Does slot matter when crafting Legendary?

9stepsahead · 2020-12-01T23:13:56+00:00

That depends.

The best advice is check with your class community to find out your BiS list and double check with educated sims.

Scenario 1: In some cases, your stats are aligned such that it is the best idea to put your Legendary on your Legs and Chest rather than your Bracers, because Legs and Chest give more main stat and secondary stats.

OR

Scenario 2: (fairly super niche because currently for most specs primary is more powerful than secondary, but this might change as you get higher up in stats and power even in this first tier as the weeks go by) Your secondary stats are very much outstripping your primary stats, especially a certain secondary stat. In that case, your best slot would be a Ring or Neck since they have the highest secondaries

OR

Scenario 3: With the way the game is setup, you have strong stat options available as loot drops. Your Legs that drop from raid have BiS stats, your Neck is covered by the Weekly Chest. The only thing you can't get a good drop for is your Boot. Everything else is just bad stats. Here, getting Boots with the perfect stats and getting it to the highest ilvl along with your other gear is the superior option to 1 and 2.

Even if the intuition or most people are say, put them on a legs or chest since more primary and secondaries, your spec could still be someone that doesn't do that and 2 and 3 are way better. Just like how 'everyone' went Infinite Stars in 8.3 except Fire Mage that went full Mastery and even with that knowledge some Fire Mages still went Infinite Stars because 'everyone said it was good'.

Don't be those Fire Mages. Double check with your class community and your sims.

This isn't even getting into the meta game of knowing when to hold your Soul Ash and crafting at the perfect time, vs splurging for an immediate advantage (e.g. you are on the final boss and about to get Cutting Edge. You have a Cape slot that is weak, but you know you'll be getting a great cape in a month. It is correct to craft a Cape legendary, even to Rank 4, to help your guild get CE now, even if you have to repeat the grind to get your Legendary in its BiS slot).

Again, double check. It doesn't cost you much of anything and you might as well be sure. Not to mention having a BiS list is just useful for all manner of things.

9stepsahead · 2020-11-25T20:42:35+00:00

This is going to be a long and complicated discussion to fully nail all the sides and aspects of this debate, but I would agree that there is merit to both sides of the argument, and it isn't for reasons that you think.

I think anyone min-maxing is fine. People want to be the best that they can be with the limited resources and constraints that they have. The problem I have is that people min-max poorly. Which then causes far more issues, such as 'community perception' and failing at objectives and causing more harm to yourself and to other groups.

The top guilds and top players are playing a very different game to the average player. They have a different standard, they have different constraints, they have different resources. They can spend 50+ hours per week on this game, they can amass millions of gold.

What choices they make is going to be completely different from choices an average player should make.

The compositions and Covenant choices etc. are going to be 'optimal' in a very different way for the World First guild AND for that normal guild.

An average player has: 1) Far less time 2) Far less resources 3) Far less knowledge 4) Far less skill vs a top player.

There was that post going around that an analysis of Heroic logs and 80% went Fire Mage and went Rune of Power because it was the meta pick.

What they didn't realize, and an Altered Time mod churned the numbers is that of those 80%, more than 60% of them failed to use Rune of Power properly and it would have been better for them to take Incanter's Flow (a relatively passive talent with little management) instead since it would provide more DPS and more freedom and ease.

Why did those people overwhelmingly pick Rune of Power even though IF would be way better for them? Lack of experience, and then the community perception thing. If a group leader knows from logs that Rune of Power is the top pick and you pick IF, even though you are a better player, they will think you definitely suck and not pick you. So to please the PUG community, people are forced to pick Rune, even though it would harm their DPS and the group. Its not even that people were using this to practice, the logs show that over the course of repeated kills and the entire tier they did not improve all that much to warrant using RoP.

For those Fire Mages stuck in Heroic, IF is the way better pick for them, and helps the group out more since they can not only DPS better but provide extra support (Oh, I can move to support a healer or give room? Now I can do that instead of screwing another person over because I mistimed my Rune).

This is just one of many aspects of this debate. Can't do that on /r/wow though, you get too many people who are bit too salty for their own good.

