. >> I know. It's Oh my god. I just caught it. Holy [ __ ] Probably laughing. >> Are you dead? >> Uh, no. No, no, no. It didn't drop the thing. So, it's a 5% drop rate, but the thing that it drop Oh, I got a pet. The thing that it drops is like really valuable. It's like a 5% drop rate that it's like maybe two WoW tokens, I think, worth in the auction. >> Oh, yeah. They changed they changed uh WoW tokens to actually be able to be bought off of Classic, didn't they? >> Yeah, >> I was reading about that. >> Wait, what do you mean? >> Like uh Classic and retail now have different WOW tokens. Yeah. >> Oh, I I don't I I know the Wow token is added, but I don't know past that. >> What do you mean different? >> But I mean different gold values, right? Well, it's always been different gold values. Imagine getting 250,000 gold in Wrath of the Lich King. >> When did it get added to classic? >> Uh, Wrath. >> Oh, [ __ ] >> Lost. >> Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah. >> That's what I thought you were talking about. >> No. No. That I mean that was just Yeah. Yeah. It got added in Wrath. It's like Oh yeah, dude. Classic boosting is worse than is worse than >> Dude, I remember they banned GDKPS and people were mad. >> Oh, I mean they they banned advertising them, but everyone still does it. >> Yeah. Uh, >> sounds like something else on retail. >> All right, Squishy, what did you what did you link this uh post for? So, there was a post in the WoW Reddit titled, "Why is PvP so unappealing for many players?" Okay, what what are we trying to do? We're trying to >> I wasn't linking this to talk about. I just wanted to link this to you because we talk about PvP all the time. >> Wait a second. >> So, I guess they're talking about it now. >> Oh, you linked it for me. >> So, let's get your live reaction. What's your live reaction to this? That's what I was asking. >> Why is PvP so unappealing? I don't even >> All right. Well, this is good because I have a lot to say about this. >> All right. So, lock in. I'll come >> before before World of Warcraft. I never played PvE games. I was like the biggest tryhard competitive. I played like Starcraft, Brood War, and Starcraft 2. I played like Guild Wars. I played Dota. Like I I did not play PvE games. I I rarely play single player games. And when I first started playing WoW, I was going to be an arena main. My first character was my shaman and because someone said Sidu is really cool and I watched Sidu's guide and I wanted to play PvP. I was like fully going into World of Warcraft going to be a PvP main. And the PvP in World of Warcraft for a new player is such a stinking pile of dog [ __ ] It is so unbelievably unfun and unintuitive. So, the major problems with PvP and WoW, number one, there is just way too many buttons and nonsense stuff and spell interactions to learn and everything is so punishing when you don't know it, right? Like, oh, you trinketed this and you were supposed to trinket this. You instantly lose the game. Like, it's not even like, oh, they get a point or, oh, you took some damage. Like, you're just instantly dead whenever you make any of these mistakes. Another huge problem with WoW PvP is unless you know all of the animations and spells or you have some add-on telling you, you have no idea half the stuff that's going off. So, in Guild Wars, another similar game that I used to play like an MMO PVP, even if somebody uses an instant cast skill, it shows the icon in the name of the skill like by their cast bar, right? Like you can't interrupt it or anything, but it shows that it's there. So, when someone's pressing instant cast spells like I don't know, an ice barrier or an interrupt or something, you can see that they're using it. But when you're trying to learn like how are you supposed to learn what classes do like when you can't even see the spells that they're using and then you open up details and it's just 17 lines in.1 second of all these different procs and stuff. On top of that, the CC, like the whole game is based around CC. Like I want to play the video game. I don't want to just It's like It's like chess where you're just like, "Okay, you do this CC and then this CC and then this CC and then this CC and you're like doing moves ahead." And it's crazy. It's crazy. I don't want to say that there's no skill in it, dude. To watch a guy like Peekaboo work on Rogue and like understand all the stuff that's going on and sh like that dude is [ __ ] crazy. And I'm not this isn't me disrespecting the people that are good at it, but the the way to get into it as somebody who doesn't know what like you just have it's just so it's just like a mess. It's like how how would you ever get into this unless unless you've been playing the game for 15 years. >> Yeah. >> Like it's like it's basically all the problems with WoW PvE except 20 times worse and you're fighting against people who are abusing the fact that you don't know them. It's