These takes are terrible. Dratnos is the defacto blizz sucker who has there backs as its his paycheck. These affix changes are atrocious. bolstering sang and others are just terrible. NO ONE PLAYS THOSE WEEKS for a reason. they just wait for other weeks. so now you will just have much less participation as dratnos defends that. despicable. catering to casuals makes no sense. All they are doing is making everyone a casual which will just lead to less subscriptions as people leave since they are not playing anyway.
@@daketh4572as a 2.4k tank who pugs all his keys. Fuck the affix changes. I can already see myself run out of interrupts and the whole party just gets clapped by focused raging casters Active affixes suck, having to rely on other people to do affixes is horrible since they just wont. Just like seemingly 80% of the people dont even interrupt. I do not want to play highkeys as a pug, ive had too many 2.8-2.9k rio dps/healers who barely do their job and die to standing in swirlies with no interrupts
@@daketh4572 same. The remaining affixes are objectively a lot simpler to anticipate and play around. People choose difficulty for complexity. Difficulty is a matter of tuning, complexity is about the design. Stuff like incorporeal and the others were adding a lot more to track and we're disrupting so much the flow of a healer during keys. It was a lot more impactful than something like bursting.
@@daketh4572 have u seen all the new mobs in those dungeons u gonna play?multiple casters, that cant be locked by kicks, will now have a fucking bloodlust on them :D u gonna get bolted down like a bitch by these casts:D
The specs we need the most are tanks and healers, we have enough people playing dps, yet these affixes, even the kiss side of them, give very little to no incentive for tanks, let alone healers, to play them. What healer looks at the thorns affix with a bonus to the shadow and holy damage and is like “YES! this is a week I’d love to play, this affix makes the game more fun for me”
Meanwhile they nerf all damage trinkets for tanks and healers because they don't want them to do damages and the "focused" affix pretty much secures only bridging vdh as tank even more than it is now. These changes are cooked
Yep, the biggest challenge to get your M+ achievs as an off-meta DPS: Getting into piss-easy keys that the keyholder thinks "can't be done without an optimal set-up". And no, I don't mean keys that fill up in 2 seconds because they're considered the easiest to fill out your vault, I mean groups being refreshed 5 times and still not inviting you because you're "off-meta".
I actially think the affixes will be worse in pugs. As Dratnos said. If the buff is too low, nobody will care and just invite godcomp If it is too strong, your class will only be good every 4th week and never invited in 3 of them. And the 7+ affixes are just bad. Only the anoying ones break lots of pugs who cant perfectly organize kicks without voice. I love the idea of just some passive affixes on 4+ which DONT favor a specific class and keep the easy affixes like volcanic and entangling on 7+.
@@lelandwhitehead56 well thats still not a solution. better than before maybe (if it even works out like that) but not a solution when designing new affixes. But it:s mostly a community problem anyways. Almost nobody needs meta classes for 10-15+ keys. I would even go as far as you can be in the 1% highest ranks with most classes. It's only for the 0.1% achievement where it starts to matter.
JBs take on deleting the curse affixes is actually very interesting. What if it went in the other direction, and we had an array of kiss affixes and the amount of them went down as key level goes up until you just have a regular mythic dungeon at +10?
this! doing so would help encourage new players to feel nicer about doing M+, and drive less obsession about the meta at lower levels if all specs receive kisses and will still make dungeons harder if these benefits disappear at higher levels. u can design affixes around rewarding players talenting into interrupts, defensives and even benefitting melee/ranged on different weeks over fortified/tyrannical. these affixes feel so so disconnected from players doing M+s and i hope feedback is being flooded to blizz
50:00 100% agree. Doing keys below +10 this season has been pretty nice, because for the most part it feels like you're just playing the dungeon and not the affix. They also keep making the dungeons more complex, with more stuff to track and manage for each mob. The scaling itself is difficulty enough and since we are getting "new" dungeons every season, the purpose of affixes to keep things from getting stale is mostly gone.
One week you can cast while moving but moving while you are casting adds x second to the cast. Melee week you can attack up to 30 yards away but get reduced damage based on how far away you are up to doing normal damage at your normal attack range. Those would be fun
I really appreciate that JB brought up the toxicity that IO currently brings and couldn't agree more with his direction of making M+ more chill and less toxic. I also liked Dorki's idea of having a pity system to incentivize bringing underrepresented specs. However, if they really buffed the rewards for bringing a "dead" spec into your group, people would probably pay real money to hire those specs to AFK, and then 4-man the keys. This could become a dominant strategy (means min-maxing, the best solution with no alternatives) where every group starts to require those specs, blocking out the rest. IMO, this is also super toxic and unhealthy; it's another cure that's worse than the disease. Blizzard is being enslaved by the bots and RMT that exist in the game right now. Whenever something is able to be traded for real money, such as hiring a 'dead' spec to boost you, the RMT market for that will BLOOM and backfire on us! (when 5 man dungeons become 4 man and a dead spec reserve)
I thought the same, just for testing. But, if they do this, they can never come back. The outrage, especially from low to mid key gamers, would be insane.
Along with changing some affixes to remove god comps, they should also make ONLY bosses affected by affixes. Remove it for mobs (which affects the speed of clear for god comps vs non god comps). I feel like that change would remove the pressure of needing to play certain comps at high levels.
Hey! Love this podcast listen every week. This question is for Max. Im making a part 2 of advanced m+ DH. Id love to add a segement with you in the part 2 from another DH who plays regardless of the tuning! The questions willl focus on different ways to improve DH mechanics specifically
People need to realize that difficulty and complexity are two different things. The affixes they remove are affixes that heavily disrupt gameplay for healers and tanks in particular. Having to look for a ghost that spawn in a weird place and waste a precious dispell in it in a dungeon where dispels are super important is a lot worse than bursting for example. With bursting the group controls when the damage comes and in what intensity. The healer can ramp to account for the burst of damage and use dispels since mobs start dying at that point. If the remaining affixes are too hard to play with they will nerf them but by design honestly they are kinda fine. Sanguine was a lot worse before and now it's manageable even in a dungeon like Waycrest Manor.
