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Midnight's prepatch kicked off this week, and we're talking Player Housing Neighborhood Endeavors -- in part because we hadn't seen much of them until now. We'll give you the rundown, and then we'll follow it up with our opinions on how the class revamps and addon revamps are going.
Plus, we have some thoughts as to what we'd like to see Remixed next. And when I say "we" I mean the podcasters. Please don't yell at the person just summarizing what they said out loud in front of god and everybody.
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0:10
Hey everybody. Uh, welcome to the Blizzard Watch podcast. I'm your host, Matt Rossy. And my computer screen was
0:16
glitching out, so that's why I sounded like that. Um, like, oh god, it's gl glitching. Anyway, uh, it's myself, uh,
0:23
Liz and Joe, who are usually here, amazing people. Liz is the editor-in chief of the site and and I like to call
0:29
her a grand hauba because someday I'm going to get her the hat. I'm I'm going to get you that hat, Liz, if it's the
0:34
last thing I do. Uh I will be like dead on an Arctic world and you will have
0:40
that hat. I hope to god people can hear me right now. Uh but also yes, that's 6K who just
0:47
spoke. This is a hat centric podcast. Yes, all the hats all the time. I used
0:52
to like I used to wear a big Medusa hat while we were doing the show just to make myself feel more comfortable with
0:58
what I was up to in life, but I don't wear it anymore. So, how do you get that around the headset?
1:03
Uh, I didn't use a headset back then. I had a I had a standing mic. Oh, nice. Um, yeah, but I I I do use the headset
1:11
now. So, yes, no more hats. So, uh, unfortunately, not a lot's going on in
1:16
Blizzard games this week. Uh just I mean a little thing called Midnight's
1:22
Pre-Patch dropped. Oh. Hm. Never heard of it. I think we could probably talk a little
1:27
bit about player housing at least. Uh cuz because you know there's that and and then there's a few other things. Uh
1:34
Legion Remix is gone, but but you know, we'll get to that. Yeah. Um let's talk about Endeavors. Endeavors
1:41
are happening now. You finally can do the endeavors. They've been talking about them forever, but now they're finally in the game. Well, not for
1:47
another half hour. Well, in theory,
1:53
ostensibly, ostensibly, Endeavors are going live with the
1:58
midnight pre patch, which uh went live on January 20th. So, ostensibly,
2:06
Endeavors are now live as you were listening to this. And uh we haven't seen a whole lot of them. They've been
2:13
on the beta, but they've been a little flaky and intermittent and misbehaving.
2:20
So, we know some things about Endeavors and what's going to be coming. And
2:25
there's also a lot of things we don't know about Endeavors, and we will be discovering live, which is the best way
2:31
to do things, right? Just go straight in there. Um, we made you this giant pool. It's vast
2:38
and deep. Now, swim. Swim forever. Um, but I'm sure many of us will be very
2:45
excited to see endeavors in our player housing neighborhood because themes, right?
2:51
Huh? I want to ask you about the themes. Uh, there are many themes and we may not know all of them. Um, so basically when
3:00
you do an endeavor, you're inviting some kind of group to come hang out in your neighborhood and they may have some daily quests for you and activities to
3:07
do. And uh there's a traveler's log style uh list of activities. And as you
3:15
do them, you earn rewards called community coupons. Yay. It's another
3:21
currency. That can be awesome.
3:27
Yay. More currencies. My god. I'm I'm going to say coupons and no one can stop me. So
3:33
yeah, you're just going to have to deal with it. It could make us say she could write a style guide telling us that
3:38
that's how you say it. Yeah. With nothing. She's mad with power.
3:44
Um so the thing is you can have um like
3:50
there's a there's a Grummel related one where they all they all show up and there are all sorts of lucky dues in
3:56
your neighborhood that you can go find. And uh there's a consortium, there's a
4:02
blood elf one. Uh there's a NF one which I have not personally seen but I am led
4:07
to believe exists. And each of these have different kinds of activities. Uh
4:12
your neighborhood will have just kind of a cluster of in new NPCs and maybe new
4:18
buildings or little encampments in the neighborhood. Uh so it really kind of takes over the neighborhood and gives it
4:24
a special vibe. And you can earn community coupons that you can use to buy decor. And you can earn house XP,
4:32
which is actually going to be the best way to earn house XP. Up until this point, you could only get that by
4:40
getting new rare uh uncommon and up quality housing items. The first time
4:45
you got them, you would get 10 house XP. But XP is killer. Sorry, Liz.
4:51
But yeah, it is. It has been. But with endeavors, you can do an endeavor
4:57
activity, which might be something like do quests or uh do neighborly
5:04
activities, which can be things ne one of the neighborly activities you can do is walk around the neighborhood petting
5:09
the dogs. So, it's a that one's a low bar. And you will get house XP by
5:15
completing these activities. Uh that can be, you know, 50 or 70 house XP per
5:22
completion of these activities. So this you could really compared to
5:28
what we were doing before. You could really zoom through the house levels and I they're just kind of fun and neat
5:35
rethemes of your neighborhood. I I think they're going to be cool, but we're going to have to see how how they work
5:41
because they've been a little uh iffy on okay, how many quests are there? How
5:47
many quests are there supposed to be? Are they daily quests? Are they one-time quests? are they? So, we're going to see
5:53
through the week how they shape up and what how they're actually supposed to work because, you know, it's been on the
5:59
beta for a while and you're never entirely sure, okay, what's the finished product going to look like? We're we're
6:04
seeing the finished product right now. Awesome. Um, I guess we should also
6:09
mention now that the actual pre- patch event is next next week after it launches. It's a it's a 7-day thing
6:15
after on January 27th. Um, which, you know, maybe maybe that's
6:21
going to be enough time to to iron out all the pre- patch bugs because I'm I'm
6:27
sure they're going to be here. Yeah, I think it's it's very likely there won't be a single bug. I'm sorry.
6:34
I can't I can't come on. It's it's I don't know if you're trying to be mean
6:39
to Blizzard here. You're dropping any piece of huge software. I mean, you're going to have to expect there's going to
6:46
be some some bugs. Oh, yeah. I They set the bar so low with
6:51
Sorry, go for Liz. This is a particularly massive patch with just tons and tons going on.
6:57
Yeah. And then there, of course, there's also going to be like new stuff starting up next week that is not currently being
7:03
tested because it is not live even though it is in the patch. Um, so yeah,
7:09
it's there's going to be some stuff going on. Uh, but we should mention this Twitch decor item because I want you to
7:15
explain it to me because you said it's the cutest thing you've ever seen. And you've shown me a lot of cute things over the years, Liz. I'm I'm looking to
7:22
understand exactly how cute is this thing. Uh, on a scale of 1 to 10, it's at least
7:28
a 13. I mean, that's like the low end of how cute the latest WOW Twitch drop is.
7:33
Dear God, it is. I'm looking at it. God,
7:40
it's a Merloc plushie and you can start earning it right now by watching 5 hours
7:48
of your favorite WoW streamer on Twitch. So, it's a little buck.
