The reward/loot system is really broken in S1. Here is why:
M+ is way too unrewarding. Once you hit ilvl ~402, it’s just impossible to gear up using M+. If you do 17/18 keys, you need at least one valor upgrade to make it higher than 402 and you get one to a maximum of two valor upgrades per week depending on the item. The problem is, you’re doing mid mythic difficulty with M+17/18.
The raid is relatively easy, even on heroic. Getting items is impossible though thanks to group loot. I’ve cleared normal, heroic 7/8 for 2-3 weeks now and I got two items out of it. The problem with group loot is that it doesn’t fix the problem you were trying to fix. You wanted less unuseful items to drop, because personal loot has a higher chance of dropping loot to people that do not need an upgrade. The big flaw in this plan is: While that might be great for guild runs, it’s much worse for pug runs, because people just do the content they still need something from. That just lowers the overall chance of getting an item in a pug run, because I am consistently rolling against 5-8 ppl. And the guild runs did not even have the problem before, because they would just trade or use master looter.
So, right now I am ilvl 403 and I can basically only upgrade through the vault. That does not feel rewarding at all.
Its not impossible its just adjusted to take into consideration lack of titanforge / ap upgrades etc etc from previous expansions.
Blizzard goal Has always been so that IT takes you around 5 months to be semi-fully geared.
So ofc because there is no extra endgame progression now loot aquisition is substancialy slowed down .
Its also to force you to engage with their crafting system and buy gold via tokens to be able to afford It if you want to speed IT up a bit.
You can thank for this mythic raiders who onlycwanted to log in RAID and log out.
But ye you gotta realise that unless you plan to RAID mythic once you get to like 405 get aotc and KSM you are basicly done and can unsub till next season . Once you accept IT and stop struggling you will have more fun on game.
Do 1 x 16 or 18 a week for GV mini gacha gamę and then Level some alts , farm some transmog you are basicly done in endgame till like may / june when next season will likely start
You get a 418 item every week from the vault, as well as 5 crafted ones (for which btw, even mythic raiders need to farm M+16s because mythic bosses don’t drop remotely enough concentrated focus).
The amount of loot that drops from raids is zero and the reason OP “only” has 403 ilvl is because he never did anything above +15.
So pretty please with sugar on top stop saying this expac is catered to raiding when I lose a flat ~8 ilvl for not grinding M+.
Loot progression is gated behind weekly resets for both M+ and raids because this is what BLIZZARD wants, not because it’s what raiders want.
The first thing any hardcore prog guild does is bypass this gating with split runs or spending half a billion on boe.
Raiders are just as screwed (if not more) than M+ players.
You are so so soooo wrong…
That are the Heroic raiders.
Mythic raiders are forced to do M+ because that is the only way to acquire descent gear and upgrades…
We need to spam M+16 for the primal infusions to get our crafted gear up to 418.
After that we have to do +20s to ensure obtaining a once a week 421 item to try and boost our gear enough to hit the DPS checks required to down Mythic bosses.
We aren’t RWF raiders so we need a bit more then 400 ilvl to clear mythic…
Mythic raiders are forced to keep spamming M+ or never reach anywhere near CE.
Dragonflight is basicly a: do M+ or don’t play endgame, expansion.
OK, to clarify, “iLvl 380-390 it is almost impossible to gear up with M+”.
And to clarify further, 45 mins for each M+ (25-30 mins in dungeon plus 15 mins waiting), about 5% to get an upgrade (ie something you dot not already have, ie a particular loot piece from a particular boss per dungeon), and a 40% chance to get anything at all, just do the math, [ time invested vs gear obtained ]
I havent played priperly for last 3 weeks , havent done anything from this week, last reset i did total of 4 dungeons. I raided first 2-3 weeks, only hc tho.
I have “wasted” 3 total vaults, because i either took sockets or one week i took higher ilvl of same item i took week before .
Im now siting at like 413ilvl, with 2-3k valor ready to spend . I realy dont see any wall, nor any issue .
Sure, we have Raidloggers aswell.
They are barely scraping along because they’re 10-12 ilvls behind the rest.
They are just above tank DPS…
Once we hit a DPS check wall they’ll be the ones too suffer first.
I am just casual and I didnt get help much it means you gear up slowly so did I. It should be at least +15-18 for max the great vault loot instead of +20.
You summed up why the game feels unrewarding and why in truth it’s not alt friendly.
Yes, these things are making the game less fun than shadowlands season 4, for sure.
It’s always the same with WoW expansions. They start crap and end fun. Then the cycle starts again. It’s like the devs hate fun.