The problem with kiss affixes is that they will be optimised around so hard by the community that they will be even more toxic than any negative affix has ever been. Everyone hated Prideful specifically because it meant that if you fucked up when you got Prideful you just reset the key because there was no point playing without the buff. Negative affixes only ever bring you down from baseline when you fuck them up. If you do the mechanics perfectly, you get the baseline and no one can go higher than that. Positive affixes allow you to scale over the baseline, while still dropping below it if you fuck up the negative affixes. You end up in a situation where the min-max optimising of positive affixes become the entire focus of running M+, which would be absolutely god awful.
I am all for comp diversity. I would want an M+ where anyone feels comfortable playing any spec instead of feeling fomo, no invites and or feeling pressured to play a certain class only
After rewatching this a few times I thought of an affix that would replace a 2nd slot (Sanguine, Bursting, etc). "Tethered"/"Webbing" - Increases damage done and/or decreases damage taken the closer your party is together(15-1yds), but your run speed is decreased the further apart you are. Also given that TWW is pretty "spider" theme, having a new affix that webs you would be fitting. Pros: increased damage/survivability for stacking and moving as a group. Cons: Movement speed reduced for getting too far apart. However, many classes have movement buffs and/or snare removal to help get back into the group. Thoughts?
I just wish you could get more crests when the key level is higher. Why am i getting the same amount of crests from a +6 as a +15. I would love to play alts without having to grind a million keys to catch up. Make things make sense.
Am I dumb for just now catching on to the fact that Dratnos is clean shaven in all the thumbnails despite being bearded for months? Is it a bit / easter egg? Or are those just the easily on-hand images available for thumbnails and I'm way over thinking this?
Affixes should either impact everyone positively or be completely removed. The negative affixes have no justification on a system like m+ that already scales in difficulty because it disproportionately affects higher keys more. People would be ecstatic if every week was a different fun affix that may or may not change gameplay but is at least enjoyable.
They should keep the level 4 affix but add a way to add a kiss. Explosive: After a cast duration the orb explodes causing minor AoE Damage. Interrupting or stopping the cast gives the person a chance to cause fire damage with each hit/spell. Storming: Periodically spawn tornadoes. The tank is immune to tornados and instead each tornado absorbed empowers them with a damage absorb. Etc.
Hear me out, untimed keys should not go down if you complete it. If you abandon it, it drops. Rewards for dungeons should look like this. 6 aspect crest @ 6 (complete or deplete) 9 aspect crest @ 9 10 aspect @ 10 for deplete, but 15 for completion +1 for each additional level after They should also put an item in game which allows you to upgrade heroic to mythic track with 100 aspect crests. Got 150 crests? You can upgrade that avoidance heroic track to mythic now.
Using sanguine as the example - you don't "need" to track anything on the nameplates. Mob dies, big puddle appears, move the remaining mobs out of the puddle. Sanguine, in a vacuum, is good game design, the affix is something you can anticipate and react to. The group can focus specific mobs or manage DPS to kill mobs evenly, etc. The issue with sanguine is uninterruptible channels & casts, RP abilities, massive hitboxes that make kiting impossible, non-line-of-sightable chain casters, narrow spaces, and wild disparities in utility between tanks / groups / etc. In a version of WoW where you reliably can answer every challenge around sanguine, it's a good affix. In a group with a half awake DH tank and a competent evoker, it's barely an affix. I don't hate sanguine, but I am disappointment by it.
Season 4 needed to be these changes. They could not come out with awakened and try to just be fated. Fated was goated because of the changes to m+ that continued into DF. Gear upgrades and rotation of dungeons by bringing old dungeons into the current season. That was the genius behind fated and awakened was just DOA.
they need to have "difficult" affixes that if you complete you get a huge benefit for the rest of the dungeon... something like a mob that is in a certain part of the dungeon and guarded by super high mobs that are hard to kill.. if you kill that mob you get 10% haste rest of the dungeon.. or if you interrupt or cc a mob you can cast while moving for the next 20 secs
Holy shit what a cook from Dr. Atnos. The Sephuz and Prydaz effects would actually be sick as an affix. Not too invasively positive, don't have to worry about them, can minmax if necessary or if you want to pull differently - great idea overall. My dream scenario is that keystones would have randomly selected affixes upon receival, and we'd go more towards something like Maps in Path of Exile. There would be plenty of groups with keystones with a wild variety of affixes listed at one time and you can pick and choose whatever you feel like, and you're not locked to a week of suffering, whichever one you may consider it to be. The downside is "dead keys" with the worst affixes. That being said, my immediate counterpoint is: oppressive and badly designed affixes should be rethought, rebalanced or straight up deleted. This is obviously the priority and what should have been happening right now anyways.
What if Blizz made +1-10 focus on fun affixes, and then every key level above 10 adds a challenging affix (i.e. a +20 would have 10 affixes), blending fun with challenge? Would that be terrible, or would it satisfy both camps?
They saw how easily people geared this season and freaked out. Made these changes based on Season 4. I don't think they planned on changes, but then season 4 has a meta(mostly because people aren't required to play their main raiding toon). I think season 4 was a vortex, and they made changes based on that. Season 1 will be interesting in TWW.
I agree that the affixes they've chosen to keep seem really strange, things the community doesn't like. I disagree with Jdotb about the goal of the new affixes being to affect PuGs (although I obviously think they will affect PuG's). I think the reason these choices seem strange is being we're viewing it from the perspective of *playing* the game. I think these changes in attepting to adjust MDI... Let me explain: Past few MDI's have the same comp vs the same comp; they may change it up between keys but it's always x comp vs x comp. The +4 affixes are so small that they really wouldn't affect the majority of players, and the affect it will have will be as you say 'trikle down' and extremely min-max. However it could rise to some delta in the comps ran in competition, giving more opportunities for a particular team that, for example has multiple flex players to take a small advantage by switching between Mage specs. I came to this idea when I saw the +7 affixes, because they're all horrible to play - but excellent to watch, and are often the reasons teams will struggle giving to higher drama moments. These changes aren't for the players, they're for the veiwers.
To be honest as someone just under-title key pug tank the thought that bolstering/raging/sanguine is 75% of all my weeks makes me want to not play/push m+ as a tank next expansion.
