[0:01] 12.1 isn't a very flashy patch. There's
[0:03] no new groundbreaking feature and
[0:05] story-wise in a way we're not even
[0:07] moving that far forward. But now that
[0:09] we've seen everything, it's actually
[0:12] huge looking and really quite unique.
[0:14] And what it ultimately means is that if
[0:16] what Midnight fundamentally does is no
[0:18] longer for you, I don't think this patch
[0:20] will completely change that. But
[0:22] instead, I see the curse of all that act
[0:24] to be a fixer patch. Basically one for
[0:27] people who broadly have enjoyed Midnight
[0:29] but want it a little bit more. The good
[0:31] news in that front is 12.1 is going to
[0:33] make our lives a hell of a lot better.
[0:35] So, we've seen the wild cast and the
[0:37] follow-up posts and ultimately it's
[0:39] clear that some teams at Blizzard locked
[0:42] in pretty hard over the last 6 months,
[0:44] especially the UI team. But also the
[0:47] world content team, the housing team,
[0:49] rewards team and even their social team.
[0:51] There's a lot going on, so here is
[0:53] everything that we know. First, I'm
[0:55] going to run through all the new big
[0:56] important features and after that we'll
[0:58] talk about the big changes to the game.
[1:02] For the first time in a long time, 12.1
[1:04] may be a patch that isn't cursed by
[1:06] world like. That may sound kind of
[1:08] insane if you've been playing wild over
[1:10] the last decade, but no, I think it's
[1:12] credible. And it's because world bosses
[1:13] are getting a total overhaul and the new
[1:16] flex mythic difficulty added in 12.07 is
[1:19] staying around. And believe it or not,
[1:21] these things are actually connected. So
[1:23] now world bosses are being moved into
[1:25] something called layers. You know, like
[1:29] an exit is layer. Now the wild cast
[1:31] episode was a little light in
[1:33] explanation here, but the screenshot
[1:35] tells us exactly what we need to know.
[1:37] Layers exist all over the world just
[1:39] like delves do, but inside the layer you
[1:41] will find a boss. A boss that has got
[1:44] world normal [music]
[1:45] heroic and mythic difficulty. And the
[1:47] mythic part is confirmed to be 15 to 25
[1:51] player flex. Now, of course, we're all
[1:53] kind of waiting with baited breath to
[1:54] hear what kind of gear these things are
[1:56] going to drop, but I think one thing is
[1:58] for sure already.
[2:00] This, at least in concept, is absolutely
[2:03] fantastic. You see, world bosses have
[2:04] almost always been the number one cause
[2:06] of world lag in WoW. So, keeping them in
[2:08] instances will fix that. And it fixes
[2:10] another problem. For a long time, world
[2:12] bosses haven't really been bosses,
[2:15] right? The sheer amount of chaos and
[2:17] sometimes lag means that they barely
[2:19] have gameplay that you end up paying
[2:21] attention to. So, hopefully here, with
[2:23] Blizzard adding difficulty and actually
[2:26] having an amount of players that they
[2:27] can design the boss for, well, hopefully
[2:29] that means that these will be real,
[2:32] actual bits of content. I mean, imagine
[2:34] instead of mindlessly zerging a world
[2:36] boss in reset, it's something your guild
[2:39] maybe knocks out as a warm-up in raid
[2:40] night. And for actual rewards as well,
[2:43] not gear that'll just be replaced near
[2:45] [music] instantly. And it's actually
[2:46] Final Fantasy XIV's trials that come to
[2:49] mind for this, or maybe field encounters
[2:51] from Bozja. And what it should
[2:52] ultimately mean, if it's successful, is
[2:54] that going forward in the future,
[2:56] whenever we hear that there's a new
[2:58] world boss, instead of not caring and
[3:00] turning our brains off, it'll actually
[3:02] [music] register as a real, meaningful
[3:04] bit of content. That's a huge change
[3:06] from how WoW's been run, and thankfully,
[3:08] it's not the only major change.
