I think I’m about to renew my subscription. I just want a little direction for what to do with the next month… I’m level 60, and have been floundering with random things since I came back.
I hit 60 and completely ignored the covenant campaign, leveled a couple alts to 60…
Came back to this priest and random BG a lot and got a full set of pvp gear. Now I’ve done enough of the covenant campaign that I see that was a giant waste of time and honor?
I guess I’d like a little advice as to what to do next? I only get to play on average 1 hour per day tops, with a random day here and there for maybe 3 hours.
I’m thinking about finishing the covenant campaign, then learn the level 60 dungeons, with random PVP mixed in. I’m just kinda frustrated that I spent all that time doing pvp and its now seriously outranked by the quest gear.
Covenant campaign gear and honor gear actually max out at the same item level (197), so don’t feel that you wasted time on getting a set of it. The higher renown level you go, an NPC in your sanctum will have a quest to unlock higher ilvl upgrades on battleground gear.
A lot of people will actually choose to boost their initial item level with battleground gear instead of covenant gear because they find it more fun to farm honor than anima.
Of course both sets are meant as introductory gear. A stepping stone to get you into RBG, Arena, Mythic +, or Raids. So at this point your next step will just be figuring out what end game activities you want to participate in, and go from there.
I hate to say it, but as a casual player, you might want to pay gold for one carried Mythic+10 run every week. That way you get a 220 ilevel piece from the Great Vault every Tuesday.
Currently Mythic+10 carries are an economically efficient way to gear up. It only costs 280k gold or so per run. The carriers may not finish on time, but the Great Vault will reward you with a 220 ilevel piece regardless of timer. In comparison, Arena carries that get you to 1600 rating (213 ilevel) would cost the upward of 1.6 million gold.
Once you have a few pieces of 220 from the Great Vault, as a healer you can climb up yourself by pugging up to +8 or +10 Mythic+ dungeons and 1400+ rated battleground (RBG) groups, therefore earning your independence from paid carries and start earning the strong gear with your own work.
Alternative, if you don’t want to spend gold at all, you can grind Mythic+ low keys and yolo RBG groups by pugging yourself. It just takes a great many more hours to achieve the same results. As Holy Pally I pugged with a dozens of (painfully bad) yolo RBG groups before getting lucky enough to be chosen into a good group. In just 2 hours, we had a winning streak and ascended to 1600 rating.
$40 in tokens for one single piece of vault gear that will be outdated in a few months is about the farthest thing from economically efficient that I can think of. I’m not judging gold carries, please don’t think I’m scoffing or anything, but telling new players it’s economic is disingenuous at best.
It could also very easily lead to people who don’t know any better getting sucked into a RMT for a carry, which is a quick way to get themselves banned if caught.
That’s the whole point of selling WoW Tokens: to get the time-poor, money-rich players the gold they need to skip painfully long grinds, so to retain their subscription.
I’m sure there are a few new players who are willing to take the grind. But this is not 2005 anymore. There are so many fun alternatives now. Strong-arming new WoW players to get the majority of them accustomed to a long grind will achieve nothing other than hurting both the MMO market share and profitability of Activision Blizzard.
And it’s fine if you present it that way, and warn them of the dangers of RMT in the process. But calling it economic is misleading, which was the point of my response.
According to me, players like the OP have choices. They can make the best use of what resources they have, and balance the desire for strong gear and the time, gold, and pain needed to attain it.
According to you, players are slaves to the grind. They must not have choices and must learn to spend the time, take the pain, and stomach the toxicity to grind.
It’s not wasted. Your gear is 190, and you can buy pvp gear and upgrade it to 197. There are pieces you can buy from pvp that isn’t available from quest gear. You already have a few, you need to unlock the ability (and might already have it) to upgrade your pvp gear all the way to 197.
As for what you should do, you can define that for yourself, as Zipster said
Do finish your covenant upgade to upgrade gear to 197. You seem to be interested in dungeon running. You should start learning mythic dungeons and get into running those and eventually climb mythic+. You should also look into asking your guild for raiding spot and maybe help to get into that content. If you want to get into the pvp scene RBGs are also a good thing to get into.
But WoW also has tons of content in general. You don’t have to chase just gear. Get your 197 gear and you might like other things. Maybe do the pet battles/collect pets, mounts, transmogs, titles, certain reputations, learn story, achievements and more. But gear progression is the main content most like, and that will begin with dungeons.
