Feedback: Embers of Neltharion (10.1) Announcement

Hey all!

Today we just announced the 10.1 patch, Embers of Neltharion. As a quick reminder, here are a few of the features that were revealed:

  • New Raid: Aberus, the Shadowed Crucible
  • New Tier Sets
  • New Dragonriding Customizations
  • Season 2 Mythic+ Dungeons
  • Cross-Faction Guilds
  • Updated Roadmap
  • New Upgrade System

Use this thread to let us know your first impressions and feedback on everything that was revealed. We look forward to hearing what everyone is most anticipating with the upcoming release of Embers of Neltharion.

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Warning, a bit long cause I get long winded:

I made a separate thread it the Cross-Faction stuff, but I’ll re-voice it here, as well as other stuff.

  1. I love most of the new raid sets. I enjoy you guys split from what you’ve been doing where every raid set has the same color. I do feel hunters got a very “meh” set, which is what we’ve been used to. The last really good hunter set was Tier 2, so it’s been a while. For instance, the Sepulcher set felt more like a druid set, with the bird theme. Likewise the Vault set doesn’t say hunter at all, rather a generic set with no real theme. And yes, they looked good, but they didn’t say hunter - and that’s the issue with the new tier set as well. For those who haven’t seen it:

EDIT: Changed the images and wording cause the old images got taken down)

You can tell which one is the monk set, demon hunter set (though I feel the eyes should be covered on that one), evoker set, etc. Because there are pieces of that class fantasy in those sets. The monk hat, the demon hunter fel essence, and evokers wings. On the opposite end, nothing about that says hunter. If anything, it says warrior to me. The warrior set is here:

To be frank, if you showed me those two sets and asked me which one was hunter and which one was warrior, I’d tell you the opposite, because the warrior set looks heavily inspired by Hunter Tier 2, just with red instead of purple.

Just to re-iterate: Every other tier set looks amazing (though the Priest one really looks like a Paladin set). The warrior set looks incredible as well, but doesn’t really “say” warrior, just like the hunter set doesn’t say hunter. I have no doubts some people will disagree, but just my thoughts. I hope you do some updates to the hunter and warrior sets to help distinguish them as their class before it goes live. The hunter’s helm, for instance, could be themed around an animal we find in the caves, rather than a random helmet that doesn’t fit at all.


  1. I love the new dragonriding mount. I can’t wait to unlock it! I do hope you guys eventually add an option in the Dragonriding Customization Menu to make the customizations account-wide. Cause trying to remember the customization settings for each character gets tiresome. :sweat_smile:

  2. I mentioned this in a thread another user made, but I’m hoping that with the removal of seasonal affixes, you guys will focus more on making the level 7 effects curse/kiss effects like seasonal affixes often were. Affixes shouldn’t solely be a curse/difficulty addition. They should reward you if you complete them right. Similar to how if played correctly, you can use thundering to your advantage to give you a 30% damage boost for 12ish seconds.

  3. Cross Faction guilds are AMAZING - I’m already planning 12 horde on my main realm. However, I ask one thing: Please increase the Guild Member cap. 1000 is just not high in these times. Once I have 12 horde toons, I will have 48 toons in my guild. I’ll be taking up just under 5% of the total guild limit by myself. That feels horrible. Communities suffer from this cap as well. And we’re struggling to fit members in with single faction, imagine cross faction.

I also would like to ask you consider adding Cross-Faction to Looking for Group and LFR. They’ll be the last facets of the game without cross-faction, and should have been the first to gain it, truthfully. It will equalize queue timers between factions and increase the amount of players in late night runs (we had to wait like 2 hours Monday night for a replacement tank for Razsageth LFR).

  1. I’m not even going to lie - I had no idea what the new upgrade system was. I had to have someone simplify it even more for me. I think a big part of it is you guys chose words like “Adventurer” and “Veteran” instead of simplifying it to “Outdoor” and “LFR” It makes it confusing which gear is which level when you do things like that. Especially when Heroic and Mythic are accurate labeled Hero and Mythic. Going to “Outdoor” then “Quest” then “LFR” then “Normal” would help explain this better than using Explorer, Adventurer, Veteran and Champion. Especially since it feels somewhat demeaning as a outdoor player to be called simply an Explorer/Adventurer.I know that wasn’t the intent, but it feels like you’re treating Outdoor/Questing players like we aren’t “real” players by calling us simply Explorers.

You also capped outdoor gear below Normal (and LFR, at that rate) Raid ilvl. Why are you guys going backwards on outdoor player progression?

