Monday, November 23, 2015

Monday Random Thoughts

- How is the first week of valor treating you?

- I missed doing some stuff.

- Did not get the daily heroic once and I am still missing 2 mythics.

- I guess I could still do them tonight, but do not feel pressed to do so oddly enough.

- All because I know all my gear will be upgraded next week either way.

- Only 4 pieces still not upgraded.

- I have a few blackrock foundry pieces still on that can not be upgraded.

- That is why I am done so fast.

- Had a debate with someone in guild when I passed on a 710 neck even though I am wearing a 691.

- He said I was making a mistake.

- Made a big deal of it too.

- I shut him quickly by explaining that stats mean more than item level for a damage dealer.

- Can't argue mathematics.

- I explained why the 691 was better, because of the fact it has my two best stats and a 75 gem in it as opposed to the 710 with my two worst stats and no gem slot.

- My neck is still, albeit slightly, better than the 710.

- Now if it were warforged it might have been better.

- Just might.

- Those gem slots mean a lot, even more so if you put a 75 gem in it.

- Mr Robot even says the 710 is -12 and Mr Robot does well with math stuff.

- I would never trust them on trinkets or things like tier sets, things with additional stuff, but straight up pieces, they are right 100 out of 100 times.

- Because it is straight up math.

- When I reach the critical strike soft cap things will change stat wise and I could upgrade for item level purposes, maybe.

- I need the heroic tier legs, the best tier piece for me, and all I have is the normal version, so I am using a pair of 715 pants otherwise at the moment.

- But when I get the tier pants, with critical on them and then take off the gloves, without critical on them, and can put on the pair of 705 gloves with a gem slot I have, with critical on them, based on napkin math I will be at the soft cap for critical.

- Then I can start thinking of changing that neck piece, but now the value of critical is still high for me and makes that neck awesome.

- Needless to say, that person will never be questioning me about my gearing choices again.

- I know what I want to roll on before I step into the raid.

- Like if I know today is farm night and we are knocking out the first 6 or 7, or whatever we have time for, I know which ones I will roll on.

- If it is warforged is it an upgrade, if it has a gem slot is it an upgrade, does it need both to be considered an upgrade.

- Just seems like way to much work.

- Why can't they just make it simple?

- I thought that was their idea for this expansion, to make gearing more exciting and simpler.

- It now needs more research than ever before.

- And the loss of reforging makes it even worse, because now the seemingly good upgrades are useless.

- It would take anyone that does not look into stats make a gearing mistake easily.

- Take the necks I compared, the 691 and 710.

- To a novice the 710 seems like a sure upgrade, even if the 691 has a gem slot, but it isn't.

- However, with reforging still in game it would be.

- So they made gearing more complex by adding random stuff to it and removed the one thing that could be used to offset some of that added complexity.

- But then again, knowing what you would reforge would just add another level of complexity wouldn't it?

- So it would be replacing one problem with another problem.

- But that does not change the fact I want reforging back, I want it bad badly.

- But all these random things like warforged and gem slots really just screw everything up so nothing is as straight forward as it could be, or should be.

- How exactly does that make things easier?

- It also kills me for pugging stuff.

- My low item level keeps me out of so many runs because they see the item level and just dismiss me as fast as I sign up.

- Looking for my moose, as my guild has still not killed archie on heroic, as everyone seems to have given up after normal, so I tried to get into some groups.

- One said 725 item level, 40K DPS minimum.

- Seriously?

- What do they want, underachievers?

- If you are a 725 item level as a damage dealer and can only do 40K you are not all that attentive with what you are doing, do you really expect people that only do 40K at that item level to be attentive enough to follow the mechanics.

- No bother, I did not have the item level to sign up for it anyway, not that I would have, no thank you, that group was asking to wipe.

- Now if you said 680 and 40K, I would expect those people to all be decently skilled players.

- If they can pull that DPS at that level they need to pay attention to their class, which means they will pay attention to the fight mechanics.

- I would bet you anything that a group of all 680 people capable of 40K would get it down a lot easier than a group of 725 people all doing 40K.

- Because one group (the 680) would need to be the type that pays attention to details and the other group (the 725) would be the type that just slaps their keyboard and lets the gear do the work for them when they are not really paying attention.

- Next group that peaked my interest said 710 50K.

- That seems more reasonable.

- I might not be 710 but it counts the items in your bags and by bags I am 713 and not 705.

- So I sign up because I have the item level and can easily pull the required DPS they asked for.

- I wait about a minute and a half and get declined.

- Next up a 700 group that asks, fairly enough and this sounded like a group I would really like, that you have TisFC achievement and at least some attempts at heroic archie.

