Esmë's tWW Prepatch Experience

It's that time of year with another silly season, and I don't mean the international football transfer window. So how much fun has the prepatch been this time?

Prepatch content

We got some more quests, which consisted of clicking on some consoles in Silithius like it was BFA, and get Bronzebeard's grandson to come look after his unconscious granddad. That was it. Err?

The other thing we got was a remix of how world quests and world bosses work, with "modern" event timers. With some rewards to buy for a new currency, and a heirloom ring to craft from some drops.

I farmed the ring, and was going to get some gear. But buying the "Bind to Warband" items from the vendor was costly, so I just dropped it and did m+ and raid instead.

Prepatch class experience in endgame

So pretty much every class got some adjustments to their kits, talents and numbers. However, without the Hero Talents there's no good way to tell what will be fun to play in tWW or what works well. As of right now, a lot of melee specs are busted (except Havoc DH?) while most ranged specs looks bad (except Elemental Shaman and BM Hunter?). I attended a raid, and did better than a bunch of ranged that had 10-20 ilevels on me and me not having played retribution paladin before the prepatch.

Half the raid was made up of people from a mythic raiding guild some of the officers know people in (I think) so the melee from that guild made us all look bad.

Also did a bunch of m+ as protection paladin, mostly pugs but some guild runs also. It feels like either Blizzard nerfed the numbers or all base output was increased. Because every dungeon run so far has felt like it's been 2-4 key levels lower than they were before the prepatch. Melee has generally been boss here too, except Havoc that does tank damage most of the time.

In tWW, all tanks are going to lose self sustain and some survivability baseline. The fact we will also lose the trinket effects, here accounting for 50% of my healing on paladin, will be a bit rough going from this season.

Protection wasn't changed THAT much from before the prepatch when it comes to base kit, but it feels like it does more damage? Have enjoyed it in the prepatch, at least. Holy had a bunch of changes but I didn't know the spec that well beforehand, and Retribution is downright broken when it comes to damage numbers.

Threat has started to become an issue again, and after prepatch can feel dps rip threat much more often than before.

Wutteät kept the chain going

Before setting up the paladin, did a bunch of keys with Trollblomst and some with Caco, resulting in KSM number 8 in a row on the character. Felt a bit old school playing like that again :)

Vengeance after the nerf felt better to play for me, as I could take the damage and survival talents instead of doing all the stops and playing Brand ping pong. But much less beneficial to the group. I feel doing the actual tank job is much easier on this character than the Paladin, but not having CR/dispels/group heals makes it feel less useful for the group.

Overal Prepatch Impressions

This is the dullest prepatch I've played. Some kind of cinematic questline, or some event not on a timer would be a start. They scrambled to make adjustments before the free weekend so at least people wouldn't show up to just timers and nothing to do, but still a lackluster experience.

I got a bit hyped from the expansion cinematic trailers, but there's hasn't been a single thing they have put out about what we are going to do that makes me excited. Everyone is shitting on delves. Half the m+ dungeon pool is garbage. Class balance is a disaster. Hero Talents are mostly meh unless you play some dps specs. The raid and zones seems decent, but I am currently not keen on commiting to raid or m+ pushing or even buying the expansion after the prepatch and design notes from the beta.

Still 3 weeks left, but I might pull a Legion and just opt out of the grind and just pop in to do the story bits when I have a bunch of spare time. Taking bets!

Choosing a main for TWW

At the start of every expansion, I review which specs I am going to play. I usually prefer focusing my efforts on only one character.

Druid

I love the class fantasy of all the druid specs. I've even grown to love the space chicken. If I choose to play a druid it will require less time to become up to date, since resto and balance are the two specs I know the most in the game.

Druids are very versatile. They can do everything. Heal if the dps queues are too long. Or tank difficult mobs when soloing. They are also exceptional at questing with stuff like insta flight form, stealth and great movement. And if I get tired of my spec, there are three others to choose from.

But druids have not gotten good reviews from the content creators this time around. They have a really bad class tree that is very limiting. And they have gotten the most boring and least impactful hero talents.

Balance: In it's current state, balance has a very slow ramp up time. It sometimes feel slow when leveling and if stuff dies fast in dungeons. Several balance players have moved away from the spec for now since they think it is very unfun to play right now. The spec is also very easy and have little depth. That's good when learning new dungeons and bosses and stuff, but tend to be a bit boring in the long run.

Feral: I do love the class fantasy and to play feral, but I am not good at playing melee. I don't like that Tiger's fury don't reset on kills anymore. It made the spec very good where stuff dies fast.

