[00:02] almost unrecognizable. Like if you haven't been locked in, you might have how you just play wild day-to-day. It's kind of crazy. There's new crest saving tricks, all limiters have pretty much been removed, and there's even ways to
[00:16] get alts geared in pretty much just a couple of minutes if you're lucky. It's kind of crazy. So in today's wild news, we have a lot to cover. There's all the things that have changed in game, but perhaps more importantly, there's
[00:28] everything that is about to be changed as well. last week, all crests are now uncapped, so there's basically no more limits on your [music] progress. No more logging in and finding yourself having capped
[00:42] had happened to me for most of my time being serious about this season. And then, you know, being left thinking, "Uh, there's really not much else to do." That did get pretty bad this season, especially once hero crests
[00:55] started coming so easily from nightmare prey. But now, it's basically not a problem. You can just play as much as you want and outside of raid gear and the vault, really nothing is stopping you from just completely maxing things
[01:08] out. But there's another side to this as well. Crest transmutation. It becomes so much more powerful whenever you can trade crests up into like really good ones. Cuz of course, previously, the cap would rapidly shut that down.
[01:23] The cap not shutting that down, it really is crazy and it feels like almost every resource you get can actually be used to further your character. Which feels pretty great and it begs the question, why are they doing this now?
[01:36] explained themselves here, but most people are pointing to one thing. And that thing is the LFR Hall of Fame because it closed the same week. So, Blizzard clearly sees that as the kind of proper end to this season. That means
[01:50] that they can now open the season up and just let people go as ham as they want. have a bit of a worry. The worry being how long it takes to actually max out your character when, you know, you're grinding up all these crests, especially
[02:03] a lot of people asking for a crest buff, and once you crunch the numbers, I think you can kind of see their point. So, even using the hero crest trick to get myth items to two out of six, you still need a rather whopping 1,280 myth
[02:18] crests. Now, naturally, the fastest way to do that is mythic plus, and you've got two choices. 12 crests for every timed plus 10 you do, which is a hell of a lot easier, or 16 from a timed plus 12, which ultimately ends up being a lot
[02:33] is we can dive into the data, and it shows that 10s and 12s average between 20 and 30% of the timer being left whenever they're actually completed. So, here's what that basically mats out to
[02:47] here's what that basically mats out to in real terms. 33 hours of plus 12s, or 39 hours of doing plus 10s. That's a hell of a lot, and that's also just dungeon time. That's not including all the time faffing around before a dungeon
[03:00] or between dungeons. Once you factor that in, you could be looking at 60-plus hours of end game just for upgrades, never mind the gear itself. Though, if you're running that much content, you're probably going to be swimming in gear.
[03:13] Now, if you get the discount achievement, then you can shave half the crests off, but it's still well above 30 hours just to get geared. Now, I can see think it's a pretty okay duration across a full season, especially if you're also
[03:28] higher-end mythic plus players see gearing as basically foreplay before feels like a meaningful gearing journey to one person may just be a chore to another. So, perhaps extra crests should be on the table this late in the season,
[03:44] but you know what? They're not a thing, and that has not stopped people, because people are finding unintended ways to bypass as much as 240 myth crests. And the wild thing about it this time is that just about everyone can make use of
[03:58] that just about everyone can make use of this. season. And the way they work is kind of interesting. So, you can blast a weapon or a trinket way above its usual level of power. But there's a trick to doing
[04:12] it right. Blizzard probably didn't think about how this works with crests. So, if you use an ascendant void core on a hero weapon, it rockets up to item level 285. of six. So, if you got a myth weapon from the vault or something else, you
[04:27] can just upgrade that basically to a massive item level without using a single crest. And then to finish the item off, it's just 20. And uh then, well, another void core will allow you to get up to item level 298.
[04:42] >> Now, this works on weapons and trinkets. And overall, it'll save you 240 myth crests, which is, when we go back to our keystones, 15 fewer mythic plus 12s that you'd have to grind to complete your character.
[04:55] character, of course. Just do that if you want to. Now, you'll still need the hero crests from doing all that content, but those things are far easier to come by. And you can also pull this trick off with crafted weapons as well, which is
[05:08] pretty sweet. Though they are a little bit weaker. You'll basically need 40 crests for two upgrade stages instead of 20. Now, of course, it does sound like there's a catch here. And usually there
[05:20] would be a catch, but there doesn't seem to be this time because in a kind of rare display of just being friendly towards people who want to farm things, cores the way that they did with the bonus roll things, which were called
[05:33] nebulous cores. Basically, you can use as many of these things as you like. And Blizzard made them pretty easy to farm. You see, they noticed players running ritual sites like madmen for the shards that you need. So, what they did is they
[05:46] that means that instead of grinding ritual sites for a chance at a drop, you can now just do Mythic Plus, a raid, or just spend delve keys to get guaranteed ones. So, you're going to be swimming in these things if you target it. And
[06:01] there's really no catch to this. It is purely deterministic upgrade chasing, game. But of course, myth gear isn't the only thing Blizzard are handing out freely. What about our lagging mains or maybe
[06:15] That's where war-bound gear is really changing things. There's a big new source of loot in the game. So, here's how things work, right? If you're maybe not into housing decor or all the cosmetic things, then you've
[06:30] probably got loads of void light marl kicking around in your characters. Turns out you can just turn that into gear for any character now. And it's all thanks to the Quel'Thalas equipment chest in Silvermoon. Basically, 750 marl gets you
[06:43] a random piece of champion one out of six gear for your current spec. And that means that with enough luck, you can just skip the entire way to ilevel 246. And then you can just use the catalyst to instantly hit your four-set. Cuz of
[06:58] course, all your alts will have built up catalyst charges. That means that a fresh 90 can get straight into Mythic Plus 10s or higher well within minutes, basically. And from there, you'll be farming uncapped crests, nebulous cores
[07:13] for your bonus rolls, ascendant cores for your upgrades. And essentially, you can just fully play the game and get your character as strong as you can push I don't think it has been this easy to start off a character [music] in wow.
