FAZ 71 – “The Kearney Konversion”

Manny and Joce are back after an eventful February for a short episode this week, taking a look at Patch 8.1.5 and the MDI qualifiers!

8.1.5 is on March 12th

At the end of the Art stream Blizzard revealed that Kul Tiran and Zandalari will be available on March 12th. In a reply to a forum post, Community Manager, Kaivax revealed that the Allied Races are day one of the patch and the Crucible of Storms is currently scheduled for April 16th.

The Allied Race preview included:

• Available Class Options
• Heritage Armor
• Racial Abilities
• Unlock requirements
• Dances!

A second round of testing was done on the first boss of the raid, The Restless Cabal and this was followed by the first testing of the 2nd boss: Uu’nat, Harbinger of N’Zoth. Both these fights feature heavy interaction with the relics of power from the lead in quest.

• The ability to deal with the encounter in different ways
• The pacing of the encounter is in part dictated by the players tackling it
• The bosses were tuned against characters with 385 gear?!

The loot table for the two bosses of the Crucible of Storms is unique in that all pieces have an interesting effect and none of them are simply stat sticks.

• No Azerite Armor
• Loot is themed as Water and Shadow
• Currently loot shares models with BoD gear…
• Items have risk reward mechanics.

Other highlights include:

• Brawler’s Guild
• Tools of the Trade
• Portal Rooms
• Realm Character Cap removed (Account Character Cap remains)
• Battlegrounds Remastered (Arathi Highlands and Warsong Gultch)
• WoD Timewalking
• Wintergrasp
• https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/news/22882888/new-allied-races-ahead-kul-tiran-humans-and-zandalari-trolls
• https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/is-crucible-of-storms-releasing-with-8-1-5-or-after/108074/7?
• https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/42289-crucible-of-storms-item-compendium/

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Mythic Dungeon International Spring

The MDI is no longer an invitational but is now international. Blizzard has posted information for the Spring MDIs. This year Blizzard has changed the rules for the Time Trials on the test realm. This year teams qualifying at this level will be given a limited number of attempts to hit the best time possible. All subsequent attempts will not count.
This addresses a criticism against the previous qualifier which allowed extremely risky gambits to be attempted until everything perfectly lined up.

Schedule for Affixes during Proving Grounds:
Feb 26 – Mar 4: Tyrannical, Bursting, Skittish and Reaping
Mar 5 – Mar 12: Fortified, Teeming, Quaking and Reaping

• https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/news/22909228/welcome-to-the-proving-grounds
• https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/template_resource/HUUQ8ZVJYUZ11550876869874.pdf

Podcast (faz-pod): Download (Duration: 56:04 — 51.4MB)