The Queue: Friday is just that kind of Monday

Well, Quevians, it’s been a busy week, and though it’s coming to a close, we still have to survive Friday and then spend the weekend preparing for the Monday to come. Can we do it? Can we defeat another week? Only time will tell.

There is no worse fate than a transmog error. That helmet upgrade you were so excited about that you put it right on and kept going, forgetting to stop and update your look. But then on the armory or at the login screen or when stopping to take a screenshot for your guild’s first kill of that new boss, you realize: you’re now wearing a bright green face covering with antlers on your head, while the rest of you is decked out in finery that just does not come together without a top hat.

The embarrassment! The shame! This is why you must always be sure to keep your yak handy, or if you’re in yak-free zones, have your Ethereal Transmogrifier hotkeyed for convenience.

Fashion improves DPS, so you never want to be caught looking less than your best.

Professions have become very challenging, and while the new profession system started the problem, The War Within seems to require more knowledge points while giving less knowledge (and the knowledge you do get costs more materials). I used to think characters should aim to be self-sufficient, to do crafting to support themselves, whether that meant making potions, crafting armor, or enchanting your own gear.

I was never an expert at any profession, or a great moneymaker using my skills, but I always picked up a profession, leveled it, and used it to make things for myself (at least occasionally). In Dragonflight I spent a lot more time on professions, and I used more crafted gear than ever — but it was almost all gear that was crafted for me, not by me. It’s so easy to put in orders for crafted pieces, and so hard to put in the time to get good at crafting them yourself.

Now in TWW I find myself with two gathering professions, and if I want something, I put in an order for it. The immense time to spend on professions doesn’t feel worth the reward anymore. If you want to make money with professions, you need to have the rarest recipes — ordinary gameplay just won’t do it. And if you want to make yourself things, you must put hundreds of knowledge points into niche specialities in order to make one thing… and then repeat for the next thing. It’s a grind all by itself.

So I cannot help you with the costs, but I will say that TWW is a good time to consider whether it’s worth it. Is spending all of this time on professions fun? Or would you be just as pleased to play the rest of the game and find someone else to craft that sword?

These are a fun challenge, and a great way to round out the trio of activities in the Great Vault, giving gear options for all different sorts of PVE players, with all sorts of time availability.

Lower level Delves are pretty straightforward, but after a point they turn into a real challenge, particularly if you’re trying to solo them. You need to lean into CC, you need to dodge everything, you need to remember your interrupts and all of those utility spells that don’t always see much use. It forces you to play differently, think differently… much like the Mage Tower, though I enjoy doing Delves with friends, too. (Everything in WoW is better with friends.) Blizzard does good work by iterating; making something, remaking it, looking at feedback, remaking it again. Delves have reached a late-form stage of being that feels like a real pillar of gameplay now.

It’s nice to have content that’s relatively bite-sized (much shorter than a dungeon or raid), with a bit of challenge and some gear rewards (with more rewards coming to the vault at the week’s end).

The real question is… what’s next? What’s Delves Season 2 going to look like? We know we’ll have a new companion, but will we also get new Delves? Will we get Delves in the next expansion, or will the system be abandoned for another iteration? (Or just abandoned?) As with any new feature, its future is uncertain until it shows up in a second expansion, thus cementing itself into the fabric of the game.

I’m rooting for you, Delves.

I don’t have anything to add to this; I just wanted to call it out because it’s true.

And that’s all my friends. I’ll see you back here (or back somewhere) next week! Until then, take care of yourselves and have a good weekend.