7:53
It's It's the most adorable little little wonky little murloc plushy you ever did see. Um, so I don't know. Matt,
8:01
would you agree on my rating of 13 out of 10? I I I mean I I'd be willing to
8:06
set fire to several kingdoms to get this thing. I I I feel like whatever the threat of Twilight, you know, ends up
8:13
actually being, they should put like accessing one of these things behind it and just watch as players savagely mow
8:21
that person down to get to it. My my word, this thing is amazing.
8:27
Four hours of streaming. The only problem I have with this item, I have one problem. one problem, which is you
8:35
do this and you get one murloc plushy when clearly I need an entire room full
8:42
of murloc plushies. Like nothing but murloc plushies. That you need to be able to make one of these giantiz You need to be able to make one
8:48
of these giant sides so you can sleep on it. Like a giant bean bag chair plushy or like a ball pit of murloc plushies.
8:55
Um Okay, I'm down for that. So, either of those things should be possible, except you get one of them.
9:02
One Murlock plushy from this Twitch drop, which is good, but it's only one.
9:08
However, Blizzard has anticipated my concern. And you will be able to get
9:14
more of them, but there's still a problem because you won't be able to get more of them until midnight launches.
9:19
There will be a vendor in Silver Moon City where if you got this Twitch drop, you can buy additional copies of this
9:26
murloc for an unspecified amount. I demand that they put whoever this
9:31
person is in one of those fields where people can't be mounted. Straight up just giant column of you
9:38
can't be on your mount because I don't want someone on a brutaur rocking up and and keeping me from my 17 plushies.
9:46
That that's true. That's fair. Uh, but yes, it is. I think I can safely say
9:52
this is the cutest WOW Twitch drop of all time. I mean, if it's not, uh, I I don't know
9:59
how it's not. Uh, I mean, the sloth was really good, but it wasn't a that wasn't a Twitch drop.
10:04
Yeah, I don't think so. I think that was Was that a charity pet? Maybe. I think it was. Yeah. I mean, it was
10:09
like a backpack, too, so that was like it it it's cool in multiple ways. Uh, but yeah. Um, so yeah. Uh, a guy.
10:17
Seriously, I I kind of want to just stop doing the show and try to watch a Twitch stream now because this thing's amazing.
10:24
I don't think it's even ready, is it? Like, you can't Can you get it right now? Right now. Right this second. Turn on
10:30
Twitch. Watch your favorite WoW streamer and start working on that Twitch drop. Wait a minute. We're streaming right
10:36
now. Okay, they Oh, I'm afraid we don't count. We're not in the WoW category.
10:42
We're not in the WOW category. Look at your screen. You're streaming Diablo, Matthew.
10:47
Oh, Diablo. So, I'm I'm afraid you have to watch one
10:52
of your other favorite WoW content creators. I do hope we're at least on the list, but not in this case.
10:59
Diablo is too good. If I knew that this thing was out there, I would have played the WoW today.
11:06
All right. All right. I got to get better. I gotta stop crying and just move on. Uh oh. Here's something that
11:12
might No, actually this is going to also make me sad. Legion remix is over. Um, and you the question here is, you know,
11:19
how did we like it? I liked it. Um, what do we want to see remix next? I don't
11:25
know, but I kind of want to see if they can make Warlords of Draanor a funny. Oh. Oh. Oh. Ow.
11:33
Like my heart my heart is going out. Let's have everybody jump in with one.
11:38
Uh, Joe. No, I'm good. Okay. Hey, he doesn't have any opinion. Uh, six, you got one that you'd like to
11:44
see next? Warlords is top of the pile. I mean, going back to Warlords, it is just
11:49
gorgeous to fly over. They put in so much work for that. The thing that failed Warlords was the story, not the
11:54
content. Yeah. I feel like is also the fact that yet again, it was one of those expansions where, okay, we're in the
12:00
last patch. See you in nine months. So, and that's perfect.
12:05
With Remix, you don't have that problem. Yeah. There's probably a bunch of stuff that people didn't collect when they were there, or maybe they did in that
12:11
year and a half before the next expansion. Who knows? But it I still see there's a lot of value for it. Probably
12:16
my top three would be Warlords, Shadowlands, and then it's a real fight
12:22
between DFA and uh Burning Crusade. I was going to say Burning Crusade would be the only one that I would really even
12:28
consider. Uh, just simply because I would like to see them do something
12:34
really unique with it, which is finish all the dang story lines that got dropped into nothingness during the
12:40
original Burning Crusade and never got finished. That'd be great that you could have just
12:46
said that. You mean Burning Crusade Plus? Yeah, accepted Burning Crusade Plus. I
12:51
mean, honestly, that feels to me more like what we might want to see in a in a WoW classic uh season of discovery for
12:58
the Burning Crusade server. That could be kind of cool because then they could really do that kind of thing. Tell me with a good time.
13:05
Of course, the thing is there aren't any season of dis like Season of Discovery exists, but it's just in stasis. It just
13:12
exists. Wonderful idea. Go ahead and make the thing I just said.
13:18
Feel free to just do the thing I said. But yeah, um, okay. I do think we should mention, however, that if you were doing
13:24
remix for decor, uh, because a lot of people were, let's let's not kid
13:29
ourselves. Uh, player housing is now the new beating heart of World of Warcraft.
13:34
You can still get that stuff. Like, the stuff is still available. I don't think you can earn it anymore because you you
13:40
have to No, you just you just have to buy it. Yeah. No, you can just you can just go buy it.
13:46
You don't There's no earning. the prices are now like like runway like it's
13:51
absurd. So, okay. I think a favorite item to buy
13:57
in Remix was the Sentinels Sentinels Moonwing Gaze, which was an owl statue
14:04
that glowed. It's great. It's pretty great. It cost 30,000 bronze per owl,
14:11
but if you want to buy it now, it will cost you 50 veiled arganite and 18,000
14:20
order resources. Yeah, that's ridiculous. Uh, so if you want to buy these things
14:26
now, you can. You are going to have to put in the work. You are going to have
14:31
to put in a lot of work. See what's funny is I have an absolute metric
14:38
boatload. I'm using that word instead of the word I would actually use um of order resources. I could probably buy
14:45
it, but then that's it. That's that's that would wipe me out. I haven't been wiped out on order
14:51
resources since Legion original. One of our Patreon supporters, Tetsimmyi, has
14:57
been sharing pictures of their house in our Discord, and they have their entire
15:05
they've shown us their entire plot surrounded by owl statues on all sides.
15:11
I do not know how many owls are involved in this, but I would say at least 50.
15:16
There's there's a whole thing going on there. Now, you could do that in Remix.
15:22
That was not It would also take some work, but but it wasn't that expensive. Yeah,
15:28
but yeah. 30,000 bronze and 18,000 order resources. Totally different scale.
15:35
Veiled Argonite also not a fast grind. So,
15:41
I'm just glad it doesn't have lumber. Oh, yeah. I can actually put some perspective onto that grind.
