It's The Easiest WoW Tier EVER... But Is That Good Or Bad? Race To World First & WoW News

[00:23] >> Don't worry, Aleria. I won't let you fall. We're going to get you out of here >> Writhe in their anguish. Uh Tally, what is it? heard something, that's all. KILL FOR ME. NO! OKAY, I heard it that time, too.

[00:37] >> Uh-oh. Tally, you've got to hold on. >> Yeah, I know, Evvie, and I will. It's just Well, it is quite a big debuff you get if you don't actually do what Azshara says, isn't it? Slaughter them. It is, yeah, and you don't really want

[00:50] Losing hunt progress is literally the last thing I want to do, honestly. last thing I want to do, honestly. Perform for me. I mean

[01:07] >> It's a really nasty debuff. >> Yeah, I just don't know if it was really know? >> Come to my chambers below. I will >> Actually, yeah, what am I even saying? Knowledge is power. Hello, internet.

[01:21] Taliesin here, and welcome to another episode of the weekly reset, Taliesin episode of the weekly reset, Taliesin and Evitel's wondrous wisdom show in a week where we will be looking at the latest story campaign quests and why

[01:35] Silvermoon is full of elves now, where we will be looking back at the first week of the mythic plus season, which honestly felt like maybe the fourth or with the kind of keys that we've been doing and asking if the easiest tier in

[01:51] >> is a good thing. And also considering the impact that has on rating, which itself is a whole thing. And of course, a news roundup, too. But before any of that, the reason I know you're all really here, the race to world first,

[02:05] heroic for guilds with names a bit like Immortalis. Just like the mythic race to world first, but with a whole lot less sitting around doing literally nothing this week. Since our last update, the clever, brave, always get tons of

[02:19] matches on Bumble Immortalis ARGENT DAWN EU BACK into heroic, bolstered by not only the boost of great vault gear, but also hoovering up in mythic plus the day before our first raid night, which made

[02:35] the Dream Rift and Tic-Tac-Toe bosses that we were struggling with a DPS check that we were struggling with a DPS check on an absolute breeze. In fact, everything was a complete breeze as we masterfully brute forced our way through

[02:48] really doing many of the mechanics, only to be stopped in our tracks by heroic do actually have to do some of the mechanics on that one. Or, hear me out, mechanics on that one. Or, hear me out, we just get even more gear.

[03:03] A week of progress that, believe it or not, at the time of writing, puts us in not, at the time of writing, puts us in the lead in the real race to world first with Infinitus Immortalis in second with four out of seven heroic, along with

[03:17] Immortalis Immortalis Spiritus on three out of seven, and Covenant of Immortalis complete the top five still on one out of seven heroic. I know that at least one of these guilds raid on a Monday when this is already in production, so

[03:31] this lead might not last for us, which is why I'm going to celebrate now like take your wins where you can get them in this race, you know. Anyway, here's Evie with a rundown of this week's news. Welcome to Evie's news rundown. Let's

[03:46] run down. This week finally sees the release of the March on Quel'danas raid in normal, heroic, and mythic difficulties, and the release of the last wing of the Void Spire raid for LFR enjoyers. Will there be another

[04:01] cinematic at the end of the Darkwell fight? Will there be revelations and reveals? If there is, then some of us will have to wait until next week, the week of April 7th, to find out, as that's when the March on Quel'danas is

[04:15] being made accessible to all on raid finder and story mode difficulties. From this week's reset onwards, you'll finally be able to progress your Delver's journey beyond rank four. This past week saw the rather unusual

[04:29] combination of the Sign of the Explorer event being live, granting a 25% boost to your Delver's journey progress, companion XP, and undercoin gains, while also having your Delver's journey being capped at rank four. Sort of like going

[04:45] to an all-you-can-eat rib buffet, and there only being three ribs. Sorry, four ribs. Some players originally thought this was a bug, and rightfully so, but Blizz confirmed in a blue post that it was, in fact, not a bug, if maybe not

[05:01] completely intentional. Clearly just a case of someone's calendar not being synced up, but not a great feeling for folks who like to go hard on delves in the opening weeks. Do you know how dangerous it is to keep Valera waiting?