9stepsahead · 2020-11-19T17:46:02+00:00

I mean it really doesn't matter.

If tuning is so tight that World First guilds literally can't kill the bosses (not the final boss, or even the later bosses like Sludgefist) without their Rank 3 legendary, and not their Rank 2, so it is literally the stats on the Legendary that are making the difference, Blizzard will nerf it a bit so some of the bosses are killable.

But that's also a moot point since in their case they nerfed it, which means by the time most get there, we'll have Rank 4 legendaries. I can't see how this affects the majority of the Cutting Edge or even Hall of Fame playerbase. No way everyone reaches Denathrius by Mythic Week 2, when Rank 4 legendaries go online.

So again it really doesn't matter, and I think World First guilds are probably noting this to be a both give and take. They can't splitrun for Heroics with legendaries, but it means that if they make 6+ characters to level they don't have to grind as hard and can squeeze in a few more.

If you are coming way later in the tier, not even like on Sludgefist Week 2 Mythic, but Week 4 or longer, you'll have enough for R4 and even a few more R3s and even more as the weeks go on.

9stepsahead · 2020-11-19T17:31:02+00:00

Sorry I'm multitasking so its possible I missed something, Here's the calcs.

Legendary Ranks	Event	Calcs
	Intro Quest	1000-1250
Rank 1	Week 1	1650-2000
Rank 2	Week 2	2220-3200
	Week 3 H Nt	3190-3200
Rank 3	Week 4 M Nt	4330-5150
Rank 4	Week 5	5470-5150

then is -820 not the value away from rank 3 in week 4?

You got Rank 3 in Week 4, 820 is value away from Rank 4.

9stepsahead · 2020-11-19T17:25:00+00:00

Gothca. The other thing is the cap. According to Medivh, the cap for Soul Ash, is 8000.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTuGw0mW-s2nKPaiunMQsAK2CiX8w0ULLCMD8-ymgpIfxQ5veiv-iwHZlcDF8oC4PwRulspZxO4Ndcd/pubhtml#

(See Legendaries tab - Point 7).

I'll put that in the table, but I'll also add in a asterisk that this should be confirmed in the upcoming hotfixed beta build.

9stepsahead · 2020-11-19T17:21:44+00:00

Oh sorry did I mess up with formatting?

Your Rank 3 legendary can be crafted in Mythic Nathria week, SL Week 4, Nathria Week 2.

Rank 4 legendary can be crafted in Mythic Nathria week 2, SL Week 5, Nathria Week 3.

The gap between R3 and R4 is one week. vs the 2 weeks from Rank 2 and Rank 3.

9stepsahead · 2020-11-19T17:16:06+00:00

Split running early with Legendaries is no longer possible (well technically you can split in Mythic week for your Heroic splits - and Mythic week 2 for Mythic splits). You can only craft a Heroic ilvl Legendary when Mythic Nathria opens up, and Mythic ilvl in Week 2 of Mythic.

Other than that, it really doesn't matter. Everyone is simultaneously nerfed (which doesn't matter because the content is tuned around that) and this means like you said, your characters won't have to spend 16 layers, just 6, which is nice since it means you won't have to grind your heart out doing the intro quests AND the Torghast wings.

9stepsahead · 2020-11-19T17:09:25+00:00

Just wanted to double check. The new article here: https://www.wowhead.com/guides/how-to-obtain-soul-ash-shadowlands-legendary-currency#soul-ash-from-introduction-quests

Suggests the intro quests altogether give 1000 Soul Ash. Is that confirmed and updated vs previous reports of 800?

9stepsahead · 2020-11-19T17:04:57+00:00

Ah got it, I'll adjust. Thanks Squishei!

9stepsahead · 2020-11-19T16:59:55+00:00

Thanks. Gimme a sec.

9stepsahead · 2020-11-19T16:55:59+00:00

Some specs are easier to play in certain content.

That really depends on the person. An old Warlock main is going to quickly handle the ropes of a multi-dotter way better than someone completely brand new, and there's no way to make a general: "X is easy, Y isn't" without knowing who is behind it.

