I work 50 or so hours a week in my full time job and 25-30 in my second.
The only way I raid is through the occasional lfr or hitting past expansion raids with a max level character.
It’s super easy now. tbh it’s really weird you mentioned valor points and rng in the same sentence … Cata was mega RNG, Cunning of the Cruel says hello … top players even farming LFR for a 5% drop because the lfr version was still THAT much better than all of the other heroic (now mythic) trinkets. Having to farm FL for a staff, or rogues farming for daggers. No thanks.
I think maybe it seems overwhelming because they did add a ridiculous amount of new stuff, but most of it is optional. All you really need to do to be raid ready is Torghast once a week, and maw dailies / kill rares there fairly regularly … other than dungeon gearing, but dungeon gearing is normal, if you don’t want to do that then why play WoW at all?
Most other stuff you can skip. Anima is for cosmetic and convenience stuff.
Don’t mention cata 
ptsd from wearing a blue shield to tank until DS.
You can do LFR or find a very casual guild I guess. I joined a casual one and it doesn’t seem stressful at all.
I feel like a lot of the complaints about gearing and specs and all come from players who stayed playing after mop.
I stopped playing around then, so my mindset is still “omg i don’t have the gold to pay for my Respec”…
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I retired from raiding for this very reason BUT for me it was always that way. Even in vanilla I was farming materials for pots, resistance gear whatever. I just got older with kids etc and don’t have that time to invest any longer.
Why do you have a stipulation that you must get multiple characters raid ready? Why not just focus on one and do the daily stuff that takes probably an hour and spend the other hour or two you have running dungeons to gear up. Youll EASILY be raid ready on one character without putting hardly any time in. Now if you want to go the extra step and gear out multiple characters then yea, you might want to put in your two week notice.
It is a 2nd job. Your real life is more important if raiding takes up that much time for you
by the time you typed your post you could have scheduled a good heroic team
I always see the argument that “well it’s just a 5% DPS difference!” as if that can’t make or break you when you’re pushing difficult content.
It feels like There’s a lot of stuff to be doing. Like a million things to do and no time to do it in.
The truth is, this expansion is looking for players to have a slightly different mindset from the last couple expansions. A lot of rewards for content done is cosmetic or for the fun of it.
For player power. Literally all you NEED to do is 2 runs of Torghast and your renown quests. Maybe dungeons to gear up a bit. There will be an adjustment period for people, to see all this stuff out on the world and realize, “only do what I want”.
It’ll be fine. Nothing fancy you need to do to stay relevant.
We really need people have a 9-5 job servers.
5% might not break you solo but in group content where there are enrage timers it can .
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The guild I am in we are a Heroic raiding guild and raid 2 nights a week for 2 1/2 hours per raid. We clear heroic well before the next tier. Not sure where some of you are getting your time frames from.
It’s not even the raiding itself so much as getting decently geared for said raids.
I absolutely wish they had made the Covenant system cosmetic only for this and a slew of other reasons.
How was the other stuff “ruined?” It’s still there. And Torghast is the best solo mode the game has ever had.
Torghast doesnt give you anything. So no, its not the best solo mode this game has ever had. I’ll be interested if you feel that way once the novelty wears off. 2 months from now you just gonna be Torghasting it up, for the fun of it? Or are you gonna go slog through it as fast as you can once to get it over with for the week? I’m pretty sure its gonna be number 2, because theres no other reason to be there.
Its excitement is novel and a flash in the pan. Its not gonna last when your doing it for ash only.
And the other stuff is basically shells of its former selves. You gonna run M+ all night and get no gear? Possibly for 2-3 days? Maybe all week if RNG gods arent on your side?
WQ? Any real reason to even do those atm? They are long, slow, bad rewards, or meaningless rewards. A pittance of anima, items that arent useable, etc. At best, you get a conduit you might want.
I’m really interested in how this holds up when the new shine wears off. I wont be surprised in the slightest if subs fall off the face of the earth in a couple months. Even moreso than usual.
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Wrong. Soul Ash, Anima, Legendary Powers, Command Table Champions (which lead to even more soul ash, gear, and other rewards), and I haven’t gotten to the cosmetic rewards yet.
If you’re already convinced of that then you might as well leave now. Oh wait, you’re on Illidan, I’m surprised you’ve even gotten to play.
The sad thing is- it takes less time and effort to get raid ready in Classic WoW, the grindiest version of the game which has these ultra tryhards demanding full preBIS and world buffs in order to raid, than it does Shadowlands with its endless dailies, systems and rep grinds… and when you did get raid ready in Classic, you were done- ShL you’re going to be grinding anima/soul ash/WQs/garrison table/etc… every week/day for the rest of the xpac.
It’s a hassle just going to all the various spots to pick up the quests and getting to all the placed to do them, and you need a guide to tell you what you have to do every day. On the plus side, for anyone worried they were making the game more like Vanilla due to how Classic did, you don’t have to worry- if you wanna improve your character in Vanilla, you just have to remember one thing- do the raid with better gear. Don’t need a spreadsheet for that.
Pugging is the solution to that . No commitments , anytime you can leave and join .