Mob Scaling

Community General Discussion
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I started playing back in vanilla, played and raided through TBC and WotLK, and even got a server first (Obsidian Slayer) in that time! I grew kinda bored with WoW during Cata, and took a break. I came back for BfA, because I have always been really interested in Sylvanas’ character in particular. I presently really like how she is taking some morally dark actions in which may or may not be in service of her near-extinct people.

However, this thread is about mob scaling. One thing I’ve noticed since coming back is how demoralizing it is when enemies increase in power with your ilevel. During WotLK, I had some really good gear in the Argent Tournament era! I could absolutely roll through the dailies, make big pulls, and comfortably take down tough enemies as a Destruction Warlock. It FELT like I was a mighty champion, whose strength was growing to a point that an assault on the Lich King was a possibility. It FELT heroic. We could absolutely steamroll through content in a small group

In BfA, it doesn’t feel like my character IS growing stronger. I keep getting better and better gear, but enemies that existed at the start of the Expansion still pose as great a threat as ever. I don’t FEEL heroic. I feel like my ‘Champion’ (as everyone keeps calling me) is forever struggling to best enemies she has killed a dozen times over.

Am I just remembering with rose colored glasses? Do YOU feel less heroic as a character? I’d love some other opinions.

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And here’s my BC character…

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…And my current BFA character.

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I like that I actually get way weaker going from 110-120 lul. In that 118-120 range, might as well hit mobs with a pool noodle.

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I knuckled down, brought out the gimp suit and picked a safe word yesterday. went into a full masochist mode lol 117-120 leveling run on the S. Priest. Man it was painful…hence the masochism mode.

But I did it lol. Now its WQ runs to get the 320 to do WF"s to get 340 to then inch on the way to the 380 (or there abouts) other chars are at.

I don’t get it really. This VE char Ievelled I did 20-120 (for the armour). The HP scaling seen in older content while not liked (pre 7.3.5 was better) was tolerable. I didn’t hate 20-110 really. You never felt uber but you never felt weak either. BFA says nope, lets change that.

Its just counter intuitivive. It be like King Arthur going to merlin:

Tell me again why I got this sword Merlin. Because merlin my dude…I made out better as damned squire with a crap sword. Can I put this sword back and rule with that squire sword?

I mean I pulled the sword right…so I got the King achievement. Now I can use a soup ladle since I can say so as king. And it at least make sense that its lacking.

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After becoming tired of doing the same 3 zones over and over 7 times, I thought I would level my next 5 alts another way. Unfortunately I made the mistake of leveling those alts via incursions, who are still using level 111 gear while being at level 116-118. When I try to go back to do quests, regular mobs are tearing them a new a-hole in multiple places.

At least when they hit 120, I’ll have newly crafted gear to offset the differences, but until then they are thinner than paper and have to rely on those group quests from incursions to get by as others tend to pull attention away.

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It may very well be that my experience is wildly different because usually I run this guy as a Prot Pally, but you do eventually get the ilvl to laugh off most of what the NPCs try doing to you. I can routinely pull half a dozen or more enemies and not have much trouble with them besides the boredom it takes to whittle them down. Heck, I can solo the biggest of the Elites for the Azerite Madness WQs. Again, it’s glacially slow because I’m in tank mode and my DPS blows, but it’s doable.

Grind out the ilvl and eventually you’ll feel powerful again.

…unless Blizz broke your class. I’ve never 'locked and never will so I dunno how they roll. :sweat_smile:

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I feel very strongly about this issue. This character is my highest ilvl, at 380 (don’t laugh, I don’t typically run instanced content), and though it’s definitely an improvement over a fresh 120, I don’t feel nearly as powerful as I have in past expansions with a similar amount of work and time put into a max-level toon. This leaves gearing up feeling largely like a waste of time. Though it pretty much broke my enjoyment of leveling alts, for varied reasons, I can understand why the scaling of old-world content was implemented, and I don’t see Blizz ever going back to the progression style of pre-7.3.5 (much as I wish they would). But ilvl scaling feels horrible and could easily be changed. The vast majority of my time in WoW is spent gallivanting around open world, gathering mats for sale on the AH, doing world content, or taking out mobs to accumulate gold or items I can sell. That’s what’s fun for me. But it’s a lot less fun now. After playing an expansion for, what’s it been, now… 6 months?.. I should be roflstomping any ordinary mob in my way. Instead, doing anything in open world feels like it takes forever, like everything I’ve done to progress my character has led to little-to-no advantage.

Blizz, please, take a second look at this. Challenge in a game is fun, but only if the challenged feel they can rise up to meet it and become more than they currently are. Otherwise, it’s just drudgery.

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I definitely would have preferred they they NOT implement mob scaling. But I also am an avid alt leveler who loves to read quests like a freakin’ nerd. So It’s nice to be able to still progress while being a gosh dang nerd.

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The mob scaling is kinder to some classes/specs and harsher to others.