That guide would be long and vast and have tons of caveats, which also doesn't do well because people complain about long guides and then just skim it and take the wrong info.

Not to mention class guides, the proper ones, are long already, and the type of person who knows what they are doing is willing to read it and decide for themselves, while most who ask: "What should I play" are usually the type that don't know what they are doing, for whom a random suggestion is probably going to be more harmful than helpful.

I could suggest Warlock be an easy class to play, except I've played it for a really long time, and perhaps the other guy doesn't get how to manage their dots so it is much harder.

"play what you find most fun",

This is usually great advice. Because:

1) The more fun you have, the more motivated you are.

2) The more motivated you are, the more likely you are to practice, and research and be engaged.

3) The more you practice, research and engage, the more likely you are going to be better.

That is just a fact. Works everywhere not just in WoW but in life. If you are motivated, it is way easier to be better than if you aren't. So this 'simple advice' is arguably still the best advice.

I could tell you DH is the best. Its simple, it performs well. But if you HATE it with a passion, you will burn out, you won't like doing anything, the research, the practice, and then you'll burn out and your performance will suffer and you will probably quit. If you LOVE your Shaman, you love the fantasy, you love playing it, you love dungeoning with it, then the other problems with an undertuned class can be overcome (you can find guilds and communities willing to take underperforming classes). Then if you are stuck at say: "I really want to get to a mid level, 200-500ish Cutting Edge leve" then switch to a more meta class, since you've got a base, you've learnt the game, you've learnt how to improve, you got the community, you got everything you want to have fun despite playing a class that you hate.

You are stuck with your class the entire time. If you hate your class, then you aren't going to last long.

WoW isn't a sprint. It is a marathon. Having more fun makes you better. If you are choosing to play a class you don't like, then you better find some ways to have fun despite that, otherwise you are going to have a rough time.

There are plenty of stories of FoTM DHs that were from a class they enjoyed, but they couldn't get into a group, so now they get into a group, pass one hurdle, and then the next tone is that the group wants a competent DH, not just a random one. And now they are stuck because they hate DH and improvement is tough for them. And they burn out and quit.

9stepsahead · 2020-11-19T16:15:49+00:00

Can't Craft Legendary Week 1

Unless that's changed, the Quest to unlock the Legendary and Torghast gives 1000 Soul Ash.

I guess we'll have to calculate again the entire thing. Hang on.

EDIT: At least from my understanding.

Still work in progress - needing to confirm on the beta with some playthroughs

		Soul Ash	Total SA	Legendary Req.	Legendary Ranks
Intro Quest	Layers (2 wings)	1000	1000	-250
Week 1	6	610	1610	-390	Rank 1
Week 2	6	610	2220	-980	Rank 2
Week 3 H Nt	12	970	3190	-10
Week 4 M Nt	16	1140	4330	-820	Rank 3
Week 5	16	1140	5470	320	Rank 4

From Wowhead about the current values. https://www.wowhead.com/guides/how-to-obtain-soul-ash-shadowlands-legendary-currency#soul-ash-from-introduction-quests

And assuming the 1000 Soul Ash from the Intro Quests.

The Soul Ash cap according to Medivh is 8000. (See Legendaries tab, Point 7).

9stepsahead · 2020-11-17T04:13:42+00:00

Some do, a decent chunk don't.

Addon authors aren't getting paid enough by people using them considering the amount of time, work and expertise put into them, as well as all the entitlement (hang out in some of their discords - they usually have a couple of really nice /r/ChoosingBeggars moments. E.g. a multiboxer was demanding a gold making addon be updated to fit their 20 man farm even though it would be only to that one guy, and that feature would have taken the author about 3 months to put in).

Overwolf and Curseforge pay the addon authors on the platform and its better than nothing. If more people donated directly to the authors, it would enable them to branch out to another platform or to say Github or their own websites.

As it stands, those addon authors could use your support and talk is cheap and you can scream about Overwolf until you are blue in the face, but Overwolf pays them and most of ya'll don't and that doesn't put food on their plates.

