people who doesn’t raid for whatever reason, like me, will never access this new features of domination sockets and buff at a resonable high ilevel? (Lets skip the bs of lfg raid ilvl or the junk from death advance rep)
is there a way for people like me that focus on M+ to access those features? If not anyone heard a plan to add it to M+ in some form?
I don’t know about you, but i would feel very bad to miss it and secondly soon enough i can foresee will be a discriminatory condition to join high M+ group as you lack valued borrowed power.
guides say the actual shards only drop from raid bosses and the world boss. gear with dom sockets can also drop from the weekly vault and I just got one from the cache for completing 5 timewalking dungeons.
The bonuses awarded by the sockets themselves pale in comparison to the set bonus effects, which I know isn’t a solution but it is important to be clear we’re talking about barely single digit percent damage increases.
There’s a single heroic ilvl belt from rank 6 archivists.
Otherwise no, there isn’t, and it’s dumb. It’s dumb the gems even exist for a host of other reasons too.
these gems (like set bonuses) are meant to slowly improve your character. but unlike sets, it gives you some flexibility and choice so character progression doesn’t feel one dimensional.
Would you mind elaborating? I really struggle to see choice and flexibility. Maybe it differs per role but for me the unholy set is just flat out better than any other option and they all require a specific piece to get activate, even if you have 3 other slots.
If anything it feels more restrictive. I currently have the unholy set piece activator and 2 other domination slots, but only 1 unholy shard. I got ‘lucky’ enough to loot 3 blood shards but I can’t use those because I don’t have the chest to activate the blood set.
Frankly from a raiding perspective it feels overly convoluted, restrictive, has no impact on gameplay beyond “Hey more stats” and just feels like a lazy tack on that adds nothing.
As for the “slowly improve your character” thing… no. The only noticeable power gain is the set bonus, and its huge. There’s nothing gradual about it.
you dont need those gems untill like 20+ in mythic dungeons with how this tier is tuned though. and if you play in this brakcet you very likely also raid.
that said have you seen how weak those bonuses are ? they are a joke how weak they are.
My grievances are mostly with the system as a whole, and as a raider more than a M+ player. That said I can see how there are zero positives in this system for M+ players
If one is clearly better than the other two for all content, that’s not a choice. I’d rather have a set bonus that actually has some impact on how my spec plays than a generic bonus I may as well ignore.
I still don’t see the options. They all increase your output in a passive way pretty much, they don’t change up your playstyle or interact with abilities or talents in any way. The only difference is that one is better than the other two.
If I have pick between A and B where A increases my output by 500 dps while B increases my output by 250 dps is that really a choice? If they were better depending on the situation then I would agree with you, but that’s not the case.
The gems itself are not really worth mentioning as they are tiny buffs, it’s pretty much all or nothing with this system. You either have the set bonus or you don’t. At least with tier sets you had a 2 set and a 4 set bonus, that felt more like “progression” than this (however little).
No you are correct, but you (or at least as a dps) don’t pick them for that. At max rank the blood set will hit one target for 1620 damage every 3 seconds and heal me for that amount, if I am at full health it will instead heal one nearby ally.
By comparison the unholy one gives me a stacking agility buff and then when it’s fully charged does a burst of damage and gives me 900 agility for 15 seconds. That is an INSANE amount of primary stats, I currently have 1450 something agility from just gear so you can imagine how much of an increase 900 is.
From what i heard and colected so far, from various sources. If we you dont count the “set bonus” which doesnt work in m+, those sockets are worth ~10ilvl, depends on what slot it is.
Now this isnt much, but its kinda forcing people to raid, mythic most likely if u wanna push.
There are also bis weapons for at least half specs in raid ( idk about casters) which forces you even more to raid, even if u dont care about it. I dont know why, but it looks like blizz is trying to force people to raid more and more each patch…
Soon enough, there wont be anything else but raid, because that will be only content that matter, like back in vanila.
this is how it’s been for quite a while. I can believe it’s frustrating but objectively speaking M+ is less prestigious than raiding and has a smaller audience, so instead of forcing raiders to run M+ for extra chance of getting dom. shards or gear, they’re doing it the other way around.
similar to how pvp and pve players were forced into each other’s content or how everyone with a functioning brain is forced to run dailies or tag rares for the archivist socket.
there’s no obvious solution within the context of WoW for this