I have leveled a VDH, havoc DH, MM hunter, BM hunter and a S. Priest (this alt dinged 120 last night finally).

BM hands down easiest. Keep healz on you pet, roll this stuff. VDH is grindy AF but…you can tank for days and not die. havoc DH once some gear came in I could DPS pretty good.

S. Priest…pita big time. I’d not do this again. If for some reason horde has something to say man I wished I had a horde Priest…I’d pay the money to faction/race change lol.

for the leveling portions, 116-120, tanks make out better. They can pull accidental agro and live.

“turret” classes (magic casters, MM hunter) can have issues till good gear because once they move…their damage goes to crap. Crap damage applied to now boosted by scaling mobs makes for a long night lol. Since you have to move to not die more often than not.

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I geared up, I am now a god among he enemies in BFA zones, soloing enemies at the start of the expansion we had to get a group together to kill.

Me and a boomy 2 manned the world boss dunegorger.

Scaling feels almost nonexistent at max level if you actually are progressing your character.

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It’s awful. Going from 110 to 120 you gain nothing and you get weaker.

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I have yet to purchase BfA. As I do enjoy some of the changes 1 to 110 when it comes to scaling. Sounds like a complete mess that item level after hitting 120 makes such little difference.

Maybe, just maybe like x pacs before the final major patch will allow players to reach a more dominate point for most the content.

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Ilvl scaling, titanforging, and no pvp vendors.

Have completely ruined this game for me, and caused my entire friends list to quit.

People didn’t like ilvl scaling in legion but at least that was like a year into the expac, they added ilvl scaling day one of this expac, its awful. ilvl scaling in pvp is even worse.

I hate what this game has become they’ve taken so many steps backward.

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Fair enough but…its getting there that sucks.

Here is how I banged out my S. Priests 117-120. It takes about a month or so of prep. Its complicated so take notes. ready?

Park the char in capital city for a really long time. Like months…

lol

I had my S. Priest parked for over a month. Lots of rested XP. Enough I went through mob after mob and it never ran out. Even had some left as I dinged 120.

Here lays the messed up part. I’d not be done if not for all those +400’s, +600’s per kill. And the extra xp on archeology and picking flowers.

I only got this benefit doing something very counter intuitive to game playing. That being this char didn’t play the game…

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I agree, it’s frustrating. Although mobs scale slower than your gear and you still get stronger, it makes power growth weaker. I think they put too much scaling where it’s not needed. Scaling of any sort is contradictory to what WoW is about.

It’s only good during leveling, because it prevents rushing through zones, and you used to ‘scale’ mobs anyway by moving to a different higher level zone.

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I would like to add a few observations since my last post on this thread.

It occurred to me that playing a feral druid may be part of the problem. My spec is currently broken, or so I hear. It is possible that other classes/specs with a similar ilvl, but fewer design problems, are not experiencing difficulties taking down mobs.

It also occurred to me that this issue could be tied into the problem BfA is having with ilvl inconsistency. As is being explored in another thread on this forum, players are able to gear up to about 380-390 without stepping into challenging content, because all the mid-level content is being out-leveled too quickly and easily by titanforging, world-boss gear, etc. Progressing further would require high-end mythics or raiding, which your average casual player (purportedly a decent chunk of WoW’s population) does not pursue, because of time, or skill level, or lack of inclination toward that type of content, or whatever.

So, perhaps we feel we should be more powerful compared to ordinary mobs than we are, but that is because of inflated ilvls. You would think this would result in the opposite – a feeling that one is too powerful for one’s ilvl – but that would not turn out to be the case if open-world mob difficulty in BFA does not line up evenly with the ilvl system.

The underlying issue could actually be that we are wearing gear that is higher ilvl than it should be and expecting the reward to match. Whether by design or by accident, it does not match, and this is what leads to the feeling of being underpowered in open world.

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Scaling sucks. Fight me. Ok, I take that back, don’t fight me because Blizz nerfed Disc in to the ground. Please don’t hurt me! :sob:

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When I (destro warlock) dinged 120, before I started out into the world I made sure to summon my Voidwalker, create a healthstone, and soul stone myself. Fights typically saw me healing my Voidwalker, and even times resummoning him after he died. I had to routinely turn off his AOE taunt as he was always pulling adds.

That was about 280 or so.

As time moved on, I stopped having to resummon, stopped healing him, I left the taunt on, stopped soulstone, forgot healthstone.

Today, 386, I’m out with my imp, mostly. Sometimes I forget.

I kill elites. I AOE. Pretty much romp around with impunity.

If things get rough I will bring Big Blue out, mid fight. But I can, and do, pull off my VW.

So, scaling or whatever, I’m ahead of the curve now.

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But there has been recent discussion on dev part about not capping mob scaling so that content stays fresh. If you have Mythic titanforged raid gear mobs in open world would scale above it to keep things challenging and fun.

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