WoW Patch 12.1 Gearing Changes — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:02] problem where the most expensive type of content that they make is not really rewarded by how their game works. So, let's get into the video. For the last few patches, Mythic Plus players have been getting heaps and heaps of powerful

[00:15] gear, all while us raiders end up fighting over scraps. Well, in 121, that gap. And I think that's about as close as uh they'll get to admitting

[00:27] that raiders were right that there was a problem, but the fix has been a little contentious. It may have caused a few crash outs. And if you thought gearing's been getting a bit too complicated lately, well, I agree, but also I've got

[00:41] bad news. A 121 is adding a little more to the pile. Though in the bright side, a massive scare that we all had in PTR was just a scare cuz it turns out crest And that means this season is promising to be almost as speedy as the last one.

[00:57] to be almost as speedy as the last one. So just how bad is the gap then? How bad is the problem between mythic plusers and raiders? And why are Blizzard trying to fix it? I think the easiest way is to just show you.

[01:10] Our guild's been running into the same issue for a while now. On our slow march to getting curve, we don't impose any rules on item level. So some of us go straight into mythic plus, which causes a problem. We completely outgeear the

[01:23] raid, or at least some of us do. Other players do little more than delves and prey, but even with that, they still end up pretty decked out in hero gear before long. And that leads to a problem. Raid drops are so pitiful by comparison that

[01:37] we end up not needing most of them. And that ends up being the case weeks before we actually clear the raid. It ends up being that the only real way for us to get stronger is to split off and do even more mythic plus because that gives you

[01:51] myth crests and myth gear bonus rolls. And there's no arguing about it. Mythic plus is the best way to gear in WoW. And it's not remotely close. For the low low plus 10 to get myth gear in your vault, a bonus roll on myth gear right now cuz

[02:07] you can spend your void core, and a chance at hero gear, and of course, a stack of hero and mythrests. And even accounting for grouping and traveling time, it still beats the hell out of raiding for gear. And honestly, that's a

[02:21] the case. Even accounting for grouping and travel time, it still beats the hell out of raiding. Mythic raid is infinitely harder than a simple mythic plus 10, but it's the only other source of myth gear in the game. Or at least it

[02:37] was. And that is because raiding is getting a glow up. and some Mythic Plus players have been utterly furious about it. Here's the big change. In patch 12.1, raid gear from the Great Vault is going

[02:50] raid gear from the Great Vault is going up by an entire tier. LFR slots will drop as champion, normal as hero, and heroic as myth. Now, mythic raid will still leave myth gear in your vault, but it'll come maxed out at myth six out of

[03:06] six, saving you loads of crests. Now, for us raiders, this is absolutely massive. It is effectively a slow drip feed of myth gear. And uh most importantly, it's a reason to actually care about our great vaults. So, if this

[03:22] all seems good, you may be wondering, why are some Mythic Plus players mad? Why have a few people been crashing out? Well, some are just upset that raiders are getting a buff to their gear. Sour grapes. So, basically, that can be

[03:37] ignored. Others though have actually got a pretty good reason to be upset. You see, for the past while, the best Mythic Plus players haven't needed to be the best raiders as well. But that may be about to change. You see, Mythic raiding

[03:51] helps get gear faster, and some rage trinkets are usually best in slot, but you can usually get those without the disproportionately difficult final two disproportionately difficult final two bosses. Now in patch 12.1 that is

[04:04] changing where the last two bosses on mythic will drop gear at myth 9 out of six. Yes, 9 out of six. So an item level that you cannot upgrade that gear to. That gear will be the best gear in the game and you won't be able to get it

[04:20] anywhere else and it's a whole 10 item levels above the next best. So unless you're a cutting edge raider, you will never be best in slot. Now, on the one hand, it adds prestige to the cutting edge. You've finally got exclusive gear

[04:36] as a reward for your incredible achievement, and I'm happy to call it that, cuz god damn, that's hard content. But on the other hand, it is a giant sword hanging over the head of people who just like to push keys forever and

[04:50] ever and ever. I'll never understand it, but you guys do you. But some of the hypothetical worries do make sense. Maybe you would have timed that key if Maybe you would have timed that key if you and your group had that myth 9 out

