#11 - For Azeroth!: “Behold the Nighthold”

1/16/17

• Garrett • Jocelyn

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Intro:  Welcome to For Azeroth!

News

Dev Q&A - 7.1.5 Holidays, Timewalking, and Professions

No class design discussion, though hot fixes are coming, including those for hunters

Brawlers’ Guild Tuning

• End game content, have to be 110
• Tuned to a static but increasing difficulty. This means no scaling
• First boss is approachable
• No HP changes based on spec, you can either beat it or you can’t, pretty much a DPS check
• Healers are not meant to be good in a guild made for fighting, but don’t worry, you get a micro holiday (Joce is not bitter)

Timewalking

• Ilvl bump is being talked about
• Everything else is going up, would make sense to bump it in the future (not in 7.1.5) but maybe in 7.2 because there is an ilvl increase coming for Legion dungeons at that time
• Scholomance not in TW because it was revamped in MoP but isn’t actually Pandaren

Separate Timewalking from other events?

• So much time between your fav event
• Being rare makes it special, and your least fav one also comes up less often

Vanilla TW?

• Vanilla dungeons aren’t as great because they’re not tuned properly (i.e. tuned for Warrior tanks who couldn’t wear plate, but they could look at going that way in the future, it’s a lot of work

Raid Timewalking?

• Has been talked about, it’s a safe bet, it’s a cool idea
• Some have to be built again because of queues, scaling, etc. Tech hurdles
• On the list of would like to do

Talent tomes on AH

• Mats are too expensive
• Looking at ways to adjust costs, talent tomes are too expensive

Obliterum Quest

• Wrists of all types, did it hit the mark?

• Yes, many were 1:1 traded, was a social win
• Now that it’s a few months in, it’s not worth it, there’s less trading going on
• If you don’t have alts, a lot of money, or an active guild, it’s a huge (over 10K gold) investment, and it’s not rewarding
• You can buy obliterum to upgrade your gear on the AH without the forge, better investment

• No real time investment into crafting, so it should have a small profit margin

Leveling Micro-Holidays

• 1-2 day events where everyone is leveling together
• Reward for Micro-Holidays is meant to be the experience because they are “missable” because they are so short
• Some of the Micro-Holidays (Call of the Scarab) can be done as low as 55, so XP boosts are actually there because the things you do reward a good amount of XP

Professions

Crafting gear

• Want to keep things coming for crafters to keep things relevant
• Blacksmiths, Tailors, Leatherworkers, etc gear has a shelf life
• New recipes in 7.2?

• Yes, more stuff to do
• Primary and secondary will both have changes

Why are stats random? Mats are hard to get

• Drops should be once an hour or so for the bags, the glass isn’t a low percent drop
• Glass is tradeable, goggles are highest ilvl available to crafters (880)
• Goggles need to be harder to make because of this, but they can be sold and traded
• How does time factor in?

• Gathered materials cost a lot because they’re hard to get, they take a larger time investment

Skinnable mobs

• Multi-Tappable, ability to skin if not looted
• Didn’t get QoL improvements that mining and herbalism got        
• Skinning is different though, because you can generate your own gathering nodes

Mats vs End Product cost

• Polygon had a good article
• More of a time cost so mats went up
• Cracking down on botting, so gathering people are actually gathering, which means less supply

Cooking and Nomi

• Intent behind RNG research

• Wanted professions to be content
• Primary professions were questlines, but secondary professions they didn’t want to do that
• Arch was time gated, Fishing was Artifact, First Aid was random help quests
• Cooking was work orders, to keep work orders going as a progression mechanic

• Too random in retrospect, it’s too hard to push for a specific recipe
• He is getting better with every patch, chance to get recipies has gone up significantly, now is the time to go back to him

RBGs for 3 star recipes, WTF? RNG issues for some recipes, WTF?