- I fit that, I am over 700, have the time achievement from a while back, and have had some pulls on the heroic version.

- I sign up, get turned down near instantly.

- What is it?

- sniff, sniff.

- Does my armor stink or something?

- I try again 6 or 7 times and get anything from the wait until it times out or get declined instantly.

- I decided I would try to make it easier on myself by adding some things when I signed up.

- Started saying won't roll on loot and linking my logs.

- That way if there is a friend in the guild that is a hunter they do not have to worry about me rolling on their loot.

- And if they follow the link to my logs they will see that I am normally between 94%-99% for my item level consistently, as my item level goes up my DPS goes up.

- So it is not just at a certain item level I do respectable, I usually do.

- After adding the no loot and logs thing I sign up for another 3 or 4, same results.

- Seriously how do people keep saying "pugging is so easy" when I spent the better part of 4 hours signing up for groups, groups I am WAY more than capable of being in, and not getting one.

- Sorry, pugging is not easy.

- Anyone that says otherwise is completely full of shit.

- If you get invited to a group because you are friends with someone, even if it is a pug, you can not call that pugging.

- Pugging is getting into a completely random group.

- And they seem to hate me.

- I have less luck finding a pug than I do getting loot.

- And we all know I have no luck getting loot being I just mentioned I am still wearing some blackrock foundry pieces.

- Now back to more fun stuff, mythic dungeons.

- Was easy enough to get all guild for those, so no need to pug.

- Loved them in all guild, they felt more like normal than mythic.

- The trash was harder than any of the bosses, but isn't it always that way.

- My favorite one was doing Auchiindoun.

- When you start to over power that one it is just a giant series of patchwork fights.

- First boss, dead before it threw the shield for us to get behind.

- Second boss, dead before it spawned the bubble we have to stand in.

- Third boss, dead before he lifted into the air.

- Forth boss, dead before the first abyssal finished spawning.

- In other words, all 4 bosses  just walk up to them, kill them, collect loot and walk off.

- I did all but 2 of the dungeons, won a total of 4 pieces, none I needed of course.

- But for anyone that might be keeping track of these things 2 of them were 685, one was 705 and one was 710.

- So from my tiny sampling 50% of my drops were warforged.

- In the run of those with guild two players got a maxed warforged one of 725.

- So it is not like the 725 are all that rare either it seems.

- What was that, 6 dungeons?

- So again, in that small sample, there was a one third chance that one in five people will get a 725.

- Seems like a small enough chance to make it reasonable that people are not covered in 725 gear from mythic but a big enough chance to make it worth running them.

- Too bad after this next reset I will not need valor any more, unless I get new gear.

- But I might keep doing the mythic dungeons to try and get upgrades from there.

- I have to try somewhere.

- I wish there was a way to disable the roll from popping up.

- I am always afraid I am going to click it by accident.

- I would not mind if the chance to win a 725, if you win, was 100%.

- But if I waste a coin and get lucky enough to win something it will be a 685, I am sure of it, so I would never waste a coin there.

- Unless I got my best in slot (heroic) gear from the raid and was looking for a specific piece.

- But like I said, that is not going to be happening anytime soon with my luck.

- The addition of valor made playing this weekend... enjoyable.

- And having flying made playing this weekend... enjoyable.

- Makes you wonder why these two things were not included at launch like they should have been.

- Aren't things that are enjoyable good for the game?

- I'd like to think so, but I understand if not everyone likes them, because not everyone likes the same things.

- This is why having them, as a choice, is a good thing.

- Those that want to do it can do it, those that do not want to do them don't.

- Choice is nice isn't it?

- I actually enjoyed doing dungeons again thanks to valor and flying for many reasons.

- 1) I flew around from dig site to dig site.

- 2) I flew around sporadically grabbing treasures I might have missed or killing rares.

- 3) I checked on rare spawns in T2 flying around.

- 4) When I got in the dungeon it went super smooth, I mean a heroic with pugs was as simple, easy and smooth as doing the mythics with my guild were.

- 5) I got to meet some people at or near my skill level instead of doing 80% of the damage or more sometimes.

- 6) I got to see some seriously geared people and see what they could do, like one run had a tank that was doing over 100K even on bosses which is insane for a tank.

- 7) And when it was all over I got a reward worth queuing up for in the first place, to me at least.

- Needless to say, I liked it.

- Just wish there were more reason to do it.

- Sad that after this week when everything is upgraded and I have a small stash, there really is no reason to do that again.

- I'll join guild mates for a few mythic dungeons here and there and that should keep me with enough valor should I win anything else.

- Either way, for a week it was nice.

