The Race to World First going on this week, as well as some sharding issues, 8.2.5 has been discovered, benthic gear is basically the lottery, and who exactly is Taelia’s mother? All this and more on this week’s For Azeroth!

The Race to World First

While we were away the top guilds in the world have been vying to take down Queen Azshara and claim World First in the Eternal Palace.

  • Day 1 ended with 3 bosses killed but Ashvane being the first wall of the race
  • Day 2 ended with Method clearing through the first 3 bosses then downing Ashvane
  • The next 2 days Za’qul proved to be another challenge until Method claimed first blood on the Herald of N’Zoth
  • At the time of this recording, 6 guilds are at 7 of 8 and are progressing against the Tyrant Queen  
  • Race to World First tracking on Raider.IO
  • Icy-Veins Latest Daily Report

Sharding, War Mode, and why Joce was Right again

Blizzard changed the trigger of the Battle for Nazjatar to only occur on shards where the representation of both factions is somewhat even. Recently a tactic has started to become popular during the event. Players will form raid groups not with other people in the zone on the same shard but will instead invite guildies and other people to a raid group and pull them into the shard.

  • The shard becomes stressed and begins to lag for all participants in the shard.
  • The server balance is destroyed going against the entire purpose of the change.
  • Many people brought in to the shard may not get the chance to actually score a kill and will therefore be ineligible for the event rewards. 

8.2.5 Looming

An encrypted build of the next content patch has detected on Blizzards Content Delivery Network (CDN). This is suspected to tie in with an NPC that is not yet implemented in the live version of Nazjatar.

What we know is coming in 8.2.5:

  • Worgen and Goblin model updates
  • Goblin and Worgen Heritage Armor

What we assume is coming in 8.2.5

Community Resources/Add-ons

The Benthic Lotto

A big topic that has come up in the community is the power of Benthic Gear. There are multiple items that can be obtained through the Benthic Gear system that are competitive or in some cases better than the gear out of Mythic Eternal Palace.

What makes Benthic Gear so powerful is that it breaks item budgets by abusing the chance to have gem sockets and tertiary stats. The passive procs on Benthic Gear are also on top of the items stat budget. These two elements when combined create items that far outperform their item level.

If you’re interested in playing the Benthic Lotto, you will need luck and Prismatic Manapearls.

  • Try not to spend mana pearls buying items as you will need them to upgrade when you hit a lucky roll
  • Rares, Algans, Glimmering Chests, World Quests, and Missions can all reward Manapearls and sometimes benthic tokens.
  • You can run alts through the intro mission for Nazjatar to the point where you can select a piece of benthic gear. You also receive 20 mana-pearls to upgrade that item, spend the pearls on 4 more pieces of gear and then mail those BoA pieces to your main for additional rolls.
  • Remember mailing the gear makes it non refundable so if you are short on pearls go through the pieces one at a time.
  • Benthic passives will not work in the next tier and do not work in M+
  • Wowhead Article on Benthic Loot and Effects
  • https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/droptimizer
  • Poor unlucky player spends 300 mana pearls busting on the Benthic Lotto

 

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