It’s literally impossible for a Mythic raider to be 233 ilvl; only the last 2 bosses of the raid will have that equipment and the vault doesn’t magically make all the items 233.
All I see with these item changes is each progression path awarded based on the amount of effort going into the path.
You seem to be under this assumption that folks will walz into a Mythic raid and entirely complete it; but that’s just nowhere near the case. You can spend weeks wiping on the same boss for a semi-hardcore guild to the point where the guild may even collapse.
In general, for a “decent” guild and team; your first two-weeks will be spent wrapping up heroic and clearing perhaps the first 3 Mythic bosses (thus unlocking 1 Mythic gear pick and 2 Heroic).
On average you’ll usually be a mix of heroic and mythic gear until you can direct upgrade (as a mythic piece of gear doesn’t mean it’s better than heroic thanks to stat-weights).
That same problem “kinda” exists in PvP but thanks to the stat templates the numbers get super funny in that space as ilvl is more important.
Between personal-loot and a lack of bonus tokens (generally get 2-3 a week) all this does is effectively replace the bonus tokens.
Mythic raiders won’t really being seeing much of a difference here, but a player participating in all of the progression paths will; which generally speaking it’s usually Mythic+ and Mythics, with maybe some random hours put into PvP for a trinket.
Not all progression paths yield equal rewards, and I think that’s generally okay.
And yet the mythic raid was cleared months before the first 30+.
I mean people still do 20+ even when the end of dungeon loot was only 465 and they shard it. Because it’s fun?
The only reason you raid is so that? what? You can out gear people in PvP and M+ then go into that content with an unfair advantage? Why do you want an unfair advantage so bad? I mean yikes.
Do you even enjoy raiding?
If there are supposed to be three “parallel” paths to progression in endgame content then by definition 233 items and overpowered trinkets/weapons need to be tuned down to fit better into a scheme of “parallel” gearing.
If 233 gear is so utterly pointless that, in your opinion, it has no impact on the game, then let’s just remove it, because people that play the other two thirds of the game are complaining about the balance upset it is causing to the competitiveness and enjoyment of the content that generally lasts the entire season.
I’m going to be real. Them utilizing and taking advantage of class stacking is Devs and management fault. If they took the time to actually fix spec balance, listen to player feedback, and give back class fantasy and polish it, class stack or rejecting specs due to its crapness, wouldn’t be a problem. Imagine wanting to play a spec you love but get declined from progression because your spec is pulling 20k less dps or its broken and boring… yup been like this since Vanilla.
Fight design typically has as much to do with which specs are top as class design.
And mythic Uunat was a great example of how maybe class stacking isn’t always best? Method stacked 11 warlocks and still killed it after Pieces that used 2.
As long as math and any semblance of class uniqueness exists class stacking will happen. Many times it isn’t even related to throughput it’s some utility.
Classes balance could always be improved of course, but class stacking will NEVER go away.
the thing is, with our power being tied to covenants, how are we supposed to be efficient in all content. I want to raid tank, M+ DPS, and might dabble in PvP a bit for the extra gear in the vault. you can’t tell me that one covenant/souldbind/conduit combo will be effective for all of this. and without what is considered to be BiS for these, it will be more difficult to get into groups or get others who are serious to join your groups. and thats just for people who will be using two specs. what about druids? I have a guildy who will want to switch between all specs (he does everything well. though he might skip on cat druid. jury is still out on that).
don’t get me wrong, the intention is nice… but even those of us who are casual players can see the issues behind the covenant system as it currently stands.
What’s really going to hurt is those player who have already set their eyes on a specific covenant regardless of their “BiS” covenant ability. This is where a lot of ppl will receive flack about their choice, especially joining M+ groups. Some people will sit here and say “Well, I don’t care what covenant I choose weather it’s my BiS or not, I just wanna have fun!”…all good, of course, you do you, that’s your choice. However, be prepared to receive criticism about your “poor” choice in covenant from the PL who’s forming a M+ group. You never know what type of player you’re going to encounter who just declines you from a M+ b/c you didn’t pick the right Covenant Ability (CA). Also, forming your own group may lead to players not joining since they may see what covenant you belong to. Not sure if Shadowlands have a icon or another visual aid letting you know what covenant players have chosen if you scroll over them or inspect them. Plus, you may have a high ilvl or RIO but your Covenant Ability isn’t up to par but then the PL might take someone else whos ilvl is slightly lower, RIO slightly lower but has the BiS covenant ability, you might get passed up. Same might go with Raids too. Heck, I’ll even bet at some point in SL, a guild will have 20 Mages or DH’s with their covenant ability downing bosses in 5 min due to how “OP” they can be if “stacked”. It’s like corruption 2.0, instead of IS and TD beams everywhere or stacked x6 Rank 3 Expedient/Severe/Versatility etc on players, it’ll be covenant ability unless Blizzard disables Covenant Abilities used inside Raid instances.
For myself, I’ve already done my research on what character has the best covenant ability for my spec, and it’s Venthyr, it’s a win/win for me, maining my BM Hunter while choosing Venthyr (as I’ve wanted since BlizzCon 2019). I just have a bad feeling about this covenant system going with M+ since the “elitists’” will be on their high horse picking specific covenants for their groups leaving those who’ve “You have chosen poorly” (Indiana Jones reference) slapped in their face. It’s going to be interesting to see how this all plays out within the first 2-3 weeks of SL.
I agree, while they are it they should also make the Mythic sets unique again to that content tier instead of offering a re-color to the PvP players. Remove the power and re-offer some of the prestige of completing the games hardest content.
Id rather them make a set for each class and offer recolors to m+ and PvP then have a different looking set for each piece of content that was per armor type (cloth, leather, mail, plate).
my big concern with m+ is i don’t want it to be an endless source of loot every week. i’d be fine with the cap on gear going higher if there’s some kind of scarcity trade-off. you can only raid once a week but there’s no cap on the amount of m+ you can do in a week, so imo if you’re going to allow m+ gear to scale higher, there needs to be diminishing returns in terms of scarcity. either that or some kind of cap on the amount of high level gear you can get from m+ in a week.
This would be an amazing improvement. EOD being capped at a low skill ceiling, and EOD loot being only valuable for disenchanting is very frustrating. Just asking for loosely comparable progression systems, without penalizing Raid systems (as that’s been generally understood to be most sensitive to conversation here)
These are great changes. Thank you. This keeps the gearing methods in close lock step with each other, giving a SLIGHT edge to those who take the time and coordination to put 20 people together and mythic raid (as it honestly should be). This also prolongs the longevity of M+ viability for gearing thanks to the chest giving multiple options if you do more +15s. Thank you for this!