15:48
So, if you leveled a character in Legix and uh went through the whole class
15:54
order hall, got them to 80, completed the entire class order hall, and even got them a um a hidden artifact
16:00
appearance, which is what I did for eight characters. Um by the time you were done with that, yeah, you would
16:06
have about 130k bronze depending on how many things you did for the first time. And this is not going into raiding. This
16:12
is not doing anything but the dungeons you had to do to complete the like class order hall. So about 130k bronze, you'd
16:18
get about 8k order class like order hall resources. So yeah, so that's going to net you
16:26
before legion in legion that would get you, you know, four owls and now it'll
16:31
get you less than half. Mhm. And fortunately unfortunately they won't sell you less than half. And
16:38
like I just want owl. Yeah, I just want the head. No, you have to buy a little owl.
16:44
Your owl's clearly dead. But oh, okay. We've now we've now made ourselves sad at the idea of just how
16:51
much regular old Legion you'd have to do uh to to pick up some owls. I I would like to I would like to insert a topic
16:58
here which one of the things in this patch in the uh midnight pre- patch
17:04
that's gone live is a whole ton of class changes which I we haven't talked about
17:10
them in great depth because there's just a lot of them but six I
17:15
know you've been following a lot of classes because you're not sure what you want to main and I'm kind of wondering
17:20
how's everyone feeling about their class of choice or classes of choice. is going
17:25
into midnight. Can I go? I'm going to send this to six. Oh, you want to go last?
17:31
Like Matt and Joe's answer are going to be, you know, very direct and then I'm just going to talk forever.
17:40
Let's Let's start with Joe because I kind of feel like I I know where he's going to go with this, but but we will
17:45
see. How are you feeling about Rustoaman going into Midnight? Not great. Um
17:52
it it's still below where I feel it needs to be.
17:57
Um part of it is because with the pruning that happened, we we've gotten some of our stuff back, but not enough.
18:03
And we were probably one of the specs and classes hit hardest by the pruning.
18:09
Um, but with the way the game is designed now, it is very difficult as a
18:18
at least in the beta, uh, where I've done keys at high levels once you start
18:24
getting past like in mythics plus 12
18:29
with a with a a you know, appropriately geared character,
18:35
you wrestle shaman fall off hard. And then we are in a similar position to where we were um in like at the end of
18:45
Cataclysm where in raids we feel like maintenance healers and that's not great
18:51
because it feels like the winners so far and I hate to say the term winners but the ones that are at the top of the food
18:57
chain right now uh as far as healings and the one that came out the best are druids who hardly lost anything uh and
19:04
in fact gain a lot of utility because hot and and hots are just extraordinarily powerful right now in
19:10
midnight. Uh and discipline priests because shields and absorbs are so
19:16
important now because it's so hard to catch up on health. You get to a certain
19:21
threshold and even with wrestle shaman mastery, you are at least in my opinion
19:27
and I'm not a bad healer. I I I I have self-doubt on a lot of things. Healing
19:32
is not one of them. You guys, he's not a bad healer. He's a very good healer. Liz and Six have also had me as a healer for a very long time.
19:40
Uh Phil is as well. And like I am a bomb blank healer. I know what I'm doing. Uh
19:47
and even I felt like I was falling behind by a lot. I've put Joe in awful situations. I can
19:52
attest to that. It's true. It is true. But I mean, so it's interesting because I'm hoping that
19:58
they continue to sort of uh develop and and listen to feedback
20:04
and especially after it goes live, but from a resto shaman standpoint, I know some people are really happy about the
20:10
reduction in keys, I just feel like I don't have tools. And it's not that my tools are simplified, it's my tools are
20:16
gone. and like certain choices that you have to make now between certain nodes and talents take away key abilities that
20:25
you may have needed. So you may have to choose between two different cooldowns where before you had access to both of
20:30
them and it doesn't actually help the player at all. Instead it makes the
20:35
class weaker overall because now that cooldown isn't something they can rely on. So it in my opinion for Russo
20:44
Shaman, we're not bottom of the barrel, but we're going to get overlooked for a
20:51
lot of content. And I was already struggling at the end of this expansion getting into pugs, and I can't imagine
20:57
it's going to be any better at the beginning of Midnight. So I I'm not overly excited, but we'll
21:05
see how time time moves on. And it's also worth considering that um you know
21:10
we have a month before midnight launches and I imagine there's time for more balance patches and we'll sort of see
21:16
how things work out in play. Are you are you considering playing anything else? Yes.
21:23
Uh silence. If if healing does not improve
21:28
or I feel that I will be a detriment to the raid and groups, I will be either
21:34
pulling out the hunter or switching to paladin rat. Um because at that point I'm not playing
21:40
a druid. I cannot stand druid healing. I cannot stand playing discipline. I don't
21:46
like monk healing. Uh I don't like healing as holy. I don't like healing as a paladin. I've literally healed on
21:52
every class in this game and the only one I like is shaman really. Um, so at
21:58
that point, if it gets to that point and I have to step down from it, I will. I just don't want to feel like a
22:04
detriment to the raid. And at that point, I will just become a DPS. Um,
22:09
I don't want to do that because I have been healing in this game for uh, let's see, 22 years, give or take.
22:17
It's a little while. Yeah. And that's it. It's it's something that I really enjoy and I really like doing and I don't selfishly I don't want
22:23
to lose that. But also I I I don't want to feel like I'm letting the raid down or I don't want to be the cause of our
22:28
wives because I can't keep up with the the health pools and and the damage and I don't have the tools to accurately
22:34
deal with large spikes. So again, it sounds a little more doomy and gloomy,
22:40
but it is on my mind. So there you go. Those are my answers. Uh now Matt, I know you haven't been
22:45
playing a lot. Have you been following the changes at all or is that I have been asking is this just a is this just a a silly
22:52
question to ask what your what you're feeling about the class you might play in midnight. Well, I mean I know what class it's
22:58
going to be. What class is it, Matt? It's going to be druid. Um I'm kidding.
23:04
I am kidding. No one pick your main by 3 p.m. I see. Uh no, I I'm going to be playing a warrior. Obviously, there are some some
23:10
things I'm actually kind of a like a little positive about and some things I'm I'm a more wait and see about. I
23:17
like the changes they're making to um interrupt duration where most interrupts are going up in terms of how long they
23:24
interrupt spellcasting. Uh I know the warrior pummel is up to like I think 5
23:30
seconds from three. Uh and I think everybody's is up because there's a whole list of interrupts. I didn't look
23:37
at all of them, but I saw the one I saw and thought about was there. I think it's a death knight one that's up to
23:42
six. No, it was evokers. The evoker interrupt has a six second duration now that it keeps spellcasting locked down.
23:49
So, I I think that's moderately positive. And the taunt changes I think
23:54
are overdue. Uh quite frankly, taunt should create more threat. Um, and it
24:01
should, you know, absolutely have a much bigger threat boost than it currently does. So, seeing it go up to 800%
24:09
instead of like the current 400%, I think that is a good idea. Uh, so those
24:14
are not warrior specific. If you're tanking or if you're interrupting, those
24:20
are there, but but those are things warriors do. So, those are both kind of positive. I see some damage stuff has
24:26
gone down. Other damage stuff has gone up and I think a lot of it is the idea of balancing for new stuff like new
24:34
talents are coming in. You'll get a few more levels. We're we're having the whole uh this one was a was it an item
24:41
squish only or was it also you know it's a complete stat squish. Huge
24:47
item. Yeah. So with that happening there's of course going to be some rebalancing necessary.
