I’m referring to the fact that there are approximately a hundred Vengeance demon hunters who have cleared every +20, and exactly one prot warrior.
The thing about dictionary definitions is they aren’t all the same. Here’s another one from m-w.com…
In this case, I’d say it’s the adequately that’s in contention here.
I definitely think popularity is part of the problem though. People do tend to gravitate towards what they think is the easiest, and that only compounds the problem.
Are certain tanks completely worthless? No, absolutely not… but are there strong differences in power between the tanks that make some less desirable, and significantly less capable, for higher keys? Absolutely.
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The timer is whether or not it’s adequate and they have 21s in time. If they could complete a 20 in 2.5hrs I’d say it isn’t adequate.
Complete parity is a pipe dream.
Once again, nobody is asking for complete parity, just better parity than we currently have. You are arguing against a straw man.
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My only wish is that they added a new achievement for doing all your 18s-20s and let you upgrade your dungeon gear to 226.
Some dungeon pieces and trinkets especially blow comparative raid gear out of the water.
Rogues, for example, definitely want the PF trinket in 226 form, and it’s lame that we’d all be stuck with a 220 version while some folks with better luck have a 226.
If we want the RNG loot to go, then everyone doing M+ at the top level should have access to 226 dungeon items that isn’t just crossing your fingers for the GV every week.
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But, if we’re discussing rewards at 18/20 it only takes 1 person to prove its viable. It’s definitely harder then meta, but viable.
One person really doesn’t though. It could at best prove the existence of an outlier, providing you avoid commentary/speculation on the entire rest of the group and whether they’re also at a +20 skill level, or working beyond that just to get this one person to +20. Considering the way Mythic+ works, it could entirely be a thing that was possible on one week of affixes that will not be possible on any other affix combination too - I’m not bothering to look up this person, just stating a possibility of what it could prove.
I think we can make some pretty good guesses though.
Raiding as a whole has a pretty well-defined system. You have clear “difficulty” splits that award a certain level of gear, end wings that award X+0.5tier gear as a bridge to the next difficulty that goes to X+1tier, and end up at the end of the spectrum with 226/233. The Great Vault simply acts as a source of one guaranteed piece from the level of content that you’re already at.
The issues it has have to do with the amount of loot that drops, the effect of RNG when it comes to personal loot being enforced and no clear way to target certain bosses or pieces, etc. So any future plans aren’t really likely to change the gear itself, but be focused on things like:
- loot drops per boss for the raid
- some way of targetting a boss or piece, e.g. Coin
- some way of trading a piece you don’t want for another piece, e.g. Sunwell type trade
- some way of upgrading a lower tier piece up to your current tier, e.g. Valor type
But as a system, it’s theoretically coherent, and each part serves a clear function.
By constrast Mythic+ is the absolute opposite. If we look at where we are in the proposed system, you’re going to have:
- loot dropping in the dungeon will be at a lower ilvl than it can actually get to
- difficulty curves come with theoretical jumps at 4/7/10
- loot can be upgraded to a cap that thresholds on 5/10/15
- GV awards a source of guaranteed gear that is beyond the level that drops, and also doesn’t match the upgrade cap.
For example, even after the system is done, a +4 will drop a 19x piece, be upgradable to 200, while the GV gives 204 (?). What’s the actual correct level of gear reward a person should be getting for the difficulty? Because that’s 3 different numbers entirely. At least if you had some streamlined system where, say, the upgrade cap and the GV cap were synced to the same amount, you could decipher a clear threshold. GV is not just acting as a source of guaranteed loot, but also acting as the only method of loot progression at a point. Every part of this system is trying to do multiple things, and doing them poorly.
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I had a few concerns with the system as presented but haven’t seen it in action. The big ones are as follows:
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Loot drops and valor upgrading: The way I understand it as long as you have a m+ piece you can upgrade it with valor points, does this mean that you can just spam 2s of the dungeon with the gear you want, for example the quantum device and then upgrade it to 220 with valor. Would this cost more valor then if you get a m15 quantum? Valor is a limited resource so I understand, which means that if there is a discrepancy here upgrading that 2 quantum vs the 15 quantum could be a long term trap, however on the other hand that would mean we have to deal with the currently poor drop rates in hopes of getting that upgrade piece in a 15 or higher dungeon for efficient valor usage. It might be a small thing but I feel this could become a sticking point in the future, especially if the cap isn’t equivalent to at least base mythic raid gear even with caveats since that means the number of “bis” upgrades will be limited to outstanding pieces like uniquely stated rings, necks, trinkets, and weapons with special effects. The best solutions I can think of for this are A. up the drop rates to make farming more bearable. B. add a subsystem that makes it so if you upgrade a 2 key 187 piece to 220 you can get a return on your valor cap similar to if it was a 15 210 piece initially, but still require a higher valor farm to actually upgrade.