The new affixes are only a 3-4% damage increase overall for a few classes when they are relevant... i.e. A caster mob may take 10% more damage from a bleed source but if there are few or no casters in the pull, then what does it matter to stack bleed classes for the affix???
i would argue the "games have to be perfect" is already over because if you buy a game nowadays what's the first thing you do? you download a day 1/launch patch, games nowadays release buggy or broken in some ways and that gets fixed over time
I want to see a season without a timer on keys, where they don't deplete. Either you finish the dungeon or your group cant. Keep tyran and fort, remove the rest of the affixes. I would like to just see what would happen.
I liked fyr'alath with the abd luck protection. I wouldnt mind if for the future patches a subset of classes e.g. int casters or whatever got a lego to work for
They should just make the affixes related to theme of the expansion. It’s a void ish theme so they should have affixes have to do with darkness or the void
Lets be real, blizzard don't want to listen the community regarding M+. However they learned in the good way how to listen in other topics of the game.
NGL as a tank main the affix changes are either gonna make me quit tanking or quit the game entirely. Rerouting every week sounds terrible and the disconnect between what blizz says and does is staggering.
i feel like the argument of there will always be a god comp so balance is impossible is wrong. i mean we have all of season 1 and half of season 2 to prove it; they CAN balance m+ to a respectable degree. Also i think you guys are underestimating the comp inflexibility that afflicted and incorp added, that god comp PERFECTLY solves that other comps struggle with.
Why don’t they try and make kiss only affixes but as the key level rises, you lose the affix. That way you have to learn to do the key without the buff/bonus.
What if the keys started off with 3 kiss affixes, and as you go up in levels the affixes are disabled or maybe evolve to include a curse at certain levels Example: casters have 30% longer cast times At +5, casters are uninterruptible while below 30% HP Things like this... There's a ton of ideas
I don't think they can do anything like the old legendary system really. Unfortunately had to miss all but the final week of season 3 on my pala, so naturally the grind is on for legendary axe. Still don't have it unfortunately, guild called it quits for s4 so no more mythic fyrakk, next expansion is literally 6 weeks away and it's fortunate that I have a team to play m+ with else i'd have probably quit the season at that point or had to have played classes without legendaries. My paladin has been kicked from groups several times after being invited because i don't have the legendary. It's honestly so much fun not having an item your class is balanced around that literally sims for 11.6% more dps higher than what you have at the moment
The affixes are severely undercooked and need to be changed. Keeping bolstering, sanguine, and even bursting depending on the dungeon feels bad. As a dude that l ike to push as high as I can on tanks, VDH being the sole tank is a big issue. Double sigil makes large m+ pulls safely possible. Playing anything else feels like you're choosing to ball gag yourself
For me one good point of the change is that we wont have a single affixes out of tyrannical that will impact boss fight in keys, and just that is good for pugs. And good feeling of boss fight. No more force outposition cause of volcanic or storming. And overall no more affix left that will for me to cancel heal on more dangerous pack of mobs. So the 4 level 8 affix left are bad, but overall the change may feel better than what lot of ppl think
The worst thing about the new affix is that it will solidify the meta on certain weeks. For example, if rogue is meta, then no other melee specs will see any type of play on any of the +phys damage weeks. Same idea for shadow damage week if spriest is meta, etc.
Sanguine... give it a cap on healing. Bursting... cap at 5 stacks, can increase damage per stack Bolstering... does not stack, can be purged Raging... remove cc protection
12:00 I understand what JB is saying but sanguine, you still have to think about the pulls. For example, entangling would be way easier than sanguine. Raging and bolstering, you have to be ON point with cc or you'r party get's one shot by a cinderbolt. Volcanic would be less cognitive load. While I understand what blizz is doing, the passive affixes that they kept result in more cognitive load in a dungeon than the ones they removed.
You want to Cook? YOU WANT TO COOK?! Let's F*CKING COOK! Dungeon Revamp: New Debuff - Craven / AWW HELL NAWWW. All mobs in the dungeon not in combat, immediately becomes untargetable upon getting 100% kill credit. (As if you had completed the key.) Why? Route control, greater control in what and where you kill things in the key. Plays into what follows below, Priests and Rogues are thusly desirable for their ability to help you select packs to kill. The following is a bunch of mechanics you could add to the game that are intended to utilize class fantasy and pre-existing utility without impacting PvPers, this to help encourage bringing non meta speccs or to encourage engaging with dungeons outside what is currently being treated as "The go-to-meta philosophy." Doing it this way is also more likely to inspire route diversity for MDI settings if the meta comp of 4/5 in the team is the same but some teams might wildcard a 5th on a dungeon to dungeon basis. New mob mechanics: * Shatterable: Shattering throw, Between the Eyes, Glacial spike and Mass Dispel on the mob shatters their defences in a shower of shrapnel that increases the damage taken by the 10 nearest mobs by 50% for x seconds. Why? Warriors need utility, Shattering throws CD should also be reduced to 45 seconds in PvE if it shatters anything. (Warrior, Outlaw, FrostMage, Priest) * Spirit Link: Whole pack shares a healthpool. Any Healing reduction ability disables this health distribution for the affected target. (Warrior, Hunter, Monk can now create a prio kill target.) * Demons and Doggos: Hunters and warlocks need a talent that allows them to have 2 pets active at a time. Enslave demon (voidwalkers mostly in TWW) and a talented tame beast (with shorter cast time) allows you to control a demon/beast brought below 20% HP without losing your active pet. Once the duration of this is over the creature dies. (Between these two, DK and priest we now have a wider breadth of MC's that don't annoy the pull by having a mob alive after all is done. (Warlocks, Hunters) * Spellsteal Mechanics: Mage tanking/Stealing a massive buff was a unique and cool mechanic, but in the modern day I'd add a similar talented option to rogues as a pickpocket talent, and devastation evokers to even out pugs tolerance for devastation evokers. (Mage, Rogue, Devastation) * Body Dysmorphia: If targeted by Polymorph or Hex the target's attack and casting speed is reduced