[3:12] Our new zone might be a patch island,
[3:13] but it actually looks, well, a little
[3:15] bit juiced. Looks pretty cool. So, it's
[3:17] called the Coil Isle, and it turns out
[3:19] it's much bigger and much deeper than it
[3:20] appears to be from the outside for
[3:22] pretty neat gameplay reasons, which I'll
[3:24] get to in a little. But, one of the
[3:25] biggest with the past is it's got its
[3:27] own progression system. Now, borrowed
[3:29] power is a dirty word as of late, but
[3:31] when it's used properly and in specific
[3:33] zones, it can give those zones
[3:34] longevity. And as much as there could be
[3:36] skepticism, I think it's a bit like
[3:37] gearing, where a bit of content may be
[3:39] impossible, but then you do some
[3:41] progress, and then the content becomes
[3:42] possible. That type of progression
[3:44] sparks the feeling that RPGs are pretty
[3:46] much famous for. Now, all Blizzard have
[3:48] shown us so far is a way to reduce the
[3:50] venom damage, but it seems there's a
[3:52] whole lot more to unlock. And if they
[3:54] can nail the joy of picking up quality
[3:56] of life upgrades over time and effort,
[3:58] importantly, then I think this could be
[4:00] one of the more fun patch zones we've
[4:02] had in a while. And that's especially if
[4:03] the zone is as dangerous as the
[4:05] venom-soaked island of cursed snakes
[4:08] sort of looks [music] to be in the lore.
[4:10] But where this one gets more interesting
[4:11] is the inside part. The inside is a
[4:13] giant cavern full of temples called the
[4:15] Vaults of Atal'tech, and there are a
[4:18] series of public events that lead up to
[4:20] a boss event in there. Based on the
[4:22] wildcasts, it seems that stuff can get a
[4:23] little bit more on the hard end. Turning
[4:25] to the outside of the island though,
[4:26] there's something pretty cool called
[4:28] curse surges. These spawn in rare elites
[4:30] to kill. Now, I normally roll my eyes
[4:31] and say there's nothing unusual to that,
[4:33] but what's neat is a new thing. Beating
[4:35] those elites will temporarily open up
[4:37] cursed fishing and envenomated
[4:39] gathering. So, I guess that's Blizzard
[4:41] trying to spice up gathering a bit for
[4:43] this patch. Definitely keen to see how
[4:45] that feels and if it's in secret a bit
[4:48] of a cool anti-botting measure. We'll
[4:50] have to see. Now, the good news is the
[4:52] public test realms are already up, so
[4:53] we'll soon see how the zone and the
[4:55] progression feel. And when we do, we'll
[4:57] report back. Certainly though, it
[4:59] doesn't look like a run-of-the-mill
[5:00] patch zone [music] from what we've seen
[5:02] so far. But of course, there's far more
[5:04] to get to in this video. So, next, let's
[5:06] knock out a big new feature that's
[5:08] genuinely great. [music]
[5:11] This may be one of the most important
[5:13] fixes in the history of World of
[5:15] Warcraft, and it is the Discord
[5:17] integration. It's here, and it looks
[5:19] perfect. Basically, you can link up a
[5:20] Discord channel to your guild chat,
[5:23] which basically means that you can talk
[5:25] with people who are outside of the game
[5:27] without having to alt-tab. Or of course,
[5:29] [music] vice versa. You're able to reach
[5:31] people who are in game even if you're
[5:32] out and about in your phone. And as you
[5:34] see here, you can have Discord messages
[5:36] appear as your actual guild chat, or if
[5:38] you want, you can separate it out into a
[5:40] guild Discord window. Honestly, this is
[5:43] kind of nuts to me. Blizzard correctly
[5:45] identified that guild chats have mostly
[5:47] been replaced, and instead of fighting
[5:49] it and trying to lock us into guilds
[5:50] further, they've accepted it and they've
[5:52] came up with a great idea. And they've
[5:53] also followed through with some niche
[5:54] concerns, too. It doesn't support
[5:57] Discord server profiles, but you can
[5:59] choose to have the wow side see your
[6:00] character name [music] instead of your
[6:02] Discord name, which of course offers
[6:04] identity control, which will be a super
[6:06] important thing for role-playing guilds,
[6:08] as well as guilds you're maybe um not
[6:10] super super close with. And then in
[6:12] terms of controlling config, settings
[6:13] for this are on the guild leader's side.
[6:15] Now, we're not sure if you can see
[6:17] Discord messages in regular guild chat
[6:19] even without connecting your Discord,
[6:22] sort of in the way the guild chat stores
[6:23] messages you are not online to see, but
[6:25] we'll at least test it once it's up and
[6:27] uh make sure. I know plenty of people
[6:29] don't want to be forced into Discord
[6:31] use, given say the age verification
[6:33] nightmare going on. That's why it would
[6:34] be good to test that. And finally for
[6:36] this feature, the config and admin
[6:38] stuff, of course, resides with your
[6:39] guild leader.
[6:42] Very much in keeping with the theme of
[6:44] venomous snakes and poisoned water,
[6:45] Blizzard have added in new tools to help
[6:47] you, the extremely toxic in game.