• Star ranks were a new thing, when they first made them, they erred on the side of rarity
• It’s better to make things easier to get than harder to get
• RBGs because they wanted to push that rarity up, and introduce people to new parts of WoW
• Want to hear from people who have the recipe. Was it worth it? Do you feel pride? Or did you get it and don’t care about it
• Everyone having different levels allows for higher profit margins if you do work for rank 3 you’re rewarded
• Rarity matters less as expansion goes on

Archaeology Time Gating, WTF

• Changed Arch and lost things, was intentional
• Less recipes, means less painful to get pristines, but lost the reason to consistently do Arch
• Changes coming in 7.2, due on PTR soon

Dungeon Requirements for Professions

• No plans to remove
• Started on profession questing before scaling zones were even a thing, so leaned on dungeons because they knew they scaled
• Some questlines were retrofitted, but not all
• In the future, they will not lean on dungeons so much. Alchemy was particularly dungeon heavy
• Professions are a place they use to experiment and try new things

Make Gathering and Crafting different slots

• Gets talked about every expansion
• Do they want to force people into one crafting and one gathering, nope, cause that feels bad
• So if they can’t do that, do they want to open up a third slot? It has a lot of downsides, focus of your character is more thematic, less focused
• Also steps on the gatherers a little. If everyone can gather, cheapens the gathering person’s experience
• More interested in making it easier to switch without things like losing recipes happening

Reroll secondary stats?

• No, mat costs were made smaller because you are meant to keep crafting until you get the right stat roll, anything you don’t want goes in the obliterum forge

Artifact Weapons devalue Blacksmithing

• Tried to replace weapons with Relics, but many professions lost something
• Added things like mounts, legacy weapons, transmog

Links

• https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/news/20467832

Lore

Suramar and the Nighthold

Would recommend our listeners also check out the episode of Embrace the Spoilers: Legion we did covering the Suramar introductory experience.

• Suramar was the location of the Temple of Elune. An extremely important place of worship for the Night Elves.

• The Temple eventually became known as the Tomb of Sargeras.

War of the Ancients in Suramar

• Location of the nathrezim’s (dreadlord’s) experiment to create an undead army. This laid the foundation for the Scourge 10,000 years later.
• The Legion attempted to open a second portal within the Temple of Elune. This would allow them to continue the war against the Night Elves on two fronts.
• The Highborne however used the Pillars of Creation to close the portal and put several magical seals on the Temple.
• The Wild God Ashamane died battling the pit lord Ronokon (who lead the Legion’s attack against the city) to give the elves time to create a shield around Suramar.
• When the Great Sundering happened most of Suramar was dragged down to the depths. The section we see today, was only a small portion protected by the Highborne’s shield (for 10,000 years believing the world outside the shield to be destroyed).

• This is the same shield we learn of from Thalyssra and the cause of the Highborne’s evolution into Nightborne.

The Tomb of Sargeras

• The previous guardian Aegwynn used the sunken Temple of Elune to bury the physical remains, scepter, and Eye of Sargeras. This is when it became known as the Tomb of Sargeras.
• This section of Suramar (including the Tomb) was raised by the original Gul’dan during the Second War. It is now known as the Broken Shore.
• This is also where the original Gul’dan died.

The Nightfallen and the Rebellion

• Those who do not have access to the Nightwell become Withered, like elf zombies, cast out from Suramar City
• Some of those who have been cast out have formed a rebellion against Elisande, led by former First Arcanist Thalyssra
• The Arcan’dor, a gift from Veilwalker Farodin, now provides the rebellion and those living outside the city with a cure for their dependency on the Nightwell
• The rebellion questline takes place over nine weeks heading into the launch of the Nighthold raid
• The forces of the Night Elves, Blood Elves, and High Elves march on Suramar City to defeat Elisande after a horrible raid on the Waning Crescent
• The three Elven leaders face Elisande’s avatar, as she insults all three leaders (Tyrande, Vereesa, and Liadrin) for betraying the proud lineage of the Elves before freezing them in time
• Khadgar is able to free Tyrande, but the others are trapped, effectively neutralizing the strength of both the Alliance and the Horde
• Working on intel from Ly’leth, whose fate is uncertain, the rebellion locates a barrier protecting a hidden entrance to the Nighthold and works to bring it down

The Nighthold

• The Nighthold is the largest structure in the Broken Isles.
• The Nighthold is centered around the Nightwell.

