9.1 Hopes and Predictions

Wyrmrest Accord
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  • Heritage armor for orcs.

  • New ways to customize our shared covenant abilities (that also serve to address the weaknesses some have)

  • Necromancer class (Okay yeah, I know a new CLASS mid expansion will never be a thing, but I’ve been dreaming of a clothie necromancer class for years, let me dream. And no, I don’t want to control demons, I wanna control skelly bois and flesh sacks, there’s tons of ways to make it different than anything that currently exists in game, yadda yadda, get offa my cloud)

  • New legendary catchups for people whom the holiday seasons were NOT a good time to introduce a brand new expansion during, such as myself, Christ… Raise the weekly amount you get for doing an 8 based on a proportion of missing Soul Ash, it doesn’t have to be a completely instant catchup, but make it possible to be at least close to having as many legendary options to choose as someone who has been lucky enough to have the time to get on each week and do it religiously. I say this as someone who doesn’t have any issues (for the most part) clearing layer 8 runs in under an hour, but those first 2 months were brutal for some of us.

  • New reward incentives for Torghast. Perhaps a chest based on what floor you make it to in the endless halls, filled with gold and some anima, GEAR. Heck, make Endless Halls also count towards the weekly reward brackets as well, I LOVE Torghast but I want reasons to run it once I get my mount.

  • More anima rewards from mythic+, the amount you get is seriously depressing. I don’t like M+ as it is, so when I only get a small amount of anima because I wasn’t the one who won any loot, it feels pretty poop.

  • (coughFreedomForHongKongcough)

  • And uh… fix some of these damn bugs that have plagued the game since launch, it’s a little excessive. Like how the elites behind the doors of Torghast sliding puzzles offer nothing for killing them, or how focus magic cannot be cast 3 ways on mages despite there being nothing that should mess that up. There’s seriously more bugs in the game now than I remember there being in the BETA for BfA, and that’s saying something.

  • New superdungeons. Yes, plural. More than one.

  • New short raid. 1-2 bosses. I dunno, give us a dragon for no reason, I like fighting dragons.

  • Maw update. It’s clear this zone wasn’t exactly finished on launch. Finish it, make it good.

Things I’d just like to see at this virtual Blizzcorn;

  • Warcraft III Reforged get an overhaul, new team assigned, and some direction going, with a cinematics update, optimization, and many of the numerous bugs fixed.
  • Hearthstone to revert its many, MANY poor decisions in recent months, such as the rewards systems, do a complete overhaul of many of their decisions, and open up support for an in-game client for WoW that allows neutral spectators with an animation in WoW for playing a game so we can have actual RP Hearthstone tournaments.
  • Free Hong Kong. Again.
  • Bobby Kotick to walk on stage and trip on the last step up and fall facefirst into the floor so we can forever meme such a moment.
  • Diablo 4 to get a release date.
  • TBC Classic
  • A full admission from Blizzard’s higher ups that recent years have been handled poorly by and large, and for them to have already prepped and gone over a full plan to get back in touch with their community to build better games and have better communication, as well as offer jobs back to as many of the people they laid off as possible and actually use those numbers to put out the quality they were once known for. This somehow seems the least likely out of anything I’ve posted here.
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42

I’m so with you here. I wish they popped this in the game for Shadowlands. It definitely could have been different enough. Hell it could easily have been DPS/Tank/Heals.

3 great aesthetics: green/slime, red/blood, blue/spooky

So many awesome necromancer moves on NPCs. Imagine dropping a cauldron that let loose waves of skeletons? Green grabby hands, the green portal mobility stuff, all that green stuff and summoning/raising the dead for dps.

Turning into an abomination, lich or matron as a tank – maybe tanking in-form for 50%+ of the time you’re tanking. Hot damn, I’d love a Velf necromancer lady who turned into one of those matrons for any reason: SPOOKY TIME. Yes, death and the void are enemies but…“necromancy, it’s insane, right?”

Healing via spirit and blood/anima magic.

