I did not anticipate this from Delves

Community General Discussion
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So I’ve said some positive things and some negative things about Delves but as I was ambling through one this evening I realised something. Delves are actually making me a better player.

Pre Delves, I’d get to max level, look on wow head at what the meta specs are for the different content, load them to my char and go smash buttons without knowing anything other than, this does dmg, this protects me and this other one moves me.

Now though, I’m having to read what the spells do and even re-spec for certain delves to make it as easy as I can for myself.

Since returning in Dec last year I always aimed to be chill about the game (not like I was in Cata). I ran M+ in DF without knowing what my spells actually did. So for this content to engage me the way it has, and I’m not exactly sure why it has, has definitely taken me by surprise. So, if this is something others find themselves doing too i.e. just getting better in whatever way, then I think that can be a win for the community as a whole.

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I’m positively optimistic and think Delves could be a great venue for Blizzard to design short encounters of all kinds especially with how they want to change the follower every season. Kind of how Brawlers Guild used to be if anyone remembers that.

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That is your problem right there :wink:

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It’s really refreshing to have an opportunity to experience challenging content without pressure from peers. You can even goof up and explore some unconventional talents, without making anybody unhappy, even if your idea totally failed.

You Are Not Your $#*@! Legplates -)

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It served it’s purpose at the time. The point is, I couldn’t be bothered to look through what spells/abilities I needed and what they done. Now though, with Delves, I’m finding that I am whilst also upping my game play overall :slight_smile:

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I LOVE delves.

I just did Zekvir with a friend - mage/rogue.

Here’s just a sample of the things that went right from a gameplay point of view during that:

We came in and died at 80%. Over the next hour, we progressed to 70%, then 50%, then 30, 25, 10, 0. Great sense of progression. Why did it happen?

  1. We figured out a good interrupt rotation - we figured out we could still kill the spider even if it spawned by using Kidney Shot and other CC.
  2. We figured out what the boss did in general and his rotation
  3. We never consulted any manual or looked at any guide
  4. It was chill - we were relaxing the whole time
  5. We just couldn’t stop ourselves. It was madly addictive to squeeze out that extra bit
  6. Eventually he realized he could change his build a bit so he did
  7. I changed my build to one that defended me better - I made this build up, still no guides
  8. We killed it

This system sets up a situation that helps you to learn and improve because it gives you space and time to think and the pressure is very low yet the challenge can be quite substantial. It creates that chill environment with progression that WoW needs to truly shine. And not only that, but it also provided the best segments of the levelling simply by playing on difficulty 3 so the mobs actually return some damage.

And because there are no insanely OP tanks around I get to use Polymorphs and rings and we’re sapping things and using redirection to me and then invis to turn them around and popping defensives to kite etc. Every single ability is in play - and yet it’s never confusing. It’s fully readable and understandable because you’re not encouraged to do unnecessarily huge pulls to make a timer.

On top of that it’s managing to deliver 4-5 minute fights with great mechanics for 1-3 players. This is unprecedented in WoW’s history.

The delves are, by far, the best part of The War Within. Yes there’s been some bugs and tuning and so on, but as they are right now? Amazing.

The only regret I have is that I only have level 11 and ?? left, and so once I start getting M+ gear I’m probably going to stomp it all into the dirt, which is a real shame. I hope Blizzard bolts on more delves with higher difficulties and creates a progression path with these things.

The only criticism I have is bountiful delves. Just remove them and always drop a bountiful chest at the end of any dungeon.

9.5/10 - and the only thing they need to do to get 10/10 is to promise not to nerf it into the ground and add more of them with higher difficulties.

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delves are an excellent addition to the game
now blizzard needs to properly tune them and fix the damn bugs

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I do love Zekvir design. If I would rate all delve encouters it’s second only to Ven’kex (this one is just perfect in both poison/ice variants). If you haven’t already, I really recommend you to pick a day when he is in Underkeep, and visit him in T11, either with your friend or solo. No need to wait for bountiful, as he will probably annihilate your lifepull on the first attempt, but he is hard in a really satisfying way. One small thing I don’t like about Zekvir is that poison is hitting a bit too hard and the cast is on short cd, so a solo caster can not kick it.

Yes, the progression is not well-thought through. This is one of the main things, why I’m sad, I’ll finish loose ends and get the last gear I need from delves this week and then there is simply nothing to do.

This one I absolutely disagree. Gearing pace is insane as-is. If anything it should be decreased, to increase the longevity of the system, not increased even further. If not bountiful, everybody would go for full loot day one and forget about them day 2, regretting that there is nothing to do, as you do now. The way it is, we at least had one week when dropped gear still mattered.