by 50% for x seconds. (Shaman and Mage) * Sensitive Eyes: If targeted by a blind effect they are disoriented for the duration regardless if the blind is broken. (Paladin and Rogue) * Lose footing: Knockback effects knock targets prone instead, increasing damage they take by 20% and rendering them unable to attack for 5 seconds. (Evoker, Shaman, Mage, Disc Priest, Warlock Succubus) * Injured knee: Knockup effects knock targets prone instead, increasing damage they take by 20% and rendering them unable to cast spells for 5 seconds. (Evoker, Shaman) * Combat Dasher: Damage reduced when affected by a ground based slowing effect. (Earthbind Totem, Blizzard, Tar Trap, (T) Death and Decay.) * Elemental Betrayal: Spellcasting damage for that school, reduced by 15% whenever struck by a spell. This effect triggers on an elemental basis. And only for mono type elemental damage. (Chaos need not apply.) So the Dawn priests deal reduced holy damage when struck by holy damage, but not radiant damage. (Most classes) * Easy Target: If targeted by a long term Crowd-Control effect prior to combat start, this mob is effectively removed from the encounter. This does not give %. (Hex, Freezing Trap, Sap, etc. etc.) * Battle momentum: Restores 10% of targets natural resources when interrupted. (Good for Arcane, warriors, rogues, and healers.) Lieutenant mobs weaknesses: Why? It sucks to fight them but with the craven change you now might actually go for them if your group is uniquely suited for it. In an ideal world, they become a more appealing target to go for, for %/Minute, if you composition has the counter. * Hemophile: If any single player has more than 3 damage over time effects on the mob they lose 1% hp every 3 seconds. (Stacks?) * Gear Dependant: Like Shatterable, that increases all damage they take by 20% till the end of combat. * Lightning Rod: Due to their immense size, these creatures take damage twice from all AOE effects. (The extra hit does not procc or trigger a second ignite for example). * Turning Battle Tide: Weakened whenever an execute ability is used on a nearby friendly unit. Reducing Damage done and increasing damage taken. This stacks. * Regretful Soul: Direct Holy damage done to the target reduces their maximum HP by 1%, this stacks to a cap. * Uncontrolled: Take the Uldaman stun mechanic from the snake guys. Give them a padding of 3 shields before they get stunned for 10 seconds and take increased damage and have it require 3 players using any cc. * Solo Duelist: Gets stunned when they use a tankbuster, if their target have a friendly target next to them with a damage reduction effect. (This also works with feint despite its aoe inclination.) * Rattled: Deals 10% reduced magic damage for x seconds when hit by an interrupt while casting. This stacks but each stack is timed seperately.
I think these changes are meant as placebo for the most part. The goal being to change the perception (keyword) of players of the meta. If you feel that any spec can be strong on some specific well you will trust more easily players of that spec and might be happily surprised by their performance. Likewise it allows more players to think "My spec isn't the most popular right now but I'll play it because this season it's stronger on certain weeks". If less players blindly follow the meta AND more players trust off meta picks the perception of god comp could drastically change overtime in PUG environment. It's a very tricky result to achieve but i think it's a little bit genius. Now the way the +4 affixes work might be a bit convoluted but I say let's try it out and see. There's no point in complaining about something we haven't tried yet.
“What does prot warrior look like this season?”
“Valdrakkan” bruh I just spit out my water 😂😂
Nothing is guaranteed in life, but Dratnos' takes are about as close as it gets. The dude REALLY gets other viewpoints.
Yeah I find him the most level headed and well rounded of the bunch when it comes to balancing viewpoints
He truly is very valuable to the community and incredibly pleasant to listen to.
These takes are terrible. Dratnos is the defacto blizz sucker who has there backs as its his paycheck. These affix changes are atrocious. bolstering sang and others are just terrible. NO ONE PLAYS THOSE WEEKS for a reason. they just wait for other weeks. so now you will just have much less participation as dratnos defends that. despicable. catering to casuals makes no sense. All they are doing is making everyone a casual which will just lead to less subscriptions as people leave since they are not playing anyway.
@@user-jk5cp8uf2f💀
Not ending the PoddyC by saying PoDios should be considered a crime
PoddyCya?
agreed
A PoddyCrime
PoddyCiao
Kiss dps, curse tanks and healers..... feels about right
Then constantly ask the community why no one is playing tanks and healers....
As a 2,8k healer who pugs all this keys i love these changes because for once i can ignore a lot of the affix's like afflicted/incorp and just heal
@@daketh4572as a 2.4k tank who pugs all his keys. Fuck the affix changes. I can already see myself run out of interrupts and the whole party just gets clapped by focused raging casters
Active affixes suck, having to rely on other people to do affixes is horrible since they just wont.
Just like seemingly 80% of the people dont even interrupt. I do not want to play highkeys as a pug, ive had too many 2.8-2.9k rio dps/healers who barely do their job and die to standing in swirlies with no interrupts
@@daketh4572 same. The remaining affixes are objectively a lot simpler to anticipate and play around. People choose difficulty for complexity. Difficulty is a matter of tuning, complexity is about the design. Stuff like incorporeal and the others were adding a lot more to track and we're disrupting so much the flow of a healer during keys. It was a lot more impactful than something like bursting.
@@daketh4572 have u seen all the new mobs in those dungeons u gonna play?multiple casters, that cant be locked by kicks, will now have a fucking bloodlust on them :D u gonna get bolted down like a bitch by these casts:D
The specs we need the most are tanks and healers, we have enough people playing dps, yet these affixes, even the kiss side of them, give very little to no incentive for tanks, let alone healers, to play them.
What healer looks at the thorns affix with a bonus to the shadow and holy damage and is like “YES! this is a week I’d love to play, this affix makes the game more fun for me”
Disc
@@plattock as a disc idgaf, im mad on the caster weeks where the mobs get more haste and I can't interupt
@@nathanwood3110 Fair
@@plattock damage amp/reduction seldomly affect atonnement healing... for obvious reasons.
Meanwhile they nerf all damage trinkets for tanks and healers because they don't want them to do damages and the "focused" affix pretty much secures only bridging vdh as tank even more than it is now. These changes are cooked
Never under estimate how good bad players are at keeping the toxic meta dream alive in everything outside of rank 1 keys.