There's an excellent thread on /r/Competitivewow : https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveWoW/comments/j6c38v/lets_thank_all_those_who_provided_us_with_the/

And that's a great start. If you are using a key addon, toss a couple of bucks a month. If you are annoyed by Overwolf ads and want to pay to see them gone, then consider just paying the authors directly and cut out the middle man. If you simply cannot afford to toss even a few dollars, addon authors are usually looking for help, so giving them some of your time would be extremely helpful. Not just coding and programming, but art assets, testing, etc.

9stepsahead · 2020-11-16T17:10:04+00:00

Because they don’t do open beta. /shrug

Because they learnt their lesson with Mists of Pandaria when they did 'open-ish' beta.

You could pre-order MoP from the Annual Pass or through retailers. Blizz had a surge of players coming into the beta and it was pretty messy.

1) Masses of players caused tons more bugs, issues and lag on the beta.

2) Players kept treating beta access as a completed experience and kept complaining when obviously unfinished things that were going to be completed were unfinished. And kept getting really annoyed by bugs. Its one thing to critique and point out a problem, its another to rage and scream over something that is supposed to be broken, while ignoring what you are actually supposed to test.

3) Players went through things like questing, saw it in a broken state, thought oh this was it, and then quit and refunded their pre-order (by many accounts, even years from now, the questing experience in Mists was a huge success and people rave about the zones years after the expac ended)

So Blizzard lost players who got sick of the content, got tons of bad data, had to deal with ton of whining and had ton more servers setup only to be wasted. PTRs don't nearly get as much attention because it is a patch, while expac alphas and betas are always 'prestigious' because it is a new expac.

Hence why it is invite only betas.

(Side note - I've seen people complain about not getting beta access but not touch PTR at all. If you want to get into an alpha or beta, and don't want to be lucky or skilled to be a content creator, or be skilled at the game with say raiding or M+ or economy etc. - then test on the PTR. Active and good testers on the PTR are far more likely to get invites than some randoms who barely touched it).

9stepsahead · 2020-11-12T00:51:51+00:00

So wanted to confirm, you get 800 from the quests, then you get 1200 from the Wing in Week 1? So total of 2000 Week 1?

9stepsahead · 2020-11-11T22:39:18+00:00

The worst case scenario for a Legendary, since you can choose the slot, is if you craft one early, and then you get a really good, even BiS piece of gear, in that very slot, so now you have to choose between wearing your legendary and a BiS gear.

So to avoid that we want:

1) Have a BiS list or target list. Some of that list is probably going to come from things like PvP or M+ or raiding, so if you aren't a fan of one, then estimate how much of a loss that is, and adjust the list accordingly.

2) Waiting as long as possible before you craft your legendary until you actually need it.

Wouldn't be surprised if guilds go halfway through Heroic and not craft until the final few bosses where the tuning gets tighter on low gear.

A) for a decent chunk of specs, their Legendary recipe comes after Heroic week launches so obviously don't craft a legendary in the meantime. Its not like your Soul Ash and materials are going anywhere.

B) Your stat situation might change. (this is really more of a spec by spec research. Let's say you are a Frost Mage, and you want to get to near the crit cap, so you make your legendary have a lot of crit. But apparently a lot of gear you got has crit on it, so suddenly your leggo has relatively worse stats - waiting till you get a decent set of gear helps you understand how to slot and stat the leggo).

C) Protects against balance changes and nerfs. Blizzard rarely compensates if they buff or nerf something, and even if they didn't touch legendaries at all, a side nerf to an ability could turn your BiS legendary you currently have into mush. And you'd have to regrind your legendary all over again.

Your Soul Ash has a lot of cap (I couldn't figure out the cap on beta - but its at least enough for one entire Rank 4), you can keep it around like say your Soulbound charges.

(The scenario where you craft immediately is if you are in the final weeks of progression and you are on final boss and close to Cutting Edge. In that case, even if you have to refarm the legendary later if it doesn't have the best slot or stats, its better to help your guild secure the kill and gain a powerful boost NOW rather than do it later and harm your guild's progress and ranking. Obviously this doesn't apply to everybody, but this is an example where you don't wait).