24:53
I don't feel qualified to say this has been nerfed or this has been buffed
24:58
because I haven't gotten a chance to really feel how it plays. Um unlike Joe
25:03
who has, you know, not only does he have all of his experience, but he's actually gone on the beta and tested it out. I
25:09
haven't been doing that because of another game before. Uh so when I I'll my my experience of it will
25:18
come next week for lack of better word. Uh, but I'm I'm moderately positive. I
25:24
feel like I could go back to tanking, which is something I haven't tried to do in a long time. I haven't really tanked
25:31
other than like people be like, "Oh, hey Rossi, we need a tank." And so I would go get my my warrior and I'd like,
25:37
"Okay, here's a shield." I I remember how to do this. And I would go tank for people. And you know, it usually worked.
25:44
But I haven't tried to be a dedicated tank in a long time. I might seriously try, especially since now um pro's a lot
25:52
more based around switching between stances. Uh you don't you don't just stay in defensive stance because
25:58
defensive stance has no threat coefficient anymore. It just reduces damage you take. Uh so for a lot of
26:05
times if you're not dying like a chicken, battle stance is better to tank in cuz you'll do more damage and thus
26:11
create more threat and then oh oh I'm starting to look like I'm going to get par boiled and uh I don't have an
26:17
amazing healer like Joe to keep me alive defensive stance or defensive stance just cuz I like my healers and I don't
26:23
want them to be start screaming and pulling their hair out. Uh, but regardless, I feel like I feel
26:29
cautiously optimistic, but not not willing to say this is going to be great yet. I I I really need to feel it more.
26:35
But I'm I'm I'm pretty happy with playing a warrior in this expansion so far. So far, it I'm like at 60%, this is
26:42
going to be okay. It's everything's fine. It's going to be okay. Uh I am the dog at the table in the fire. So yeah,
26:50
that that's my response. And now Six can talk for 25 minutes. Smoke them if you
26:55
got them. So, uh, Matt, when was the last time you tanked on a warrior? I'm sorry, I missed that part. I had a cat.
27:01
Um, I haven't tanked dedicated, uh, since. Not just at all. Like, like last time
27:06
you like Oh, no. I I tanked in the war within. I tanked for friends in the war within a couple times. They literally just caught
27:13
me when I was logging on one time. Uh, I have a friend who I play other games with who texted me in another game and
27:19
was like, I nearly need a tank. I was like, "Okay, you know, my gear is not exactly great. The catchup gear is
27:25
fine." So, I came in, I literally did the quests uh in Alien Planet at the end
27:31
of expansion uh and got gear good enough to tank this dungeon that he needed
27:36
tanked and then I left. So, yeah. Well, I I asked because it's funny. I've gone over a lot of these classes so far
27:42
and to say the least, I haven't gone over all of them. Um and there's just some classes that I just I just can't
27:48
enjoy for whatever reason is cough monk cough. So, um, but warriors, uh, that to
27:54
me is like the least change class going into the next expansion. So, yeah.
27:59
Yeah. December stuff. Near the same utility, near all the same stuff, near the same problems. I mean,
28:05
this the stuff that was wrong with prod and the war within is still wrong with prod. Although prod to me was really fun in the war within. So, you got a lot of
28:13
things. I'm not saying it's not I'm not saying it's not going to have issues, but it it still feels like it's possible that I could I could execute well with
28:20
it. Yeah. No, and I mean, Fury's plays wonderfully still. It still has like that mana quality to it and and Arms is
28:27
less uh stop and go, I'll say. So, from what I've been seeing with it and what I was playing with the War Within, I mean,
28:33
overall, it's been great changes. Like, that's my opinion. like the uh the the
28:40
purging like revising a lot of these classes. I think like most of it has been incredibly positive has been just a
28:47
great way to get back into this stuff. And I also think a lot of the complaints that people have piled on to certain classes too are a little overblown and
28:54
obuscating some really fun aspects of some of these classes too. Uh again, cough, fire mage, cough. Uh so so
29:03
there's a lot to say. Um good lord, I have no idea what I'm going to man. Well, I have some ideas what I'm going
29:08
to main at the moment. I'm I'm usually somebody who likes to, you know, find a lost child, the redheaded stepchild of
29:13
the uh the meta for whatever's going on and just kind of like make it work, which is why survival hunter is always
29:18
in the rotation for me. And weirdly enough, I feel like it's in a beautiful place right now in the War
29:24
Within. And I actually think what they've done kind of lessens it a little
29:29
bit. It's doing better. I mean, it's it's going to be killer for mythic. It's
29:34
has one of the strongest apex talents in the game. And it has a bit of um has a
29:40
bit of a challenge to it, too, in a fun way, which is you're trying to line up the uh tip of the spear with the raptor
29:46
swipe in order to make sure that your pet is just hitting like a truck with it. And all that stuff to me is just great gameplay, but it it it plays so
29:53
plotting now. And also, you've lost kind of like that balance of uh what was the term for it? Ah, so with mongoose I
30:00
think I think it's just like a mongoose bite proc now but the way it plays in the war within no longer on live because
30:05
live is now you know um it's now going into midnight and these changes are there but the way it used to play is you
30:12
would get five stacks of mongoose bite and just do what you could to maintain those stacks and run it into your next
30:17
cool down and try and keep those stacks up and mongus bite was again hitting like another truck but that is gone
30:24
those just roll off as they come on so it's lost some complexity as you know
30:29
nearly everything has. Wasn't that complex to begin with though and they also gave it boomstick which is just the
30:34
weirdest ability cuz it pretty much replaces the um oh what was it called?
30:40
The uh the jabby one uh something of the eagle. Yeah, but it's a lesser ability
30:45
because it's capped and it uh and it comes out just like these three big booms. So you can only hit up to eight
30:51
targets with it. It occupies the same amount of time, but aesthetically it just feels like everything slows down
30:57
for you. So, but it's nice. And then the other one I'm thinking about playing right now is fire mage, which everybody
31:04
hates. So, yeah, because everybody's just like,
31:09
"Oh, you're just throwing all these fireballs." But it's really manic. Like you your cooldown pops, everything goes
31:15
crazy. You're just uh sending off pyrolast like no other for about 10 seconds and just trying to line up as
31:22
much as you can. 30 seconds in, you drop some meteors and proc yourself another frost fireball bolt. And then in between
31:27
there, you're just trying to fill it up with as many fireballs as possible, which people are like, "Oh, this is awful gameplay." But if you go and play
31:33
like classic WoW, all you ever did was like one button or something like that for different specs. So try and get as
31:39
many mutilates in as you could or something like that in SOD. So, it's funny for me that everyone's complaining about that when it's still really
31:45
mobile. Has these great little windows of just like death and uh and the rest
31:50
of the time you're just a fireball throwing mage, which is, you know, what I do half the time in Dungeons and
31:56
Dragons is try and get as many fireballs into the field as possible. The wizard casts fireball.
32:01
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Um and I know everybody and I think too like the the common
32:06
consensus right now is that everybody's going to be going frost mage and talking about how great it is and it is better.