• The Nightwell is the source of arcane power that has sustained the Nightborne in Suramar for all this time.
• Created using the Eye of Aman’thul (the final Pillar of Creation).

• Acts as the palace for Grand Magistrix Elisande, the ruler of Suramar.
• Elisande brokered a deal with Gul’dan and the Legion, allowing the Legion to use a portion of the Nightwell’s energy.

• This all sounds awful, but the Legion attacked first and Gul’dan gave the ultimatum of bringing the barrier down or die.
• This decision sparked the rebellion that we are now assisting.

Raid Spoilers

• We’ll be taking the fight to Elisande in the raid. She is the second to last boss.
• Gul’dan is the final boss.

Emails

You can send your emails to FAZpodcast@gmail.com

Hachikumo

What do you guys think of a MSOG Battleground in WoW? It is a faction-less battleground where you automatically join the group of your class. So Warrior, Hunter, Paladin, and Death Knight get to follow Don HanCho's orders. Rogue, Shaman, Druid, and Monk have Aya. Mage, Warlock, Priest, and Demon Hunters are with Kazakus. In my initial thought it is similar to Arathi Basin where you have points of interest to capture. However, the 3 bosses move around the map and buff players near them. If you can defeat a boss, then their group would lose points. A 3-way battle sounds complicated but just pure fun to me! I will say the conclusion for you guys on this though: "balancing this will be hard :P".

Sondra

Hello Fellow Azerothians!

My name is Sondra (no last name given) and I main a Pandaren Beast Master Hunter (Horde of course)

I enjoy you show so much that I listened to all of your casts while making cookies over christmas break while my mother-in-law gave me backwards glances. Your podcast is so well done that after a week I had her asking me questions about the game and almost got her to create a character! (my mother is a blood elf pally btw so the Wow runs strong with us).

My Question pertains to Mythic Dungeons and their role in the quest lines of this expansion. I've been playing Wow since mid Cata and have casually raided since SoO. I enjoy raiding and the experience it provides as well as the extended story that you discover (such as Archimonde showing up at the end of Hellfire Citadel). But raiding never felt as though it was absolutely necessary to complete the questing zones storylines.  I have recently gotten to the point in the Suramar questline where you are required to complete the Arcway and Court of Stars dungeons. I wasn't overly concerned until I found out that these two dungeons are Mythic only meaning I have to make a group or find one through the pre-made group finder (shudder). As BM hunters have taken a massive hit to the dps charts I find it hard to find a group that will go with me (I know I should swap to Marksmen but I am almost done with my artifact!), on top of the annoying achievements and ilvls that a lot of these groups require (I'm at 856). It really is giving me gamer anxiety and I'm not sure how I feel about the whole thing.  I like the idea of Mythic dungeons for those who need a harder mode, but to require it for a main questline is rather frustrating. What do you think? Should they have made a heroic mode for these dungeons for the questline? I know Kara is being split and made into Heroic but I have not heard anything on whether these will get a different mode.

Lok'tar Ogar, and "Peace be with you" my lorewalker friends!

Outro

iTunes Thanks

• UncannyGrc: Lore is fun
• Orpflog

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Personal Stuff

Joce where can you be found?

Follow Jocelyn @JocePlays

The Gamers’ Inn

Follow Garrett @GarrettArt

NOMOONart.com for Garrett’s stream designs.

Into the Nexus: The Heroes of the Storm Podcast!

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