Balance? Shifting balance/imbalance is a cornerstone of MMO design so that is the ultimate noob argument IMO. Homogeneity? Already there. I have characters of every spec and click nothing. Bartender + 12-button mouse. Interrupts, taunts, mobility moves, major AoE, self heals, major damage/mitigation/heal abilities – all mapped to the same keys for every spec. One more would not make a difference.

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43

My hope: Blizzard remembers Nightborne are an allied race and gives them maybe, and I know this may be a stretch, but MAYBE another hair style and face option?

Another hope: Male Night Elves stop scowling all the time.

My expectation: Blizzard addresses the loot drought via finally reintroducing the Valor system or through another God-Awful RNG-based system everyone hates. My bet is on the latter.

New zone/raid announced, Sylvanas does stuff and everyone wishes she would just go away already.

Maybe Nathanos shows up and we get to kill him again. Everyone gets pretty stoked about that (Especially Horde Players).

Fire Mages get nerfed into the pavement, as is tradition for the first patch of an expansion.

They say the word ‘Demonology’ and warlock mains get excited only to have their dreams crushed when Blizzard doesn’t do anything about them.

Boomkins and Pallies continue to oppress everyone and do stupid dances while you corpse run back to be one shot again in war mode. (I’m not salty)

Rogues continue to cry as they get ANOTHER round of nerfs for some reason. Every other class relishes their suffering, as is tradition.

Blizzard gives tank specs a cozy buff so it isn’t World of Kite Tanking in Mythic+ and people actually want to tank again.

PvP players continue to get some love and better gear and, honestly, they deserve it. Their community has been in the gutter for a long time and I’m happy this expansion has treated them reasonably well.

Nothing is done to make healing specs any less challenging and healer mains continue to sob as their guilds fall apart due to burnout and they’re forced to PuG, hating themselves more and more as the patch progresses as the existential dread sets in that they picked a role where they are responsible for both tank screw ups and DPS going cross eyed and blasting mobs they shouldn’t. There seriously isn’t enough vodka in the world for healer mains right now, and my heart goes out to them.

The RP community continues to be ignored as Blizzard secretly hopes we’ll just go away and play Final Fantasy XIV or something.

More cosmetics to buy in the Blizz store.

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44

I predict anger. I hope the meltdowns are entertaining.

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45

my hope is that it drops the shadowlands entirely and says it was a bad dream

and the game actually is good

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I think the return of valor points has already been announced for 9.0.5, though IIRC they can only be used to upgrade items and not purchase pieces of gear.

Not too excited about it personally because it sounds like it is still exclusively for people who do Mythic+ and I don’t wanna do timed content where people will call me a noob

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47

I would like to see more buffs to pvp gear

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I also hate Mythic+ content and I almost exclusively do Mythic+, so I don’t blame you one bit. Mythic+ is terrible.

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The idea behind it is acceptable to me. Say you run a dungeon and get a weapon thats good for you! But its lower than what you need. Now instead of deleting it, you can upgrade it slowly but surely in almost the same way PvP gear upgrades.

So far yes it is aimed at M+ gangs but hopefully 9.1 will bring something similar for raid (Ion did say they were looking into it). Maybe upgrade the drops to a halfway point between the tier you got it in and the next tier? Idk, I’m not a developer.

What exactly needs to be buffed for PvP gear? Its the easiest way to gear out of the three current methods.

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I feel so attacked.

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Really I liked the pre-MoP systems in Cata and WotLK the most where it was focused on just buying items rather than upgrading random drops. Gave me an avenue to slowly acquire loot as somebody who doesn’t raid, with no random element.

BfA I could still slowly build my character up with warfronts, visions and WQs, though the results were very RNG based.

In shadowlands I don’t really have any way of getting loot at all.

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52

Yeah its a bit rougher this time around. Out of the 10 (or more) keys I did last week, I only got drops that weren’t anima from 4 (obviously your mileage may vary here, this was my personal XP).

Outside of LFR and PvP, there isn’t much for the casual player/alt to invest into without diving into things they may not be comfortable with. That (and leveling burnout) is one reason my Brewmaster is stuck at 56.

