Curse of Ula'tek Endgame Reward Changes

In Development Midnight: Curse of Ula'tek Public Test Realm
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With the Curse of Ula’tek content update on the horizon, we wanted to share a few thoughts on endgame rewards and additional context on some upcoming changes.

Nebulous Voidcore Rolls

Overall, we are happy with how Nebulous Voidcores have enabled players to target specific chase items and gear up alts who have missed a few too many Great Vaults. The option to take Nebulous Voidcores as a Great Vault consolation reward also created interesting new choices around that weekly reward ritual which has otherwise changed very little over the past several expansions.

However, the resulting pace of gearing in Midnight Season 1 was a bit quicker than we initially intended due to a combination of the unlock timing and the number of Voidcore rolls per week, and the increased relative value of Mythic+ dungeon rewards was particularly detrimental to Heroic raiding.

Heading into Season 2, Nebulous Voidcores will be available as a Great Vault reward option from the beginning of the season directly from the Great Vault UI. Decimus has decided to pursue other projects but has generously offered to train Orin Straylight in the basics of weaving Nebulous Voidcores from void energy. Orin has relocated to the Catalyst in Silvermoon to continue his work. Once players have helped Orin kick off his research at the start of the season, he will require eight weeks before being able to provide players with one Nebulous Voidcore each week. Orin is significantly more independent than Decimus and will not require additional weekly quest effort from the player during his research.

This immediate access to Nebulous Voidcores as a Great Vault reward is intended to allow players to begin progressing towards their desired items from the start of the season in a way that offsets the reduced quantity and later timing of supplemental Voidcores.

The Value of Raid Rewards

To better reflect the time and effort required to defeat raid bosses and align with the rewards value proposition of Mythic+, we are making several significant changes.

Great Vault rewards for raiding will now behave in the following ways:

  • LFR, Normal, and Heroic Great Vault rewards will always jump to the first step of the next upgrade track; for example, all Heroic raid vault rewards will be Myth 1/6.

  • Mythic raid Great Vault rewards will always be Myth 6/6 apart from Very Rare items and loot from the penultimate and final bosses. These latter items will now be acquired at the equivalent of Myth 9 regardless of whether found as a boss drop or in the Great Vault.

Nebulous Voidcore costs will also be reduced from two to one for raid items. As in Season 1, the power of items acquired with Nebulous Voidcores is aligned with the equivalent Great Vault reward for that content.

Catalyst Changes

Since the Catalyst’s introduction, the value of armor item drops in class set slots has been greatly reduced because the vast majority will simply be converted into a class set item. In order to give these items their own identity and allow for further character customization, class set armor will now inherit the secondary stats from the original converted item. This will also apply to certain special effects going forward such as Ula’tek’s Venomcursed armor cantrip.

As in previous seasons, players may also still acquire class set armor directly from the Venomous Abyss raid.

Ascendant Voidcores Venomstones

Ascendant Voidcores will return as Ascendant Venomstones at a later point as in Season 1, allowing players to push the limits of their power to new heights.

Orin’s prowess with Ascendant Venomstones is not quite as impressive as what Decimus pulled off with Ascendant Voidcores, but he has discovered a couple of tricks of his own. In addition to weapons and trinkets, players will also be able to upgrade their necklaces to a maximum item level equivalent to Myth 8. As in Season 1, only fully upgraded Hero, Myth, and maximum quality crafted gear of the equivalent item level may be upgraded with Venomstones.

Players will acquire an Ascendant Venomstone from every Heroic or Mythic raid boss, Mythic+ Keystone dungeons at +10 or higher, T11 Bountiful Delves, and Nightmare Prey Hunt Champion gear boxes. Players will require 10 Ascendant Venomstones to upgrade each piece of equipment.

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Midnight: Curse of Ula'tek PTR Development Notes
Raid Vault to Give 1 Track Higher Than Completed Content in S2
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Whats the item levels in 12.1? The usual +39 item levels from the previous season?

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Great change, should have been like that from the start.

None of these really address the elephant in the room when it comes to raid gearing: which is that it doesn’t drop enough items, and people are almost forced to rely on M+ gearing to stay relevant for most of the season.

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(post deleted by author)

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They’ve just gotten used to getting myth track from Normal content this season.

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Please consider the Catalyst changes to armor for pvp. If your converting a glad piece, you might not have the desired stats on multiple pieces. Tier set converstion really helped in this regards. I’d ask that you rethink the stance gladiator items when converting them to tier so that they get access to the raid set stat distrabutions.

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If it’s going to be like this season, raid items are going to be lacking in vers, which may or may not be what you want in PvP.