Yep, the biggest challenge to get your M+ achievs as an off-meta DPS: Getting into piss-easy keys that the keyholder thinks "can't be done without an optimal set-up". And no, I don't mean keys that fill up in 2 seconds because they're considered the easiest to fill out your vault, I mean groups being refreshed 5 times and still not inviting you because you're "off-meta".
Its likes they said “what constitutes complexity we want to remove” and the answer was “ whatever they use a weak aura to time when it will pop”
I actially think the affixes will be worse in pugs.
As Dratnos said.
If the buff is too low, nobody will care and just invite godcomp
If it is too strong, your class will only be good every 4th week and never invited in 3 of them.
And the 7+ affixes are just bad. Only the anoying ones break lots of pugs who cant perfectly organize kicks without voice.
I love the idea of just some passive affixes on 4+ which DONT favor a specific class and keep the easy affixes like volcanic and entangling on 7+.
I'd rather be invited 1/4 weeks than 0/4, as my 'main' has been for the last couple expansions lol
@@lelandwhitehead56 well thats still not a solution. better than before maybe (if it even works out like that) but not a solution when designing new affixes.
But it:s mostly a community problem anyways. Almost nobody needs meta classes for 10-15+ keys. I would even go as far as you can be in the 1% highest ranks with most classes. It's only for the 0.1% achievement where it starts to matter.
this was a fun episode, caught this one live. LOVED JB here. my guy
Oooooo - I am ready for salt. Love when JB gives his takes live.
JBs take on deleting the curse affixes is actually very interesting. What if it went in the other direction, and we had an array of kiss affixes and the amount of them went down as key level goes up until you just have a regular mythic dungeon at +10?
this! doing so would help encourage new players to feel nicer about doing M+, and drive less obsession about the meta at lower levels if all specs receive kisses and will still make dungeons harder if these benefits disappear at higher levels. u can design affixes around rewarding players talenting into interrupts, defensives and even benefitting melee/ranged on different weeks over fortified/tyrannical. these affixes feel so so disconnected from players doing M+s and i hope feedback is being flooded to blizz
1:20:19 I remember where i was when i looted the Warglaves, i was in Black Temple XD
I’m 95% confident Max was the originator of the 18-month expansion rumor LOL, he just making stuff up
Well people were expecting that because they said they didn't want you to be getting The Last Titan expansion in 10 years.
Idk if he was the originator, but he likely did perpetuate it.
I rate the Dorki edit onto Faker, feels nicely timed with the Hall of Legends stuff haha that just dropped
Thank you, Fronk, for the the Dorki-Faker image. It goes so hard.
Bursting: now lasts 20s just like bolstering.
They need to make bolstering 6s duration.
50:00 100% agree. Doing keys below +10 this season has been pretty nice, because for the most part it feels like you're just playing the dungeon and not the affix. They also keep making the dungeons more complex, with more stuff to track and manage for each mob. The scaling itself is difficulty enough and since we are getting "new" dungeons every season, the purpose of affixes to keep things from getting stale is mostly gone.
JB is always talked about as that edgy weirdo and he just rolls in here with the most logical takes, cohesive thought and solid ideas.
the 20% armor pen is the way to get brewmaster meta - no armor to reduce in the first place ;D
One week you can cast while moving but moving while you are casting adds x second to the cast.
Melee week you can attack up to 30 yards away but get reduced damage based on how far away you are up to doing normal damage at your normal attack range.
Those would be fun
If the intention is to give different classes time to shine, 10% of a damage type ain’t gonna be enough
especially when only some trash.
Cant believe he held that smile the whole time. Impressive.
those affixes tho, yikes. good day to be a dh tho i guess, bad day to be a tank/healer
huge point JB made about this experimental stuff should have happened in season 4
max be grippin that big black stick
Jb spit this podcast. He is normally a complainer but he absolutely ate. Really solid takes
"I am talking about what desert to have, and your like you still gotta shit afterwards" 😅😅
I really appreciate that JB brought up the toxicity that IO currently brings and couldn't agree more with his direction of making M+ more chill and less toxic. I also liked Dorki's idea of having a pity system to incentivize bringing underrepresented specs. However, if they really buffed the rewards for bringing a "dead" spec into your group, people would probably pay real money to hire those specs to AFK, and then 4-man the keys. This could become a dominant strategy (means min-maxing, the best solution with no alternatives) where every group starts to require those specs, blocking out the rest. IMO, this is also super toxic and unhealthy; it's another cure that's worse than the disease.
Blizzard is being enslaved by the bots and RMT that exist in the game right now. Whenever something is able to be traded for real money, such as hiring a 'dead' spec to boost you, the RMT market for that will BLOOM and backfire on us! (when 5 man dungeons become 4 man and a dead spec reserve)
I really want a season without *any* affixes. Just to see.
I thought the same, just for testing. But, if they do this, they can never come back. The outrage, especially from low to mid key gamers, would be insane.
@@Painchiller source?
@@quintitI don’t think you understand how to use that
@@wm1573 what?
@@quintit “outrage from low to mid key gamers would be insane” and you’re asking for source…? Could it be…..the players?
I love hearing JB, great dude, wild takes, massive analogies.
Incorp and afflicted were worse than storming. Rest in piss to those.
based dps warrior player opinion
Along with changing some affixes to remove god comps, they should also make ONLY bosses affected by affixes. Remove it for mobs (which affects the speed of clear for god comps vs non god comps). I feel like that change would remove the pressure of needing to play certain comps at high levels.
Hey! Love this podcast listen every week. This question is for Max. Im making a part 2 of advanced m+ DH. Id love to add a segement with you in the part 2 from another DH who plays regardless of the tuning! The questions willl focus on different ways to improve DH mechanics specifically
Part one was great can't wait for part 2
@@Chad-mx1pd thank you!
People need to realize that difficulty and complexity are two different things.
The affixes they remove are affixes that heavily disrupt gameplay for healers and tanks in particular. Having to look for a ghost that spawn in a weird place and waste a precious dispell in it in a dungeon where dispels are super important is a lot worse than bursting for example. With bursting the group controls when the damage comes and in what intensity. The healer can ramp to account for the burst of damage and use dispels since mobs start dying at that point.