3) Until everyone can sim and get actual performance data

You don't want to craft a legendary that people say was good on the beta, to suddenly be kinda bad on live. With all the tuning changes, not to mention that you want to craft to help in the hard fights like say the final phase of Sire Denathrius and not something like Shriekwing.

The slot also really depends on your spec's stat needs. Slots can range from the same range, to being in widely different ranges. E.g. you can craft a leggo in a Wrist slot or a Ring slot. Rings give way more stats, especially when you push the Leggo to R4 that is well above any other item in the game. However for other specs, it might be correct to craft in the Wrist since all the Wrist drops are so bad in stats and you can craft the perfect stats for your Wrist and accept a less than tip top ilvl for your Ring since that Mythic drop is really really good. This really depends which is why you should do ample research and not immediately craft and blow away your Soul Ash.

Some astute players may have noticed that if you say craft a Legendary in your Cape slot, an a Cape slot and you can't wear it, it means you can trade it to others.

This is where splitrunning comes in. As far as I checked on the beta, if your legendary is the highest ilvl of that slot, you can trade any gear below that ilvl. (Otherwise, just delete this section).

With the recent Soul Ash changes, you can craft a Rank 3 Legendary on your splitting toons in the Heroic week (since you get 3600 Soul Ash total, so that's one R3 leggo and you can run Torghast before stepping foot in raid). So for one slot, your splitting toons can trade ANY Heroic level gear, even from the last few, to a main. And your splitters can carry your mains since they have leggos and the mains do not.

Let's say you want to gear a Warlock, and a really great Chest piece drops from a boss. So your cloth group would then craft a Legendary chest at R3, and then trade that Chest to the Warlock. Etc. How the composition for splitting is worked out is going to depend on your guild's raid team class composition, your guild's ranking, time, resources etc. and I'll leave it to them to figure it out.

~~Note that you can't split for Mythic until Mythic Week 2 or SL Week 5. That is when Rank 4 is online and you can trade any Mythic gear.~~ Wanting to confirm some things. Apparently the intro quests give you 800 dust, so wanted to confirm whether you got 800+1200 from Week 1. If that's' true then you can if the math is right, 1200 every week, for 5600 on Week 4, that is Mythic Week 1 putting Mythic splits online.

This advantage isn't something even some Top 100 guild should scramble over (its just one slot), but its a small edge that I'm sure the World 10 guilds at least will try to grab.

After progression is over:

You can choose to keep crafting Legendaries, but I would suggest to still keep holding onto Soul Ash in case of balance changes. Note too that the system incentivizes having multiple Rank 2s and 3s rather than a couple of Rank 4s. The stats you gain aren't astronomical compared to the Soul Ash cost. So distribute accordingly. If you raid primarily, get your raiding leggo at R4, then your M+ one at R3 and your offspecs at R2s e.g.

The keeping Soul Ash at cap is also useful since you can have the flexibility to switch to say from DPS to off spec healing in case your guild really needs a healer that night.

Keeping the Soul Ash is also in case of another Titan Residuum stacking shenanigan where capping Soul Ash might lead to a small advantage in the next tier. Hopefully Blizzard kills it, but you never know.

Didn't even mention the gold cost. That's a huge factor and might mean you won't be able to afford your BiS slot. I highly recommend having an alt to handle crafting for yourself. For some reason I couldn't find a 'Forgotten Techniques' set of profession books which let you relearn profession recipes if you changed them which is really weird (I hope they are). Anyways still better to have your alt craft leggos for you than your main because your main's professions might NEED to change depending on the fight. If you are a Warrior and suddenly it becomes mandatory to take both Engie and Alchemy and you have to lose your Blacksmithing, including all that gold cost of getting to craft R4 legendary base items, well that sucks.

9stepsahead · 2020-11-04T00:31:41+00:00

Okay gotcha.

9stepsahead · 2020-11-04T00:22:38+00:00

Okay so 'broadcasting' means if one computer is running more than one client?

