8.2.x Stuff

[jsoh]

I think FF XIV is the major other game with that feature at the moment--although my memory's a bit fuzzy about its details. It may have just been a "lower level instance" kind of thing for a lot of folks. I suspect the downleveling removing abilities/traits/talents/whatever is going to make some people grumpy, especially since that's a different rule set than timewalking. In most cases, though, since the minimum it drops you down to is 60, I can't imagine it's going to remove many critical things.

1. I'm almost positive that FF has this - mostly because a friend was being such a bore describing it at one point. The details are lost to time.

2. Dropping to Vanilla/BC content would (should?) theoretically zero out mastery. Which may or may not be a good thing, depending on your feelings about it.

[Piralyn]

#2 is a good point and I'm curious as to how they'll handle that. I didn't see anything in the preview, but it would seem a bit nuts to nullify a stat without adjusting it to be something else.

[jsoh]

Before someone screams "but versatility was introduced in a later expansion, what about that?!??", I would like to offer the (possibly incorrect, due to old man memory) observation that players had to explicitly hit level 78 to take advantage of mastery; you never got the base mastery amount, and no mastery on gear (lets assume that they didnt mess up and have < lvl 78 required gear with > 0 mastery) would actually do anything prior to that.

I'm just curious about their though process around that. The statement of "no azurite traits, no talents" implies that it should also be "no mastery".

I find it weird that they'd turn off stuff _anyways_, but YMMV

[Marco]

8.2.5 releases next Tuesday.

https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/news/23156365

[Marco]

The scheduled maintenance window today went until 6pm eastern, but servers are up now with 8.2.5.

[Marco]

The 15th anniversary event has started and will run until January 7.

You get a Lil' Nefarian pet for logging in, +15% XP/rep for the duration of the event (for clicking an item once; you don't have to remember to re-click it this time), and you can get a Deathwing-themed mount for doing some old raid encounters.

[Snique]

Marco beat me to it - official announcement page here: https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/news/23214313/celebrate-15-years-of-world-of-warcraft?blzcmp=app

[Marco]

In addition to the Chromie raid scenarios, the anniversary event features a classic Alterac Valley battleground.  Along with that battleground is a vendor who will sell classic PvP transmogs like the Ice Barbed Spear for 1-2 marks of honor and 20-90 timewarped badges.  wowhead has a list:

https://www.wowhead.com/news=296203/korraks-revenge-timewarped-badge-items

[Marco]

The anniversary AV battleground is apparently a quick way to level alts: https://www.wowhead.com/news=296296/korraks-revenge-is-a-fantastic-way-to-level-alts-above-level-60

(ETA: can confirm, got Wabe from 113-120 in 6ish AVs, with no special buffs.  Especially nice if you load into an AV late on so you get either the 50% or 100% of a level reward in just a few minutes.)

[Fernia]

Ooooh, perhaps OG Fizzlefern will make it to 120 afterall...

[Snique]

https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/47613-15th-anniversary-event-reminder/

15th anniversary event (and associated rewards) are set to go away Jan 7th.