32:11
It was a little too complex in terms of trying to figure out a viable uh spec and the war within from my opinion on
32:18
that one. And they've nailed it down. It's it's really simple. You just follow the um the the procs and the uh the
32:24
stacks and everything else to that degree. But I don't it just I feel like it also lost a bit of its aesthetic or
32:30
its uh its inherent appeal uh in that and that arcane and fire are just well
32:36
ahead of it. I mean, Arcane has got this great like lord of the orb spec going right now if you're playing spells sllinger, which is just hilarious.
32:42
You're just sending dozens dozens of orbs into just mobs and everything like that. And I can't imagine a more fun
32:48
spec right now in Mythic Plus than the that. So, but additionally, I mean, I
32:54
think everything's been great. Um, I'm trying to think of like anything else I can talk about. Unholy had probably the
32:59
best rework. That's the one coming in here that has had the most tuning and been turned into a whole new vehicle for
33:05
people. Um, the Frosty K is still playing beautifully. Uh, Devour I find very
33:11
boring. The new demon hunter spec. I actually think I am Oh no, I didn't want to hear that. I was I was considering doing Devour.
33:17
I know. I'm alone in this. It's It to me it like people complain about how some of these guys are like two or three
33:23
button rotations. That really feels like a two button rotation with some some
33:28
like cool down stuff going on. like Havoc to me is like the superior spec with the uh the two going into this
33:35
thing. But again, I am uh I am somewhat alone in that opinion. So, I will agree
33:41
though with Joe that uh probably the big loser in this was uh restoration shaman.
33:47
Other two shaman specs are doing very good. But yeah, Resto, I don't know what was going on there. There's a lot of
33:52
stuff that was really surprised to see it coming out to live the way it is. And Resto was easily sort of bottom of
33:58
the barrel there. Yeah, I mean I think Holy got a big thing going for it. I think Holy is great. I know people have been hitting on that. Becoming like this
34:05
master of serenity and having serenity do splash healing. That is fantastic.
34:11
Um but yeah, but I feel like Holy falls into a same category or similar category. Sorry to jump in there, but
34:16
like Holy finds itself in the same camp like we did at the end of Kata where
34:21
Holy and Restoration were maintenance healer, not not really having that big
34:27
raw throughput. So, like it's it's weird to have that big backslide. No. And and you're right about that. I
34:33
mean, in my in my opinion of healing, and it's probably not as nearly as developed as yours is there's sort of three types of healers, or there's I
34:39
should say there's three types of healing, and all the healers kind of blend something in there, which is there's reactive, active, and passive.
34:46
And reactive is just, oh crap, that person's health went down. So, you throw out the biggest heal you can, the
34:51
fastest heal you can for that. active is like a disc priest which is like okay I've lined up all of my atonements
34:58
people are ready to go time to hit the big buttons I know the damage is coming in and boom
35:04
and there's passive which is a lot of what druids do of just putting on hots setting up a lot of other stuff having a lot of heals over time go out for stuff
35:10
and just maintaining those are maintaining sure that those are kept um and holy priest has always been the
35:16
reactive healer like it's always been the one that's like oh crap got to get stuff out and they made it a super reactive healer they just threw about um
35:24
Renew and just bumped up Serenity and to a point now it's it's my first healer in
35:29
a lot of ways, but also that could be fun. So, but yeah, Resto, they they they
35:35
threw out the car engine for you and then they gave you nothing. They they just said, "Oh, wait until you can find a downhill, then push the car and see
35:41
how fast it goes." So, which is not the way to play these things. So, yeah, they rejected my idea of, you
35:47
know, putting pedals. I don't know why we couldn't just pedal them, you know. I I When I do play a shaman, I tend to
35:53
play resto. And yeah, I I'm not going to play that character. It's just
35:59
Yeah. No, but I mean, there's there, like I said, there's been a lot of great improvements. Shadow priest. Shadow was
36:05
having so much trouble with uh shadow crash. Uh and they just replaced it with a gigantic tentacle that now hits. So,
36:13
and they also turned it back into a dot class. People may have noticed this about shadow priest in the war within, but it really was kind of a burn spec.
36:20
like you got your uh cooldown going, especially if you're playing a void weaver, and then you just threw as many
36:25
void balls or anything else you could at them at that time, and just that was your damage window. And then everything
36:31
else was just maintenance after that. Uh and now it's going back into just being like heavy on the dots, heavy on like
36:37
shadowward pain, shadowward madness, all the other stuff. Um I'm probably forgetting something in there. I'm
36:43
trying to think of the shadow clones, but yeah, but that's been a big improvement, too. Um, yeah, the Rogues
36:49
have had great stuff. The rogues have been in an awful place. Although funny because I feel like Outlaw is now a
36:56
rogue, I should also say, is also one of the ones I'm interested in playing going forward. But, uh, but they fixed some
37:02
stuff in rogues. They made some stuff better, and then they made some stuff a little worse. Assassination is still a
37:08
pooling class, although they fix some stuff to make, uh, mutilate, hit a lot, mutilate, and venom really work together
37:13
more in the cool down in the uh, cool down windows. Uh, Outlaw, they fixed a bunch of stuff. It plays a lot better
37:20
now. It's less chaos. Um, it was one of the it was the hardest spec to manage, I
37:26
would say, in the War Within. Uh, and so much so that the UI itself wasn't able to keep up with it. Like, if you had too
37:31
much uh haste on an outlaw rogue, you actually started doing less DPS when uh Blood Lust was called because the UI
37:38
just couldn't register the commands that were coming in. It was just so manic. That's changed. It works a lot better,
37:43
but they took away the one thing that Outlaw had, which was Outlaw was the one rogue spec that really didn't have to
37:48
worry that much about energy. And now Outlaw is drained of energy, and it's kind of sad. And I wish that the ambush
37:55
build that kind of helps you with the energy would work for it, but from what I'm seeing right now in the early metas,
38:01
that's not happening. But it's playable. I wouldn't have said that before with
38:06
it, uh, especially not to an average user. Oh, and then there's subtlety, which everybody seems to be hating. And
38:13
I kind of think they did a great thing in sort of like breaking it down a little bit, making a little easier. I
38:18
mean, it's no more difficult or like uncomplex than a red paladin is right now. Like a red paladin might have a few
38:25
more cool downs than it has than subtly has right now, but if you take Gormma's bite, you've given yourself an added complexity. You've held yourself a
38:31
little bit with energy, and you've set yourself up for some free finishers. And yeah, and there's so much just sort of u
38:37
class aesthetic going into it, too. you have shadow clones. You're still kind of like the master of the darkness delivering like shadow and poisons and
38:44
plague damage. Uh, and it is just such like a wonderful class to kind of invest yourself in. The problem with rogue
38:51
still is that it has to stand next to all the play classes. It's in the melee parts and it's real squishy. And I don't
38:58
think they fixed the one big issue with it, which is that a lot of its cooldowns for defensives are still coming from
39:04
that energy pool. So, so that can that can be a big thing when these guys are testing these things. Usually, they find
39:09
a dummy and they don't understand that when you're actually in the field with stuff, then you're hitting like crimson vial and that sucks away, you know, 20
39:16
energy and now you've just lost yourself that uh sinister strike that was supposed to be taking that energy and
39:22
you're paused. You're weird. The flow's broken. Uh you're semi- alive and your
39:27
rotation goes to hell. So, there is that. Uh and let's see what else has
39:33
been going on. I'm so glad we brought you on this week because man, my never been this
39:38
lubricated. Everything's Yeah, every every Like I said, it's been a lot of big stuff. It's been a lot of good stuff. I think
39:44
Frell's had some improvements. It still has a little ways to go. Sorry, Liz. It's just It's just a huge set of patch
39:51
changes, both for classes and the stat squish, everything. And add-ons, which I think
39:57
we're going to try and talk about a bit. It's It's a big day. It's a big day for World of Warcraft.