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The cap should be on par with other high end forms of content, m+ just like rated pvp has no end cap so its weird that there isn’t a further limit like say “keystone grandmaster shadowlands season 1” that functions the same as the others but for 18s/20s or so and grants 226 upgrading. It just seems odd to not have parity between the end game options, I feel the same for the 233 weapons, but feel it is of lesser import then being able to upgrade to 226 like pvp, or from drops from mythic shriekwing.
These two worries aside I am glad to see they are doing something, and that something looks promising. I look forward to seeing valor in action and hope it is iterated on and improved into a comfortable system that makes m+ appealing as a form of content.
Originally I was going to agree with the idea that maybe since 20’s can’t be balanced I would see why they wouldn’t add an achievement. However, the meta applies to everything in the game and it always will. PVP and mythic raid bosses offer loot and achievements as well and depending on the type of boss or PVP you are doing there are class/spec combos that are better then others. Same applies to M+. I think what people also miss is that the best players in the world are doing cutting edge keys and will take any advantage they can get. The board then fills up with similar class and spec combinations and the community believes that these are the only options for success when that is simply not true. I strongly believe that if you took the top 100 players in the world and changed their spec/class, they would still be top 100. The community would follow suit. Another point is the type of players timing these 20’s generally have equipped ilevels at or at 226 already, otherwise they don’t have the gear to do these keys in time. Rewarding them with this gear would just allow them to focus on specific trinkets or gear with bis stats in order progress. The power increase would not cause any kind of imbalance. Just my two cents.
Major proponent of the system. As someone that likes to play at a competitive level but can’t commit to a raiding schedule, M+ is the perfect compromise. And 226 gear from the vault / 220 from 15s is a fair solution.
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I think the proposed Valor system is great overall. One change I’d like to see would be an extra cap for +226 gear once you’ve done +18 in all dungeons. I’m ilvl 217 and have completed half the dungeons on +17, I think this would be an appropriate progression curve
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Dude it’s not precision balancing. DH is far and away stronger than every other tank by a massive amount.
seems like a good idea with bad implementation. Not being able to upgrade the items we got prior to 9.0.5 makes it seem like we shouldnt be doing much m+ before then, and not much after as we have to refarm our items (lol) and the time to upgrade would take months and by that time 9.1 would be arriving.
You don’t have to do this. If you’re one of the 200 or so people completing +20 in time, you’re indisputably the top of the game for the content. It’s not like judging a 13 that anyone could make or break, the only way to time it (a 20) is everyone playing well.
Can we though? Did anyone guess that we’d get valor back when the expansion launched? To my knowledge no one brought up valor until the blue post said they liked pvp and were looking at m+.
If they were adding valor to raids, (raids used to drop the same badges as dungeons) I’m confident they would have just said it. I don’t think we’re getting a recycle for raiding. Maybe tokens? It doesn’t solve drop rates, but you can choose stats or something.
No disrespect, but these guesses don’t point back to anything they’ve actively said. They haven’t compared raid gearing to anything that would suggest the system will be familiar at all.
I think you’re thinking too many steps ahead. They want the runs to feel less bad when you don’t get an item. That was the stated goal, as well as prolonging to point at which mythic focused players reach gear stagnation. This system accomplishes both. A player stuck in the +4 bracket won’t be if they are able to get full 200s and a few 207s from the vault. They reach 5s and the rest will be 207 and the drops from the dungeon will be essentially tokens or better stats.
Let me rephrase, the lowest represented tank in top end m+ will never be >15%. Or even 10%. That isn’t how top end players play.
This is false. They are suited to current strategies. Monks, bears and paladins are right behind them on key levels. The outliers of DK and Warrior could probably use some mechanics tweaks to cover kiting and burst damage, which is all tanks are doing in keys this season.
Reduce the cds of DRW/Avatar and DnD/HL.