[6:51] I kind of joke, but it is actually quite
[6:53] cool. They're updating pings. So, now
[6:55] you can actually ping your abilities to
[6:57] communicate your cool downs to the
[6:58] group, but more importantly, you can
[7:00] ping your health bar, which basically is
[7:03] a yes, I need healing button, or if
[7:05] you're one of the elderly, maybe the
[7:06] medic call from TF2. Now, it definitely
[7:09] will be used for evil and for trolling,
[7:11] but all that said, I think pinging the
[7:13] defensives or big cool downs are ready
[7:15] will be genuinely useful for guilds.
[7:18] It's not as easy as having an add-on
[7:19] that tracks them and does all of that
[7:21] automatically, but it is a lot more fun
[7:23] and a lot more intentional. And that
[7:25] intentionality probably means that if
[7:27] someone is sharing something, it will
[7:28] actually matter. Now, speaking of cool
[7:30] downs, we've got huge news for the cool
[7:33] down manager. It now supports trinkets
[7:35] and consumables. Took a while, but
[7:37] thankfully that's finally in. And
[7:39] speaking of something finally being in,
[7:41] healers [music] can now customize the
[7:44] buffs that will show on their group
[7:46] frames, and they can even add in visual
[7:47] alerts like flashes. It's definitely
[7:49] taking longer than any of us would have
[7:51] liked, but you know what? Credit to the
[7:53] Blizzard UI team, they're certainly
[7:55] marching on.
[7:57] Time for another feature we would have
[7:58] liked earlier, housing exports, or as
[8:01] Blizzard have cleverly called them,
[8:03] blueprints. This is pretty much awesome.
[8:06] Basically, [music] you'll be able to
[8:07] import and export house codes. So, it's
[8:10] that feature that they promised, and
[8:11] when you do, the import and export will
[8:13] be complete with a fully descriptive
[8:15] list of what items are in the list, what
[8:17] you're missing, and support for
[8:19] different types of exports. Those
[8:21] exports being rooms, whole houses, and
[8:23] whole exteriors. And actually, you can
[8:25] also save these like you would talent
[8:27] layouts, so you can swap between them
[8:29] with ease. And on top of that, if you
[8:30] just want a clean slate, there is now a
[8:32] full reset button, so that's a hell of a
[8:34] lot less faff than having to delete
[8:36] everything manually. Another much
[8:37] requested feature they've added is pets.
[8:39] You can stick a pet bed down, you can
[8:42] choose which pet owns that bed, and then
[8:44] they'll just roam around your house. And
[8:46] it's not just one, it will support
[8:47] multiple pets. So, I'm sure someone out
[8:49] there will find how many it takes to
[8:51] break a housing instance. Lastly for
[8:53] housing then, at least from what's been
[8:54] announced, I am hoping there'll be more,
[8:56] but we do know there will be new
[8:58] endeavors. That was one of the major
[9:00] complaints, there just wasn't enough of
[9:01] them. So, this patch will be adding four
[9:03] more, the centaur, a manny, tortollans,
[9:05] and kobolds. Now, on top of that,
[9:06] there's a few other things. The housing
[9:08] level cap is raising up to 12. Blizzard
[9:09] are streamlining some of the dyes, but
[9:11] really, blueprints are the big ticket
[9:13] item here, and rightly so. I think
[9:16] saving your progress is the unlock that
[9:18] the wow housing system needs to be
[9:20] basically thousands of times more
[9:22] usable. Cuz if you go and put in the
[9:24] time into building something really
[9:26] cool, you don't want to then feel like
[9:28] you're locked into only using that thing
[9:30] because, well, poof, it's gone. That's
[9:32] what the old system mandated, and that's
[9:34] now fixed.
[9:37] Before I get to PvE content, there's
[9:39] something even more shocking, PvP but
[9:41] without one of the Ps. And I think that
[9:43] after the training grounds feature, this
[9:45] was kind of inevitable. There's going to
[9:47] be an arena version of the training
[9:48] grounds, which means that you can
[9:49] practice arena against bots. Now, given
[9:52] how PvP doomers seem to be right now,
[9:55] the doomy-est that I've ever really seen
[9:56] them, and for a whole lot of good
[9:58] reasons, I don't know if this will
[10:00] actually help the problems PvP people
[10:02] are facing. So, hopefully more love for
[10:04] them is on Blizzard's radar because it's
[10:06] almost the only group of players left
[10:08] feeling just not really served properly.
[10:12] But, speaking of being served, well,
[10:14] there is going to be a new season of
[10:15] WoW, and that actually means a larger
[10:18] serving of content than we've been used
[10:19] to.