40:02
No, it is. It And it's nice that we have kind of a month to kind of like tool around with these things, sort of see what works and doesn't work for us. Cuz
40:08
a lot of the stuff you don't know until until you're actually in the field with it. You know what this reminds me of? Do you guys remember the the pre patch before
40:16
Wrath of the Lich King went live, but that's been a couple years ago. We we still got our capstone 41 point
40:24
talent. You could get to it if you really wanted to. And Titans Grip was introduced, which I mean people were
40:29
even saying Rossi just got his his wish. Uh, I went and got Titan's grip at the
40:35
end like doing Legion. We were doing uh Burning Crusade stuff and I went and got
40:41
Titans Grip even though I was technically supposed to be tanking. I was like, "No, no, I'm sorry." So, the
40:46
next month I am hitting things with two giant weapons. you come up with something and we went and run ran
40:52
Sunwell and I was death on legs and I was so happy but so like the rogues were
41:00
so unhappy uh like because they were dying a lot. Uh and that's what kind of
41:06
like one of the things that always seems to happen when when these patches comes up. Um, but Liz, I'm going to actually
41:12
ask you to do the site news now so we can then come back in and do the add-ons bit and then move on to other stories if
41:18
you don't mind. Uh, yes, I do want to say thank you to all of our supporters on Patreon. You guys are what keeps the
41:26
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41:33
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41:54
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42:08
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42:16
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42:51
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43:03
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43:18
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43:23
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43:29
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43:46
Patreon supporters who helps out every day. And thank you for everyone else
43:51
just for being here and listening. So, thanks a lot, guys. And thank you, Liz, for doing that
43:58
because that's a lot of information to try to get out in one go. Um, I don't think I'd remember it very well. Uh, but
44:05
since we're still here, uh, we still have a few more things to talk about. I'm going to talk about the weird uh Blair Witch Shaky Cam uh video that they
44:15
the the dev team for for um World of Warcraft put a video out as an interview
44:21
with with the uh Game Informer. Go ahead. They did not Game Informer published an
44:27
interview World of Warcraft dev. Well, yeah, they showed up. they didn't
44:33
publish it or I presume they didn't I I presume they did not edit it themselves because it is
44:39
I don't know I think it's a little weird but it's like I said good information it looks like they tried to sneak the
44:45
cameras in or something like what are you doing you No
44:50
it's a lot of shaky cam and one shot of someone's elbow and it's just like are
44:56
what look are we going for here because when it goes into the interviews it's like it's perfectly composed with a
45:01
stillmounted camera and it's very sharp and clear, but like some of it is just
45:07
the camera's a little wobbly for effect. Yeah, I like I said, it reminded me a lot of Blair Witch. I wasn't being
45:13
sarcastic there. It seriously reminded me of the scenes in Blair Witch where people are like yelling into their phones. Um it just it's it's an odd it
45:21
was an odd take. But we do know uh they did however tell us for example we are
45:26
going to be going back to Northr which um I think if you've been paying attention to the last Titan which is the
45:32
thing that we're talking about. I don't think it's tremendously surprising we're going back to Northr. I mean it feels
45:37
like that would be the kind of thing we would do. Uh because again the last titan you know there's a whole bunch of
45:44
things. Yeah exactly. Odawir exists. That weird place that we went at the end of
45:49
Shadowlands is right underneath Ice Crown Citadel, right? Um then that's that had something to do with tabbing
45:56
into Azeroth. Um that was their link to Zerith Mortise. So if there's another
46:02
Zerith out there, we might be visiting that. We know there's lots of possibilities and it would feel like
46:08
Northrand is a good place for that sort of thing. So I Yeah, I feel we should mention that. But
46:14
yeah, they're Oh, sorry, Liz. Go on six. Go on six. I feel like it's the hotel California of
46:20
Warcraft. Check. You're like, you can never leave. Yeah.
46:26
I mean, one of the things Blizzard's saying here is they were kind of reluctant to go back and rework the old
46:31
world. Um, but they they did this with uh Silver Moon and Qualas, which they
46:38
were apprehensive. They were like, maybe people won't like this. Maybe they want to go into Warcraft and have a new
46:44
adventure in an exciting new place. Maybe they won't enjoy these revamped zones. But the response to Midnight has
46:51
been really positive. The response to going back to Silver Moon has been really positive. And it sounds like that
46:57
has encouraged them to go like really revamp Northrand. And it'll be
47:02
interesting to see what it's like when we get there because it's been a couple years. Uh also Doran is gone. We used to
47:10
that was our home base in Northand and now where where are we based? Where are we located? What does Northrand look
47:17
like all these years later. So that is going to be really interesting. That's that's a little ways away. That's going
47:22
to be the last Titan. I saw one theory that I actually kind of liked was that there was going to be ice crown. Like you know after Shadowlands it's not
47:29
like anybody else's. There's no Lich King anymore and a bunch of death mates just sitting around in there. I mean we still have the urgent this we
47:35
still have the urgent tournament area up there as well. Just throwing that out there. Mhm. No, that's true.
47:40
And those big airships are flying around. Yeah, we've done everything with forest.
47:45
We have the faction specific cities, but they really are split between factions except for a couple of them. So, yeah, I
47:52
think it's interesting regardless. But, okay, at this point, we should mention um since we've been talking
47:58
about all this, as of January 20th, the game is it's now midnight in code. It is
48:05
not uh the war within and your add-ons are likely broken
48:10
almost certainly. They are. They are. Uh so some things are updatable, some
48:16
things will not be updatable yet. Uh some things are never coming back. Um so
48:22
there's so much to talk about in terms of that that we and we've talked about it before. I don't feel like we should just like try to pile out a list of all
48:28
the things, but one be aware of it. Go ahead, Liz. One thing to be aware of is the game client will
48:34
not load outof-date add-ons anymore. If your add-on is not designed for 12.0,
48:39
it's not going to load, even if it's not a problem in any way, because the big add-on changes that have happened is
48:45
that Blizzard no longer allows access to add-ons to access live combat data. But
48:50
even something that had nothing to do with that, if it hasn't been updated, it's not going to work because they just
48:57
you can no longer load out of date add-ons. that's not an option anymore. Which has killed one of my favorite
49:03
add-ons. Can I mo it, which existed just to tell you if you had learned a
49:10
transmog appearance or not. So bad day. Sad day because that add-on had not been
49:16
updated in years, but it continued to work. And yeah, because it just looked at it just
49:22
looked at your list of things you didn't want to. It didn't need to be updated. Yeah. and it's it's unrelated to these
49:28
changes, but since the add-on itself hasn't been updated to say I'm an add-on for patch 12.0, it will not work. You
49:36
can't load out of date add-ons anymore. If somebody wants to like, you know, completely make that model again and
49:44
just make it be updated 12, that that'd be great. Please, please do. It's not
49:49
that easy. We're the target audience. Yeah. I know some of them some add-ons need to be
49:55
rebuilt from scratch just because of code changes and uh it's it's kind of a
50:01
mess out there. There are a lot of add-ons that do work that have been updated. Uh some of them won't look the same. Some of them won't have all the
50:07
features. Some of them are still being updated and won't work for a while.