If the remaining affixes are too hard to play with they will nerf them but by design honestly they are kinda fine. Sanguine was a lot worse before and now it's manageable even in a dungeon like Waycrest Manor.
As long as survivability is more important than damage, meta wont change.
The problem with kiss affixes is that they will be optimised around so hard by the community that they will be even more toxic than any negative affix has ever been. Everyone hated Prideful specifically because it meant that if you fucked up when you got Prideful you just reset the key because there was no point playing without the buff. Negative affixes only ever bring you down from baseline when you fuck them up. If you do the mechanics perfectly, you get the baseline and no one can go higher than that. Positive affixes allow you to scale over the baseline, while still dropping below it if you fuck up the negative affixes. You end up in a situation where the min-max optimising of positive affixes become the entire focus of running M+, which would be absolutely god awful.
Emergency Podcast is the... best podcast?
I am all for comp diversity. I would want an M+ where anyone feels comfortable playing any spec instead of feeling fomo, no invites and or feeling pressured to play a certain class only
Jb’s take on getting rid of affixes is BASED as fuck.
Dratnos the dessert comment and shitting made me laugh out loud at work 😂
JB is a vibe
After rewatching this a few times I thought of an affix that would replace a 2nd slot (Sanguine, Bursting, etc). "Tethered"/"Webbing" - Increases damage done and/or decreases damage taken the closer your party is together(15-1yds), but your run speed is decreased the further apart you are. Also given that TWW is pretty "spider" theme, having a new affix that webs you would be fitting.
Pros: increased damage/survivability for stacking and moving as a group.
Cons: Movement speed reduced for getting too far apart. However, many classes have movement buffs and/or snare removal to help get back into the group.
Thoughts?
Blizz should absolutely make M+ as inviting as possible in S1 of TWW so they don’t discourage new/returning players.
“You’re telling me I’m gonna shit afterwards and in like, I know, but I’m still talking about what dessert I want” 💀
I think the affixes will change the tournaments so the audiences can finally see different classes played in top end
It took me too long to realize dorki’s background is faker doing is signature move haha
I just wish you could get more crests when the key level is higher. Why am i getting the same amount of crests from a +6 as a +15. I would love to play alts without having to grind a million keys to catch up. Make things make sense.
JB professional line chef, gourmet takes michelin 5 star.
Am I dumb for just now catching on to the fact that Dratnos is clean shaven in all the thumbnails despite being bearded for months? Is it a bit / easter egg? Or are those just the easily on-hand images available for thumbnails and I'm way over thinking this?
i was sent a thumbnail folder (dont tell anyone)
@@ThePoddyC 😆 thanks for the reply you do good work Fronk
Affixes should either impact everyone positively or be completely removed. The negative affixes have no justification on a system like m+ that already scales in difficulty because it disproportionately affects higher keys more. People would be ecstatic if every week was a different fun affix that may or may not change gameplay but is at least enjoyable.
They should keep the level 4 affix but add a way to add a kiss.
Explosive: After a cast duration the orb explodes causing minor AoE Damage. Interrupting or stopping the cast gives the person a chance to cause fire damage with each hit/spell.
Storming: Periodically spawn tornadoes. The tank is immune to tornados and instead each tornado absorbed empowers them with a damage absorb.
Etc.
the small mammal living in Jdotb's shirt
Hear me out, untimed keys should not go down if you complete it. If you abandon it, it drops.
Rewards for dungeons should look like this.
6 aspect crest @ 6 (complete or deplete)
9 aspect crest @ 9
10 aspect @ 10 for deplete, but 15 for completion
+1 for each additional level after
They should also put an item in game which allows you to upgrade heroic to mythic track with 100 aspect crests. Got 150 crests? You can upgrade that avoidance heroic track to mythic now.
TWW sounds like the Shadowlands devs returning. Games are meant to be fun. Hard doesn't mean not fun. JB and Dorki spitting facts here.
Using sanguine as the example - you don't "need" to track anything on the nameplates. Mob dies, big puddle appears, move the remaining mobs out of the puddle. Sanguine, in a vacuum, is good game design, the affix is something you can anticipate and react to. The group can focus specific mobs or manage DPS to kill mobs evenly, etc.
The issue with sanguine is uninterruptible channels & casts, RP abilities, massive hitboxes that make kiting impossible, non-line-of-sightable chain casters, narrow spaces, and wild disparities in utility between tanks / groups / etc.
In a version of WoW where you reliably can answer every challenge around sanguine, it's a good affix. In a group with a half awake DH tank and a competent evoker, it's barely an affix.
I don't hate sanguine, but I am disappointment by it.
Season 4 needed to be these changes. They could not come out with awakened and try to just be fated. Fated was goated because of the changes to m+ that continued into DF. Gear upgrades and rotation of dungeons by bringing old dungeons into the current season. That was the genius behind fated and awakened was just DOA.
they need to have "difficult" affixes that if you complete you get a huge benefit for the rest of the dungeon... something like a mob that is in a certain part of the dungeon and guarded by super high mobs that are hard to kill.. if you kill that mob you get 10% haste rest of the dungeon.. or if you interrupt or cc a mob you can cast while moving for the next 20 secs
Holy shit what a cook from Dr. Atnos. The Sephuz and Prydaz effects would actually be sick as an affix. Not too invasively positive, don't have to worry about them, can minmax if necessary or if you want to pull differently - great idea overall.
My dream scenario is that keystones would have randomly selected affixes upon receival, and we'd go more towards something like Maps in Path of Exile. There would be plenty of groups with keystones with a wild variety of affixes listed at one time and you can pick and choose whatever you feel like, and you're not locked to a week of suffering, whichever one you may consider it to be.
The downside is "dead keys" with the worst affixes. That being said, my immediate counterpoint is: oppressive and badly designed affixes should be rethought, rebalanced or straight up deleted. This is obviously the priority and what should have been happening right now anyways.
What if Blizz made +1-10 focus on fun affixes, and then every key level above 10 adds a challenging affix (i.e. a +20 would have 10 affixes), blending fun with challenge? Would that be terrible, or would it satisfy both camps?