In Shadowlands Korthia, we could upgrade to the middle of Normalish gear. In Zereth and Dragonflight Vault, we could get around the same (though a little lower, iirc). But now we can’t even reach the highest level of LFR, or the lowest level of Normal? LFR gear can be upgraded 4 stages above the highest outdoor gear.

Again, as I’ve said many times, you guys are treating outdoor players like we matter less than the other players by doing things like this. We deserve a competitive gearing option. (Competitive meaning between Normal and Heroic Raids if we put in enough effort to upgrade things)

I understand you want to try to push people into raids, but you’re alienating an entire playerbase by doing things like this. Our voices matter too, but the gameplay design decisons are showing you don’t think that. Please reconsider the max level for “Adventurer” gear to get to the same power as 8/8 LFR and 4/8 Normal, for instance. That way we can still outgear LFR if we put in effort, and get partway into Normal.

EDIT: This entire section can be ignored if you can earn Veteran Gear in the open world - but you specifically refer to it as LFR gear in the article, so I’m going on the assumption outdoor gear is capped at Adventurer.

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Not sure if tier appearances will undergo any changes, but just for initial feedback, the shaman tier helm looks very lackluster. Not sure what the opinions of other shamans are on this.

imgur link to tier: https://imgur.com/a/c8EAyQj

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This is just a preliminary suggestion based on the released screenshots, and that’s that I feel that the fog / atmosphere of the cavern could do with some work to make it feel less bleak. The zone looks like it’ll be a lot of fun, and I was a huge fan of Deepholm back in the day, but the current screenshots make it look very grey-teal, with a lot of the colour washed out of environmental objects, and my impression is that it feels more depressing than dark and mysterious.

I know you’re going for a dark environment but it’s definitely possible do that while including vivid colours and interesting effects. Deepholm was a fantastic example of that.

As a parallel, Nazjatar suffered from the same thing in early PTRs: the fogging was so heavy that the entire zone felt bleak and gloomy, but it was adjusted before release and ended up looking great.

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Quite a bit of an info dump, and I’m excited for what is to come.

New Raid: Aberus, the Shadowed Crucible

  • We have very little info of the raid, so I can’t really comment much on this. What I will say is that I’m happy that Blizzard is not catering toward the race to world first players desire and delaying raids release. Releasing all the raid difficulties at the same time is great and truly lets each guild set its own pace.
  • Another thing that I am looking forward to is the eventual cross faction same guild when available. Finally, I’ll be able to play whatever I want with my guild and not have to be in my bank guild to play.
  • One thing I would like to see though is no more class specific loot, like the Hunters had in Season 1 of DF and the bow in Sanctum.

New Tier Sets

  • Before I go into specific sets, why does Blizzard always release the preview set on a Human Male? Demon Hunters can’t be Human, so seeing that set on a DH looks stupid and just doesn’t look right. Maybe it’s just the human preview and the way it has its arms out, but not feeling it.
    *I was made aware that the preview is a Male Blood Elf not a Human. I guess it’s just the big brawler arms that makes it look weird. Would have to see it in game on my character in movement to get a full feel for it.
  • Warrior one looks amazing. I am loving this Kaiju fighter look.
  • Priest one is top tier for sure. Those wing spans are insane, and I can’t wait to see how this looks on my Female Night Elf
  • Set bonus is still TBD, but I am happy to hear that it’s going to be more impactful than season 1, but not super powered like DF Season 4.

New Dragonriding Customizations

  • If this is in regards to the Winding Slitherdrake, cool I guess. I’m just waiting for all mounts to be able to be dragonriding ready.

Season 2 Mythic+ Dungeons

I’ll break it down in parts: Returning Dungeons (RD), DF Dungeons (DD), and Affixes

