So let me get this straight: in Retail WoW, it’s basically impossible to ever reach true max ilvl unless you are in a Mythic raiding guild and have insane luck with the Vault.
- Mythic+ only gives you Heroic raid-level gear.
- The Vault is pure RNG, and you’re limited by weekly caps.
- Even if you push high keys, you’re still behind Mythic raid players.
So as a player who wants to push my character to the absolute limit, I literally can’t. I’m always one step behind, stuck in an endless cycle of waiting for the Vault, hoping for a socket, farming gold for enchants… and then the season resets anyway.
Where is the sense of progression in that?
Why can’t I just grind and eventually get full max gear, like in older games?
Right now, it feels like WoW is less about playing your class at its peak, and more about being locked behind artificial walls. Looks like the difficulty of the game is not about improvement, it’s about completing a checklist.
I just genuinely don’t understand why the game is designed this way. Am I missing something here?
Edit: I think the problem is solved. I’ll focus on crafting/upgrading items and see how the gameplay goes now.
11 Likes
I only do delves and clear most content just fine you don’t need mythic gear.
39 Likes
I can’t name a single expansion where this held true. Even in Vanilla people were running around in random questing gear in lvl 60 dungeons, and even Molten Core. We have never had a situation where we get our class to “peak performance” then are faced with challenging content.
32 Likes
Classic is basically just form a group and do raids to get loot?
I get it, in Classic or Vanilla you had random drops in dungeons and raids like Molten Core, and that was fine. But there’s a big difference:
In Classic, if you participated regularly, you could eventually gear your character almost to the max. Progression was linear and achievable with time and effort.
There were no weekly Vault caps.
Your performance at endgame depended mostly on skill and dedication, not on artificial barriers.
In Retail, it’s very different:
To get max ilvl, you need a Mythic raiding guild, luck in the Vault, farm gold for enchants, etc.
Even if you do everything perfectly, you are always one step behind the top players.
You literally cannot grind your way to full max gear alone; the system locks you behind artificial walls.
So while Classic let you work your way up and eventually reach peak performance, Retail makes it almost impossible to ever see your character at full potential.
3 Likes
The game has always been a gear treadmill, getting full BiS is a stretch goal at most, not a primary objective.
21 Likes
yes, we’re all at various points of the journey, not at the destination.
this is what makes the game fun. it’d be boring to be bis and have nothing to do.
9 Likes
Stop. It’s better than it ever has been for soloers, by a country mile. You can get within like 7 ilevels of perfect gear without ever being in a group. It’s never been this good.
49 Likes
Mythic is the only place that you need the max level gear. That is, except for PvP but they have their own gear system.
4 Likes
unless you’re a fisher person.
dude earlier in the week was complaining that they couldn’t have the best gear to spend their time fishing 
4 Likes
It’s hard to know. But expecting to be at max is a pretty high goal.
2 Likes
I mean unless you’re a top 1% player you’re never going to see the full potential anyway, even if you had max ilvl gear, you don’t seem to want to put in the effort that those players do to achieve peak performance, so I’m not understanding the issue here?
Do you just want max ilvl gear because world quests are difficult for you or something?
5 Likes
And that’s also true today. Participate in the highest level of content, and you will hit the gear cap.
Nobody got gear capped farming BRD and UBRS in vanilla. You had to do the raids.
And arguably, it was harder to get gear capped back then because they were 40-man raids and there was zero bad luck protection.
6 Likes
So, just to clarify — for every character I play, I’m stuck using Heroic-level items? Even if I want to push my character to max performance, I literally can’t unless I focus on one character in a Mythic raid?
That’s exactly my point: the system doesn’t let you actually play your characters at full potential. It’s not about skill or dedication, it’s about gating progression behind artificial walls like Vault, and Mythic-only raids.
1 Like
So what you’re saying is you hate being behind the max gear curve, but you refuse to enter the content that provides you with additional loot options on a weekly basis. Instead you make a post crying about it on the forums?
You cannot make this entitlement up.
11 Likes
What older games? Certainly not any of the Diablos.
1 Like
For every character you play, if you are only doing heroic level content, then yes you are stuck with heroic lvl gear, outside of getting vault items. Why is that an issue?
3 Likes
Well, how i going to climb my mythic key if i’m stuck with hero items?
The path to your goal exists, you’re just not willing to walk it.
3 Likes
By not being bad at the video game? Gear can only carry you so far anyway, having more ilvl doesn’t instantly make you good enough to be at the top.
2 Likes
you’re not limited by gear.
You can get to top level -1 if you want to get mathematical about it. And until you reach that point, why worry?