Pretty sure this has been discussed before, but it’s been a particular problem for me this patch. After I’ve achieved what I wanted on my main, I like to try out another spec or play an alt.
If my main is agi and I want to play an int offspec, I usually just buy the zerith mortis 226 gear weapon and trinkets until I can loot something better. However going for weeks without a weapon dropping in M+ or raids just makes me quit trying.
I’m not really sure what the solution is, but I’m sure there absolutely is one. Like, maybe weapon drops are higher % in low M+ - so that you can upgrade it with valor if you want to. It’s even more pronounced when you loot a 1 hander or an off-hand, and just realize you could possibly be in store for another weeks-long drought.
Anyone have clever ideas on how this could be fixed?
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There will be Cypher weapons coming in 9.2.5. But otherwise, targeting weapon drops isn’t really any worse than trying to get a piece for any other specific slot. I ran like a dozen Mists last week trying to get that trinket on my main, and got nothing but gloves for my trouble. /shrug
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There are a few rares that drop weapons in ZM. I agree this is an actual problem though, especially if you don’t have s2 items you can use in the meantime.
The dune rares can drop 246 weapons. I got a 1h for my shaman there. There is a staff as well. Look up the loot tables and farm them.
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Weapon availability has long been an issue in WoW and it is done intentionally and it’s a bad design decision IMO.
Consider that out of every gear slot, your weapon has the most impact on your performance and that slot, along with trinkets (which also can have a big influence on performance) is where Blizzard hamstrings players that don’t engage in the three pillars that Blizzard has settled on as endgame (raids, pvp, m+).
Even when it comes to crafting, Blizzard intentionally made crafted weapons unable to use optional reagents to up their ilvl past 117. That’s not an oversight. That’s on purpose.
Hopefully Blizzard’s new direction coming in 9.2.5 with weapons (and trinkets) being on a vendor will carry forward into Dragonflight where weapon sources outside of the three pillars will not be intentionally hamstrung, limiting the performance of those who do not wish to engage in those three pillars.
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Yeah I’m totally with you. Now granted I don’t pvp - but I do the raid lockout and M+. I’m not asking for a 278 jailer weapon, just something that is acceptable.
I hate doing it, but I would even grind those relics in ZM to buy a weapon for 300 of them or something.
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Really wish they were BoA or something. It hurt to vendor the 246 caster staff off my paladin >.>
Still think Legion was the best example of how to do it with the Artifacts. People actually played and enjoyed their offspecs, since they didn’t have to worry about the farming
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I did PvP for mine on my alt. Took like 3 hours to grind out the honor to buy and upgrade.
Cypher weapons are coming in 9.2.5.
I was tanking a 15 with 226 weapons/shields. The tier set 4 pc makes it less of an issue. I haven’t tanked much but I am starting to know that I have 2 legendaries and tier and its pretty ok. As long as you know what you are doing it doesn’t affect you much. (And got mostly decent gear overall).
Valor is uncapped. You also have good reasons to do lower keys for such weapons and upgrade with valor.
Dune rares drop the good weapons. The ones in the center in particular. You may want to camp out and hit the Group finder. Alternate between “mar” and “Isk” and that will pick up any groups for them. The “mar” gets two of them.
And eventually this here
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I liked that I didn’t have to worry about a weapon in Legion too.
With Shadowlands, it would have been fine if crafted weapons could have used the optional reagents that bump ilvl like all the armor can. Granted that would mean that the best choice would be to have your one unique 262 craft be your weapon, but that being the best choice is still better than no crafted weapon options beyond ilvl 117.
All the current ZM weapon options are behind heavy RNG walls both in drop rates, and in some cases timing of events that have the relevant drops for your class. And even then, your best bets are 236 or 246 depending on the event. The cypher weapons coming later should be 252 which is great but way too late.
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My main (fury war) has yet to see a weapon drop from raid or m+ this season. I had one weapon traded to me by a guildy. The other is a weapon from a ZM rare. Feels bad limping along in Jailer prog with a gimpy weapon. Probably would’ve shelved him out of frustration but I don’t want to bother gearing another character right now.
This is exactly the experience I’m talking about. I think Blizzard just has a “break a few eggs to make an omelette” approach to this. They are fine with some percentage of the playerbase hating their time if that means, what exactly? What’s the harm of someone looting 10 weapons at the same ilvl? They can only use one of them.
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I too struggle with weapon loot.
I still don’t understand why we cannot buy the gear we want with valor or something. Complete RNG is a really dumb system.
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You can also farm conquest and buy a 249 weapon (for me it was a staff) that can get you by in the meantime until the game decides to favor you with a drop. After over 50 Gambit runs, I had only seen the staff drop twice, and neither time it dropped for me. Eventually the staff out of DoS dropped and I’ve happily settled for it lol.
All they have to do is make the drop percentages of items “better” the 1h axe from sanguine depths is coming off at a .8% drop chance. It’s very oppressive.
Get the pvp weapon, do a few epic bgs for quit honor, upgrade it to 242 or if you have the conquest, but the 249 one. That’s what I had to do.
I agree that higher droprates would make a lot of people happy. It is frustrating farming things, spend hours and nothing we need or want, dropping… I heard people say “oh but that’s the way it is”, sure but can it be improved? For sure. It would make a ton of WoW players top quitting the game out of frustration. I realize low droprates for some items, are a strategy to keep people playing the game …but then they quit because the items not dropping and you lose them to FFXIV or another MMO/video game. Surely, something can be done to make the situation better…
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