Essences are gear. No different than getting Titan Residuum for 445 Azerite unless you step into Mythic raiding or 2100+ rated PvP. Which also tend to give you their respective Rank 3s much faster.
Catch-up is coming in later patches. 8.3 is your catch-up for 8.2 essences.
The new concept of intermediary patches don’t change the “Season”. We’re still in BfA Season 3, and as such, you won’t get catch-up for new Season 3 stuff until season 4 launches.
No essences are essential.
Seeing how we cleared much of the keys at the +10 level (the last level to give gear) without even 3 essences or full Rank 3s or any of the rep essences when Season 3 started, sounds like it’s not much of a liability.
You were whining about neck levels and Azerite gear most likely, and how your 385 Azerite had locked traits or that you were stuck with 370 Azerite.
You guys always have a reason to complain if your alts are not just “Hero swaps” for your main, because you guys seem to be playing an eSport, not an RPG.
Hang on. I’ve been checking the meters when I raid. Every 2nd person seems to have the m+ beam spam essence. When I check their dps breakdown, that stupid essence accounts for about 40% of their total dps. So I wouldn’t say the essences are that inconsequential.
The people capable of that are those like myself and we never numbered more then a few thousand and came back every patch. Most didn’t even leave we just sold carries while people played other games who had more time.
You discount every non-Mythic raider who completes heroic in like 2-3 weeks, and then has nothing to look forward to. Not that essences do much, but it at least gives them a bit more to work towards after their AotC push is done.
Especially now that AotC is basically a pug level achievement rather than there being Heroic guilds.
And that essence you could earn in 2 Mythic+ runs. Level three might take you a couple of weeks due to it being a weekly reward but nothing is stopping a casual player from doing a +3 and then a +7.
Essences are not gear. They are gear addons that compare better to azerite traits/artifact weapon traits. The fact that you earn them via the most mundane efforts that reward you for time spent and not achievements/challenges done is the proof. You get essences as participation awards for doing something that does not make you better at the game. I do not become a mythic raider for doing the daily quest grind for 21 days. I just checked off the requirement of an arbitrary and un engaging system that posed no challenge. I never hated the raid essence because it was favorable to alt specs and you got it from completing challenging and engaging content.
The fact that AK exists to help with the grind mid patch is all the proof I need that Blizzard could have done some kind of catch up for essences earlier. Or are you also telling Blizzard to stop AK?
Right … so thats why if I have an empty essence slot I will get a message from blizzard telling me to fill it up that I cant remove. Or the fact that essences come from the word essential. They are essential if I do not want to be 30% weaker in doing content. Thats like telling me trinkets and rings are not essential. Who are you trying to convince with that weak statement.
Its enough of a liability that a person is 30% weaker than the game was designed for them to be. Clearing M+10s are nice but why stop there? Of they want to push higher they need essences or they will be severely lacking. If they want to compete in pvp with essences they will be weaker for not having the rank 2/3 versions. Then they are forced out of the content they love to do content they hate (like rep grinds) to compete.
You say most likely without any foundation to actually point to. At this point you are talking about things as you see them and not things as they are.
Again again again, this is your opinion. The game, as it has been for more than a decade, is the game the majority enjoyed. The design now has marginalized a huge amount of players.
There was no shortage of things to do. WoD saw similar complaints with the garrison. Players feeling like they ‘had’ to do a 15-30 minutes of dailies just to keep their garrison going.
Where? Personal experience. Sorry I can’t log on every day to punch my time card.
Yea, that a problem? I have put in far more effort than you.
Please post on your main then. With how titan forging works, no one is ever done.
The discussion was prompted by players asking what was going to be done with essences because the system has been a terrible experience for a huge amount of players. Simple as that.
Oh, sorry, you don’t want to respond to your classic example.
In Wrath, it would take about 3 weeks to get an alt geared up in a guild setting with alt and main runs. This was done by sitting players who didn’t need certain peices and by clearing normal and some heroic during alt runs on a third night a week, totally optional run.
I think some could use an alternate way to scale up, but really it isnt even hard to get 3 or 4 of them. I think it takes me maybe 2-3 weeks per alt to get all slots unlocked and 3 of the essences. I do think some of them should be account bound once got though, not the quest/rep ones, but the ones that drop or may be a bit harder to obtain.
The hard part is actually staying awake doing the boring grind and setting enough hours of time over the course of a month to get it done. It doesnt make me focus on the computer screen. It makes me focus on youtube and netflix. Its not fun. Its a lazy design invented to waste time rather than entertain.
Raiding requires different and often much more effort. You always finish your dungeons, the 3 weeks we did of prog on Mythic Azshara only produced 1 kill, even with multiple hours of wipes.
Oh I get that, I do… it’s not a great design, but there’s always been some form of this through the xpacs for alts and such.
I’d prefer things worked more like in Wrath, but here we are… Just have to make the best of it.
Yea thats the plan. I took a huge break from alt grinds in 8.2 because of essences. I have already committed to my guild that I will return in full force for 8.3. I am just hoping they make the grind for essences more alt friendly. They gave a few things but alot of others are still insane to me. Like the 30,000 HKs needed for the pvp essence.
Yeah that would definitely be one I’d say should be account bound once unlocked, or some of the mythic/raid drop ones.
But the basic ones, meh, they’re pretty easy.
I hope they do it too, I just don’t want people to get their hopes up lol