Leveling in 7.3.5

[MiRai]

I'm now at ~12.5 hours of actual played, and I'm sitting at level 47. I can tell you that dungeons are slow and unrewarding at this level. Again, for anyone tuning in without reading prior posts, I'm in heirlooms and have active RaF benefits.

My last run of the night was Stratholme (live), and that was a full 48-minute run with three wipes (two due to runaways pulling extra stuff and just not being able to heal through it). In the end, I did get 2.7 levels out of it, but one full level was due to the quest turn-ins, so if I ended up with the dungeon again, I'd only get ~1.7 levels for 48 minutes of runtime.

Can't wait to see how long BRD or LBRS take to run. /s

The Mana-Tombs

First time - 4 hunters lv. 62 - Instance Quest open - range 64-66 - Full run 11 min.
Patch 7.3.5 - 4 hunters lv. 66 - range 65-67 - Full run 29 min.

Pandemonius - lv. 66 HP 65430 - Patch 7.3.5 Lv. 67 HP 278561
Tavarok - lv. 66 HP 81788 - Patch 7.3.5 Lv. 67 HP 348201
Nexus-Prince Shaffar - lv. 66 HP 98145 - Patch 7.3.5 Lv. 67 HP 417841

That's over... 400%, no? MMO-C shows that healthpools shouldn't have gone up more than ~300%, at most. Unless, outside world NPCs and in-dungeon NPCs are two different types of NPCs, and we don't have all of the data. /shrug

Yes, as I indicated, I did start at level 10. Once I hit 15 it was as you experienced. Prior to 7.3.5, my level 10s would stomp the place.

It was the last group I needed to get to 15, so...

I figured I would have a similar experience at level 15 because of scaling, but when I didn't I felt the need to report back.

Looking in the dungeon journal I see heroic drops ilvl 116 and normal drops ilvl 161. If I was confused before I am more so now.

On another note, there is another 8 hour maintenance Friday. Its not likely they will roll back the patch, but they might roll back the patch.

Rumor on the internet is that they have to re-deploy almost the entire patch because of things that are messed up with the 7.3.5 databases.

[Sservis]

Perhaps to mess with bots or gold farmers? I have no evidence for the claim but I can't think of anything else that makes logical sense from a "why would you make this significantly harder" angle.

Bad Math. Ignoring the TBC/MoP different mob levels issue, it seems like the lower dungeons that scale to X and then scale to max (for level range) are giving slightly different results than the directly scale to max of heroics. This could either be because they're scaling into the next expansion (82 for MoP might not equal 82 for Wrath) or because the scaling from X to max isn't the same as the initial scaling to max.

[Kojiiko]

Perhaps to mess with bots or gold farmers? I have no evidence for the claim but I can't think of anything else that makes logical sense from a "why would you make this significantly harder" angle.

Blizzard trying to to push the 100 booster? Harder to level. Fed up on how long it take to level up. Getting pissy with the grind. Ppl are willing to fork out more for the booster? If so. That’s a sly way to go about it

[Pocahuntess]

Blizzard trying to to push the 100 booster? Harder to level. Fed up on how long it take to level up. Getting pissy with the grind. Ppl are willing to fork out more for the booster? If so. That’s a sly way to go about it

I don't know about that. I think people will just unsub as I have done. Maybe in BFA that will apply but that's a year off I guess. They'll instead lose a lot of subscription revenue between now and then.

[SDBoxer]

This change has pretty much wrecked my playstyle.

I played from launch until late 2008, and hadn’t played since. I 5-boxed back in 2008, and got my team up to the current level limit (80?). I quit when I hit a wall with current (at the time) content which I couldn’t finish. I could no longer progress in any meaningful way at that time, so I lost interest and quit playing. My biggest complaint about the game back then was that I couldn’t prevent out-leveling the content I was playing before I got everything I wanted from it.