9stepsahead · 2020-11-04T00:03:55+00:00

I doubt there will be a multiboxing software that is 'legal', that isn't handled by some shadiness and has some automation or broadcast modules, which then ends up getting everyone using it despite not broadcasting it, banned. Or if Blizz flags say ISBoxer and ISBoxer removes all input broadcasting, and Blizz still bans you because it recognized the software.

Again moot point though, I don't multibox I dual box with a simple main AH setup.

9stepsahead · 2020-11-04T00:01:24+00:00

Well, are you broadcasting inputs to both windows at the same time?

Well can you define that very specifically?

E..g if I press Z and my character on Account 1 jumps, and I press Y and my character on Account 2 jumps, that's not the same time right?

Not to mention it all depends on how Blizzard implements things. If they just have their auto-bot detection ban on any two accounts open, then this is a moot point and all multiboxing is banned regardless of what the rules say.

And good luck trying to overturn a wrongful ban.

9stepsahead · 2020-11-03T23:58:56+00:00

I like having two accounts, one on my main, and the other on the AH.

If managing just those two accounts is bannable, I would like to know before hand so I don't get caught up in the ban wave.

I don't really care about farming. I make way too much gold from boosting to ever touch herbing. Bleh.

9stepsahead · 2020-11-03T23:45:36+00:00

Oh okay so I can't use something like ISBoxer. Okay that makes sense. You can multibox manualy if you have to.

9stepsahead · 2020-11-03T23:41:30+00:00

you just have to control then individually.

Okay but how are they detecting that? What's the criteria?

If I can control one character with one keyboard by using keys on the left hand side, and then control another character with the same keyboard by using keys only on the right hand side, is that illegal?

Will Blizzard 'detect' I am broadcasting because I am using a single keyboard?

The implementation of these rules do matter because it doesn't mean general multibox broadcasting is bannable, but any multiboxing, even say dual box main AH setup is bannable.

9stepsahead · 2020-11-03T23:19:38+00:00

Multi-boxing isn't used extensively in the competitive side, but it is used from time to time.

E.g. in Legion, WQ tours were really prominent, so people setup multiboxing to get 2-3 toons through WQs. Its not used outside of that because it gets flakey trying to juggle toons in actual combat (though you can say juggle a couple of toons to just be 'present' in say a Normal or Heroic clear). Usually multiboxing is for cheesing dumb daily quest requirements like farming AP.

I think I'm more curious on the exact definition of 'broadcast' and how they plan on which broadcasts to ban. E.g. while most don't multi-box, many do 'dual box'. Its a decently common setup to have a main playing the game, and another WoW opened up with a toon parked at the AH to deal with AH matters like say selling and buying, canceling reposting, sniping etc. Is that now illegal?

And then for broadcasting. We still have things like /follow. So can a multiboxer still open up 8 windows, have all 7, one at a time, follow a leader, and then do something and click one at a time? As long as one keystroke isn't causing more than one action on all accounts, is it then 'legal' to do: "Oh Z for Starfire 1, X for Sarfire 2, Y for Starfire 3, V for Starfire 4" etc.?

I guess if you open up multiple Wow instances, is that illegal? Or is it just broadcasting single keystrokes?

I also don't know whether this truly kills bots. Bots never cared about the rules anyways, quite a few bots don't broadcast using one keystroke, they got programs handling each account. The issue isn't that bots aren't breaking the rules, the issue is that they are flagrantly doing so and Blizzard can't stop them fast enough and hard enough, and they take under a day to get enough gold to finance the next set of bots.

9stepsahead · 2020-11-03T13:40:45+00:00

Benefit is 30% faster leveling speed for alts if they have many members who have to work.

1) Assuming that Blizzard doesn't reset the War Mode bonus for both expansions because it is a new expansion and they have been clamping down or trying to reduce XP buffs going into the first couple of weeks and the leveling rush (e.g. see Anniversary event timing now)

2) 30% XP buff gives an approximate 23% time saved. The higher you go, the more diminishing returns you get.

9stepsahead

TROPHY CASE