Every time I log onto an alt I look and see I would have to do ridiculous grinds again for some of the best Essences, then I just log back off.
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Hi there! This is an alt, my main is a 449 that I have barely played since 8.2 because 8.2 killed my desire to play for a bit between eternal palace, benthic gear, and essences! However that priest has basically every 8.2 essence at rank 3 excluding truly worthless ones like the nazjatar rep dps one or the world pvp one!
This character is the ALT i made with my shadowlands boost because I wanted to combine the power of 10000 free strength, lightforged racial, and blood of the enemy even if i had to make my eyes bleed from alliance pvp to do it. This is an alt because it unfortunately isnāt important enough for me to do some of the essences again. But that is ok I only really wanted to do pve anyway and suffering through pvp at low ilvl is just par for the course for getting good at pve!
So right now my alt is 464 ilvl in every spec with azerite gear for every spec with some bonus sets to swap between for when I want frost to do aoe damage and for when I want frost to single target damage. Iāve five masked orgrimmar and hope to five mask stormwind this week despite not having the good corruptions or mythic gear that would make it easy, but that is ok because rng should be player power.
I would be able to do a little more if i could get conflict and strife, but i really really really really really donāt enjoy rated pvp, and I play this character for pve content. But that is ok because this character is an alt not my 449 priest according to people in this thread. After all account wide character progression is wrong because account wide character progression is wrong, especially in regards to temporary and arbitrary systems!
same. cant not relate to this pain
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My feeling on this is basically that I should be able to maintain 1-2 alts on a progression that is close to my main, and then a few more alts maybe a tier below in progression.
Iām not suggesting that the game should be tailored to that, specifically, but it feels like a reasonable goal to me.
Itās fine to have some optimization that is only designed for main characters, and I think that rank 3 essences can basically be that. Something that you will only have on a main, or your main and an alt or two if you are ambitious.
If some players want 10 active alts, or whatever, then I think at a certain point those players have to accept that some of those alts will not be optimal, or that they will be spending a ton of extra time on the game.
How do you feel about the way essences dilute character power by arbitrarily pushing some classes and specs toward certain content? For example conflict and strife gives like three specs relevant pve power from the free pvp talent, or how every class wants strife passive but especially tanks and healers. Another big one is how healers and tanks are pushed toward rep grinds that some dps can easily and shameless skip.
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I mean the counter argument to this is PVP players are forced to grind m+ for gear to PVP. The trade off is not even close to fair lol.
That feels more like a statement than a question, but of course there can be legitimate gripes with certain details of how these systems work.
I donāt think that a pvp essence being very strong in pve is a good design, for example.
But the basic idea of having some new abilities to unlock and then upgrade in different types of content is not bad, imho.
Itās more just a question of refining it and trying to make it work for alts. As always, it tends to be players on the extremes that have the most issues. The mythic raider or the player with 12-16 characters, or whatever.
I donāt know that thereās a perfect solution.
We will probably see this with the Covenants. They sound like a lot of fun, but there will some issues with implementation inevitably.
corruption really ruined the difference between pvp and pve.
like people are desprete just to get a tentical spawn. Ruins people in pvp.
Iām worried about covenants that the unlock system will just be like the talent tree for visions. Accumulate x amount off anima; unlock abilities/stuff. If this is truly how it is unveiled it will prob scale like how AP acquisition scaled and got better as time went on. Personally I dislike AP/Azerite grinds we have had the last few xpacs. Rental powers need to go away.
i feel like it might be worse. Because unlike the vision tree you have several selection and each comes with abilities tied to your spec specificly.
Each of those abilities could ramp your spec pve and pvpto the max. Imagin picking the " wrong " choice or picking the " right " choice when you wanted venthyr cause there the best.
There will probably be some sort of upgrade system, yeah, and abilities to unlock.
But unlocking abilities and upgrades is good, basically. Itās a pretty important part of how RPGs work.
The devs just donāt want to add new permanent abilities and talents because of the way those tend to accumulate over time, so they are moving towards expansion-themed talents and abilities. This allows them to add a lot more than they could otherwise.
Azerite armor was a flop largely because there werenāt any new buttons to press, but the essences actually do provide a bunch of new active and passive abilities. A certain amount of choice. This is not a bad thing, imho.
Itās just a question of how accessible they are, and what is the right design, especially for alts.
O yeah along with all the accompanying elitism. I had no problems getting into heroic ep before 8.3, just got bored and quit and my my itās crazy people wonāt take me now with a higher ilvl and corruption effects. This game feels toxic af. I only came back for the Jaina mount and iāll quit until 2nd scourge invasion then indefinitely quit after that. I may pay for a heroic Nyalotha clear with the gold iāve amassed over the expansion.
I mean the pvp players having to pve is also a very well known problem with a fairly vocal fanbase. Itād be nice if both of these problems had a solution i would think.
Sorry about that forgot the question mark, I edited it in. I donāt think that its wrong to have unlock things myself, but I feel that essences are far too flawed as a system to accept in their current state. The biggest issues i have is that essences are not equal in their acquisition, or desirability. How can anyone say rank 3 is some sacred cow when any alt can get crucible rank 3 in a day, if not an hour?
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Some of the higher ranks are very easy to get compared to others, yeah. Iām coming back from a break but in the previous patch I had a ton of alts with the rank 3 mythic+ essence because I was running with a group, and it was easy to upgrade that essence.
On some of those characters I had very little else above rank 1.
Having said that, it was the essence appropriate to the content, and of course there is the basic one that is upgraded through questing.
By contrast, the Mechagon essence is incredibly annoying, especially rank 3.
So, itās not perfect by any means. But I donāt think that the basic concept is terrible.
Having some portion of it (maybe rank 2, or simply reduced requirements across the board) being account wide would improve the system, as we have been discussing.
The reason being simply that it starts to feel like a reward for all your characters. Ok, I spent time unlocking this, now all my characters benefit, rather than: I unlocked this, oh no, I have to do it again and again.
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Huhā¦ I wonder.
Maybe the devs are thinking into the future, later on when these things become trivial, when you CAN do the raids solo.
Maybe they look at those days and say āwe want to make sure you have to play through with every alt rather than bringing in your over-tuned main and crushing it for essences which will then become available for your altsā
That seems like a long and petulant game for this crop of devlets.
When you can do the raid solo, the neck will be scrapped so Iām not sure Iām seeing your point.
I mean as a way to pile up essences on your account for alts, were they to be account bound. A fate the devs clearly look to avoid and thus no account binding.
you need several mains in this game because they always hit with the nerf hammer.
I agree, but at this point in the expansion I donāt care. My alts will just be at the bare minimum for next expansion and if I play Shadowlands and choose to main an alt leveling might not be a cake walk but Iāll probably outwear my main (460) by the time I get to the first raid.
No I am against it.
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