They saw how easily people geared this season and freaked out. Made these changes based on Season 4. I don't think they planned on changes, but then season 4 has a meta(mostly because people aren't required to play their main raiding toon). I think season 4 was a vortex, and they made changes based on that. Season 1 will be interesting in TWW.
I agree that the affixes they've chosen to keep seem really strange, things the community doesn't like. I disagree with Jdotb about the goal of the new affixes being to affect PuGs (although I obviously think they will affect PuG's). I think the reason these choices seem strange is being we're viewing it from the perspective of *playing* the game. I think these changes in attepting to adjust MDI... Let me explain: Past few MDI's have the same comp vs the same comp; they may change it up between keys but it's always x comp vs x comp. The +4 affixes are so small that they really wouldn't affect the majority of players, and the affect it will have will be as you say 'trikle down' and extremely min-max. However it could rise to some delta in the comps ran in competition, giving more opportunities for a particular team that, for example has multiple flex players to take a small advantage by switching between Mage specs. I came to this idea when I saw the +7 affixes, because they're all horrible to play - but excellent to watch, and are often the reasons teams will struggle giving to higher drama moments. These changes aren't for the players, they're for the veiwers.
Not sure where Dratnos is getting that these affix’s can be ignored. A perma blood lust for casters is a big scare for tanks and can NOT be ignored.
To be honest as someone just under-title key pug tank the thought that bolstering/raging/sanguine is 75% of all my weeks makes me want to not play/push m+ as a tank next expansion.
The new affixes are only a 3-4% damage increase overall for a few classes when they are relevant... i.e. A caster mob may take 10% more damage from a bleed source but if there are few or no casters in the pull, then what does it matter to stack bleed classes for the affix???
dont know if anybody remember Encrypted in shadowlands but i think they should bring that back as permanent m+ feature
Dratnos cooked up better affixes in like 3 minutes than the entirety of blizzard affix design history
"Fronk likes to do it" lmao
i would argue the "games have to be perfect" is already over because if you buy a game nowadays what's the first thing you do? you download a day 1/launch patch, games nowadays release buggy or broken in some ways and that gets fixed over time
I want to see a season without a timer on keys, where they don't deplete. Either you finish the dungeon or your group cant. Keep tyran and fort, remove the rest of the affixes. I would like to just see what would happen.
Dorki saying "wee woo wee woo" I LIKE THAT
I had an Aug tell me (a Resto Druid) that I’m suppose to save him from one shots and said he has 0 defensives.
wrath classic Halls of Lightning/Stone affix was perfect. just do stuff like that man.
I liked fyr'alath with the abd luck protection. I wouldnt mind if for the future patches a subset of classes e.g. int casters or whatever got a lego to work for
there is handling noise and beard noise hardcore in some poddyc episodes.
They should just make the affixes related to theme of the expansion. It’s a void ish theme so they should have affixes have to do with darkness or the void
The unintended consequence of the new +4 is now you can only pug as a dps on your week
Someone with decision making power at Blizzard has a kid that plays demon hunter.
Lets be real, blizzard don't want to listen the community regarding M+. However they learned in the good way how to listen in other topics of the game.
NGL as a tank main the affix changes are either gonna make me quit tanking or quit the game entirely. Rerouting every week sounds terrible and the disconnect between what blizz says and does is staggering.
Imagine your class is getting buff only two weeks in full rotation buts its paired with bolatering/sanguine/raging. Lovely season it would be
i feel like the argument of there will always be a god comp so balance is impossible is wrong. i mean we have all of season 1 and half of season 2 to prove it; they CAN balance m+ to a respectable degree. Also i think you guys are underestimating the comp inflexibility that afflicted and incorp added, that god comp PERFECTLY solves that other comps struggle with.
Very rare footage of jdotb genuinely smiling. Colorized.
Why don’t they try and make kiss only affixes but as the key level rises, you lose the affix. That way you have to learn to do the key without the buff/bonus.
What if the keys started off with 3 kiss affixes, and as you go up in levels the affixes are disabled or maybe evolve to include a curse at certain levels
Example: casters have 30% longer cast times
At +5, casters are uninterruptible while below 30% HP
Things like this... There's a ton of ideas
I don't think they can do anything like the old legendary system really. Unfortunately had to miss all but the final week of season 3 on my pala, so naturally the grind is on for legendary axe. Still don't have it unfortunately, guild called it quits for s4 so no more mythic fyrakk, next expansion is literally 6 weeks away and it's fortunate that I have a team to play m+ with else i'd have probably quit the season at that point or had to have played classes without legendaries. My paladin has been kicked from groups several times after being invited because i don't have the legendary. It's honestly so much fun not having an item your class is balanced around that literally sims for 11.6% more dps higher than what you have at the moment
So DH and druids can tank most weeks because of their different damage profiles and hero talents?
The affixes are severely undercooked and need to be changed. Keeping bolstering, sanguine, and even bursting depending on the dungeon feels bad. As a dude that l ike to push as high as I can on tanks, VDH being the sole tank is a big issue. Double sigil makes large m+ pulls safely possible. Playing anything else feels like you're choosing to ball gag yourself
For me one good point of the change is that we wont have a single affixes out of tyrannical that will impact boss fight in keys, and just that is good for pugs. And good feeling of boss fight. No more force outposition cause of volcanic or storming. And overall no more affix left that will for me to cancel heal on more dangerous pack of mobs. So the 4 level 8 affix left are bad, but overall the change may feel better than what lot of ppl think
Max ripping the ole "Potty Surprise" at the start
having a timer makes everyone sweat instead of enjoy the dungeon. the goal should be to just finish ti.
The mythic plus changes feel like they spent 3 hours the night before this post cramming to get it done like it was homework
Spot on jb on why u bring certain classes
The worst thing about the new affix is that it will solidify the meta on certain weeks. For example, if rogue is meta, then no other melee specs will see any type of play on any of the +phys damage weeks. Same idea for shadow damage week if spriest is meta, etc.
Sanguine... give it a cap on healing.