[10:22] I hope you're sitting down for this one
[10:23] because in patch 12.1, something
[10:25] shocking is going to happen. There's
[10:26] going to be
[10:28] a new eight-boss raid, which is really
[10:29] not shocking at all. Uh the Venomous
[10:31] Abyss is the new raid, and it's Blizzard
[10:33] taking a bit of a break from Midnight's
[10:35] crazy three-raid experiment thing,
[10:37] though I don't think that's because it
[10:39] didn't work. I think that for this, they
[10:41] probably just want to keep it simple and
[10:43] focused on the actual patch island. All
[10:45] that we know right now is that Ula'tek
[10:47] is the last boss, and this footage shows
[10:49] a whole lot of snakes, lots of teeth,
[10:51] and green spell effects. Pretty nice.
[10:53] And it's also surprising just how much
[10:55] troll architecture feels right for this
[10:57] raid. Well, shouldn't be surprising. It
[11:00] is a troll raid. I more [music] mean,
[11:02] damn, they have executed it perfectly.
[11:04] So, that's all pretty good, but there's
[11:07] actually a lot more. First, we're
[11:09] getting a new dungeon as well, and
[11:10] that's not usually a guaranteed thing
[11:12] when it comes to getting a major patch.
[11:14] This one is called the Altar of Fangs.
[11:16] And while we're on the topic of
[11:17] dungeons, the M+ rotation has already
[11:19] driven some people little mad. I kind of
[11:21] understand why. It's mostly because of
[11:23] Temple of Sethraliss and King's Rest.
[11:26] BfA dungeons are not everyone's
[11:28] favorite. There's also Ruby Life Pools,
[11:29] and and the four Midnight dungeons that
[11:31] were not in season 1. And while lots of
[11:33] this skepticism is fair, usually when
[11:35] dungeons come back they do get changed
[11:37] quite a bit, so let's hope that's
[11:38] happening here. Moving on to delves
[11:39] though, we've got an impressive
[11:40] offering. There's three of them. Now,
[11:42] one is a season 2 nemesis who, believe
[11:44] it or not, is a snake man, though not a
[11:47] naga and not a sethrak. Appears to be a
[11:49] new kind of snake man entirely, which I
[11:52] imagine we'll be introduced to soon. The
[11:55] existing delves are also getting new
[11:56] variants as well, so more than we are
[11:58] used to for delves. Then, with the price
[12:00] system, there will be updates for season
[12:02] 2. That's going to mean some new hunt
[12:03] targets, new affixes, and most
[12:05] importantly of all, new astalor voice
[12:08] lines.
[12:10] Perhaps the largest feature many will
[12:12] feel is on gearing. Now, one of the
[12:14] biggest frustrations my guild has had
[12:16] for quite a while now is that raid gear
[12:18] kind of sucks. It's faster and easier to
[12:21] gear through mythic plus, so a lot of
[12:22] the time we end up out-gearing the raid.
[12:25] Not in 12.1 apparently, because they've
[12:27] buffed the hell out of gear. Where the
[12:29] drops themselves are the same, but the
[12:31] raid track in the vault is now a full
[12:33] tier higher.
[12:35] This is huge. It means that myth gear
[12:37] will be something you can earn from
[12:39] heroic [music] raid vault. Now, you
[12:40] might be wondering what that means for
[12:42] myth raid vault. Well, the good news is
[12:44] that it will just drop fully maxed out
[12:46] gear instead, so that'll actually save
[12:48] you myth crests. Now, rather shockingly
[12:50] to me, bonus rolls, which were of course
[12:52] added back into the game in patch
[12:54] 12.0.5, well, those are actually
[12:55] sticking around. You'll be able to pick
[12:57] up a void core as a vault reward right
[13:01] away. And then, on week eight of the
[13:03] patch, you'll start getting them
[13:04] directly as well. So, basically means
[13:06] Blizzard are locking in bonus rolls as a
[13:07] part of wow's gearing, and I think those
[13:09] bonus rolls, because they do guarantee a
[13:12] bit of loot, are actually a fantastic
[13:14] backup option from the great vault.
