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Wednesday, December 13, 2006
What gear do you need for the Burning Crusade?
Kill Ten Rats has an article on the link between raid apathy and gear needed for the Burning Crusade. Basically if people expect to need epics to succeed in BC they would go raiding more, but if they expect lesser gear to suffice they would raid less.
An alternative explanation for less raiding would be the widely reported fact that raiding has become a lot less pleasant since the patch. Servers are less stable, Decursive isn't working any more, and when killing Nefarian with your Alliance guild you might end up finding two shaman breastplates (screenshot at MMOG Nation). But as the raid apathy started already before the patch, it is more likely that the expectations for the Burning Crusade are responsible, and not the WoW 2.0 patch.
The endgame of World of Warcraft is a game of diminishing returns. Improving your gear gets harder the further advanced you already are, and the improvements are getting smaller. Now lets assume you aren't totally burned out from playing WoW, and like most players you have several characters. In that case the decision which character to play depends very much on your expectation of what gear you will need to level in the expansion, and what gear would be a waste of effort to acquire.
My priest is on a break for two equally valid reasons: I got tired of raiding, and I felt that I had more than enough equipment for that character to start playing in the expansion when it comes out. Improving the gear of my priest would have been very hard, as only BWL and higher still yields items I could use. Meanwhile my warrior feels less than optimally equipped, with only a single epic, wearing mostly tier 0 or equivalent blue items. Doing PvP with my warrior both enables me to play WoW without having to raid, and enables me to equip him to a level where I'd be more comfortable with when starting to play him in the new content.
I'm not claiming that this is absolutely necessary. There are two major reasons *against* equipping a level 60 alt now: A) Green and blue items are probably sufficient to go questing and visiting dungeons in the Outland. And B) by the time you actually get around to playing your alt, the auction house is probably offering cheap green items which are better than anything you can acquire right now. So an alternative strategy to collecting gear for your alts now would be to farm gold now, and buy better gear after the expansion comes out. But hey, I'm financially prepared for the Burning Crusade, I stocked more metals and gems than I think I'll need to level up jewelcrafting, and will hopefully be able to sell the excess at a huge profit. ;)
So what gear do you really need for the Burning Crusade. My personal impression from the BC beta is: not much. I did quests and dungeons in the beta with both of my level 60 priests, the undead priest in full epic set, and the human priest in just-reached-60 green/blue gear. And both did just fine. Of course the priest is probably the least gear-dependant character class for soloing quests. And the tier 1 and 2 priest epic gear, which helps a lot for raid healing, doesn't improve my soloing ability by much. But I also saw a lot of other players with other character classes do just fine in green/blue gear. I even grouped once with a level 58 character in the Hellfire Rampart instance, without that causing too much of a problem. I don't foresee anyone being blocked in the Burning Crusade just because he doesn't have enough shiny epics to start with.
*Not* having epics at the start of the Burning Crusade has one major advantage: doing the quests is more fun. The earlier quests and mobs you kill drop green items which are "as good as" tier 1 epics, approximately. My epic priest found a lot of green stuff which he ended up not using, because it wasn't much better than what he had, and I didn't want to destroy the set bonuses of the tier 1 and 2 I was wearing. The same items were a huge improvement for my human priest, and getting a quest reward or drop which you can actually use is always more fun.
For me that means that playing enough PvP to get one epic sword for my warrior is probably a good idea. I get to experience more of the PvP content, which I don't know that well yet, and which is thus more interesting to me. And the dps for a warrior's sword should have some influence on how fast he progresses in the expansion, at least up to the point where he finds a better one. At the same time I don't feel that I absolutely *must* equip my warrior now. Even after the nerf getting the one sword isn't too much of an effort. Afterwards I can decide whether I want to continue doing PvP and get a bit more equipment purely based on how much fun I am having doing so. As soon as PvP starts feeling like a grind, I can stop without fear of missing some essential gear. That is a good situation to be in.
- posted by Tobold @ 3:03 PM Permanent Link
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Grand Marshal's Hand Cannon and Grand Marshal's Glaive. I'd get a +25 Agi enchant on the Glaive and still have both weapons at 70.
# posted by 
: 13/12/06 21:57
: 13/12/06 21:57
Burning Crusade is going to kill off the Level 60 instances like Scholomance and Stratholme. Characters are going to go straight from solo quests in Azeroth to solo quests in Outland. Who needs to go to these tough instances any more if Tier 0 and Tier 0.5 are going to be redundant?