50:13
Should we talk about GTFO? Like what's going on with that? Because it's listed here. Yeah. So Joe, you want to talk about
50:20
I'll talk a little bit about it and then uh Liz, if you want to talk about the the the emotional post that was po
50:25
posted with it. GTFO is an add-on that we've talked about a lot and we've recommended a lot on this podcast and
50:31
and a lot of us have used for a very long number of years. It's an add-on that adds an audio cue whenever you are
50:38
essentially when you're messing up, when you're standing in things you shouldn't be standing in. um or maybe maybe you
50:45
have uh tunnel vision or whatever the case is. But visual cues in the game or
50:51
the one minor sound that a a mechanic makes in the cacophony of things going
50:58
around in game you miss uh which is very easy to do causes you to uh die or wipe
51:06
or uh causes more trouble than it's worth. and it's not necessarily a player
51:12
fault, but you just don't have the tools to process what's going on. This add-on
51:17
was designed for people in that particular situation, and we've all been there at some point. Uh, and in a game
51:25
where increasingly spell effects of bosses match the color palette of the
51:31
arena that they are in, uh, it is sometimes very difficult to know when
51:37
you're standing in something awful or when things clip beneath textures on the ground or uh, phase out but are still
51:45
physically present there. We've all experienced that. or having difficulty determining between uh friend and foe.
51:52
When it comes to ground effects uh as a restoration shaman, I feel this keenly. It's it was an add-on that allowed
51:59
players very quickly with an audio cue to know if they were doing something they shouldn't do. It was not a boss
52:06
mod. It did not play the game for you. It literally just said, "You're taking damage. Maybe you should move." And it
52:12
was smart enough to know where that damage was coming from. As of right now, GTFO does not work. Uh there is more to
52:20
it. Uh where in in case of like there is a version of DBM that is out and the
52:26
makers of DBM or the the the creators of that mod have been working with the creators of GTFO to incorporate audio
52:32
cues, but it was a diminished capacity for what GTFO does. GTFO worked period.
52:39
You could be in the world. You could be standing in something from a random mob uh and it would yell at you. It could be
52:45
in PvP it would yell at you. It could be uh in a pet battle, it would yell at you. Um now it will only trigger for
52:53
boss effects, at least the way that it's integrated because of how Blizzard has restricted everything. And this is one
53:00
of those things where I can understand the philosophy behind getting rid of uh
53:06
certain add-ons or changing the environment which they're in, but this is sort of a huge blow to accessibility
53:12
because Blizzard has nothing that does what this add-on does. Literally nothing. Uh, and even then when if you
53:20
incorporate deadly boss mods, which is a completely separate add-on, you're not getting the same functionality, and it
53:27
only will work essentially in raid content, possibly dungeon. So, it's a huge blow. Uh, and and Liz had posted
53:35
something earlier and I I let her talk about it where there was a an update from the creator of GTFO, the dev, uh,
53:42
in the curse forge description and it was very eloquently uh, yeah, I think I'll just uh, read
53:48
part of this uh, because the developer of GTFO, Zenosum, I am sorry if I
53:55
mispronounced your name, uh, made a post about GTFO going away, which is that I
54:02
always thought Blizzard would kill GTFO eventually by making it redundant by being better at communicated avoid
54:08
communicating avoidable damage to players. The swirls on the ground are easier to see, and they added full
54:14
screen effects for some of the bad stuff on the ground. But they haven't gone far enough, especially when they continue to
54:20
design dangerous spell effects that match the color and design of your own team's class spells or the floor. hide
54:28
AoE damage areas under staircases or have tiny mobs whirlwind and clipping into bigger mobs. At Blizzcon, the
54:35
Blizzard staff told me half their company uses my add-on. Jay Allen Brack told me himself his dad used it. I met a
54:43
couple who thanked me for saving their marriage because the hunter husband couldn't stay out of bad to his healer
54:48
wife's frustration. I know my add-on wasn't used by top tier players, but it
54:54
did help normal everyday average players that needed just a little bit of help in
55:00
the form of an audio cue warning them that they were taking avoidable damage. And I'm sorry, this will affect them the
55:07
most. And that really gets to the heart of the matter is that ostensibly all of
55:13
these add-on changes have been made in order to level the playing field. So you
55:18
feel like you don't have to add an add-on. And to make it harder for
55:24
add-ons to play the game for you, especially at high levels, add-on use really makes or breaks a raid team at
55:31
those top top top tier levels. But some of these changes really are going to be
55:37
punishing for just your average person because Yeah.
55:42
Go on. I just want to mention back in 2016 when my eyes started going. Uh I
55:48
was main tanking for my guild. Uh I wasn't like from 2014 to 2016 I was I
55:54
was the main tank and I didn't want to be actually quite frankly. I signed up to be DPS but I ended up main tanking
55:59
because I mean I was good at it and we didn't have any other good tanks. Um, and
56:06
the biggest problem I was having as my vision was declining was that so many spell effects are floor colored
56:12
or close enough to floor colored that guy with with eye issues cannot determine that they're there.
56:20
I mean, I know stuff somewhere. I don't know where it is. I don't know if I'm in it or not until I die. and
56:28
accessibility stuff like this. A lot of times people just they're like, "Why don't you just get out of it?" It's
56:33
like, "Because I can't see it. I I am too late. By the time I realize my
56:39
health bar is dropping like a stone, my health bar is dropping like a stone." And and the healers are now like, "Ah."
56:47
And and th this add-on, yes, it's also for just regular people who who just are
56:52
can't keep track of all that stuff, but it's also for people like me who just straight up cannot see it and there's no
56:59
means for us to to see it. Uh whether it's because the colors are weird and they're color blind or if like me they
57:06
have retinopathy and much of their eye just doesn't work or what have you. There are lots of different reasons why
57:12
you might not be able to see out of all the stuff on the ground at a given moment. Like, think about all the spell
57:19
effects that can be happening. Like, even if they don't look like the thing you're standing in, if there's 13 spell
57:24
effects going off in the same area, it's just visual overload. You're like, I have no idea. Um, so stuff like GTFO is
57:33
very useful for that kind of thing. And it is a it is bad for people like me that it will not be there. Uh, so I just
57:40
wanted to throw that out there just as a different perspective for people. Uh, yeah. So, this is this is going to
57:45
be a hard one to lose because it just it it offered help where players need it the most. And I do want to give Blizzard
57:51
credit because they have done a lot to make spell effects clearer and more
57:56
visible. They've made the outlines of them very clear. They have started doing
58:02
consistent visual formatting for stand in this effect and don't stand in this
58:08
effect in encounters, but some of it's hard to see. Some of it's impossible to
58:13
see when it's in a pile of other raid effects. Uh there's just a ton of things that make these effects hard to get
58:20
into. And it's, you know, a top tier raid team, which were ostensibly trying
58:25
to curtail uh their use of add-ons. that team is going to be coordinated enough and
58:32
together enough that they're going to be on top of this. But your average player, your player with visual disabilities,
58:38
they can't. Yeah. And they are the ones that need the most help. The as as always, the most vulnerable
58:44
among us are the ones that get hurt the most, right? Like and and those those high tier that
58:50
they're trying to curtail, they have the money from their backers to throw at solutions that don't involve
58:55
add-ons if they really and they will. Yeah. And they just they nobody you know nobody you go watch like you know
59:01
streams from years past of various raid guilds combating various highle content.