I reactivated my accounts in December 2017. Because there’s so much content I’ve missed, I wanted to start from scratch. I created a holy trinity team (prot paladin, holy priest, 3 BM hunters) and have been using the level lock feature to move slowly through dungeons as they opened up in instance finder. I do overland quests to enjoy the story line and atmosphere (that’s probably still viable; I haven’t tried open world mobs since the patch) and would lock my level once a new instance was available. I’d play through that instance over and over until I’d mastered it and had gotten every blue drop that was an upgrade for one of my characters.

It was slow going; sometimes I’d run an instance dozens of times to get everything I wanted. But I was having fun, and was keeping my team equipped with very good gear. I could clear every dungeon without too much trouble, even though I’m not terribly skilled. I would still wipe on occasion, or lose a character (most often my tank) – but I had a realistic expectation to finish an instance without too much teeth gnashing. And I knew I wouldn’t outlevel that instance until I’d gotten the drops I was after. Every blue drop had the chance to be relevant, every single time. Unless it was a duplicate – which of course happened a lot – it was a meaningful upgrade. Back in 2008, by the time I’d run an instance more than a couple times, I had out-leveled every drop in that instance.

Last night, I logged in and went to the third and final section of Dire Maul. I am level 42, so I have access to the ogre section. It was incredibly tough. Mobs were probably taking around 5 times as long to kill, and bosses were at least that long. I lost pets multiple times per boss fight (my DPS macro auto-rezzes them if they die and heals them if they’re still alive; I think I stole it from one of DavidtheMage’s posts) and my paladin hovered on the edge of death with every boss fight. I had multiple team wipes, even though I know the mechanics. It simple took me too long to kill bosses or large pulls, and I couldn’t heal through the damage I was taking.

Some bosses I can’t kill because of mechanics that are designed to kick in if you take too long. An example is the second boss in Scarlet Halls. If you don’t kill him in about 45 seconds or so, he turns into a whirlwind and wipes my whole team.

What really chafes me the most is that the whole world (as near as I can tell) is going to scale with me every single level until I hit current content. I can clear Dire Maul at 42, and get some blue drops. When I level to 43, Dire Maul will be just as hard (or perhaps harder relative to my team) than it was at level 42. If I can’t clear Scarlet Halls at 42, and if I gain a couple levels and come back at 44, it will be even harder than at 42.

I have to assume that the scaling logic is based on character level and uses a baseline equipment expectation. If I can’t clear an instance at 42, and level to 44 without upgrading every gear slot accordingly, that instance will be even harder at 44 than it was at 42. It looks to me like content that I can’t clear immediately after it opens up will just get harder as I level – and will likely outpace my team as I level. In other words, the gap between the instance difficulty and my team’s gear and capabilities will widen as I level. I don’t see how it can narrow; that would imply that the scaling is somehow based on the equivalent of green drops. These instances are extremely difficult for me with near-ideal blue BoP items; I can’t imagine clearing one with green items or blue quest rewards.

I intentionally stayed away from heirloom items, because they eliminate the fun of playing dungeons for the drops. It's not much fun for me to clear an instance if every drop is worse than the heirloom items I’m already wearing. No instance from level 1 to 100 would ever offer an upgrade; it would only be when I reach very high levels and very current content that instances would start dropping upgrades. I have no desire to play that way; lower-level instances that I can finish are the only reason I 5-box.

With this new patch, there’s no sense of real progression. Every instance in dungeon finder is yellow, and will apparently stay yellow. Once I unlock BC, all those dungeons will be yellow and stay yellow. They will apparently only get easier when I completely outlevel them and their rewards are completely meaningless to me – e.g. when I’m level 75 perhaps Deadmines will have only scaled to level 60. But when I’m level 59, Deadmines will be a level 59 version that will be tougher relative to my team than the level 15 version or the level 42 version. If I don’t maintain optimal gear every single level, I will fall further behind with each level I gain.