Can't see anyone doing Baron 45 minute runs any more, except maybe retrospectively at Lv 65 or so.
Can't see anyone doing Baron 45 minute runs any more, except maybe retrospectively at Lv 65 or so.
# posted by : 14/12/06 11:52
: 14/12/06 11:52
Of course you won't need any equipment for BC. Any such requirements would only alienate the millions of casuals in the game, something Blizzard obviously won't do.
It's like when moving from a 30-39 area into a 40-49 area. As long as you're roughly the intended level you have all you need.
I would be surprised if a skilled player at lvl 60 couldn't enter BC nekkid and get all the gear he needs there and then, with no requirement to enter the previously endgame raids/dungeons at all.
It's like when moving from a 30-39 area into a 40-49 area. As long as you're roughly the intended level you have all you need.
I would be surprised if a skilled player at lvl 60 couldn't enter BC nekkid and get all the gear he needs there and then, with no requirement to enter the previously endgame raids/dungeons at all.
# posted by : 14/12/06 13:33
: 14/12/06 13:33
Level 60 dungeons won't be "killed off" any more than you consider the level 40 or level 50 dungeons of the game to be dead or killed already.
You would enter some of the lvl 60 dungeons in the future for much the same reasons you entered Scarlett Monastery or Sunken Temple before, that is for fun but perhaps not so many times.
The time a hardcore raider has spent in MC or BWL isn't wasted. It just won't be relevant any longer, in the same way nobody cares how many times you have defeated Deadmines as soon as you reached level 25...
You would enter some of the lvl 60 dungeons in the future for much the same reasons you entered Scarlett Monastery or Sunken Temple before, that is for fun but perhaps not so many times.
The time a hardcore raider has spent in MC or BWL isn't wasted. It just won't be relevant any longer, in the same way nobody cares how many times you have defeated Deadmines as soon as you reached level 25...
# posted by : 14/12/06 13:37
: 14/12/06 13:37
Part of the end game right now is to complete armor sets; the drop rate for the pieces are insanley high and you are forced to go through them mulitple times.
Do you think there is a chance they will change the drop rate to make the instances more attractive?
I would still do scholo a few times if i knew for sure my odds were really good on completing the set. Or maybe change the quests rewards for the different instance to parts of each classes armor?
thoughts?
Do you think there is a chance they will change the drop rate to make the instances more attractive?
I would still do scholo a few times if i knew for sure my odds were really good on completing the set. Or maybe change the quests rewards for the different instance to parts of each classes armor?
thoughts?
# posted by : 14/12/06 14:05
: 14/12/06 14:05
> That is a good situation to be in.
Tobold, does this mean you won't be quitting WoW for a while? :)
Tobold, does this mean you won't be quitting WoW for a while? :)
Perhaps they can just use a "token" system for all tier 0,1,2 gear.
It would bring it up to date with Naxxramas and AQ 40 gear. Wouldn't it be nice that every time you killed Dark master Gandling in Scholomance he would drop a hat token that anyone in the party could trade in for his tier 0 helm?
at least this way people could finish their tier 0 and tier 1 and tier 2 content quickly and move on to outland dungeons and quests.
I have always noticed that when a new zone opens up the reward vs effort is insanely high (this way Blizzard pleases their customers who can play 60-75 hours a week) and then after a patch or two, they make the older content that was previously inaccessible to the casual, reachable.
It makes good business sense in my opinion make 1 dungeon supra-hard to please 1 group of your customers, then make it easy and please the rest, while the "elite gamers" move on to the new hard zone.
It would bring it up to date with Naxxramas and AQ 40 gear. Wouldn't it be nice that every time you killed Dark master Gandling in Scholomance he would drop a hat token that anyone in the party could trade in for his tier 0 helm?
at least this way people could finish their tier 0 and tier 1 and tier 2 content quickly and move on to outland dungeons and quests.
I have always noticed that when a new zone opens up the reward vs effort is insanely high (this way Blizzard pleases their customers who can play 60-75 hours a week) and then after a patch or two, they make the older content that was previously inaccessible to the casual, reachable.
It makes good business sense in my opinion make 1 dungeon supra-hard to please 1 group of your customers, then make it easy and please the rest, while the "elite gamers" move on to the new hard zone.