like imagine if the mobs were like cancel casting spells and [ __ ] like Like you'd be like, imagine the weak horrors you would need to do to handle that sort of thing. Like that's what WoW PvP is. Like it's the same insane punishing like crazy stuff that happens except now it's a person abusing you with it. >> I think that what you're what you're saying is kind of my general thoughts on it as well. It's really difficult to play arena or specifically arena casually. Arena is like the the mode that most people think of whenever they think of WoW PvP. For some reason, Battlegrounds just like never took off in that same way. >> I love BGs is the best way to play the game. >> I I I agree. I actually think that BGs are way cooler in terms of like a PvP format, but for some reason, arena was the format that took off. Arena is very inaccessible in terms of playing the game casually because for a bunch of reasons. First off, you have to know what your character does. You have to know what other people's character does. You have to know what your teammates character do. And then you have to know how all of those interact with your individual character. Um, not only not only that, but there's hero talents that are stacked on top of that which are multiplicative complexity. The game is already complex enough. There's these hero talents that are on top of it as well, which makes it even harder to kind of understand. So, say you wanted to, let's take the most casual game modes. We got like, you know, delves, you know, you could do some low-level mythic plus or you could do, you know, arena at like 1,200 rating. So even lower level you do open world stuff like rares and undermine or something >> something like that right like even even lower level most of the time the only thing you need to know even in mythic plus even in delt is how does your character work even how the the mobs work most of the time you don't even need to know how the mobs work you're doing low enough level content where it doesn't [ __ ] matter except for in arena and this level that you hit where you need to know what other people's character does is like 1100 rating and it's like the the entry level is like I need to know what that rogue does and how he interacts with my character. That's like the the introduction to playing PvP is like you're the introduction to PvP is you're already doing tens or twelves in Mythic Plus and like that for a lot of people the burden of knowledge there is way too high in my opinion. >> Yeah. I It's funny because you uh GL you mentioned like everything in P like PvP is everything in PvE but worse. I think it's not really talked a lot about, but you mentioned add-ons, and I don't even want to think about what PvP is going to be when the add-ons are removed. I think PvE will live with a bunch of people bitching a lot. But it will be fine, as the devs have kind of shown so far. PvP without add-ons, not be able to track your diminishing returns, your opponent's trinkets, your opponent's kicks. As you mentioned, I don't know how you'll see half the kicks that go off like you someone. Is that is that better? >> I think it's personally better, but like PvE are going to just complain, but the PvPers are going to lose a lot more in my opinion. They're going to they're going to lose a lot more. That's how they want to actually play the game in my experience is they they find skill expression to be the most one of the most important things in the game. And they think that add-ons remove skill expression. So, they like hate add-ons. That's the cult of people that [ __ ] hate add-ons. >> But I completely agree. Like I I don't think the optimization level of PvP right now is very good. But the other point I wanted to mention and for me is I don't find any game with a P like oh it's the new cat. >> Yeah, you're talking. >> I'm distracted. Um I don't think any PvP game with a gear imbalance is exactly my type of game. Um where you have to gear up, you have to maintain your PvP gear, you have to like work towards PvP gear. Like if I'm gonna play a PvP game, I'm gonna go play one that is that I'm like I'm on the same grind as somebody else. Yeah. You know, like if I'm gonna play a shooter or something, gonna play COD or something like that. Uh if I'm going to play like a an arena game, I think there's like Battleright >> from a while back. >> Battle Battle Right. Y >> So Battleright's good. Like even plundertorm people are on like the same general footing. You all have access to the same abilities. They're really easy to understand. While PvP is just like, well, you have to get all this gear, like this separate set of gear. You have to know all these different things, and then this other guy could have vaulted a weapon or something, and you just don't have your weapon yet, or you're you're behind, so you're you're like, if you come in late to a season, you're just at a disadvantage. Like, that's not exactly