  • RD: Freehold
    • Great. Just happy to see this back. Just a fun dungeon all around. Probably has nothing to do with DF story wise at all, but that’s totally fine. We should have fun things in the game just because, and I’m glad it’s back.
  • RD: Underrot
    • Another great dungeon. A lot of different ways to clear the dungeon with the various routing options. My DH is going to love this dungeon because of the Fist weapon drops.
  • RD: Vortex Pinnacle
    • Very excited to see what lessons Blizzard has learned with these older dungeons being brought back. Season 1 of DF had 2 incredible standout dungeons, for the wrong reason with COS and SMBG. They were just on another tier of easy compared to any other dungeon on the same key level, and that should not happen again. If Blizzard can retune this dungeon to be similar to how HOV and Jade felt (except the last trash in Jade wth was that?), Vortex can be great.
    • It’s a pretty ‘Press W’ route so rip Dratnos in his routes videos, but that’s alright.
    • My only real concern is Tyrannical Grand Vizier Ertan and when all the tornadoes come in. That is a LOT of damage that goes out and Blizzard should look at Hyrja’s scaling Eye of the Storm for inspiration on how to fix the damage scaling
    • Also regarding Vizier, it seems that Prot Warrior is going to be top tier on this because of, once again, Spell Reflect.
  • RD: Neltharion’s Lair
    • Nothing really to add since it was a Legion TW M+ during Shadowlands, and it was pretty good.
  • DD: Neltharus
    • First, this is going to get real confusing when we see posts for more Nelth when we have 2 dungeons that start with Nelth.
    • This dungeon is going to be a nightmare on Fort weeks. So much trash in this place.
    • The only other concern I have with this dungeon is Magmatusk. Oh boy. The first week of M0 flashbacks. This may brick a lot of keys if you don’t bait the charge right.
  • DD: Uldaman
    • I think the bosses are pretty fairly balanced. Challenging yet not crazy. The trash will be painful especially if you pull many Sentinels and the trash leading up to the final boss. Those dots stack quickly!
  • DD: Brackenhide Hollow
    • Personally, I’m excited for this one. I think a lot of folks are over-estimating this place. Just interrupt the fear and cleanse disease should be all that you need.
    • Going to have the same issue as Nok though with the range trash that just doesn’t move. Can be triaged a bit by stutter stepping in between the abilities
  • DD: Halls of Infusion
    • Now this is a problem dungeon for sure. You pretty much can’t do this dungeon without a cleanse. Those frogs stacks are going to brick this key. Gotta figure something out with that so those who don’t have a cleanse can still clear this dungeon.
    • The gauntlet. Thank you for nerfing it the first week on M0. I think it’s in a much better state now but that is something to continue to look into in testing phases and live phases for sure.
  • Affixes: Although I am sad to see the Season affix being retired for now, I can understand why because of the rotating dungeons. Overall, I really enjoyed the new iterations that we had throughout previous seasons. Thundering sucked all in all especially since it was required to have a weakaura that spammed your chat. I will not miss that at all.
    Glad to hear that you are focusing on affixes where it was painful for healers. My healer friend that used to push with us at the start, dropped out because of how stressful it was and I don’t blame them at all. Can’t wait to hear more of what you do with the 7 affix refresh.

Cross-Faction Guilds

  • Finally. Nothing but good things. Just waiting for Night Elf Paladins, and I’ll race change from Blood Elf to NE asap.

Updated Roadmap

  • The only standout difference I see is the removal of the Holiday Updates from 10.0.7. Has that been scrapped or what was the update? I don’t remember much talk about that during the 10.0.7 PTR cycle

New Upgrade System

  • Very confusing reading this post. Wondering why we have so many complicated currencies to get, when valor + rating seemed to work just fine. Naturally this is coming from mainly an M+ player, so I assume this has something to do with raiders as well as world content players?
  • Kind of unrelated, but I did bring up a point to bring this upgrade system to heirlooms as well. Heirloom Gear Revamp - #2 by Abolita-korgath

Excited to hear more about this patch especially Scarizard’s forthcoming Revival catalyst, Class Set Acquisition, and Raid Rewards and the lessons learned. https://twitter.com/ScarizardPlays/status/1628566105613815809

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The problem there is only like half the healing specs can cleanse disease.

If Brackenhide is going M+, the disease needs to be turned into a Magic effect, or every single group without a disease cleansing healer are going to be forced to take an alchemist. (and even then, the alchemy effect from the cauldrons isn’t nearly as strong as an actual dispel) Which is just silly.

A disease dispel is pretty much mandatory even on m0. So it’s going to be even more mandatory on M+, which shuts out half the healing specs from healing that dungeon.

This was my first thought when I heard Vortex was coming too. The amount of AoE damage going out on that boss was borderline impossible to heal on certain specs even at heroic during Cata. I say borderline because it was possible, it was just incredibly hard and required a very coordinated group. Then on top of the unavoidable AoE damage (that gets very strong while the tornados are swirling in/out), you have the avoidable tornados that one step in will probably kill you in M+.

It just… does not sound fun in the least. I’m also a bit confused because Blizzard told us pre-MoP dungeons were not being considered for M+ as they aren’t designed for the M+ playstyle.

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Huh? Cata never had mythics. Mythic was never even a thing until WoD.

Heroic. It’s late and I’m tired. We all know how Cata Heroics were. Haha. I’ll edit it.