Guardian: I love to be able to spec into a tank if I find a diffucult mob when I'm doing open world content. Other than that, I will probably not play it much.

Resto: This might be my favourite spec. There has been some good changes lately. I love playing with trees. And I love that you can spec into wrath generating mana. But I do think that I would do better with a healer that is more reactive and requires less planning and knowledge of damage patterns. I like healing raids and m+ with friends, but I don't like pugging as resto druid since I'm bad at dealing with surprises.

Warlock

The warlock is still close to mye heart. Even though I haven't mained it for a very long time. If I am only going as dps, it is a valid choice in TWW. I also think that if I am going warlock, I must be willing to play all the specs, since there are often only one warlock spec that is good at a given time.

Affliction: The spec has been bad to play since BFA. But somehow, I want to play it anyway. There has been both bad and good changes lately. The good part is that they have tried to remove some of the abilities, giving it less buttons to press. The bad part is that they removed sow the seeds and soulflame. These two spells are the only way of dealing damage on short lived mobs.

Demonology: I do like the class fantasy of the spec. And currently I think this is the warlock spec I enjoy the most right now. I love that they have gotten the dog from Legion too. But I don't know the spec too well.

Destruction: This is the spec I have played the least. But if I go all warlock, I intend to try to master this one too.

Evoker

Another spec I love the class fantasy of. I even love the much hated lizardy look of it. I mained it in the first part of dragonflight, and it would probably not take too much to get into it again.

Preservation: I really enjoyed playing this spec. It felt super powerful and fun. It was also fun dealing damage in dungeons with it. The one thing that makes me worried about maining it is the range limitation. Most of the time it is totally fine. But on some bosses and in some groups where people are too spread, it is a nightmare.

Devastation: My main problem with this spec was that it was too squishy. But I know their survivability was a bit buffed after I stopped playing, so it might be better now. I especially remember the few times I raided as devastation. When there were a lot of incoming damage, both evokers in the group just died. I also don't like how the mastery works. It is often at the end of a fight that you need the power. But other than that, I think I could enjoy playing it.

Augmentation: I have bearly played the spec a little bit in Pandaria. It was kind of fun. But I don't know enough about it to have a strong opinion. Other that it looks to be easy to join groups.

Shaman

I have never mained shaman, but I have played it a bit here and there. I like the class a lot, but it sometimes reminds me of a certain shaman that I don't like.

Restoration shaman: I do enjoy healing on shaman. Even though I haven't played it too much, I think it's easier to save the day with a resto shaman than a resto druid. I think it would be a good pick if I'm going to heal pugs.

Elemental: I kind of enjoy elemental. But haven't played it too much.

Enhancement: I would probably not play this spec at all. Unless I got tired of the two other ones.

Conclusion:

I think I would enjoy playing all these four classes. But in the end, I always pick druid.

The War Within Goals and Predictions

This post got hella complicated the last few expansions, so here's a long bullet point list.

Main Goal

• Get Curve in all raids on the same character.

• Avoid having others rely on me tanking progress keys.

Bonus Goals

• Have one million gold at the end of the expansion.

• Have all "played with" spots on RIO review have a higher % [edit in numbers here when they become available] than in Dragonflight.

• Level Esmë-versions of Mage, Hunter, Paladin, Warlock and Druid to 80.

• Less keys done overall than in Dragonflight.

• Get KSM all seasons on the same character.

Predictions

• Esmënet will be the actual expansion main (ie best gear, m+ and raid progress overall).

• Esmë will do more m+ than Wutteät.

• The tuning of all PVE content will be massive disaster on launch, and only slightly less bad at the start of all the new raid tiers. More like Shadowlands than DF.

• Gearing will go back to being a mess, with shady returns on profession gear and scuffed dungeon rewards, they started even before the expansion launched (see below).

• Tank/healer population in m+ will sink again, after repeated changes that makes no sense and doesn't align with their stated design goals and doubling down on making the roles annoying to play in dungeon content.

• I will like the zones and general raid design, but dislike the m+ pools and gearing.

• I will still be in Epiphany, but will have raided more with Exiles.

• Delves will get old as fast as Torghast and Visions.

Questions for future me

• What did you do to up the "played with" % for the RIO reivew?

• What did you do to rein in tanking progress keys?

• What made you finally learn all three mage specs in one expansion, or why didn't you?

Going into the expansion

• Week 1/2: Chill leveling 2-3 characters, do normal dungeons and professions.

• Week 3: Attend normal raids, spam HC dungeon queues and m0 week 3. Pick focus character.

• Week 4 onwards: Do raid and 1-8 m+ on focus character and keep up with profession knowledge for alchemy.