[05:03] of six gear. But hey, you'll never know unless you dedicate hundreds of hours to mythic raiding. That's a pretty big ask. So, I get why those people are upset. I

[05:15] get the reaction. But you know what? That's a hypothetical problem and it's got to be measured against, I think, the pretty obvious benefits and the pretty obvious problem that is finally being solved. So, outside of the dizzying

[05:27] solved. So, outside of the dizzying heights of the cutting edge, what we see is plain excellent news. And I've barely started. Patch 12.1 is changing, as an example, what a world boss is, where instead of just a big guy causing lag

[05:41] out in the world, they've been shifted into these things called layers. And layers will be their own instance. And because it's effectively an instanced raid boss, Blizzard can add difficulty settings. Those settings range from

[05:55] world all the way up to mythic. And of course, [music] because it has difficulty settings, it drops gear to match. And that actually means more sources of raid gear. Now, it's technically not a big change for patch

[06:08] 12.1 since we had the bonus one boss raid in 1207, but still, it does set a good one. And speaking of bonuses, Blizzard have one final way to redress

[06:21] the balance. Bonus roll costs. will actually make sense in patch 12.1. Instead of raid gear costing two rolls for one piece, it's only going to take one, which is a colossal buff to raid gearing, especially if you've say been

[06:37] want. Though, bonus rolling in heroic difficulty will of course still only give you hero items, while a plus 10, despite being way easier than that, will give you myth. That's a little awkward. Maybe Blizzard will try to make plus

[06:51] 10's a little bit harder next time so that it makes sense. But fairly big change. In case it wasn't obvious already, bonus roles are actually staying for patch 12.1. And better yet, they are going to

[07:04] be here from the start. Technically, Blizzard are basically adding them to the Great Vault UI right away where you can collect a new nebulous venom stone directly instead of getting an item. And for the first eight weeks, that's the

[07:18] After that, the free rollout will begin where you'll get one each week, and this time without having to do a stack of unlock quests and a bunch of costs. Now, because you'll be getting fewer bonus rolls across the entire season. But I

[07:34] think this as an improvement to the Great Vault more than makes up for that. cuz I mean a bonus roll that's going to actually get you a legit piece of gear that's way better than the previous consolation prizes that the vault had.

[07:47] bad luck protection that actually feels useful. I mean, who knows, maybe it'll even be too strong considering that you can use it to target specific myth items in Mythic Plus. Being able to target BIS from week two seems really powerful. But

[08:03] of course, you'd be doing it in a way that asks you to take a risk on the role. So, you know what? Fair enough, Blizzard. That actually sounds kind of fun. Maybe they're on to a winner with this new version of bonus rules. Now,

[08:15] another thing you may be wondering is why they've set this guy, Orin, beside the catalyst, and why they've done that when you usually don't go back to it after the first few weeks. Well, it turns out that's because they're

[08:29] changing the catalyst as well. The catalyst sure was one of Shadowlands's best inventions. Not that it had many of them, but still, the catalyst did a lot to solve the complete RNG of tier sets, but it's gotten a

[08:42] little stale since then, and Blizzard wants to spice gearing up as much as they can. So, the way things are now is that it's just as strong, but you've now got way more of a reason to use it. The major change is this. the catalyst no

[08:56] longer changes the secondary stats or special effect on the item that you put into it. And that's really big where in 121 all you're doing with the catalyst is adding the tier set bonus and changing the appearance. That's pretty

[09:11] big. That means that the gear that you choose to catalyze actually matters. Now, the idea then is that best and slot lists became a little bit too fixed around the tier sets and well, four slots basically just got locked out of

[09:26] your gearing decisions, which ended up being pretty boring, right? Once you had slots would be completely pointless, and that would feel pretty shitty. now, or at least in 121, you can still catalyze as soon as possible to get your tier set

[09:41] bonus. But Blizzard wants you, if you're that type of player, to think about later, replacing it with different or better stats as time goes on, which is longevity to the system. Now, of course, that means we'll be using the catalyst