Every time I level, I ought to run Scarlet Halls just to the first boss, which can drop a crossbow that will be slightly better than the prior-level version. The smart (but horribly boring) thing to do would be to run that instance every single level until I get three crossbow drops for my hunters. When I hit level 43, I should run that boss again until I get three level-43 crossbows. Once I unlock and level to 44, I should do the exact same thing – because the level 44 version of that crossbow will be a tiny bit better than the level 43 version I have, and the level 42 version I had before that. When I hit level 58, I should do the same thing. If I don’t, the level-scaled versions of every instance open to me will be too difficult for me to complete – because the scaling logic has to take gear level into account somehow.

In short, I should run the quickest instance to get plate drops, cloth drops, and mail drops for every slot on every character of my team every single level I gain. I will never get to a point where it doesn’t make sense to run the first boss of Scarlet Halls again, or the first boss of Maraudon, or whatever instance has an easily-reached initial boss that will always drop a leveled version of an item that will help one of my characters. But those instances will always be just as hard (or harder) than they were the first time I ran them. I will never get stronger than any single part of the entire world. And I don’t see how it will ever make sense to run something other than Scarlet Halls if I need a bow, or the first ogre guard boss in Dire Maul if I need a gun. Those bosses will always drop a leveled version of those items every single level I gain. The only difference in drops between Deadmines and Stratholme will be cosmetic – so why run the harder, longer instances when the shorter ones will drop identical leveled gear every single level?

The game world will open up new opportunities as I level, but Deadmines will be just as hard (in terms of mob and boss level) and just as rewarding (in terms of leveled items) as that new instance I can finally run for the first time ever.

From reading the forums, there are an awful lot of people who love this new patch – so I’m not very optimistic it will get reversed or even reduced in magnitude other than the few raids they apparently amped up by mistake. I am very bummed, because I was having a blast before this patch.

[Peri Helion]

Based on the information in this thread, and dorksied’s RAF guide for 7.3.5, I will definitely be boosting and have scrapped any idea of running a couple of Trinity teams.

[SDBoxer]

I just tried running Blackfathom Depths with my level 43 team. I'm going to say Bathiel is now impossible for me to beat. I can't even come close to doing enough damage to him before his healing phases. This is a joke. I already unsubscribed all five accounts, but I don't even feel like playing out the string.

[Pocahuntess]

I feel you SDBoxer. I found the most efficient thing for me to do was to spam Stockades over and over again because I could complete that faster than I could do the equivalent amount of quests. It's a very short dungeon. It did get quite boring very quickly though!

I unsubscribed because, like you, I don't think much is going to be changed about this patch and I don't much like the direction it's headed. Bummer.

[Darth0]

I feel you SDBoxer. I found the most efficient thing for me to do was to spam Stockades over and over again because I could complete that faster than I could do the equivalent amount of quests. It's a very short dungeon. It did get quite boring very quickly though!

I unsubscribed because, like you, I don't think much is going to be changed about this patch and I don't much like the direction it's headed. Bummer.

I've been levelling teams on Mal'Ganis (with hopes to join the other multiboxers there) and I have also been rerunning the shorter dungeons. I find it the best way to maximize my short playing time in the evenings.

While saying that, I do miss the old way of blowing through content, so that's a bummer; but I'll just suffer through it because I still need my teams to reach the goal I set out for myself. I will still keep my accounts though; because while inconvenient, I still love this game too much to quit.

I am also done with the Legion content for now. I need a break from that. lol

[Ughmahedhurtz]

From reading the forums, there are an awful lot of people who love this new patch – so I’m not very optimistic it will get reversed or even reduced in magnitude other than the few raids they apparently amped up by mistake. I am very bummed, because I was having a blast before this patch.

The more I think about this, the less I like the idea as it means enjoying low-stress content exploration and at-level transmog runs just isn't feasible. I haven't stepped foot in a 5-man since this change; the last time I was doing that was my 5-priest group. I'll have to try that again and see if it's even doable anymore.

[edit] Have you tried heirlooms to see how it impacts things?