Patch 6.2.3: Hey, something to write about!

Hey, Hunters! Yeah I am still here. Just fresh out of stuff to talk about in this downtime and complete lack of news… until today! Patch 6.2.3 was announced today and it adds quite a bit for a minor patch. Here’s some quick thoughts on the main features:

Valor points returning

Valor is coming back purely for item upgrades. It looks like you can do two upgrades of 5 ilvl per item, for a total of 10. This isn’t something I am going to grind at all. I know I’ll get some incidentally from doing stuff and I’ll use those on my weapon, then a trinket (won’t bother using it on Mirror of the Blademaster since the on use doesn’t scale with ilvl), then the highest ilvl/stat budget pieces from there.

I don’t like that you can’t get the points from doing regular raids. I mean, I get that they want to give people a reason to do dungeons again, but it seems weird. Especially since LFR is going to reward some too. They mentioned some kind of bonus event. This may be a new event, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it just replaced the Apexis event. Apexis is almost entirely irrelevant with this patch with better Mythic Dungeon rewards, and the fact that Baleful tokens can proc ilvl 695 without using an empowered fragment.

I get why they’re doing this, but it is not an incentive to me. I’ll be happy to upgrade my 720 gun to 730 and call it a day from there basically. I would probably grind these if I were still raiding regularly, of course. That’s the benefit of taking a break from raiding. No more worrying about that ilvl number.

Mythic dungeon loot scaling up to ilvl 725

Well, shit. So here’s the deal, a Mythic dungeon drop can come in any ilvl from 685 to 725, in 5 ilvl increments. So the chances of getting a 725 piece is certainly going to be slim. You can bet it will keep people running them though.

Can you imagine getting a 725 ranged weapon from a dungeon? It would be a weapon that can only be bested by a Mythic Warforged Felcrystal Impaler or a Mythic Cursed Demonbone Longbow. Suddenly using bonus rolls in Mythic dungeons makes more sense.

Not to mention all of the potential non-tier offset pieces you could pick up inside. I see Mythic dungeons becoming super popular.

Moose mount from Archimonde

It seems like they were really stretching for a reason to make the moose a Heroic Archimonde reward, but I still think it’s a good thing. When the moose was first revealed as a store mount, there were a lot of complaints thrown at Blizzard for yet another cool and unique mount being locked behind the cash shop. Guess what? They listened. It’s in the game now.

They’ll get me to run Heroic Archie at least one more time, that’s for sure. I think most people were looking for something like a reputation reward in Legion though (seems like it would fit in Highmountain). Heroic Archimonde is going to lock a ton of people out. I’m sure many will be motivated to get their raiding game up to that level though, and the item upgrades will help.

Everyone else who absolutely must have it will pay one of the raiding guilds on their realm for the privilege. If you’re in this category, put some gold aside now. Don’t think that you need to buy a run as soon as the patch drops. If you wait a couple of months the price will drop due to competition.  In MoP I was in a super casual guild and even we were selling Garrosh heirloom runs and that’s because everyone out-geared the hell out of it. The same thing is going to happen with this, just to a lesser degree since Heroic Archie is still quite the challenge even with gear.

Some have speculated that it’ll be available on the store after it becomes unobtainable in game. I’m not so sure about that. I think Blizzard intends to keep this mount a little prestigious by being time-limited, but I could be wrong.

Cataclysm timewalking and Infinite Timereaver mount

The mount will probably get me to run more timewalking dungeons than I normally would. I know it’ll be a super rare chance per kill, but look at that thing. It’s one of the coolest — if not the coolest — drake mounts in the game. Right now I run the initial dungeon on a few characters for the 500 Timewarped Badges, but I’ll probably pick that up. I’ll get the other toys and mounts faster anyway.

A lot of the cool timewalking items aren’t going to be as relevant in the Cataclysm stuff, but there’s still some fun items and sets to use for it. I plan on doing a post for that soon (on Blizzard Watch most likely). I wonder if the Cataclysm dungeons will be any harder than the TBC/Wrath stuff? Probably not.

Where does this leave Legion?

I remember being optimistic for Warlords of Draenor coming out in a timely manner (since Blizzard implied as much), but that never happened. I also remember feeling the same for Legion initially. Only 2 raid tiers for Warlords, and announcing the expansion prior to BlizzCon? It must be close! Right?

I think it’s at least 6-8 months out from today to be honest. HFC may be on track to be another year-long raid. I’m not sure if Blizzard is ever going to catch up and get these fast expansions they’ve been talking about for so long.

I expect alpha/beta shortly after BlizzCon, and for that to last at least 5 months. Optimistic me says that Legion is coming out in June, but realistic me says it’s coming out in August. There’s no point in setting yourself up for disappointment. Warlords Season 3 (arena) is also coming with patch 6.2.3, and lately these seasons have been in the 25-30 week range.

If I’m being honest, I’d rather have a September release instead of the middle of the summer. I prefer to be outside during the summer as much as possible. 😉 The one caveat to all this is I have a feeling we could get the Legion pre-patch a little earlier than normal, which would make the wait easier. Perhaps 2 months before the expansion. I’m judging this based on the little they’ve said. It sounds more substantial than normal.

Overall, I am happy Blizzard is giving us some more stuff to do in the downtime. It won’t bring me back to regular raiding before Legion though. That’s OK because there’s a bunch of cool games coming out anyway. I’m more excited for the Legion beta than this patch.

What about you guys? Will this keep you subbed?

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