Do you guys think it would be a good idea for essence to either go account wide or become easier to obtain on alts? I have a few rank 4s and everything rank 3 on my dh, I don’t know if it’s fair to make it account wide, but I wish my alt had it a bit easier. Like come on, 20 days for rank 3 of lucid dreams. 4 gated weeks for rank 3/4 visions, and refarming Mechagon rep. LOL, none of this is fun. I got to 65 on my alt in 3 days, it’s a joke. But these gated essences really suck
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As a heroic raider (nothing impressive) and 2300 experienced discipline priest who multi-classed 7 characters above 2k - yes, I wish essences were easier to acquire on alts. I despise how high the barrier to entry is for pvp right now. It’s ridiculous.
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I’d say ‘easier’ yep. Nearly done on my alts anyway but the journey has felt more tedious than the equivalent for Legion context (class hall locations were different, etc).
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I had 4 alts in 8.1 that I enjoyed raiding and M+ on. I have 0 alts in 8.2. It’s not worth losing brain cells over doing the same boring, time gated world quests for 30 days in a row on each alt. I would lose my mind. So I just play other games now instead of enjoying wow on my alts. I guess it’s what Blizzard wants.
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Yes 100%
I got the intro one at rank 1 and that’s all they’ll get. Couple of them have the second slot unlocked and its gonna be empty for a while. Essences should be BoA imo
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Every time i get to playing one of my alts i look at the essences and think “whats the point.” then farm AP on my main.
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I can’t agree with every single post in here more. I’m leveling this priest and half the time I remind myself, “why do I bother, 2 important healer essences are rep based.”
There are naysayers that argue and say “you just want another main, not an alt.”
No, I just want to enjoy the video game I’m playing, isn’t that the point? I think we’ve earned it by now.
It’s absolutely true, I just log off disappointed and get on a different game.
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I’ve never had every single person on a thread actually agree w/ me on everything. Blizz please make them account wide or easier to get soon. Don’t wait for the last raid tier, you’re killing peoples motivation
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Likewise. In previous expacs I was a serious alt-a-holic. In Legion, which wasn’t very alt friendly I still played several alts and came into BFA expecting to play my main and 3 alts. But now I play my main and nothing more. The systems and content Blizzard has consistently been producing are too time consuming, and too alt-unfriendly do put that much effort into the game any longer.
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Typically I have 8 alts but I just cannot find the motivation. Dropping two servers and deleting name placeholders. Farming LFR mounts and pets is too much effort, maintaining the highest level crafting on multiple servers is ridiculous. Not to mention this dissatisfaction with story line - one of the hardcore I knew gave up because he just could not deal with Trolls everywhere all the time. He moved to alliance and quit. It is a lot of things that makes progressing with an alt really difficult.
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I really hate to admit it, but I find myself in the, “Essences Should be Account Wide,” crowd.
Why would any human ever want to do some of these essences more than once?
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This should be a thing soon 
come on blizz
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You can do the vast majority of content with rank 1-2 Essences, which are quite easy to get.
Only time it’s necessary to have Rank 3’s is if your pushing high end content like Mythic raids, higher end M+, or higher end PvP. If your doing your M10 and clearing Heroic every week it’s not necessary (and most likely you will get Rank 3’s naturally anyways)
While a small bit of help would be nice (like having rep-based Essences be unlocked faster or something since that’s one of the main gripes) account wide is a no-go in my book. This was Blizzards answer to people complaining that individual characters didn’t matter.
Characters in a MMORPG shouldn’t be treated like a Swiss Army knife where you can swap to what’s convenient, individual characters should matter more and I hope it’s something they double down on in light of Classic’s success.
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For a variety of reasons I’ve been outfitting a second tank recently. For my DPS getting their essences is easy: Raid and do content. But tank essences are locked behind reps or PvP and are a royal pain in the butt to get. While I don’t necessarily think the essences should be fully unlocked out of the gate they should be easier to obtain the second time around IMHO. Particularly the ones that require exalted on a faction… that’s just nuts.
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Yeah, at least some sort of system that we got with the raid essences. Unlock first one for rank 3, then your other spec has it easier with the Reliquaries. Something like that should at least work across character. For example, instead of 4 sprockets for visons r3, maybe 2. Conflict and strife r3 should take only 5 combine things after getting it r3 the first time. Idk how they would work the other essences, and this seems like it would require a patch to implement it. But, I highly think we need some sort of system that will allow alts to have it easier. It’s not even for the sake of “it’s hard”. There’s just no motivation, I mean, look at the other people commenting. look at other posts. So many others want some sort of easier way to obtain it on alts.
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I don’t think they need to give away neck levels, but essences are something that take an actual month with some of them. Bearing in mind that these will be absolutely irrelevant in 9.0 and may possibly become so in 8.3, I don’t see the reason not to let these be account wide.
Mythic raiding flexibility and keys are the only reason I want an alt and the last 2 tiers I was able to keep 1-2 serviceable. A lot of good essences are locked behind a months worth of stuff I don’t like doing, and thats if we ignore the casino grind for everything else involved in a character. Its alright to be done with stuff. Many people are playing both retail and classic. Why add another time played metric when the only purpose it actually serves is time played?
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I disagree completely largely because this is an MMO that you should have fun in, I have never in all my years heard or heard of people complaining about individual characters not mattering, That isn’t even a concern of 99% of MMO players and in WoW it has always been about Alts and making them as playable as possible
Blizzard does ok with Alt’s, but they can do better and honestly Alt’s help keep this game alive, we already have enough raid loggers
You can hope all you want, but Classic and Retail will always be different and should be, the game has progressed a very long way, and it may not be the game you remember or like today which would mean you either need to adjust to it or move on!
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While I won’t argue that some of the Essences do take a bit to get, tbh when I was more heavily engaged on my main I got a lot of Rank 2/3 Essences very quickly.
I had Rank 2’s of most of the Essences I owned within a week of 8.2’s release, and Rank 3’s the week after. Some I even got Rank 2/3 in a couple of days.
While I agree that the rep related ones could get reined in a bit (maybe dropping the requirements a rep level lower for each or something) the rest, bar the PvP one, are really easy to get Rank 2 on.
People on these forums have definitely complained about it in the past.
Ever since Wrath where catchup mechanics became more commonplace individual character identity has slowly gone away because it became easier and easier to set up your alts like your main. And in a Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game, having characters matter less is a bad thing imo.
And while it shouldn’t swing too hard towards Classic’s design (I certainly don’t want weapon skills, super slow levelling, or having to buy skills with money back on live) the live game can learn a thing or two from the past, and it would be for better if it’s done tactfully.
Legion was a good example of making individual characters matter more with Class Halls and class specific experiences that really helped make you feel like your class and gave your character more agency. It’s something I wished they continued into BfA.
A balance can be struck.
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It’s not about them mattering less. We have a ton of classes and specs and you shouldn’t have to play the game 40 hours a week to enjoy playing your alts.
Getting left behind in gear essence and neck level means you’re not going to be able to compete with other players in any end game content even just bg queues.
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But you don’t have to play 40 hours a week?
In my experience with my alts getting them ready for the content I enjoy (Heroic raiding and the occasional M+) has been really easy. I’ve got my Rank 2’s really quick (Like under 10 hours each roughly) and away I went.
Of course it scales with how many alts you have (me it’s just 4 characters total) but if your trying to gear up 6+ characters then that’s a you problem, not the games problem since it would be time consuming regardless.