This week on FAZ, Joce and Manny cover the latest Warcraft Q & A, go over the lore of Vol’dun, and give an overview of the Temple of Sethraliss dungeon.
As always, don’t forget to write in to fazpodcast@gmail.com, or let us know your thoughts over on Discord at bit.ly/fazdiscord. You can support the show at patreon.com/FAZ
Q & A
Ion and Lore sat down to talk to us, for the first time since BFA launched, on Thursday.
- Class changes aren’t finished, but they don’t want to change too much as Mythic and PVP starts
- They want to do more broad passes, but right now they’re trying to fix things that are crazy outliers, like arms warriors and feral druids, data is showing they are way out of whack, so that’s why they’re being changed
- Balance pass will happen at the end of the first week of Sept after Normal opens, PvP starts, and they have more data from those things. They need data from longer, more complicated fights
- PvE mob scaling
- Increases rewards, keep content relevant
- They don’t want to take away player power, but they don’t want things to die with two hits
- Scaling starts when you get blues from dungeons (so around 300ish). They get about a 3-4% boost for every 10 ilvls they player increases
- There are some mob specific outliers but they are happy with the way it’s working right now
- A longer and more detailed response was posted after the Q&A.
- Why is ilvl going up so fast, can we expect a squish
- Yes, every other expansion or so they will squish, that’s why they took so much time to get it right this time
- Scaling is necessary because of difficulty and reward progression through endgame
- For drops to feel like upgrades they need to be 10-15% better so they’re noticeable
- There are huge skill gaps in WoW
- Brings out of reach content into reach for lower skilled players later on in the expansion
- Don’t want harder difficulties from previous tiers to reward the same as lower levels of new tiers
- AH and Guild Bank is super laggy on high pop realms
- They are aware and are trying to solve
- More people per server than ever before because of new tech, but AH tech is still old
- Deposit will be proportional to stack size to encourage stacking
- Communities
- Can we make them bigger and add mod tools?
- Mod tools are on the horizon (permabans at the account level,
- This is the bare bones to manage calendars, give persistent chat, let them know what you want them to be
- Can we make them bigger and add mod tools?
- Untradeable Azerite Gear
- They made a mistake, they’re going to change it
- Hotfixed Tuesday, August 28
- In a world of dungeon journal and fan sites, people usually go in knowing what they want, there isn’t as much on the fly decisions in practice as they were worried about
- They were too worried about social pressure, which was dumb
- They went conservative, now they’re going to loosen the rules
- Buff Warmode at max
- Want to make sure people who want to PvP are in War Mode but it doesn’t want to make it feel like the only way to play
- There are shard imbalances they are seeing at max level because of WQ groupings. A raid of one faction or the other will come in to kill a mob, the shard will balance with the other faction players, then the WQ group disbands and makes the server out of balance the other way
- People are still leveling, so there will be more concentrated
- Conquest Schedule
- They wanted to make sure rewards were guaranteed
- Vendors are bad for new PvPers
- 340 weapon in the first week
- Keep WQs relevant
- Great source of AP and War resources
- It’s okay for raiders or mythic dungeon runners not to do WQs, that’s why they put the rewards up from for emissaries so that people can make the decision
- Wanted Quests in Kul Tiras
- NO REP!!!
- Some Wanted quests do give rep, some don’t, and it’s the same on both sides
- The Horde W.A.N.T.E.D quests have been reset and now give reputation!
- Rewards, why aren’t they the same across factions
- They’re random, there are pools of emissaries and rewards, Honorbound and 7th Legion are separate so the rewards aren’t the same
- Will we see race specific responses to the war?
- Yes as the expansion unfolds
- Twitch Q&A Video
- Dev Post on Mob Scaling
Azshara Warbringer
The final Warbringer cinematic was unleashed at GamesCon.
- Ain’t nobody’s servant!
- We (sorta) see N’Zoth!
- Continuing themes
- Official Video
Forbes Interview
Senior designer Steve Burke, who worked on the Kul Tiras story for the Alliance faction, and senior narrative designer Steve Danuser sat down with Forbes to talk story in BFA.
- BFA is the fastest selling expansion ever with 3.4 million copies being sold before launch
- The War Campaign was designed to keep the conflict in your face
- They have zone death maps. THEY HAVE ZONE DEATH MAPS
- Taking the Windrunner reunion out of the game because following them around would be weird
- Improvements to machinima cinematics
- Camera used to be far away all the time, so the animations are exaggerated but look silly up close
- Gameplay is always first, so if it comes down to cinematic improvements vs gameplay improvements they always choose gameplay, but those artistic improvements are always on the list
- Full Forbes Interview
Allied Races unlocked?
It was discovered that the latest allied races were not unlockable due to beta restrictions that had not been removed when the game went live. Those restrictions have now been removed and players who have hit EXALTED with the 7th Legion or the Honorbound can now complete the scenarios to recruit the Dark Iron Dwarves or the Mag’har Orcs.
