The Queue: Lizdormi checking in

It’s patch week in World of Warcraft, for better and for worse, and I’m just checking in to see how everyone is doing out there. Hitting up the new raid? Checking out the Labyrinths? Experiencing perfectly wonderful new content that does nothing but spark joy?

…no? Well, we’ll have to work on that. Maybe while writing angry fanfic and waiting for the latest round of hotfixes.

But that’s the patch cycle for you. Ups and downs and downs and ups. The world keeps rolling onward regardless.

This is the Queue, our daily Q&A column where I, Lizdormi, attempt to answer your questions with what wisdom of the Dragonflights I may have. It’s not always much, but let’s get to it anyway.

In Dawn of the Infinites, Iridikron gives us what could be a whole timeline for The Last Titan:

All they [the Titans] wanted was our world. With this [the Dark Heart], the Harbinger will pry it from their grasp. And When the Titans come to claim their prize, I will be waiting.

We come to think of Xal’atath as a master planner, who’s always a step ahead of us. (Part of that is just that our characters are very dumb.) But Iridikron seems to be several steps ahead of her, retrieving the Dark Heart for her knowing that she would use it to go after the World Soul. He doesn’t trust the Void, or Xal’atath herself, but he trusts the Void’s endless hunger. It will not be sated. Xal’atath will have to go after the World Soul. And when she does, the Titans will come — not, he believes, for us, but for the soul of Azeroth itself, which they have put great pains into protecting in its nascent state. He has been setting up a multi-expansion trap for them, and quietly letting everyone else do the leg work while he waits it out.

Whether we fight alongside Iridikron or against him will depend very much on what the Titans want when they arrive. Will they seek to claim the World Soul and damn whoever is living here? We’ll fight alongside any allies who will have us. Will they seek to protect Azeroth and its denizens? Then we’ll fight alongside them, instead.

Blizzard has given different takes on what the Titans are. They may be the benevolent keepers of the peace, protecting worlds in their care from undue harm or outside influence. They may be meddlers, shaping worlds and people to their whims. They may simply want Azeroth and not care about any of the rest. The answer most likely lies somewhere in the middle of the myths the Titans left behind — but there’s no knowing for sure what angle Blizzard intends to take.

Until we know that, there’s no telling whether we’re with Iridikron or against him.

More Paladins will arrive in patch 12.2 (probably coming around February), whereas Wrath Remix will arrive in patch 12.2.7 (probably coming around June or July).

There is at least some good news on the Labyrinth front. I ran several of them on Tuesday and encountered a few bugs, and some points of confusion on how to progress, both of which stopped me in my tracks. But since this, Blizzard has hot fixed quite a few bugs:

• Fixed an issue where the kill credit for a boss may not register if it was the second time the boss had to be defeated in the same Labyrinth run.
• Fixed an issue where the Kindo’jan encounter would fail to successfully complete when Kindo’jan reached 1 health.
• Fixed an issue in the “Returning the Bounty” scenario that could sometimes prevent the initial bag interaction from being completable.
• Fixed an issue in the “Returning the Bounty” scenario where Hording Looters could sometimes stop spawning.
• Fixed an issue where Ancient Hash’ey Battle Arts enchantment effects can trigger outside of delves and The Labyrinth of Kindo’jan.
• Increased the maximum item level for the Ancient Hash’ey Battle Art enchantment to 344 (was 334).
• Players can no longer cleanse Cursed Energy in the “Fools and Curses” scenario.
• Enemies in Halazzi’s Lair no longer spawn within the walls.
• Characters can no longer fall through the terrain when respawning in Nalorakk’s Rest.

I believe that first one was a problem that both you and I encountered when we tackled the Labyrinth, with bosses that would never register as dead, which stopped the run straight up. These hotfixes may not address everything, but they should help.

I agree that content shouldn’t roll out like this, with bugs that immediately need fixing when we’ve had seven weeks on the PTR to find run-ending issues like you and I have struggled with. I also know that sometimes the PTR isn’t enough. I didn’t personally test Labyrinths on the PTR because I couldn’t get the client working right, and never got there. And in general, the volume of players on a PTR is far lower than what content gets on live; sometimes bugs go unnoticed until they hit live realms and get a real stress test.

Still, Labyrinths were in a rough shape when they launched, and it felt like we could have done better and had this a little more polished on day one. They’re getting better, and quickly, which is good. But I don’t think it’s too much to ask that new features be reasonably playable on launch day.

I like this first Labyrinth, though I wish there was a little more variety and a way to save your progress. I hope Blizzard keeps iterating on the system as they have done with Prey and with Delves to improve it and make it better… but I also hope the next Labyrinth plays a little better out of the box.

As to Valeera, I don’t know. I keep her specced healing and haven’t noticed any differences. But also, it’s Valeera and I feel like her gameplay can be a little erratic, particularly post-patch. I don’t love it, but here we are,.

Leveling is really the same as it’s always been, just with more sources of catchup gear; the Labyrinth in particular drops a ton of Warbound gear for alts. And the Labyrinth may also be a good place to level (under 90s can enter in difficulty tiers 1, 2, and 3 if one of your characters has done a the level 90 quest to unlock it) as it has high mob density but no encounters that are over the top challenging. (In fact, tier 1 Delves feel ridiculously easy.) But it’s not exactly designed for leveling, either, and I haven’t spent enough time to tell you if the time/XP ratio is better than questing — Delves are usually good for leveling largely because of the big rewards from the quest turnin, and the Labyrinth doesn’t have quests like that.

The patch 12.1.5 Aqir Invasions may be good for leveling, but as was pointed out in the comments, they’re very short, and you’re racing to complete as much as you can on a tight timer. It could be a nice diversion while you’re leveling, but it’s not a replacement for other leveling activities.

And the Coiled Isle added in patch 12.1 is not for leveling at all, nor does it even provide catch-up gear. It’s a fairly difficult end-game zone, including the Temple of Atal’Utek area which is packed with elites and can be tough even for reasonably geared 90s. (I’m ilevel 318 but I won’t walk in if I’m not in tank spec.) You shouldn’t even be thinking about it when you’re leveling.

I could add up my time played in World of Warcraft, but I don’t really want to know. I’m sure the number is terrifying.

I have spent over 1200 hours playing Dragon Age: Inquisition, though, and I’ve decided I’m not even mad about it. I could be doing worse things with my life.

But as to paying attention, really paying attention, I usually don’t except when I happen across the information and (sometimes) am embarrassed by it. If I’m having fun, it doesn’t matter how many hours I’ve played. And if I’m not having fun, well, I’ve played enough hours already.

Waterfalls are the final horizon of exploration and adventure. You should always put something fun behind at least one waterfall.

Seeing this announcement is mostly making me tired. I guess Talebound is interesting, and it has some transmog rewards. But the patch cycle is relentless, hungry, insatiable.  New content will come, and we can but watch and wait.

That’s all for today my friends. Take care and I’ll be seeing you in the comments section!