Ho ho ho! World of Warcraft Dragonflight 10.2 Week 7 is here. And Winter Veil began at the tail end of Week 6. AND we have a new roadmap for 2024!!! It's a glorious time to be playing WoW.
This week's The Mana Regen:
Heroic Amirdrassil progress
M+ in the time of Fortified and Bolstering - gross
A new road map!!!
Winter Veil
"Raid-Ready" Boost
Heroic Amirdrassil, the Dream's Hope - Doomforge Brewing gets Ahead of the Curve!
But I missed it. Friends were in from out of town because holidays, and so the team killed that fiery lizard without me.
I guess I'll have to hope for Wednesday night or next week.
M+ Review and Preview
Week 6 M+ with the combination of fortified and bolstering was not fun. Keys were still timed, and there were a few that were pushed. But I'm glad we're out of that combination.
Throne of Tides was miserable this past week. That trash was... well, trash.
Week 7 has us facing tyrannical, incorporeal (+7 and higher), and spiteful (+14 and higher).
I hate spiteful.
But even despite my hatred of spiteful, this week seems like it should not be too awful. Incorporeal is pretty easy to control. As a holy priest, I'm all about mind controlling these. You'll need some form of CC at any rate.
I ran a +18 Galakrond's Fall with some guildies, and it was a pretty easy run overall. The second boss can still prove a bit difficult if someone gets dispelled/has their debuff expire in a slow area. Defensives or finding a way to blink through the wave is the only way to really survive that.
A New Roadmap!!!
Wow. Talk about a way to send out 2024 with a bang. We have a Roadmap for 2024 that suggests a late summer release for 11.0 The War Within.
We also know when 10.2.5 and mysteriously 10.2.6 are coming: midwinter and late winter/early spring respectively.
The Jolly Roger for 10.2.6 suggests pirates. But... didn't Mike Ybarra say no pirates? I suppose this isn't an expansion on pirates at any rate. I'll be excited to see what this is all about.
Season 3 - another Fated-esque season - begins in 10.2.6, and then 10.2.7 brings us Dark Heart. The Timerunning: Pandamonium event suggests we're going to have Mists of Pandaria Challenge Mode available in a timewalking feature.
I would love to see this if this is the case. MoP dungeons are fantastic; challenge mode was a fun precursor to M+. Let's see what's up the devs' sleeves!
Harbinger Quests will probably help us begin our journey into the lore that will be brought up and/or revealed in The Worldsoul Saga. I think we might just get some hints at who the voice calling out is.
A new holiday event? I can't imagine what that could be. It's too late for Mardi Gras. Any ideas?
And then 11.0 comes late summer 2024. If you'll recall, I wrote earlier that I'm expecting 11.0 to happen August 26, 2004. I'll stick by that date.
Winter Veil is Live
I absolutely love this holiday event in WoW. It's the oldest and (in my opinion) the best of them all.
Make sure to pick up your quests in Ironforge or Orgrimmar respectively. Kill the Greench, bake Greatfather Winter some cookies, take a lore book to Muradin or Baine for The Reason for the Season.
Wowhead's guide to the event and the updates for 2023 is worth a read.
Back in Vanilla, I remember farming small eggs with a friend to sell in trade chat for 1g each. We would make a fair amount of gold for relatively low effort, and I would often start singing "Little Town" from Beauty and the Beast - "I need six eggs! That's too expensive."
Anyway.
The "Raging" Controvery over the "Raid-Ready" Boost
I don't understand why people get so upset about Blizzard selling services like this given people have been purchasing similar illegal services in the game for 19 years.
Why drag Blizzard for making money on something that players have already been buying?
I mean, sure. There are some perks here powerleveling a character won't come with - particularly renown.
But, friend, if you're going to be out of sorts because "you worked for your renown" and the person buying this boost did not, I think you might need to find some real problems.
Let people get into the game as quickly as possible. Dragonflight is on its way out, but the hype for The War Within has players coming back. Let them get some help to get into current content as quickly as possible.
I think I might agree with Taliesin's take on the most recent episdoe of he and Evitel's A WoW Podcast, Obviously.
The boost isn't necessarily the problem; it's the mess that a returning player logs into with an overwhelming number of quests available and no clear directives for which quests to attend to first.
In fact, the exclamation mark bloat on the map - especially in Valdrakken right now - is something that has been an issue for a while now in the alt-friendly era of WoW.
Please, Blizzard: let us have a toggle option to turn off the quest markers for quests we've already completed on other characters.
I am hopeful that the account-wide features coming to The War Within might address this, too.
Because if Shandris Feathermoon tries to get my attention ONE MORE TIME when I'm minding my own business leaving the inn in Valdrakken, I swear I'll... just continue to ignore her.
Finally, on a personal note, I found out my former guild master and good friend, Arlysil, passed away yesterday. I wrote about how much she helped me through a rough patch in my Wrath anniversary blog. We haven't played the game together in years, but I hold dear those memories from Wrath.
Whatever equivalent we have to Ardenweald is where I see Arly. May you fly free, friend. I will miss you.