I can't believe it's already week 10 of World of Warcraft Dragonflight 10.2.
But. Here we are.
This week in The Mana Regen:
M+ affixes and the quest for 3K io
Forever reclearing Amirdrassil and why we need more 2-boss raids a la Crucible of Storms
Letting players vote for S4 tier and transmog - what?!
A brief 10.2.5 preview
Weeklies, M+, and the Quest for 3K io
The weekend event this week is Wrath of the Lich King TW. Get out there on your alts, folks, and grab a piece of normal raid gear as a reward for completing 5 TW dungeons.
These dungeons are great. I want to see one of them in the M+ rotation at some point. Do it, Blizz!
The affixes for this week: fortified, storming, and bursting. This isn't the worst on a fortified week. It's a good week to be a holy priest with Mass Dispel to help out when your DPS get a little too CD happy and leave 5-6 stacks of bursting. Oops.
Black Rook Hold is still awful. No one will ever convince me it's not one of the worst dungeons in the game. Sorry, not sorry.
In fact, I'll turn the hot takes up a notch: Legion is the most overrated expansion in WoW's history. Don't get me wrong - it's good. But it's not some pinnacle of WoW that many modern players hold it up to be.
Legion introduced some good systems, but it also was the start of a three-expansion long borrowed power grind that many players did not like. And it seems even Blizzard has pivoted from "grind all the time" to their new mantra of "respect players' time."
Aiding the Accord is back to Emerald Bounty. I guess go water some more seeds. I can't do another Superbloom for any reason, so I suppose this is preferable.
Post-AOTC Amirdrassil and the Perpetual Reclear
We're still not into cross-realm mythic raiding. Please, for the love of the old gods, Blizz, open this for 10.2.5.
I know we're in for some sort of fated system in 10.2.6-7. Hooray, I guess.
Whatever happened to a 2-boss raid to fill some dead time? Crucible of the Storms was a tough, 2-boss raid. I see no reason why Blizz shouldn't be using this either in addition to or in an alternating schedule in place of this fated system they seem to have adopted.
I know there are folks out there who enjoy going back through old raids. I do not. Give me something fresh even if it's not a full raid. There is lore available for some sort of gnoll raid in The Azure Span. That would have been a great time.
Amirdrassil, the Dream's Hope has had some additional nerfs Monday with hotfixes announced in a blue post.
Monday night during reclear felt noticeably easier with fewer aflames especially.
Despite the fact that we have downed Fryakk now 4 or 5 times, we still have not seen Fyr'alath drop. That's kinda frustrating for our raiders looking for it.
Voting for S4 Tier-set Bonuses and Appearances?
I hate this decision so much.
As a holy priest, S3 has felt so much better than the previous seasons in M+ with this tier set. But, as of writing, S1 is leading in the polls for reasons that seem to be related specifically to raid builds.
Why make it a choice at all if we're choosing from existing tier-sets? Why not just let players farm the tier set they want in this fated system?
To me, that's the logical choice, but I suppose I'll just have to smile and suffer in M+ in S4 (or go back to monk or shaman).
10.2.5 is Coming!
In a week, we'll likely be waiting on the patch or already in an questing 10.2.5: Seeds of Renewal.
I'm looking forward to some new content - particularly taking back Gilneas and whatever we're going to be doing in the Azerothian Archives.
I do wonder if there is ever a future where we will see some refresh of M+ - whether adding a dungeon or perhaps bringing in some timewalking M+. I know that there are plenty of people out there still pushing io (myself included), but these seasons just feel longer and longer.
Again, I'll reiterate - I would love nothing more than to delete Black Rook Hold from history. I'm sure others out there have a dungeon this rotation that really irks them, too. If Blizzard really wants to let us vote on something, let us vote on dropping/adding dungeons to the M+ rotation at the x.5 patches.
In many ways, I'm sure my irritation with some elements of Dragonflight will continue even into 10.2.5. (This crafting system, for example.) But I am hopeful that some of the new content will bring some fresh enjoyment to the game, even if it is mostly in catching alts up or finding something to do other than spam M+ for some gear/trinkets that continue to elude me.
Ideally, we'll be seeing The War Within in less than eight months.
Typing that out and realizing we'll be stuck in Dragonflight raids in some fashion or other for that long made me a bit ill. Uff.
With that sad thought, I'm OOM.
Thanks for reading! For Azeroth!