[13:16] Pretty neat. As is the change that on
[13:18] week eight, instead of having to do a
[13:20] quest for them, you'll actually just
[13:22] start getting them directly. So, there's
[13:23] no need to unlock, there's no quest to
[13:25] do or anything like that. Otherwise,
[13:27] they work the same as always, but with
[13:28] one key improvement though. Raid rolls
[13:31] don't cost two anymore. That was kind of
[13:33] weird, I guess. Then, there's the
[13:35] Ascendant upgrade items. Those are
[13:37] making a return as well. The new
[13:38] Ascendant Venom Cores will drop from a
[13:40] bunch of sources and upgrade your
[13:41] weapons, trinkets, and now necklaces at
[13:44] a rate of 10 Cores per upgrade. And then
[13:47] lastly, on the gearing front, the
[13:48] Catalyst will no longer change the
[13:50] secondary stats or remove special
[13:52] effects from the item that you catalyze.
[13:54] That means the gear you choose to
[13:55] catalyze is actually important now. I
[13:58] don't think it'll matter that much in
[13:59] the earlier weeks, but certainly as you
[14:01] go on, recatalyzing a bit of tier once
[14:03] you can maybe put in some sort of nice
[14:05] bonus effect, well, that could actually
[14:08] work. So, pretty neat.
[14:11] The last important thing, at least for
[14:13] now, is class changes. We'll dig into
[14:15] every class later as we always do, but
[14:16] for now, here are some of the huge
[14:18] sweeping ones, like the usual health and
[14:20] incoming damage buff that we get every
[14:22] season, which is essentially Blizzard's
[14:24] attempt to stop spike damage issues,
[14:26] which can be a real bastard for healers,
[14:28] and they can make the game design side
[14:30] of WoW not really work as well. But
[14:32] history certainly shows us that sort of
[14:33] thing helps, but is not a overall fix to
[14:36] the problem. Now, there are some unusual
[14:39] changes though, as well, like DPS
[14:41] cooldowns getting nerfed. Turns out
[14:43] Blizzard totally agrees that all of your
[14:45] damage being inside cooldown windows
[14:47] makes the damage you do outside of those
[14:48] windows feel massively frustrating. And
[14:51] of course, it does mean that if you do a
[14:52] little bit of a whoopsie in your damage
[14:54] window, well, um you should feel a
[14:56] little bit less punished. Now, this is
[14:59] being done on a spec-by-spec basis
[15:00] instead of being something sweeping,
[15:01] [music] so I don't have any big number
[15:03] for you, but I can at least tell you
[15:06] that it will impact Unholy, [music]
[15:08] Devourer Windwalker Elemental and
[15:10] Ret. For now, at least. Blizzard may add
[15:13] more to the list. One last thing before
[15:15] I go and dive into the PTR, and that is
[15:17] on the raid story. The raid story is
[15:19] definitely not directly related to the
[15:21] main thrust of our drama in the world
[15:23] soul saga, but it is kind of related and
[15:25] Blizzard's blog post did promise us more
[15:27] Alleria where specifically he'll be
[15:29] chasing down Xal'atath cuz yeah, I
[15:32] suppose it only took him a few months to
[15:33] remember that his parents were slurped
[15:36] into a big voidy leyline thing and and
[15:39] disappeared. But overall what we're
[15:40] looking at here is game system updates
[15:43] that seem very strong, plenty more
[15:45] content, more content than I would have
[15:46] expected and while we can't say that the
[15:48] world content is really that much better
[15:50] yet, I think moving world bosses into
[15:52] their own instance
[15:53] >> [music]
[15:53] >> is maybe the most exciting thing within
[15:56] this patch cuz for such a long time
[15:58] world bosses have absolutely blown and
[16:00] with a feature like this, I suppose we
[16:02] can have bosses like say Gruul or Onyxia
[16:06] as a normal thing in the game moving
[16:08] forward. That would be fantastic. And
[16:11] just think about how Blizzard puts
[16:12] effort into making world bosses for
[16:14] every major patch and most of the time
[16:16] players really don't give a about
[16:17] them. Here, they'll register as actual
[16:20] content cuz you can do them on
[16:21] difficulties that'll actually mean the
[16:23] mechanics matter. Seems pretty cool to
[16:25] me especially in how it's layered across
[16:27] all of the other world content
[16:29] improvements and just improvements we've
[16:30] got with Midnight. So while Midnight has
[16:32] been a bit of a bumpy weird expansion in
[16:35] some ways, I think the core of what
[16:37] they're doing here looks pretty great.
[16:38] I'd love to know what your favorite
[16:39] announced feature is. Mine is certainly
[16:41] layers and blueprints and if any of this
[16:42] has you excited to play again, check out
[16:44] this video next. It's about the leveling
[16:45] changes that literally just hit the game
[16:47] a few days ago. I got to say they're
[16:49] really awesome, they're really fun for
[16:51] your alts and you can find out about it
[16:53] with a video link that's about to
[16:54] appear.