fun. As you mentioned, like skill expression is a big thing. I feel a similar thing playing like other MMO PVPs, like Destiny PvP, just not having the best in slot like gun, you just get gapped sometimes and it's just like, well, that's not fun. I'm going to go play Call of Duty where I can just have the same guns as somebody else. >> Does WoW PvP feel like World of Warcraft to you guys? Like Arena doesn't, but BGs do. Whenever I'm playing them, it's so weird. >> I love So, the reason I love BGs is that I think the com like one of the fun things about RP or Yeah, RPG PvP, I guess, is coordination and working with people, right? And so the idea of like you can overcome not really understanding the minutiae of the game if you're like making good decisions about where you go on the map and what you do. And that's to me what's good about RPG PVP, right? Is like the the movement and the map control. You know, it's like a war, you know, we're thinking about olden times. And it's like that's what's fun to me. And granted, there are situations, right? Like if you're somebody who who's sitting on a base, like you need to know how to 1v one certain characters, but that's not every role, right? Like you can introduce a noob into BG, give them noob easy roles, explain to them. But in 3v3 arena, it's like, oh, here's my healer friend. He's never played the game before. Okay, he's just going to come play with us. Like you're you're it does you're going to have a miserable time unless you're literally like, you know, a rank one guy or whatever. So yeah, I I love BGs. >> Let me ask you a question. Would you enjoy PvP while PvP if you took the plunderstorm like before every match you just choose chose two or three abilities like you know three three offensive three utility abilities and it was just everybody knew what all those abilities does because there's so few of them and you went BGS or arena I mean you're talking like a brand new game at this this is not this is not but but that's what I'm saying like take the f take take >> I don't know capture the flag you know or wrathy basin and change the the hero combat to that style of combat where there's only 10 abilities is would do you think more people would be interested in that? >> I mean, I think so. I I think I think the the the huge skill pool granted that's part of what makes WoW, right? So, it's hard to say like, you know, I just don't like WoW PvP. And part of the reason I don't like it is because every class has 50 skills. But like again, I I I'll always site Guild Wars for RPG PvP because it was the greatest of all time. And that game has the same skill depth as WoW where actually there are more skills per class, but you can only have eight at a time. You have a bar, you bring eight at a time and then you go in and then it's like one of your skills is like it's called an elite skill which is like you know you build your rotation around it and then you can decide how much utility and spells and like there are you there it's way faster to learn what a class does and what you need to do and they're like specific roles in that game and I think that yeah if you if you could go if you when you went into arena if you could only bring eight skills obviously that's like again changing the fundamental what WoW is but I think that would be way more approachable. Like I mean that's why I'm kind of wondering like maybe kata or mop PvP if it wasn't like dead and everyone botting could be fun, right? Because there are way less skills in in the older versions of the game. >> For me, I actually like WoW PvP and I've arenaed I arened it at various points. I read it in BFA and Shadowlands pretty extensively. The to me the issue with it is just the barrier to entry in terms of knowledge is just way too high. Um, it's kind of one of those things that like I I just found it very difficult unless I was playing my absolute hardest each and every single season, season in and season out. It was just hard to play. Um, and then on top of that as well, they introduced solo shuffle. I tried to play solo shuffle a little bit and then randomly at like 1,200 rating, which is like 200 points below what you start at in terms of MMR, I'm just in a 35m minute queue and I'm just like this is garbage. I'm not I'm not waiting 35 minutes in Dornagall to play six rounds of arena. I'm out of here. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> It's funny that I mentioned Battle and both you were like >> that game. I'm own I'm pretty sure they I'm pretty sure they discontinued that game, didn't they? >> Uh yeah, >> that game was sweet. I remember like was it like 2018 or 2019 or something like that? That game was sick. >> You know what's actually interesting? It reminded me of like the new game modes that League is doing. Like League has so many heroes, so many champions. >> Yeah. >> Like the the burden of knowledge of League is also very high, but each champion only has five abilities. >> Yeah. That's what I think. >> Well, right. Like, okay, imagine I don't know how much Dota League you guys have played, but imagine you're playing with a friend who's brand new. He's in a he's playing one of those games and he's up against a hero, right? And he's like, "Oh no, what does this guy do?" Generally speaking, you can explain 99% of the heroes in like one or two sentence. like, oh, he's got a stun and he he can jump on you and you know, yeah, right. Like, okay, now explain what rogue does. >> Imagine imagine your friend is like, I'm one v oneing a rogue in arena. What do I do? You're like, all right, well, is he sin? Is he outlaw? Okay, what's his hero talent tree? Okay, so you got to he can sap you talents. >> He can he can sap you and you but you can never break that because if you use your trinket on the sap, then he's going to blind you. So the way that you don't get zapped is you stay in combat, but he could go invisible. So you have to be in combat with somebody else while he's invisible or he's going to sap you. It's like, bro, wow, it's just way too complicated. I don't I don't think that I think that WoW PvP is like an almost in an unfixable state where the game is really complicated. So arena is of course just going to be super complicated. I think that's probably >> right. Well, that's that is the state of PvE, right? And again, to make really highlevel complicated PvP, which is very fun that all of us enjoy, that's why we play the game, you need to have these very complex classes and rotations and interactions, right? But it's like you don't that's not necessarily what makes good PvP, right? like in Counterstrike, give one guy an an M4 and give the other guy an AK and it's like here's a corner and it's like the most in-depth crazy [ __ ] where like has so much skill expression, you know, where you look at League or Dota and you have four buttons and one of them is a passive so you have three buttons and it's like you could do the craziest plays and it's like, you know, but that's because it's PvP and I think that WoW the complication of WoW is like superseded what you can make in a good PvP game. All right. Well, random accidental topic that we were we were just talking about in our group chat that ended up I didn't even realize it was just a group chat topic. I thought it would pawn. It's so funny. Uh all right. What What is this video that you got for us this week? >> Hey guys, Cooks here. >> Uh okay, you don't have to play it, but this is my this is my tip of the week/cool thing of the week. Uh there's a guy named Killact. He he also does high keys and stuff, but he's like this mega collector YouTuber guy, and he I Okay, so I I don't want to credit him, but this is where I saw it. He put together a build of like these random like very cheap embellishments and items and trinkets and stuff that you can buy in the auction house that scale weirdly in the mage tower and probably other low-level content, too, that you can basically just go into the mage tower and just do like just mash the one button rotation and win on all of them. So, if everyone's in a mount collecting mood, we're at the end of the mount farming thing and you didn't get your spell book mount or you didn't get your bear, you can check out this guide. Uh, if Tedles will remember, he'll put a link to it. Or you can just search literally one button mage tower on YouTube. I'm sure it'll pop up. And basically, you just like buy a couple items off the auction house. I think you craft like one embellishment thing and you can just literally use like a blue item. You don't even need a spark. And then you just run in. you have like infinite leech and infinite verse and you just like you don't do that much damage but you just won't die and you just kill everything. And so I I had remembered that I never got the bare mage tower skin and I just to test this out I used it and I maybe got knocked off the platform once or twice but once I stayed on the platform I did indeed do the the challenge without with the one button rotation. >> Is it that dark moon fair trinket or dark moon? Yeah the >> Yes, I believe it's like >> what skills verse weird or something like that. >> Yes. >> Yeah. You basically just it just builds up verse and when it gets to max stacks it's just like very good. >> Good enough. That's so crazy actually. >> And and it may get fixed. Not to FOMO everybody, but I'm assuming that this is something that doesn't last forever. So if you're in the collector mood this month and you're waiting for the patch and you haven't done the mage tower, this is probably a good time to do it. >> Great. Sweet. Any final thoughts? >> It's kind of a short episode. We didn't really yap too long. Yeah, >> I think I think we'll make it I think we'll make it up to the to the audience next week. >> Yeah, maybe we'll maybe we'll do something. >> Yeah, we'll see. All right, GG's. Goodbye, everybody. >> Bye-bye.