[07:27] It's kind of crazy. Now, there is a bit of a catch with these chests. They're random. They're completely random. So, with the best case, it's about 11,250 marl for a full set. You're not going to get the the case. So, with bad luck,
[07:42] Really, my recommendation for most people wanting to use this is to only really get so many bits of of gear, cuz essentially, the chances of your moral spend being useful are the highest whenever you don't have any of the gear
[07:57] you get, then the lower the chance of a subsequent roll being an upgrade. So, basically, I don't know, gear out about half of your character with it, and then go finish off the rest from other sources. Pretty damn powerful, but if
[08:10] boxes, there are, of course, other ones. There are heroic ones. They cost field accolades that, of course, you'll basically be earning anyway. Which is what I would say, but on the PTR, Blizzard are actually making alt
[08:25] gearing even easier. And, of course, it's all about these boxes, and it's all it's all about these boxes, and it's all about field accolades. action here or there is kind of harmless, but when you're clearing
[08:40] multiple max-level ritual sites to get one box, and then rolling the same slot, waste of time. The good news, then, is that in 12.0.7, Blizzard are adding specific slot boxes, but with a 50% higher price. So, basically, 750 field
[08:57] accolades will net you heroic gear in the slot that you actually want. Which certainly stings because it's more expensive, but let's be real, I think it is a far, far, far better deal cuz it'll let you just focus on [ __ ] that you
[09:12] the patches doing. The next one's kind of interesting. So, there's uh showdowns that are a part of heroic world tier, and essentially, they have been buffed. just gravy train, or something like that, of
[09:26] warbound gear and field accolades. It's kind of crazy. So, you're just going to all this means is that we're now weeks away from reliable alt-friendly hero
[09:39] But what if we don't care about alts? Well, good news is there is gear for mains as well. Now, this is mostly from the new raid, which is called Sporfall. Basically, Wrathmire initially dropped warbound gear with [music] randomized
[09:52] stats. A bit of a weird experiment, but one they've seemingly killed. And more immediately interesting. He now drops spore-fused gear, which is a fancy way of saying that the gear is nine item levels higher than normal and it's
[10:05] already fully upgraded. Now, [music] for myth tier, that comes out to 298. full tier above what it would normally be. Then there's his heroic gear, which
[10:18] is basically the same item level as myth five out of six gear. Now, of course, loot table matters, [music] and it's a really good loot table. There's a cantrip neck, cantrip ring, a universal trinket, plus two items of each armor
[10:32] type. So, basically, whatever spec you are there'll be a good reason to farm up Wrathmire weekly before the next season starts cuz this gear is actually strong good while. So, there's a lot going on. Blizzard are doing loads of experiments,
[10:47] and really, I think the easiest way to understand this is it's basically like the last day of school. Blizzard sees this as the end of the season, so I think they've just decided, "Ah, screw it. This is the last time that people
[10:59] will be doing this set of raids, this set of content, so why not just kind of let it go a bit mad." Of course, if you're not into that, sure, but if you completely busted character. You can see just how crazy your stat scaling will
[11:15] take you and just become an unkillable god, I guess. Which to many people is MMO, but it does bring us back to the crest buff question. Would a 50 to 100%
[11:28] buff really hurt that much? That's going to be the big question. I would say though that we risk just giving people so much so fast that many of the game systems just start to break down. I know that
[11:42] we're getting mythic crests that really is a big farm, a big grind. [music] But with a lot of the other crests and with the crest trading up system which is like pretty useful, you do end up in a situation where
[11:54] you're just drowning with resources. And there was actually points where you were getting crests so rapidly through this game that Blizzard's own weekly limits basically felt like they didn't really make sense with the rest of the system
[12:07] as it had been designed. I guess I just worry that if you keep ramming people full of well fat, salt, and sugar, right? You'll get this really tasty immediate experience with the game.
[12:21] But maybe people will just begin to just consume it blindly as content. I'm not exactly sure, but I'd love to know what your relationship with gear is in a game do is hop back into midnight, get a fresh character geared up, and actually
[12:36] perfect time for it. And you'll actually have a good reason to get and use all of that really powerful gear because heroic world tier is a thing and it's actually
[12:48] pretty damn hard. So these things all work together quite well, I'd say. But with 12.0.7 being what it is and likely being pretty soon, we can now start wondering about patch 12.1. We could be getting news about that like
[13:01] any day now. Maybe even Xbox's showcase next weekend. They could have something there. But either way, we'll find out about 12.1 and therefore [music] really the direction of midnight pretty damn soon. But if you want to understand why
[13:15] it might actually be worth your time to get a character absolutely juiced to the tits, well, check out this video about heroic world tier and all the cool stuff that's going on there because finally
[13:28] mythic plusser, oh, you have a good reason to get your character geared.