Looks good, happy to see cross faction guilds come in, I just hope it comes in with no stupid restrictions.

Again, disappointed to see no accessability changes, pretty sure you’re capable of bringing new content as well as improving accessability so people can access that new content.

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With regards to Cross Faction Guilds, this again got me thinking - Why do we not have cross faction Dungeon Finder and Raid Finder? I am referring to the groups which are made via the queuing system. It would be nice if this came a long in 10.1 , or at a later date.

As for the other items that were revealed, I am always eager to see new things such as transmogs and mounts. Hopefully there are some nice mounts coming in 10.1, and Drake full appearances (like Razageth’s in 10.0).

I would love to learn more about the lore behind the new Raid as it does sound very interesting, hopefully we don’t end up being influenced by any old god remnant and end up like Deathwing!

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Adore the Cross Faction guilds. Massive benefit to a number of RP Circles and friend groups being able to be in the same guild no matter what faction your character is. I hope this eventually leads to the dissolving of the language barrier if you’re out in the world so that more organic experiences can arise. Also, LFD/LFR Needs cross-faction grouping as an option. I’d say a majority of players would want faster queues and really do not care if they have a blood elf or a night elf in their group because that is at odds with actually playing the game mechanically.

I am a bit confused as to why the gearing system is the way it is. Honestly I don’t know why it’s just not one single form of drake wing that drops and requires more of them to upgrade a higher ilvl piece of gear. Furthermore, I don’t see the point in limiting anyone from getting to heroic or mythic quality gear level if they do outdoor content, LFR, etc, if they are just willing to grind it out and get there. It’s a pointless restriction.

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I’m REALLY excited for cross faction Guilds!!! OMG I’m so happy lol

I agree with some other comments that cross faction other things would be great too and wish it could come faster but at the same time appreciate that a certain level of pacing has to be there in order for the more major new content to remain at a good pace.

The item upgrade system looks REALLY nice!! I’m mostly an LFR player and the idea that I can upgrade that gear to something that is better than the crappy iLvl it drops at is VERY exciting to me! Even though I play a TON of hours each week my life is very unpredictable and scheduling regular raid times or M+ or PvP time is impossible for me so I am by necessity mostly a solo player. This system will give me some good gear progression I think (I hope). I haven’t studied the system thoroughly enough yet to really understand how much better I can make LFR gear so hopefully it is meaningful.

It’s hard to figure out from the iLvl chart which dungeon/raid content corresponds to Explorer, Adventurer, Veteran, Chamipon, Hero, Mythic. From the text below the chart it seems Veteran is LFR so iLvl 402-424. In any case a 4th column indicating the content that the iLvl corresponds to would be really nice to see. The fact that this system is so immensely alt friendly is amazing! This really demonstrates to me that some of these philosophical changes have become systemic and are now a routine part of the systems development. I am very impressed.

VERY happy this system is not changing how PvP gearing works, that is one of the best PvP systems we’ve ever had IMO

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The Paladin tier set is the worst we have had in a long time

#stopthepallygowns

Lol I love those! The BWL set is my favorite :slight_smile: I’m actually going to heal on my pally just for the new set. I think it’s cool lol. (It also helps that I finally figured out how to heal on a pally)

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Regarding the changes to most interrupts (shorter lockouts):
I hope the tuning for the next season of M+ will be improved in that regard and also in general. Regular trash pulls with multiple chain casters will only become more tedious. Overall there have been widespread complaints about M+ becoming more and more reliant on constant interrupts on regular pulls. I am not talking about examples of well choreographed mass pulls in the MDI or similar things.

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Regarding x-faction guilds:
Will Cross-Faction become accessable for all separated raids (ICC, BDA, etc) with 10.1 too or is this part of the “additional polish and options” mentioned in a current statement?

The only set it looked good on was the BWL one

Hard to argue that!

Still no Dragonflying for Dracthyr soar :frowning: Feels so bad to sit on a dragon when I’m a dragon myself. Dracthyr should also really be able to fly in old zones, just like druids.

I’d like to add to this that communities have to way of pruning inactive members either, meaning that active communities where many people join, but people never leave when they quit playing, cause the communities to blow up so to say. This requires roll-over communities where everyone joins the new one, stays in 1 or 2 copies, and then the old communities get disbanded. I’m currently in a community where we are on number 3, and it’s filling up fast.

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Yep I made a thread about this here months ago. Communities REALLY need access to “Last online” like guilds so we can prune people who quit.

Like they’re in dire need of it. The main hunter petopia community in game has been full since the start of BFA and died because of this. I think I left it because pruning was impossible.

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