[05:14] Blizz pushed out a number of bug fixes this past week, and among them, finally addressed the absolutely diabolical re-crafting bug that caused some players re-crafting bug that caused some players to lose their 80 hero or myth crests

[05:28] when re-crafting gear. And while the bug has now been fixed, thank god, there is has now been fixed, thank god, there is no plan in place as of yet to restore the lost crests to those affected, though the blue post indicates they're

[05:40] hopeful about it. Sending thoughts and prayers. The next round of class tuning >> Momma I forgot. Stop touching things. >> We've known about it for a while and it's a chunky one. So, worth having a look at the full rundown over on

[05:55] linking in the description below along with a load of other articles that go into more detail on the subjects we cover in this video. This pass seems to have focus on responding to Mythic rating and Mythic Plus and a lot of them

[06:10] include developers notes so that you can stage your own back and forth about how wrong and evil and useless they are in your head or on the forums for everyone else to see. of admire the devs here because while I think the intention

[06:24] one of thoughtful iteration and transparency, the reality is that they've just given themselves a weekly opportunity to be absolutely roasted. Anyway, Nerf Brewmaster. No, no, no, buff leather tanks. PTR news. Two new

[06:39] armor sets have been data mined for the in-game shop. They fit very nicely into the recent trend of over exaggeration and general extraness that shop sets have been giving. The first is a set that is

[06:53] criminally described as Old God, but that is quite literally the in-game equivalent of an Azshara cosplay complete with Naga scales, a writhing crown of tentacles, and a profusion of eyes, which absolutely must be animated

[07:07] to look around at random, otherwise I riot. There are two colorways in an earthy brown and gleaming white and a few variations taking into account your preference for showing inner thigh or not. There's another iteration of the

[07:19] Sargerei Commander's Cloak, which is beautiful, but also a bit too spready for my taste, but I'll take it. The other set is a Venthyr inspired ensemble complete with goofy Dracula hood, a devious red, black, and gold colorway,

[07:34] and then some delicate frilly white gloves and a matching white cravat. Go wild with this one, folks. If you tire of the in-game shop, never fear, because the Traders Post continues to provide for those of us unwilling to drop the

[07:48] cold, hard cash. Data mining has uncovered what we might call a new Gilnean Commoners set, though there is nothing common about this swag. Please enjoy this collection of beautifully trimmed and belted coats, requisite

[08:01] stripy trousers, a crisp white collar poking out over a hint of textured waistcoat, multi-buckled boots, and a little bowler hats. I actually think this is far superior to the over-wrought Gilnean Heritage armor, and will be

[08:16] putting it on my worgen immediately. Also, clearly Gilnean [\h__\h] for 12.1 I don't make the rules, but I do wear a monocle with my bowler hat. If it's Taliesin's birthday, for anyone who is relatively

[08:29] new to professions and completely bodged it by just clicking on all possible nodes at random in their tree, moi? Never. Recent data mining suggests that profession specialization resets could be coming in 12.0.5.

[08:44] These appear to be tied to some type of reset currency, which suggests they're not infinite, which is fine, but I'm still glad they're there. If the devs really want to encourage self-discovery and don't want players to rely heavily

[08:57] on, say, add-ons or exterior guides, crafters who didn't have the foresight to read a 30-page crafting guide before making any choices is the right first step. Like I say, that could never be

[09:11] me, so this news isn't incredibly exciting to me because I need it. I'm incredibly excited about it because it will make you happy. I'm happy for you, for the self-hating dracthyr out there. So, like, dracthyr, the new battle

[09:27] visage toggle is available for testing on the PTR, which allows Evokers to maintain their visage form in combat, apart from when using spells that require a draconic form. It does make Evoker combat look quite busy with the

[09:41] constant shapeshifting and disintegrate looks a bit goofy coming from a humanoid form, but this is great news for visage form enjoyers. Next stop, let us races like loads of NPCs already have. Thanks. And finally, the music lovers

[09:57] among us rejoice as the WoW 20th anniversary concert series is going global. We had the absolute pleasure of attending the Lausanne premiere back in 2024 and it was suitably fun, emotional, and mind-blowing in one. Stops along the

[10:13] tour include famed concert halls in London, Paris, Singapore, Shanghai, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Newark, among others. The only downside of these concerts is that they only include music up through Dragonflight,