59:06
They weren't using GTF up. Well they yeah they weren't but they were they use things like weak oras which is not going to be around anymore
59:12
to coordinate and do assignments on the fly. So, and that that's become a big
59:17
huge part of endgame play these days is configuring your add-ons and getting
59:23
everyone on the same version of an add-on and the same version of a script so that you can coordinate really
59:29
quickly and efficiently. And now week orders is gone, which certainly is going to change, you know, the next race to
59:35
world first and really competitive content, but also yeah, we're losing add-ons like this. And uh we do have an
59:42
update that says GTFO may be revived because uh Mystical OS, who does DBM,
59:48
has found ways to add audio alerts to this. It sounds like they're more
59:53
difficult to set up and it sounds like they're less config uh configurable. Um,
59:59
uh, the GTFO dev Zen Zincim has said
1:00:05
GTFO will come back, but in a more limited form, and it requires a complete
1:00:11
rewrite of the add-on, but and a lot of features may never return. So, it can
1:00:17
like Joe was saying some of this, it can only work on boss encounters. No trash, nothing outside. And it only works when
1:00:24
Blizzard has specifically flagged the relevant spells so that you can, you
1:00:29
know, tie into them and make an audio alert. So, that means it doesn't work in any old content. It's it's gone unless
1:00:36
Blizzard updates all of those old things. Um, and it also doesn't have
1:00:42
smart filtering. Uh, so it can't like only tell you if you're you're low health. It can't have like anti- spam
1:00:49
where it's not going to spam you with a lot of alerts. Um, it can't ignore
1:00:54
trivial alerts. It's everything's on or everything's off. Uh, there's no visual
1:00:59
alerts, which that's having a visual rather than an audio cue or a visual in addition to an audio cue can really be
1:01:06
helpful for some players. Um, and also you can't like what he says here is that
1:01:15
GTFO is supposed to only go off when you're failing, not from regular gameplay. The goal was that if you
1:01:21
played perfectly, GTFO would never make a noise. But the workound they found to do audio alerts doesn't allow for that.
1:01:28
GTFO was always going to go off. So, like I don't even know if I really want
1:01:33
to use an add-on like that because it sounds it sounds like it could be a distraction from gameplay rather than
1:01:40
something that helps right now. If I hear the GTFO alert go off, I know
1:01:45
immediately I need to move. I need to I need to get out of here. And it sounds
1:01:51
like now the GTF O alert may go off just because the spell was cast and or or
1:01:59
it'll go a lot go off and you're at top health and you're already you just moved out of it and previously it would only
1:02:06
alert you, you know, you're in trouble, you're in big trouble. Uh and it'll alert you for trivial things as well as
1:02:13
things that will insta kill you. So yeah, this is this is a real tough one.
1:02:18
We'll we'll see how it goes. We'll see if Blizzard unlocks more support for add-ons like this because they are
1:02:25
really important and GTFO has helped a lot of people play the game and do raids
1:02:30
and group content that would otherwise struggle significantly. Oh, there's there's also something else
1:02:36
to add to that as well, which is that so much of the discussion around this game
1:02:41
like falls into being able to do the raids, being able to do the dungeons, getting out of the boss's way, having
1:02:48
success there. But this game has so much success in just the role playinging field and just people being able to
1:02:54
immerse themselves and come up with new ways of just like uh playing with aspects of narrative and collaboration
1:03:01
on their own through different add-ons. And that's another like small death that's happening with all these things too is there's the entire community of
1:03:07
people who had these add-ons just to create again those ludo narratives inside of these systems that they're
1:03:13
going to have to suffer with these things as well when they sort of lose these commands when it's not paying attention to their health when
1:03:18
everything Liz just said comes back to bite them not in the sense of them not being able to down the latest and greatest boss but in them of just sort
1:03:25
of like having that perfect immersion on a character they've invested so much time in that that that's almost a
1:03:31
storybook life that they enjoy this came with. So, yeah. I mean, I was just thinking about the fact that you you know, for all that
1:03:38
we think about big boss encounters, one of my most powerful memories of playing
1:03:43
World of Warcraft is like spending 15 minutes as a level 15 warrior trying
1:03:49
desperately not to have a son of a rugal rip my head off. And I was like, "Oh, please, please." like everything, you
1:03:56
know, like, you know, retaliation, running over there, running as far as I
1:04:01
can till it catches up, shield wall. I didn't even like I had to actually put my shield on to do that. And you know,
1:04:09
if you have it, like an add-on like JTFO will warn you if you're standing in something, whether or not you're
1:04:15
standing in something in a raid. It worked for just out in the world like, "Hey, um, do you know you're standing in
1:04:22
like a pit of like evil move?" I I it's just it's very helpful. So, yeah, absolutely.
1:04:28
There's also an ultra hardcore like uh add-on that's going right now on the hardcore servers for classic, and I
1:04:33
don't think that's going away at all, but it it removes your health bar. It just sort of like has little like
1:04:39
aspects filter into your UI to let you know how much in danger you are. So, you can't see how much damage you're taking.
1:04:45
You don't really know where you're at in terms of your mana or other resources. But slowly as you're getting hit, like
1:04:51
your screen turns red, like dramatic music starts playing, like it gets like more and more pressing on you in so many
1:04:58
different like visual visual cues and ways. Absolutely nothing to do with the boss fight, but it's just the the
1:05:05
tension it deres off of just like knowing this information and creating a new like output for you to experience it
1:05:10
through is something a lot of people like love about it. Yeah, I absolutely. Um, but I think at
1:05:16
this point we're going to wrap things up because we are we're a little bit over time. Uh, there there was a lot this
1:05:22
week and yeah, it's it is the way of pre- patches that they they do a lot of
1:05:28
things and we're all like just trying to catch up and make sure we're ready to go for the future. Uh, I want to thank uh, Six for coming
1:05:34
on and and basically giving me a nice long break to rest my voice. Usually by this point I'm squeaky, so it Thank you,
1:05:41
Six. That actually helped. Also, thank you to Joe and Liz for all you guys do
1:05:47
to keep the podcast going uh and and working properly. Uh you're both really
1:05:53
amazing people and we're very lucky to have you here on the podcast. And then there's me. Hi, I'm here too. Uh this
1:06:00
has been the Blizzard Watch podcast. Uh thank you to everyone for listening and we will be back next week.