[09:57] more, and Blizzard had a plan for that. I say had because there was a whole ton of change on the PTR that they seem to have entirely went back on where it

[10:09] basically looks like Blizzard planned to make bonus charges drop from the start of the season and the Unbound achievement would exist to just increase to even out the drop rate and make it feel a bit less feast or famine, they

[10:23] actually had split the charges up. So, you'd be basically collecting five faster dropping pieces to make one charge instead of just randomly having a whole charge drop. But, I can see how that could all just be a little bit of

[10:37] disappointing. But, as much as I can see how Blizzard tried on the PTR to just make the catalyst like acquisition a little bit more like fun, I guess, I

[10:50] half charges that we got to combine, that just ends up being FAF. So, the way it works then for acquisition of catalyst charges is the exact same as you already know. The big difference though is what they actually do to the

[11:03] gear. And I think that's the exciting bit. But you know what? I can make it a bit more exciting. There's actually a secret bonus to this. You can catalyze gear for the set appearances without worrying about ruining the stats or the

[11:17] effects on them, which is pretty nice. And that'll be huge for people with embellishments on slots like say crafted boots. So pretty damn good. And it's not the only thing because next we got to talk about upgrades.

[11:32] Upgrades and upgrade items. So ascendant venom stones are the new upgrade item for season 2. I know we got we got our crests to do our upgrades with, but then we've also got these stones. I I mean, god love any new player who comes into

[11:47] But anyway, point is they're back and they work pretty much the same way that last seasons did. So, we can expect these to start dropping on week eight like with the bonus rolls, but Blizzard have made two key changes here. One is

[12:01] that they now work in necklaces as well, meaning that you can upgrade four pieces. Your maxed out weapon, trinkets, and neck. And obviously that goes up to cuz they will let you do both your weapons. Now, that means though at some

[12:15] point you're going to have to farm out 40 or 50 venom stones. And that is actually the second change. Instead of getting five shards and combining them into one stone, you now need to get 10

[12:30] stones to do the upgrade. And there is no combine step. So, basically, they've added a zero onto the number. But in doing that, they've made it so it's just one item instead of you getting little mini stone lits that you've got to then

[12:43] turn into a full stone. A little bit more elegant and thankfully brainless because if you just do heroic or mythic raid bosses or plus 10 or higher keys, tier 11 bountiful delves or nightmare prey weeklies, you'll just have them

[12:59] drop. So you don't really need to go out and target them. Of course, no ritual sites this time because ritual sites are from the previous season. And yes, I can confirm that the side content added in the.5 and.7 patches of Midnight are not

[13:12] being updated. Not that we really expected them to be, but I don't know. I feel a little sad that they're only relevant for like 8 weeks. Feels like a bit of a waste, like an endless conveyor belt of of content. Or is it slop? Or is

[13:25] it slop wrapped up in rewards that feels like content? Who knows? Of course, the role that the.5 and 7 patch content uh played will be replaced by whatever they've got cooked up for patch 1215 and 1217.

[13:40] And we know there is stuff there. Remember, they announced labyrinths, which basically seem to be the equivalent of mega dungeons for delves, which does actually sound really cool. I wouldn't even be surprised if their

[13:53] hardest mode dropped myth gear, maybe even a bit more than say heroic world tier ended up dropping. So, that is gearing. There's actually quite a lot that's the same, but also quite a lot that uh that has changed. If I haven't

[14:07] changed, and all of your prior information is still up to date. I'd say though, Blizzard have clearly been trying to work out what Endgame rhythm actually is, and I think that the bonus roles were undoubtedly a big success for

[14:23] they're adding more decision makingaking at each step of your gearing process, maybe slowing it down a little bit, but making sure that you've always got something to work toward at all times. Now, I know if you're a mythic pluser,

[14:38] could just do dungeons forever and always have progress." But for us change. So, I'm looking forward to it. But if you want to look forward to uh something else, maybe even a a Warcraft uh Netflix, well, check out this video

[14:54] on what may be the largest leak in Warcraft franchise history. That's a really big claim, but uh it does actually appear to be warranted.