We should not be encouraging people to pay extra money to enjoy the game they’re already subbing for, especially not when they might not understand the nuances of these things. People have different interests and different ways to enjoy content, at their own possible pace. Not everything has to be a speed to get mythic gear and part of the reason the ilvl on questing gear is so high is so casual players won’t have to pay for runs to have fun in the game.
Instead, we should encourage players to try out different type of content and guide them to learning different parts of the game. If players generally want to spend money on tokens to use for content we should mention its possibility, but not something they should do.
The human brain is optimal for learning in the first 6~12 months when exposed to something new. How much they can climb in this period is a strong driving factor of how much they can ever achieve in World of Warcraft. New players are also the most capable in overcoming even the toughest challenges in this period. Afterwards, the brain no longer motivates nearly as much.
Therefore, we should not distract her with “pet battles/collect pets, mounts, transmogs, titles, certain reputations, learn story, achievements” and the likes. Many casual players spent their first 6~12 months on the more relaxing contents, and have been having difficulties being accepted into the notoriously elitist WoW community ever since. (Even though the majority of these “elitists” are actually just scum lords fantasizing themselves as temporarily inconvenienced e-sports world champions.) Everything is harder when you no longer have the early excitement and interest.
OP already said she was “kinda frustrated that I spent all that time doing pvp and its now seriously outranked by the quest gear.” She wants to climb. We should therefore help her climb in every way possible. This early experience of success would then make her much more fit for surviving in a virtual world full of scoundrels and mean people.
The OP queuing for “random (casual) BG a lot and got a full set of pvp gear” indicates that she is already having problems being accepted into a warm and active PvP community. (Else she would be queuing RBGs with guildies.)
All in all, another path she can make efforts in is to find a strong and active PvP guild in the Azgalor realm. She doesn’t have to be “pro” in her PvP play or be spending too much time in WoW. She just needs to be accepted into a competitive PvP group and play occasionally (RBGs or Arena 3s, for example), so she knows what the real endgame is like, and how to improve PvP skills. She will also have guildies that can be of close help (rather than strangers on a forum leaving messages). This way, she won’t ever be intimidated by the “elitists” in the future, and should be able to survive anywhere in WoW.
Thanks for all the responses and feedback… I renewed and think I’m just going to go ahead and finish the covenant campaign with this character and just casually get to the max renown for the title. Continuing to do random bg’s for now. I just never realized how easy it was to get up to 195ish through continuing the campaign…
I was at one point in life a pretty hardcore raider working on server firsts, etc. Loved it in vanilla being the first in server to kill a new BWL boss and barely second to kill rag… Those were awesome times.
I have zero interest in paying for carries, and I hope the game hasn’t devolved into 100% needing that in order to feel adequate.
What I’ve learned is that when I pick back up on an alt, I will follow through with the campaign in a different covenant, and probably avoid PVP until I’m done with that.
aaaaaaaand this is why the world is infested with bots.
people buying gold from third party sites, because they want other people to play the game on their behalf.
yep, seeing this happen quite frequently now.
someone was staging a little protest last week, because they felt a 6 month suspension was “too harsh”… while also having played since at least 09, and claiming they didn’t know it was against the rules.
You are free to grind everything yourself. Just be sure not to give any of your gold to friends (who have a competitive edge on the content they like) to carry you. That way, you can use the saved gold on WoW Tokens and you even save money on monthly subscription.
Mythic dungeons in the next patch 9.0.5 will have an upgrade system like pvp and the covenant gear.
You only wasted your Honor on gear. It’s the conquest gear that matters. If you like pvp sign up for premade rated battleground listed as “yolo” groups to get conquest.
DON’T buy carries. Don’t listen to the bots trying to get you to buy stock in Gamestock or dogecoin either. Because then you’re paying the subscription AND the cost of the run and that run will use up one of your hours a day.
If i were you I’d use that hour to do a yolo rated battleground and a mythic+ and some chores, Torghast etc.
You should also be able to queue for the LRF raid and once u get the hang of that you can pug in the group finder for normal raid.
The best advice I can give is to get a guild with people you mesh with and the ideas of what to do next will come naturally.