# posted by : 14/12/06 15:45
: 14/12/06 15:45
You can't enter the Outlands until your lvl 55. Once you get there, you're still questing, and I'm sure that some of the quests will force you into Azeroth's existing lvl 60 5 man dungeons. I also wound't be surprised if some of the new quests send you back there to spawn new bosses (like the dungeon 2 quests strands now).
The interesting thing in my opinion is how Blizzard will entice players into doing 40 man raids in the existing big dungeons. it will be tough to keep 40 raiders around when the new dungeons max out at 25. It's hard enough to spread loot and keep players happy as it is, nevermind when you say "I'm sorry we don't take you on BC raids, but will you please fill out our roster so we can get into Naxx?" I know that people are responding to this by saying "no one will care, no one will want to go to MC anyway". I'm just curious how this will all fall out.
The interesting thing in my opinion is how Blizzard will entice players into doing 40 man raids in the existing big dungeons. it will be tough to keep 40 raiders around when the new dungeons max out at 25. It's hard enough to spread loot and keep players happy as it is, nevermind when you say "I'm sorry we don't take you on BC raids, but will you please fill out our roster so we can get into Naxx?" I know that people are responding to this by saying "no one will care, no one will want to go to MC anyway". I'm just curious how this will all fall out.
# posted by : 14/12/06 15:55
: 14/12/06 15:55
My advise is to do whatever gives you $15/mo. worth of fun. Seriously.
I enjoy questing and PvP.
So right now, I'm working toward the gold for riding (150) training, since I expect that to hold its value and speed me up on the run to level 70, and also be of value in the PvP battlegrounds.
Things to have in Outland that seem obvious...
- Gold
- Mats, if you've done your BC crafting homework
- PvP currency, if you're a PvP-er
I'm also garnering a good amount of Silvermoon rep already just through the new quests and from quests that give rep for all Horde factions.
Other than that, I don't know if rep is valuable - for example, whether come-BC if Argent Dawn vendors will sell level 61-70 stuff or not.
Equipment choices are tough - for instance, in my case an 18-slot bag might have more lasting usefulness in Outland than a modest weapon upgrade, because I could see the bag lasting to level 70 and the weapon replaced at level 65.
I enjoy questing and PvP.
So right now, I'm working toward the gold for riding (150) training, since I expect that to hold its value and speed me up on the run to level 70, and also be of value in the PvP battlegrounds.
Things to have in Outland that seem obvious...
- Gold
- Mats, if you've done your BC crafting homework
- PvP currency, if you're a PvP-er
I'm also garnering a good amount of Silvermoon rep already just through the new quests and from quests that give rep for all Horde factions.
Other than that, I don't know if rep is valuable - for example, whether come-BC if Argent Dawn vendors will sell level 61-70 stuff or not.
Equipment choices are tough - for instance, in my case an 18-slot bag might have more lasting usefulness in Outland than a modest weapon upgrade, because I could see the bag lasting to level 70 and the weapon replaced at level 65.
Tobold, does this mean you won't be quitting WoW for a while? :)
I never planned to quit WoW before the expansion. I had just thought I would play less if I wouldn't raid, and now found that I could replace raiding with PvP.
I absolutely plan to level at least my undead priest to 70, and get at least a solid impression of the level 70 "new" endgame. But I consider it likely that somewhere during the year of 2007 I start getting bored by the new endgame, because it is likely to turn out to be far too similar to the level 60 endgame. And in 2007 there are a *lot* of other MMORPG coming out. So I currently think that 2007 might be the year where I stop playing WoW, or at least do a larger break until the next expansion.
That doesn't necessarily mean that I'll stop blogging about WoW. World of Warcraft will remain the "genre reference" for years to come, just like before 2004 you couldn't discuss MMOs without mentioning Everquest.
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I never planned to quit WoW before the expansion. I had just thought I would play less if I wouldn't raid, and now found that I could replace raiding with PvP.
I absolutely plan to level at least my undead priest to 70, and get at least a solid impression of the level 70 "new" endgame. But I consider it likely that somewhere during the year of 2007 I start getting bored by the new endgame, because it is likely to turn out to be far too similar to the level 60 endgame. And in 2007 there are a *lot* of other MMORPG coming out. So I currently think that 2007 might be the year where I stop playing WoW, or at least do a larger break until the next expansion.
That doesn't necessarily mean that I'll stop blogging about WoW. World of Warcraft will remain the "genre reference" for years to come, just like before 2004 you couldn't discuss MMOs without mentioning Everquest.
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