[10:29] so no epic Demansius throwdown for you. Still, it's worth it. Tickets are on sale now, so get your hands on them while you can. And maybe we'll see you in Newark. This week, of course, sees the launch of the final raid of

[10:44] Midnight's opening trio. And with it, the next chapter of the story campaign and the aftermath of the results of the March on Quel'Danas. So, what better time for us to remind ourselves of the story chapter we just did, The Gathering

[10:58] blood elves and the Sunwell is in danger, who are the most obvious allies to turn to for immediate no-strings help? Yes, the Horde, probably, but no, in this case, Arator really wants to get all of the elves together and for some

[11:12] reason, he has a seat at this very important literal faction and race leader table. For some even more mystifying reason, these guys actually take him seriously and are like, "Okay." So, I think it's fun to meme on the

[11:24] whole where are the Horde thing, and you know I'm not against keeping tabs when the situation warrants it, and this isn't a defense of the lack of official Horde movements in this story, okay? But for me, the players populate the game

[11:36] throughout Midnight, I haven't really actually felt like the Horde haven't sent anyone to help out in Silvermoon because they sent us, the player characters. And everywhere I go in this city or in the

[11:50] Void Spire, it's absolutely teeming with all of the greatest and most legendary fighters the Horde has ever produced, you. Anyway, it's time to get the elves, and it starts off nicely enough with to Bellameth, which, you know, I forgotten

[12:03] how nice this place is. The Night Elves really are just living their best lives they? Tyrande and Malfurion are absolutely nowhere to be seen. They don't give a [\h__\h] And I don't blame them. So, it's up to Shandris

[12:16] Feathermoon to decide that, yeah, the situation is pretty dire and lead the Night Elves into another war where lots of them will die. Thanks, Shandris. okay, Shandris? Tyrande and Malfurion don't need to know about it, okay? Tell

[12:31] them about the new war when you get back. It will be a really nice surprise. Next up, Vereesa and the Kaldorei. And this is one of those tricky lore moments, okay? I'm not going to spend 20 minutes arguing why I think they should

[12:44] or shouldn't do that or whether the things they say to us and others cover the whole range of why I think they should be against it or for it because these kind of political moments, by definition, are only achieved when

[12:57] people are brave enough to work against every personal emotion they are feeling Elves are here now. I quite like the plot beat that the reason the Nightborne haven't turned up to protect the city yet, even though Thalyssra has been in

[13:11] Silvermoon from the start, is because messages haven't been getting through to Suramar because there's a Twilight Blade cultist infiltrator that's been thing is happening in Orgrimmar. We get to go to the new Darkway Delve, which is

[13:24] the Arcway dungeon, and it's not my favorite for that reason, but it's definitely fun in context here. And then the hordes purplest of elves are flooding into the city in droves. And whatever you think of the web of history

[13:38] and character details absolutely had to be temporarily forgotten or brushed aside or ignored to get here. I know, I'm always a sucker for a bunch of troops arriving somewhere in wow, you know. And it is fun to me to have all of

[13:50] these forces in the streets of Silvermoon ready to march across the obscenely long bridge to Quel'Thalas this week. Maybe they should start now been here weeks ago. The night elves were in such a rush to mobilize that

[14:03] they forgot to put on any clothes. It took me ages to find the Quel'dorei, and that's because I'm a wow player, so I never look up. Except they are flying on their birds, not setting foot on sindorei soil, and very much earning

[14:16] their high elf name. Blizz do seem to be leaning very much into the they like flying birds angle with the high elves recently, which might explain some of the interestingly named items that have been data mined on future trading posts.

