Everyone's favorite spider boss. Maybe playing fire or arcane would be better here?
HC Sark, easiest end boss this Fated season.
So these last two weeks have been dominated by two things: making it clear how limited HC raids are when it comes to gearing, and how much the playerbase is burning me out.
HC raids currently have some issues that makes the rewards somewhat obsolete:
Hero track items needs aspect crests to be better than Champion track items, so the difference between getting NM drops and HC drops isn't actually a difference at all (except the Very Rare drops that drops on Myth track in HC raids). You get those crests in Mythic raid or +6 and higher keys, so if you do neither HC raids is dead content really fast.
Bullion items are flat out better if you do content that drops Aspects, making lots of raid drops pointless to begin with.
There is a very finite amount of items, and everyone has to roll on them. And the "need" button is a very relative button that can be pushed without the person needing it in actuality.
So besides raid being entertaining to do (which I currently do think!) the only thing that feels like a good reward are wyrm crests. Once you are done with those, it's all over.
When it comes to playerbase issues:
The whole boosting thing is becoming more prevailent - I know more people that get them to avoid dealing with all the other issues at hand here with the game and community, and I know more that does boost runs for gold (to then buy boost runs themselves for other characters).
The hustling. This season I have repeatedly gotten boost offers with a price list automatically (it seems) after I have signed up for some keys and some raids. "Can't get into 10s and need a hand? Need HC Final 2 bosses to get into raids? Just pay us X gold and we can run you through!".
This was what made me not play classic, because how a large portion of the playerbase plays the game (especially the ones that organize things) - they want to monetize their hobby. If you arent trying to rake in something, you are doing it wrong. Pay for GDKP runs, run GDKP runs once you are geared. Rush to have a +10 key at the start of the season, sell those off during boosts early on instead of just running it normally.
Perhaps it has in actuality been like this since Legion, but I've never felt it be so all encompassing. Maybe because I'm increasingly in the pug/streamer world where everyone is out for a payoff, while guild/friend groups made the game seem like it had never changed. But this has burned me out somewhat on trying to improve or earn things the old fashioned way. So we will see how that pans out in the end.
Esmëralda (project Mage)
Main spec: Frost
iLevel: 513 [+6]
Raid Progress: Vault (7/8 HC), Aberrus (9/9 HC), Amirdrassil (7/9 HC).
Keys Ran (after 3 resets): 29 [+11]
Of which had at least one friend/guildie: 8 [-] (~28%) [-~16%]
OK progress with gear and raid since last time, considering it's one raid night of 2 hours and 5,5 keys per reset. Guildies are not playing retail much, so the friends & guildies stat will be in the dumpster.
Performance has been all over the place the last two weeks. While meters and parses gets affected by being behind on gear and I can blame that to an extent.
With 26 bosses, all having different things going on, playing 3 specs would be ideal - I think Fire might be better for Sennarth with moving scorch and instants, for example.
Some of the bosses - like Primalist Council - might be better served with an m+ build since there are four targets that don't move much.
But let's be real - if I farmed +6s to cap Aspects that would be the biggest dps increase here.
Navarim (project Warlock)
Main spec: Demonology
iLevel: 500 [+9]
Raid Progress: Vault (8/8 NM), (Aberrus (9/9 NM), Amirdrassil (9/9 LFR)
Keys ran (after 3 resets): 1 [-]
Of which had at least one friend/guildie: 1 [-] (100%) [-]
Navarim has run into the archtype modern wow progression problem, or any modern day problem really. Keep clearing normal raids, but not getting drops nor Wyrm crests means hard stuck at this iLevel. To get into HC raids as a pug, you need to have cleared HC already have like 2/3 of your gear or so be upgraded with crests. If you don't want to farm keys, you only choice is to A) get a guild that will take you or B) buy one or more boosts. Doing just pug raids has proved to be impossible. So that was an easy answer to that test :)
As for rotational things, I am struggling loads with CDs. Without Grand Warlock's Curse, nothing really aligns. With it, I have to press things on CD, and without building things up those CDs might get really suboptimal. One thing is to do target dummies, but if you are moving for mechanics and make a puny Tyrant and need to wait 10-20 secs for the extra Felguard on top there's a lot of dps loss going on.
Destruction is all the rage at the moment, including for some obscure reason a damage buff after the season started, so if I was smart I'd go Destruction instead to pick up stuff. I am assuming I'll just log on for one raid a week on this character as long as I am subbed, so could do some comparisons later maybe.
And much like Esmëralda - if I spammed m+ for crests there would be a big dps increase. But also make heroic raids obsolete.
Parse Status
Managed to attend HC raids on both Esmëralda and Esmënet to have the main comparison going, Navarim still struggling however.
Esmëralda Parses
No change here as Amirdrassil happened during last update.
Did not have Vault parses last time. There were some learning hiccups, and died halfway through Broodkeeper by being out of range of healers (my fault). I should prolly play m+ spec on Primal Council, and find a better way to position on Sennarth.
Navarim Parses
Navarim raided Normal Vault through a twitch streamer during that reset, and pugged a Normal Abberus. But did not manage to get into a HC pug of either - most require 510+ ilevel unless you know someone or go with a community/guild.
Benchmark Hunter Parses
I am pretty happy with these parses. I accidentally went downstairs on Sarkareth without needing to, but other than that it's just rotation details I could have done better.
No change here since Amirdrassil was not on the rotation these past two weeks.
Vault still a learning process, think this is my first orange dps parse on HC. A tank killed the entire ranged camp with the frontal on Grimtotem, but since output is what it is these days could finish the boss with a quarter of the raid dead at start still - so no new parse there.
Status
So from 3 raids, Esmëralda has a better parse on Council of Dreams (an ideal Frost Mage boss) and Grimtotem (where Esmënet died both times). Not exactly a vote of confidence.
With the amount of people that just do Remix now, the upcoming holidays and already dwindling signups this week, I might just do raid next week on Esmëralda, maybe pug Vault week after if guild raid will be swapped to Remix raid or something.
Looking at these progress parses, I think it's safe to say no amount of Arcane Intellect or Healthstones is worth the dps tradeoff. And if raid gets boring after Curve, not playing better than going for a spec more suited to have fun reclearing with.
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