That’s fine. Again, nobody has asked for perfect parity.
The worst tank being under 10%, sure, that’s just called “having a meta”. It’s not just that DH are seven times as popular as the #2 spec; that’s a little more extreme than what we’ve seen before, but not radically so. But prot warrior is under 1% representation at the +20 level, which - from going through past seasons on the RIO leaderboards - is unprecedented for any tank spec in any previous season. Even the worst specs have been in the 2-5% range in the past, not 0.9%.
There’s a lot of room to improve on the least-balanced tank meta in the history of M+ without needing to aim for perfect parity. Right now +20s are just for funsies, so whatever, who cares. But if +20s start giving 226 gear, that should become a little more of a balance priority.
This would be a big step in the right direction, although between Leap, Spear, and Intervene, I’m not sure mobility is the main issue holding Warriors back. The fact that Blood and Prot do substantially less damage than other tank specs should probably also be looked at.
An update on raiding. Apparently Ion posted on twitter that they don’t think a currency system will fit well into the current tier, but they’re working on solutions. They want to put the dungeon stuff out earlier since it’s more well developed as a concept and a solution for raiding will come later.
If you want to probe this deeper, that’s not really relevant. We’ve had world first players who lacked game knowledge before - just being at the top of a ladder doesn’t mean zilch. And even now +20 is no longer the bleeding edge, so nothing like that would be applicable. Just to be clear, that wasn’t a comment on the skill level of that player, it’s pointing out that you can’t just use “They cleared X” to make a claim about skill/viability or anything like that when there are several other factors involved.
Can we though? Did anyone guess that we’d get valor back when the expansion launched? To my knowledge no one brought up valor until the blue post said they liked pvp and were looking at m+.
If they were adding valor to raids, (raids used to drop the same badges as dungeons) I’m confident they would have just said it. I don’t think we’re getting a recycle for raiding. Maybe tokens? It doesn’t solve drop rates, but you can choose stats or something.
I don’t know if you bothered reading the rest of the paragraphs after you quoted, because I do go into things in a bit more detail. There’s a reason I put some sort of upgrade system (e.g. Valor) as the very last bullet point, because it’s the least likely. FWIW, asking if anyone guessed we’d get Valor back is a weird question, given that people have been asking for a similar system back for years now. The real question is did anyone guess Blizzard would acknowledge an issue?
No disrespect, but these guesses don’t point back to anything they’ve actively said. They haven’t compared raid gearing to anything that would suggest the system will be familiar at all.
I literally don’t know what you’re talking about here. You seem to be responding to something the sentence you quoted isn’t talking about.
I think you’re thinking too many steps ahead. They want the runs to feel less bad when you don’t get an item. That was the stated goal, as well as prolonging to point at which mythic focused players reach gear stagnation. This system accomplishes both. A player stuck in the +4 bracket won’t be if they are able to get full 200s and a few 207s from the vault. They reach 5s and the rest will be 207 and the drops from the dungeon will be essentially tokens or better stats.
Too many steps ahead? We’re literally talking about the ramifications of one change, in isolation.
Does it actually accomplish the goals? Valor is a weekly cap, so how much is a player at the +4 bracket going to upgrade at all? 1 item a week? 2? Note that it’s not just “reaching” 5s to open up the 207 upgrades, but completing every single dungeon at +5. Even for a player that pugs, they could realistically be into +8/+9s before that happens.
The point being illustrated was that the connection between “This is the level you are” and “This is the loot you will be rewarded” with is incoherent. You get drops at a lower level, can upgrade to an arbitrary level that scales differently from the loot drop scaling or dungeon difficulty scaling, and a GV that scales even more differently (it doesn’t even follow loot drop scaling since the thresholds are different). That’s because there’s competing interests at play.
Great Vault is a simple highlight of this. It’s not just a guaranteed source of gear “of your level”, they’ve pushed it to being “a primary progression” so that way it more easily mimics a weekly limiter on upgrades ( to slow down farming upgrades from the dungeons themselves). Valor Points is trying to straddle both of those as well.
Edit:
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/raid-loot-droprates-tuning-february-16/868343
This is why I don’t think Blizzard will ever add titles/achievements/cosmetic rewards (let alone gear) for key levels above 15 despite the idea being extremely popular in the M+ community. Adding support for those higher level keys would imply that they’re balancing classes at those levels, and they aren’t.