We're getting tier sets in 9.2. Ion confirmed that in a dev interview prior to 9.1 launch.The SoD system was meant to be a new filler tier system which felt like a test bed experiment on how they would do tier sets going forward.The shard acquisition system had issues, but it also gave you a reason to go back and do reclears for a while until you got all the shards. It would have been better if everyone got their shards up-front and/or could buy them instead. Also, needing to upgrade the shards seemed like timegating.Then you needed the gear pieces. Trying to get all 5 slots is complete RNG. I haven't gotten shoulders since the tier came out and I reclear heroic each week.The reward for getting your 3 set bonus was massive though: like a 15% damage/healing increase for everyone in the raid. It felt like the bosses were tuned without taking in account the bonuses because it already feels like you overgear Mythic when you're at iLvl 240+ with 3 piece bonuses.Mythic SoD is a lot easier than CN. Every boss in that raid except Sylvanas and Painsmith is 30 or less pulls. CN had at least 4 bosses that were minimum 80-100 pulls.
The world first race is already a joke and I could care less that it affected an already &*!@ tournament. I don't disagree that it affected the actual people in wow a bit with drops being what they were, but gear was always more the issue to put these in than the shards themselves. Stop doing interviews for the 0.000000000000000000000000001% of players in the World first race, until they make it actually fair. And even then consider the story and who the hell cares.
I think the shards of domination would have worked as a nice psuedo-nerf over time like the legendary rings did back in Legion.I feel the problem was more with timegating than anything else (or rather, the lack of timegating) - it was incredibly frustrating to get the domination sockets and the gems, but IF you had the gems the correct course of action became to farm LFR / normal / heroic dom sets to get them up and running. Add on top the absurd power gains and it was an incredibly unpleasant system to work with even as a R300-500ish guild.I wish the acquisition of the gems was relatively slow but completely non-random and the set bonuses were gone, just being activated by having 3 gems and have these earned in a targetable or predictable fashion - I'm loathe to say currency but it would probably be the most user friendly one.If the gems were being acquired slowly over the course of the tier then that would act as an indirect nerf for any guilds struggling to meet dps checks and a QOL increase to farm for guilds that had killed them. I also think the cost of upgrading shards should have been increased massively, the power spikes these things brought came far too early in the tier, trivializing a lot of bosses.
Tier sets are and always have been cool for the effects and aestethics.With mythic+ in the game, it wasn't fair for that crowd.So the big B-man nuked tier sets in bfa.Just to introduce azerite pieces with some of the raid ones being better/wanted, basically creating the same issue (derp).But wait, big B-man fixed that by introducing a vendor with a currency you could get from many game activities so everyone could get their hands on it.Do you see where i'm going with this? Could a vendor have been the fix to tier sets all along?No problem big B-man, i'm waiting for my check.
Boo hoo, top 0,01% players didnt get what they wanted immediately after login. So what?You will get your shards eventuately. Maybe in 1 week, maybe 2 weeks, maybe more, but you will get them. Majority of raiders are averager players and they don't care if it takes a little longer.And the top 0,01% are profesionals and they just have to deal with it.
The biggest issue I have with these systems continues to be that you simply rarely have control over whether or not you get to use them. Clearing the raid of options every week we're nearly 3 months in and I still don't have any bracer capable of using a shard. I'll have at least 5 options max upgraded before I can use them. That 5th shard isn't likely to make a big difference, but not even having the option still halfway through mythic is silly.
Changes I would have made at the start of the tierMythic 100% to get a gemHeroic 50% to get a gemNormal 25% to get a gemLFR 10% to get a gemHowever each boss no matter the difficulty could only drop 1 gem a week.
Lol these articles interviewing BDGG is getting annoying because the recent topics discussed with this guild is already past its due.Additionally, their comments may affect how Blizz updates future patches and no one wants to see top players in the game have their opinions represent the rest 99% of the wow community. Like the last comment when they want to see similar systems back? LOL like WHAT? why do you think players are leaving the game in the first place? its the system like dom sets that pushes players away. Please stop interviewing BDGG. I'm sure most here would rather see interviews from Max or Scripe like what Preach did before he quit WoW BECAUSE of the systems that this BDGG guild wants to see again.
Would have tied the Blood, Unholy, and Frost sets to boons specific to defeating the 1st set of 3 bosses, 2nd set of 3 bosses, and 3rd set of 3 bosses, respectively. You can only pick one flavor for the entire week's lockout, but each player can choose separately. The flavor is only active for that player for its set of 3 bosses (and most trash beforehand)Early in the tier, players would stack Blood to progress through the 1st 3. As people became more comfortable, less and less would pick Blood. They will now concentrate on delaying gratification to instead choose Unholy for that week's lockout, so they can progress on bosses 4-6. Same would later happen progressing Unholy to Frost.Mid-tier, players in the raid might strategically coordinate to spread the boons around for faster farming.Blood will let you retain some of your Anima powers for 1st bosses.Unholy gives gobs of Speed, Leech, and AvoidanceFrost gives absorbs, increases crit amounts, and reduces cooldowns.Sylvanas fight can have up to 3 chests at the start, one for each flavor. A chest can be opened if at least 3 players chose that flavor. Inside is an armor kit that temporarily applies one of the generic Runecarving powers. Only someone who chose that flavor can use the armor kit from that chest.Mythic only has Covenant chests. Each unlocks if at least 5 players are from that covenant. Armor kits inside to apply a Covenant-specific runecarving power. Team of 20 would have to exactly 5-5-5-5 split to maximize.
maybe one day we can stop having throw-away systems that are only there to stretch things out and once everyone is adjusted to them they're gone? every patch, "what's the new system going to be?" has been old for some time
I have 0 patience for Blizzard's failings with the Shards of Domination.These $%^&*s have 16 years of WoW development experience and supposedly they have internal systems to test efficacy. How in the Hell do they not have a basic ability to eyeball acquisition issues and numbers tuning problems.It's been pointed out it took only minutes to identify major issues with the sets. It's incredibly sloppy and/or inept for Blizzard to stumble so hard on a new system that was so obnoxious.
The problem is acquisition, but not of the shards. There are more players with all shards and one or two sockets than there are players with less shards.