[14:32] The coolest thing is the ancients though, cuz they look so out of place in a blood elf city. And look, as another tall guy who doesn't really fit in and sticks out wherever he goes, I relate. Although I have to say Elder Branch is

[14:45] standing extremely close to my inscription workbench, like very, very close. It is kind of intimidating if I'm honest. He's kind of getting in my space. I really enjoyed the three raid structure of Midnight. I think it gives

[14:58] vibe and storytelling chances that just aren't possible with one big raid. And that's awesome. For me, that's what I'm all about. I think it's fair to say that I might be feeling slightly differently if I remember of Liquid or Echo right

[15:13] now though. Because as far as the race to world first mythic race goes, let's be honest, it sucks big old ass, doesn't it? I say this as someone who is traditionally a big fan of the race to world first, but as if a pure heroic

[15:27] week wasn't enough, you then had to contend with a week where voice fire and available. So, no one could possibly actually win the race last week, no matter how well they played. And if that weren't enough, both guilds found mythic

[15:43] Al'ar a pretty easy fight, honestly, even for the third to last boss of the she's the last encounter that's been available up to this point. All of which means, from a world first raider perspective, it sucked because they've

[15:59] spent half a week just hanging out, basically doing splits or mythic plus on basically anything that isn't progression raiding, which is what they're there to do and what most spectators are there to see, too. So,

[16:12] from a viewer point of view, this race has kind of sucked, too, honestly, through no fault of the teams or the poor poor poor casters on their 24-hour streams.

[16:24] think of the casters. They have to come up with a disproportionate amount of time-filling [\h__\h] on a good day. This last week has been like pulling teeth, and naturally, understandably, there have been complaints and rumblings of

[16:38] discontent about the ease of the raids so far from those players. And fair enough, because this raid structure really does seem custom-made to strip away everything exciting from the race to world first broadcasts. And of

[16:52] course, it really hasn't helped, either, that the tuning of mythic plus has allowed players to be, frankly, ridiculously geared going into these fights. When the season went live last week, it soon became clear to players,

[17:06] all players, not just the pros, that mythic plus keys were way more straightforward relative to their key level than they had been in recent seasons, meaning that the average player, and I use myself as the average

[17:19] player barometer in this scenario, because ask anyone and they will all agree, I am extremely average. Like, the definition of mid. I'm like if DNA was extracted from the word and grown in a vat into a man. And as the average

[17:33] player, I found that I was able to blast level 10 keys almost straight away without much problem at all. Something I have never been able to do in week one usually pretty happy to hover around the level six key mark and aim towards going

[17:48] for higher keys for the good crests the week after. But no, it's not even the first reset as I write this and I already have all my portals, keystone hero, a whole row of mythic gear slots in my vault, and all the gear and other

[18:01] power rewards that come from that level of play. Because of course this is all iterative, isn't it? The dungeons being easier mean I'm doing keys high enough to be getting heroic loot drops at the end of every run and mythic crests,

[18:15] which means I'm now rocking a 285 crafted weapon, which means I can do higher keys. And of course that doesn't just impact dungeons, it's the reason my guild was able to blow through heroic void spire this week. As I kind of

[18:29] alluded to earlier, we did not play especially well, but we could just hit through a lot of the fights. Basically, progress that would usually take me weeks in a previous season, I have achieved in days in Midnight season one.

[18:45] And you might say, "Well, yeah, that's because we had an extra week of gearing at the start of the season before Mythic Plus even opened. We don't usually go in with a week's worth of raid and delve gear straight up, do we?" And that is

[18:57] true, but also I think it's very uncontroversial to say these dungeons are just very simple, aren't they? There are less mechanics overall to worry about than in your average War Within dungeon, and those mechanics that are

[19:10] there are way more forgiving, as are the timers. And I think the reason for that is obvious, isn't it? Hi everyone. Lovely to see you again, and you too, of course. And lovely to have you here for yet another video, very kindly sponsored

[19:25] yet another video, very kindly sponsored by Squarespace. Thanks, guys. I'm sorry, but how cool is this? I mean, the shirt is fine. The cool thing is the Printful Squarespace integration, which means that I can design my own merch and

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[20:47] like my t-shirt? >> Yeah, it's really nice. >> Thanks. It's the add-on changes. Blizzard know that what has been called the great add-on massacre, but which in hindsight

[21:00] should probably have been called the great add-on replacement, is a huge sea change for players, or at least players thought it was going to be. I'd be surprised if in reality anyone's gameplay experience has been half as

[21:12] impacted as YouTubers led them to believe it would be, but whatever. I think it has made Blizz hedge their bets in terms of complexity this tier. You see it in the class design as well. Streamlined at best, but definitely

[21:25] simplified substantially in most cases. I personally think they've gone a little precisely because of these class changes that I have been saying for months now

[21:37] that I thought this tier was going to be the easiest tier in WoW. Sorry, the the easiest tier in WoW. Sorry, the easiest tier in WoW history. It was clear to me all the way back in alpha that Blizz thought it was better to make

[21:51] things too simple for players in the wake of the add-on changes than too hard. But in their eyes, it was better to show players, "See, it's not so bad without your fave add-ons, is it?" than have players shout, "It's impossible to

[22:04] play without my fave add-ons." And I think it's fair to say my prediction is looking pretty accurate right now. And I think the add-on changes are the main reason behind the straightforward and forgiving dungeons this time out, too.