Community Resources/Add-ons
The Temple of Sethraliss
After her sacrifice to defeat Mythrax, the remains of the Loa, Sethraliss, were enshrined. The temple of Sethraliss was erected to venerate the snake loa and to await her rebirth. Now the champions of the Alliance and Horde must venture into the temple to root out the evil that has taken hold.
The Temple of Sethraliss is a 4 boss dungeon with normal, heroic, mythic and mythic keystone difficulties. This guide will cover mechanics for the mythic bosses. Some mechanics discussed will be less impactful or absent on lower difficulties.
Adderis and Aspix
The first boss encounter is against two Sethrak temple guardians that do not share a health pool. The fight involves stacking and spreading out to handle the mostly unavoidable damage from the guardians.
At the beginning of the fight, Adderis will be active while Aspix will have the lightning shield buff. The lightning shield will root the boss it buffs in place, changes their abilities and returns damage against all direct attacks. While holding the lightning shield the boss will gain energy and at different energy levels, they will cast special abilities. Once the boss cast their signature ability at 100 energy they will pass the shield on to the other boss and will then become the active boss.
At 50 energy Aspix will cast Conduction on a player which will explode after 5 sec and deal nature damage to anyone within 8 yards. Move out of the group and then have the debuff dispelled.
At 100 energy Aspix will cast Static Shock which deals heavy damage to all players. Use personal CDs and make sure you are at high health before this hits.
At 50 energy Adderis will cast A Peal of Thunder this deals a massive strike to all players in an area. Move out of the marked area to avoid the damage.
At 100 energy Adderis will cast Arc Dash. He speeds to each player dealing damage to everyone along the way. Spread out so that each player is only hit once to minimize the pain.
Aspix will cast gust when she is not holding the shield and jolt when she is holding the shield. Interrupt these casts as often as possible.
Aspix will occasionally cast Gale Force, which will target a random player and push them back. This ability deals no damage but could push you into mobs that you may not have cleared. Run against the push back if you are targeted and try not to have multiple players lined up.
Adderis will use Cyclone Strike sending tornadoes at a random player. Simply sidestep the tornadoes to avoid the damage.
Lastly, Adderis will Arcing Blade dealing heavy damage that can be split amongst all players within 15 yards of him. Stack to manage the damage.
Merektha
The mother of the ravenous clutch of unstoppable beasts is the 2nd boss of the dungeon. The fight revolves around avoiding the bad, and managing adds.
Merektha casts Noxious Breath in the direction of a random player this will leave Toxic Pools in a cone. Try to stay positioned so that the come covers as little of the room as possible and move out of the pools immediately.
When she casts Blinding Sand face away from her to avoid a 5 sec disorientate.
A random player will occasionally become the victim of A Knot of Snakes. An incapacitate will remove the snakes instantly otherwise burn them down to free the player.
At certain health points, the boss will burrow underground and move around the room. If you are in the path of the boss, you will be knocked back and damage.
While she is burrowed snake adds will spawn. These snakes are either Venomous Ophidians or Sand-crusted Strikers. These need to be killed quickly and the tank should kite these adds to reduce the stacks of poison and to move them out of any dust clouds that appear.
Galvazzt
This is a one phase boss with a relatively simple but extremely punishing mechanic.
Energy Core Pillars will spawn around the room and will shoot an electrical beam towards the boss. These beams will give Galvazzt energy and at 100 energy he will cast Consume Charge giving himself a stacking 20% damage increase buff and resetting his energy back to 0.
If a player stands between the pillar and the boss they will prevent the energy gain but will take a 10 sec DoT. Each second you stand in the beam the DoT will stack and be refreshed.
Occasionally the boss will cast Induction dealing raid-wide damage to all players. This can one-shot people if the boss has enough stacks and can leave them in a position where they die to their stacks of the Galvanize DoT.
Avatar of Sethraliss
The final encounter is a healer-centric fight the involves dealing with a variety of small enemies. Waves of enemies must be managed to allow the healer to restore the Avatar of Sethraliss.
In order to end the encounter, the Avatar must be healed back up to 100% health.
The Hoodoo Hexers will spawn around the room and apply Taint to the Avatar reducing healing received by 50% per stack. They only stand and channel taint and so do not need to be tanked. While Taint is active, Pulse will inflict all players with a 12 sec DoT.
The Heart Guardians must be picked up by the tank. They cast Heart Attack which deals damage and leaves a stacking debuff that increases the damage the tank takes by 20% per stack. When they die they leave behind an Energy Fragment. This orb will cause any healing on the Avatar to heal for an additional 1000 hp. This means DPS with off heals can contribute and aid the healer.
Plague Doctors cast Chain Lightning and Hex. Dispel the Hex and interrupt the Chain Lightning whenever possible.
Whenever Rain of Toads is cast several Plague Toads will spawn. These hunt down your healer and apply Plague, reducing the healing they do by 50% and applying a disease. The Toads can be stunned and rooted. If you have no other option to protect your healer, you can run into them.
The last mechanic is Cardiac Shock which causes moderate damage in a small area. Move out of the area to avoid the damage.
Podcast (faz-pod): Download (Duration: 2:34:25 — 141.4MB)
Recent Comments