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My initial reaction to this is this is a great step towards “making it make sense”. Excited for these changes, but I think you have an opportunity to make it near perfect. For the catalyst, give the players the option of retaining equipment stats or choose the raid set stats. So many ways you could spin it to make it align with the fantasy of the game. Would at least calm the M+ players whom may feel like they have an unfair advantage now if they don’t partake in raiding.

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Brother, Blizzard doesn’t need RWF guild’s approval to make changes to the game, lol. If they wanna complain about changes that are good for the game, let them complain.

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This sounds great and all, but what are we doing to reward Mythic Raiding? Why is the portion of your community that has the most social and often encounter difficult challenges in PvE getting what feels like a big nothing? Saving a handful of crests doesn’t sound like a particularly inticing reward for character power.

Please consider giving Mythic Raiding some form of additional reward, that isn’t a mount and the occasional chase item thats supposed to be 9/6 Mythic. Mythic Raiders should feel rewarded as well, and lately it hasn’t.

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I rely on the Vault to be able to collect LFR armor off-pieces and weapons for mog, this change means I will no longer be able to rely on the Vault as a source of these mogs since the Vault will only offer Champion track and above.

I guess I’ll have to create alts and sacrifice their bonus rolls for LFR mog…but it’s not ideal.

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These are all good changes IMO. Heroic raiding was in a dead zone and I think improving the vault is a good middle ground change to help keep it relevant and on par with M+

There was a relevant comment above that raiding doesn’t drop enough loot, and I would agree with that to some degree. I’m not sure it needs to be buffed a lot, but it could certainly use something. Spending the whole night in the raid - even if you full clear it - and getting nothing but vault slots doesn’t exactly feel great.

Also glad to see bonus rolls sticking around. I think the mechanic and timing of it was a great implementation.

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Speaking as someone who dislikes raiding, changes to Great Vault rewards for Heroic raids sound really solid. It seems like it will make Heroic relevant again rather than being completely overshadowed by M+.

However, I’m miffed by the Venomcursed items having higher item levels on gear pieces that cannot be obtained at an equivalent ilvl from M+ or anywhere else. From glancing at the raid journal just for my class, the last two bosses can drop chest, back, pants, main hand, necklace, and trinket at i337. Venomstones from later in the season will be able to be used only on weapons, trinkets, and necklaces, boosting their ilvl from 327 to only 333.
This is already happening on Live with the Sporefused items on ilvl having +6 ilvl over gear from anywhere else. While I did not mind it as much as an end-of-season thing and the Mythic version of it being very accessible, I’d rather this ilvl exclusivity be dropped entirely. Unique raid loot drops are almost always the best gear around due to its cantrip effects or trinket effects already, on top of dropping at a higher upgrade track so it saves on crest upgrades. I personally don’t think there’s a need to make their ilvl the highest as well.

Please reconsider making the last two Mythic boss drops have higher ilvl than any other content’s drops (M+ Vaults) including eligible Venomstone-upgraded slots, thank you.

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Mythic raiding will remain the best source of myth gear in the game, bar none. That is what is being done for it.

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If thats the goal, its currently not being met for the vast majority of the community that makes the effort to partake in Mythic Raiding.

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Im unsure if this is a great choice. In theory? This feels so bad. IF im stuck in a season with for example boots with crit/verse and i catalyst my boots (This is in theory).

Im stuck with crit/verse instead of having something better stats wise. Unless you’re adding 6 pairs of every item with every stat like warlords. I dont think this is the right choice for gearing.

Could I be wrong? Maybe. But i still think this is a bad choice on paper.

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Agreed, I don’t like this change. I’m mostly a delver so maybe my opinion isn’t wanted, but I liked the Catalyst system because I knew I’d get a solid stat distribution once I had collected every single tier piece, because it’s meant to be all worn together. I can understand if it’s a cantrip piece, though I never get those. (they only drop directly from raids or M+, right?)

I’ve just never looked at a piece of armor and gone, “yeah, this is nice, but I wish I could keep the stats it has now when I catalyze it.” I just want the stats of the tier set. Then I can look at the stats on the whole thing when I’m done, and know whether or not I want to change up my enchants or gems to get the exact stat distribution I want.

I think a good compromise would be to only have this apply to cantrip items. I really don’t want to have to keep chasing more Hero-track pieces in a slot I’ve already upgraded to Hero, just because the random purple I got doesn’t have the right stats on it. I don’t just want the tier set for the set bonuses and the mogs, I want the tier set because it’s already had its stats curated for me.

Unless you’re going to give us complete control over what stat combo we get from the Catalyst, I don’t want to keep what I have. I want the Catalyst to change my item.

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