[22:17] So, the season is easier than we're all used to on all fronts. I don't think there's many people that would argue with that. So, the question really is, with that. So, the question really is, is that good or bad? Let's put it on

[22:29] trial. Why it's good. This is clearly a good thing because it allows more players to get into the less accessible parts of the game. I myself started taking Mythic Plus seriously in Dragonflight in a season when Mythic

[22:42] Plus was considered to be easier than it had been in previous expansions. So, I can hardly complain, right? And we have heard loads of feedback from players who are thrilled about how encouraged they feel to jump into keys for the first

[22:55] time or get Keystone Master or Legend for the first time. And that's awesome. you get, obviously that sucks, but because you want more people jumping into the multiplayer parts of this multiplayer game. Obviously. So, if

[23:11] Blizz wanted to make Mythic Plus more accessible and cool new additions like the highlighting of mobs as a way of teaching new tanks the routes through low-level dungeons suggest they do, they succeeded frankly. There has probably

[23:23] never been a better time to join in with dungeons, get the achieves, fill out the Mythic slots and all the rest of it. So, why is it bad? Well, it's obviously bad because WoW is a progression game and also a game that players generally want

[23:39] to be able to play over a time frame of months rather than days or weeks. And yeah, it's fun right now to go and destroy 11s without much thought, but what is it going to mean for the long-term life of this patch? Now, it's

[23:53] true and in my experience 13s are a sizeable step up in key level that starts to require the kind of play and concentration and knowledge that we would usually expect from nines or 10s. But if you're not really super into

[24:07] like me, the average player, then the reasons you do Mythic Plus, to gear, to get crests, to get the achievements and mounts and cool armor effects and catalyst charge and portals, as always, that's mostly all at level 10. But

[24:23] there now, which means that the average player will probably be done with Mythic Plus way sooner in the season than usual. And as a knock-on effect, done with raid too because of the gear that they've been raking in through higher

[24:38] than usual Mythic Plus. Just like the class changes, the simplification here jumping in easily, but the longevity of WoW has always been about how deep its systems go if you want them to. And I will admit, I'm a little bit worried

[24:53] right now that in both cases, Blizz may have oversimplified two of the core pillars of the game a bit too much. Even in the game's darkest hour back in Shadowlands, combat and PvE instance content were all considered to be

[25:07] top-notch, genre-leading systems, which kept the game afloat. And I can only hope that Blizzard intend to reintroduce a lot of that complexity as the confident that they can live with the add-on changes. But maybe I'm completely

[25:21] wrong, and I did definitely love everyone being so excited about Mythic Plus right now, and so keen to take part. That is definitely great. And even a bit tepid so far, that should change this week. And I would still always

[25:37] rather the game was designed to be fun for everyone else first, rather than be devised with a world first race in mind. And like I say, I think the structure of this raid is great for that so far. But also, it will be interesting to see how

[25:51] I feel about that once I have Ahead of the Curve, and whether my raid team continues into Mythic Plus in this easiest tier in WoW history. Or not. I would genuinely love to hear your thoughts on this. So, please let us know

[26:05] in the comments below where you stand on the easiest tier of all time. And thanks for joining us today. If you like this video, don't thank us. Thank our patrons who give us their actual real-life money to make all of our work happen. And

[26:18] seriously, patrons, from the bottom of my heart, and the top and middle of my heart, too, thank you. Because without you, there would be a whole lot less Taliesin and Evitel. If you didn't like it, downvote the [\h__\h] out of it.

[26:30] it, downvote the [\h__\h] out of it. Remember, my name is Homes of Azaroth. Now, my name is Taliesin. From me and Evie too, until next time, Evie too, until next time, cheerio.