Bursting... cap at 5 stacks, can increase damage per stack
Bolstering... does not stack, can be purged
Raging... remove cc protection
12:00 I understand what JB is saying but sanguine, you still have to think about the pulls. For example, entangling would be way easier than sanguine. Raging and bolstering, you have to be ON point with cc or you'r party get's one shot by a cinderbolt. Volcanic would be less cognitive load.
While I understand what blizz is doing, the passive affixes that they kept result in more cognitive load in a dungeon than the ones they removed.
You want to Cook? YOU WANT TO COOK?! Let's F*CKING COOK!
Dungeon Revamp: New Debuff - Craven / AWW HELL NAWWW. All mobs in the dungeon not in combat, immediately becomes untargetable upon getting 100% kill credit. (As if you had completed the key.) Why? Route control, greater control in what and where you kill things in the key. Plays into what follows below, Priests and Rogues are thusly desirable for their ability to help you select packs to kill.
The following is a bunch of mechanics you could add to the game that are intended to utilize class fantasy and pre-existing utility without impacting PvPers, this to help encourage bringing non meta speccs or to encourage engaging with dungeons outside what is currently being treated as "The go-to-meta philosophy."
Doing it this way is also more likely to inspire route diversity for MDI settings if the meta comp of 4/5 in the team is the same but some teams might wildcard a 5th on a dungeon to dungeon basis.
New mob mechanics:
* Shatterable: Shattering throw, Between the Eyes, Glacial spike and Mass Dispel on the mob shatters their defences in a shower of shrapnel that increases the damage taken by the 10 nearest mobs by 50% for x seconds. Why? Warriors need utility, Shattering throws CD should also be reduced to 45 seconds in PvE if it shatters anything. (Warrior, Outlaw, FrostMage, Priest)
* Spirit Link: Whole pack shares a healthpool. Any Healing reduction ability disables this health distribution for the affected target. (Warrior, Hunter, Monk can now create a prio kill target.)
* Demons and Doggos: Hunters and warlocks need a talent that allows them to have 2 pets active at a time. Enslave demon (voidwalkers mostly in TWW) and a talented tame beast (with shorter cast time) allows you to control a demon/beast brought below 20% HP without losing your active pet. Once the duration of this is over the creature dies. (Between these two, DK and priest we now have a wider breadth of MC's that don't annoy the pull by having a mob alive after all is done. (Warlocks, Hunters)
* Spellsteal Mechanics: Mage tanking/Stealing a massive buff was a unique and cool mechanic, but in the modern day I'd add a similar talented option to rogues as a pickpocket talent, and devastation evokers to even out pugs tolerance for devastation evokers. (Mage, Rogue, Devastation)
* Body Dysmorphia: If targeted by Polymorph or Hex the target's attack and casting speed is reduced by 50% for x seconds. (Shaman and Mage)
* Sensitive Eyes: If targeted by a blind effect they are disoriented for the duration regardless if the blind is broken. (Paladin and Rogue)
* Lose footing: Knockback effects knock targets prone instead, increasing damage they take by 20% and rendering them unable to attack for 5 seconds. (Evoker, Shaman, Mage, Disc Priest, Warlock Succubus)
* Injured knee: Knockup effects knock targets prone instead, increasing damage they take by 20% and rendering them unable to cast spells for 5 seconds. (Evoker, Shaman)
* Combat Dasher: Damage reduced when affected by a ground based slowing effect. (Earthbind Totem, Blizzard, Tar Trap, (T) Death and Decay.)
* Elemental Betrayal: Spellcasting damage for that school, reduced by 15% whenever struck by a spell. This effect triggers on an elemental basis. And only for mono type elemental damage. (Chaos need not apply.) So the Dawn priests deal reduced holy damage when struck by holy damage, but not radiant damage. (Most classes)
* Easy Target: If targeted by a long term Crowd-Control effect prior to combat start, this mob is effectively removed from the encounter. This does not give %. (Hex, Freezing Trap, Sap, etc. etc.)
* Battle momentum: Restores 10% of targets natural resources when interrupted. (Good for Arcane, warriors, rogues, and healers.)
Lieutenant mobs weaknesses:
Why? It sucks to fight them but with the craven change you now might actually go for them if your group is uniquely suited for it. In an ideal world, they become a more appealing target to go for, for %/Minute, if you composition has the counter.
* Hemophile: If any single player has more than 3 damage over time effects on the mob they lose 1% hp every 3 seconds. (Stacks?)
* Gear Dependant: Like Shatterable, that increases all damage they take by 20% till the end of combat.
* Lightning Rod: Due to their immense size, these creatures take damage twice from all AOE effects. (The extra hit does not procc or trigger a second ignite for example).
* Turning Battle Tide: Weakened whenever an execute ability is used on a nearby friendly unit. Reducing Damage done and increasing damage taken. This stacks.
* Regretful Soul: Direct Holy damage done to the target reduces their maximum HP by 1%, this stacks to a cap.
* Uncontrolled: Take the Uldaman stun mechanic from the snake guys. Give them a padding of 3 shields before they get stunned for 10 seconds and take increased damage and have it require 3 players using any cc.
* Solo Duelist: Gets stunned when they use a tankbuster, if their target have a friendly target next to them with a damage reduction effect. (This also works with feint despite its aoe inclination.)
* Rattled: Deals 10% reduced magic damage for x seconds when hit by an interrupt while casting. This stacks but each stack is timed seperately.
I want to know the real resoning behind the god awful choice they have made with these affixes.
I think these changes are meant as placebo for the most part. The goal being to change the perception (keyword) of players of the meta. If you feel that any spec can be strong on some specific well you will trust more easily players of that spec and might be happily surprised by their performance.
Likewise it allows more players to think "My spec isn't the most popular right now but I'll play it because this season it's stronger on certain weeks". If less players blindly follow the meta AND more players trust off meta picks the perception of god comp could drastically change overtime in PUG environment.
It's a very tricky result to achieve but i think it's a little bit genius.
Now the way the +4 affixes work might be a bit convoluted but I say let's try it out and see.
There's no point in complaining about something we haven't tried yet.
Imagine having 20% less armor and bolstering
I say get rid of affixes and just add new abilities to mobs every so often in higher level dungeons.