Maybe 9.1 will bring a loot vendor like BC-Cata did, and there will be something. Until then, we have to make due with what we got sadly.

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You can still gear up through world quests as long as you’re keeping on top of your weekly renown. At certain renown levels, the world quest ilvls bump up.

And then there’s always random BGs. Even if you go into them and lose every one, you can still get gear with honor and upgrade every piece to 197.

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You know what would be fun? New mage tower stuff. Maybe not weapons but like, cool appearances and really unique showstopping TMOGs for armor and weapon affects.

Have it be a thing in Torghast, cost no currency to queue for, and let you pick from a shop of anima powers beforehand to choose different strats before you try the boss. Have like 8-10 different bosses with different rewards depending on what you do it on- like a Ret paladin can challenge a boss for a plate set, for a weapon appearance, and for a weapon affect appearance

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I would love some more Jailor/Maw themed armor mogs. The Mawsworn have some of the best armor designs in the game. Imo, anyway. I love the architectural design of Torghast and the Maw. I would even shovel money into my monitor screen if Blizzard offered them on the Shop.

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56

I want some new non covenant Shadowland zones, show us different afterlives, the “real” afterlives where people actually go to retire instead of getting assigned an afterjob.

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57

!!!

Possible Azeroth content?

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9.1 Not-Going-to-Happen-Prediction:

Blizzard gets tired of my endless Open a Suggestion Tickets and finally institutes the following, because I know better than they do:

9.1: Archaeology becomes relevant in Shadowlands.

What better time than stepping into the literal AFTERLIFE void, than to reintroduce armor and weapons previously removed from the game forever either due to the Cataclysm or Blizzard’s casual don’t-care-about-things?

!Quest:
It seems (Insert class here), you’ve been summoned back to your Class Hall.

(Class Hall NPC): “We’ve received some information (Rogue) and we need you to investigate. We’ve sent (Red Shirt NPC) into the Maw on a mission to recover some long, lost valuables and they haven’t been heard from since. We need you to find them. Do us a solid.”

!Quest: Take the Portal to the Maw and search for (Red Shirt NPC). Recover the valuables.

!Archaeology weekly questline /NPC Kill opens up.

Weekly Archaeology Quest in The Maw:
Random Dig Sites in The Maw. Uncover them. Eventually, one dig site will reveal Dying Red Shirt NPC, who offers you another quest with their last breath.

They open a !Quest to kill Random Named NPC in The Maw.
Kill NPC. NPC loot table includes:
Class Armor Sets previously removed from Scholomance due to Cata revamp
Random global drops previously removed from the game
Random items that are in the game, but were never offered to players
+
1 unnamed armor piece that you can take back to an Archaeology Trainer to turn in for one of the above items. (i.e. if it doesn’t drop for you randomly, you can grind for it.)

None of this will ever happen but I will also never forgive Blizz for removing items that only randomly dropped in the world that I can now never obtain.

We’re spending this expac strolling through The What Comes After. It’s literally the perfect place to find our lost socks.

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Imo, I wouldn’t call the covenants ‘After Jobs’. Maybe Bastion, but like-

The Venthyr CHOOSE to become Venthyr. After their time is up and they have paid the toll for their crimes in life, they can scoot on out or become a ‘definitely not vampire’.

The Ascended were righteous, noble people in life. The type of people that would gag at the very thought of not helping other people, even if they’re dead. Kinda self-serving, in a way, but hey, someone’s gotta do it and these people really enjoy looking out for others to the point they erase their own memories to do it.

“HELLO NECROLORDS. I LIKE FITE. YOUR REALM IS ENTIRELY FITE? YES.”

The Night Fae actually have the closest to actual retirement. As a soul there, you don’t ACTUALLY need to join the Wild Hunt. A certain someone does because, haha, it’s -fun- and they do it better than anyone else. Mostly, though, you can turn into an animal and the wild hunt keeps you safe while you enjoy nature forever.

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Maybe we’ll get the Brawler’s Guild and new shirts. Come to think of it, where are my covenant themed shirts?!

2 Likes