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Every class has some abilities you rarely use either because of the content you tytpically do, or the moments for them are just so rare in general. Delves really force you to use your entire kit and consider other speccing options.

I also love that they’re not on a timer so you can take your time to figure things out yourself instead of look up a guide and learn it before hopping in.

Not trying to put down those who look up guides, I think guides are great. But I’m a person who loves doing content blind, and delves having no timer means I get to do this with no stress.

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Oh I think it’s perfectly well thought out, they just need to add more delves and make them harder, while of course keeping the current ones.

I’m not worried about the rise in difficulty either. As people in this thread note, it seems to make the casual players better by giving them room to breathe and think, and our gear will upgrade over time anyway.

I would also encourage Blizzard not to make the mistake of making old delves irrelevant but also not make all delves the same difficulty level, like they do with dungeons. Make some delves span from level 7 to 14, some span from 11 to 18 - you get the idea.

Delves already have a system that prevents you from farming gear too fast - the keys. What I’m suggesting is that keys should be sufficient - you can go into any delve with your key and unlock a chest. Another way to put it is that all delves are bountiful an infinite number of times, but of course as well know - if all delves are super, none of them are :smiley:

One could make the argument that fewer keys should drop, but I dunno how I feel about that given the existence of M+.

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They need to adjust some stuff for different spec/role compositions. Like you did Zekvir with another dps. The add gets 10M health per player in there. We went in with healer, tank and dps and the add was 30 M. Obviously you do not get it down and it hatches and then it has another 50M. It just does not go down before the next add spawns too and hatches. Yes we were able to interrupt a lot, and CC but you get overwhelmed. You do not have the dps numbers.

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The gear rate is quite crazy. 3 of my 6 tanks got 616 Hero tier in the vault today. Plus most of them have at least half slots filled with Champion gear. Then there’s the warband stone discount.

In about 3 weeks even casual noobs who are abysmal such as my BDK will be able to outgear keys. I think that’s why Blizzard are doing it.

Train people in the Delves, where they get good or they die. Then once they have gear they are shipped out to the key.

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They didn’t tend to go down ahead of time for us, either. They did sometimes - depended on whether we had CD’s. We started saving CD’s for it. It’s pretty hard to kill, which is why we needed to CC it after the fact and place Zek’vir next to it so we could cleave. We also polymorphed them.

It was tuned perfectly fine for you :] That’s just how it works.

Of course with more gear you’ll probably be able to just kill the egg.

Yes, they are definitely doing that, which is absolutely fine - WoW always tried to train you up on smaller scale content and then slowly nudge you towards larger groups. It’s good to see this is rediscovered.

However I still like delves a lot and I do hope some of their design elements will spread - especially its more chill nature. I’m tired of speedrunning or being punished unnecessarily to be honest.

The amount of people I know who don’t play M+ specifically due to the keystone system is actually enormous. It’s dozens - easily half of my friends list.

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It is how it works but it is wrong tuned. With 3 dps you do way more dps on the eggs/hatched mob and you get it down eventually. We did not once managed to kill 1 mob, with bloodlust and all cd’s.

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Okay, I dunno about 4 players. But what I do know is that your tuning was very similar to ours and that the fight was doable regardless, and if nothing else there’s gonna be gear incoming.

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That is what i mean. But 3 dps vs tank healer dps. 30M health is a different number with different compositions.

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Sorry I’m completely misreading everything like a dumdum. I dunno about 3 players either. :smiley:

Anyway, I think it’s perfectly reasonable that a group of DPS have an easier time killing the eggs while tanks and healers have an easier time controlling and surviving them as they hatch. Zek’vir was chunking 50% of my HP with every hit, and the spider casters were tricky to lock down for very long and would chunk 35% of it as well. Was he doing that to your tank? I doubt it.

Different comps, different problems.

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That is what i am saying too :slight_smile:
But for now it is not doable for us while you asked to make the challenge harder.
I am asking to adjust the challenge per spec, so it is at least a bit the same on the difficulty.

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Not on Zek’vir!! I’m not asking for buffs to existing content.

I asked for more dungeons with more difficulty levels so I can keep whacking at this as my gear improves throughout the season.

Yours will, too. And you’ll end up finding Zek’vir quite easy in time.

I dunno that it is? Could be, but if you let tank/healer/DPS easily kill the eggs then that comp is clearly superior to 3 DPS. 3 DPS gets to kill things fast and die if they don’t manage to, that’s sortta the point.

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I also like Delves a lot. I think it could potentially act as a way to change the keystone system.

I prefer to make my own groups and I flat out wouldn’t play m+ at all as solo DPS in pugs. No way I’m waiting ages for some crybaby tank to join my key, pull everything, die, rage then leave. Then I have to try on a level I’ve already cleared.

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