- Now all they need to do is add more things to do with valor to make it worth doing each week.

- For my alts some valor gear would be nice.

- Not sure what else could be added, maybe a mount or two for 4000 valor.

- But even at that, you can get that in one week.

- As much as I really love that there is no cap on how much you can earn each week, other than running out of valor things to do, it is not good design.

- See, I can admit that even something I like is bad for the game.

- And I like being able to get over 4K valor in a week.

- But it is bad for the game.

- If it were 1K a week like before than it would have extended the life of valor being useful and the fun that I had this week getting it.

- Then again, maybe it wouldn't.

- I would log in on tuesday, knock out four mythic dungeons, and be done with valor for the week.

- So it still would not be as fun as it was this week.

- So what the hell do I know right?

- I am sure there is a happy medium, I just think blizzard needs to find it.

- I hope they figure out something before they release the next expansion.

- Because it would be really nice to have flying and a reason to do dungeons from the get go.

- So I can fly around doing things while I wait in queue and I can have a smoother run in the dungeons.

- Hey, I find that fun, nothing wrong with me wanting to have fun in game right?

- We do play to have fun after all don't we.

- Have a great day.

19 comments:

  1. Grumpy, I gotta say I agree with you on most points.
    1) Reforging: The purpose from Blizzard’s own mouth was to remove the need to visit outside sources/number crunchers to determine if your gear is an upgrade. You should be able to see a piece of gear and know if it is better or not and equip it immediately, instead of having to check a website (AMR) to determine that fact. They failed on this, hard; in fact, making it worse as those bad secondary upgrades lost a lot of value with the removal or reforging.
    2) PUGs: The Blizzard group finder tool is almost as aweful as the majority of people using it. I have AoTC for the last 6 tiers, multiple kills on every Heroic boss in HFC but Archy. I applied to approximately 40-50 groups over the last two weeks with ilvl 715 equipped (721 in bags), and didn’t get a single invite…EVER! I’m a MM who gets 90% or better out of my gear on the vast majority of pulls, I switch to priority targets near instantly, I am almost always in the bottom 5% of my team in terms of dmg taken. So, there is a tool that I want to use, and no matter my accomplishments or credentials, I can’t. I’d tell you how I honestly feel, but don’t care to use vulgarities as every word in every sentence.
    3) I did have a lot of fun doing mythics, once I could find a group that wasn’t 3 dps looking for a tank and healer. Seriously, I’m on 4 raid teams and couldn’t find a single group until the weekend. That being said, once I got it, they were fun and just as pushover as you said in your post. No upgrades on any of the mythics (all but 2) but I did get the heirloom trinket which was cheer inducing. Then I realized its 5% dmg buff vs demons on the proc would be handy for Heroic Archy! Double Boo yah!
    4) Valor and Happy Mediums: I agree, being able to grind out everything you need in 1-2 weeks is fun to start but in 2 weeks you have nothing left to do while the 6-8 month wait still hangs in the air til next expansion. I suggest Blizzard adopt the conquest/honor system for valor. That you have a weekly cap, but whatever you didn’t get the week prior, be rolled over and added to the next weeks cap. So if cap was 1000, you got 500, next week’s cap would be 1500 valor.
    5) Being able to fly around to the dungeons was very nice. Being able to fly from my garrison HQ to the Ashran portal is nice. Being able to fly is nice, period. It doesn’t get old. It doesn’t ruin any other experience for me, and it gives me smiles. Don’t think blizz is going to learn the real lesson. Offer it (with whatever cost, grinding questchain etc I don’t mind), provide the clear timeline of when it will be available from the start. Just be clear.

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    1. Ahhhh bloody formatting issues...sorry for the wall of text

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    2. I hate when that happens. It eats the spaces.

      1) Actually it seems "harder" to eyeball it thanks to random gem slots. I've seen people make horrible mistakes because of it.

      2) I want the old way back in addition to what they have. Where I list my name and what I am looking for and let people find me. I am sure listing what you did, someone would grab you up in a heartbeat instead of having to deal with the apply, decline, apply, decline, apply, decline vicious cycle.

      3) Congrats on the trinket, I got mine too. I wonder if it would be good for some fights? One this is for sure, it is massive for alts with crappy trinkets.

      4) I always loved the PvP method of gearing, and the conquest catch up thing make it 10 times better. I wish they would adopt that for PvE gearing.

      5) Blizzard just does not get it, flying is enjoyable. Not sure what is with the bug they have up their ass, but it is hurting the company making blanket statements that are flat out wrong like "being on the ground is more fun".

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  2. I have a 721 neck piece but am wearing a 705 because of the stats. How stupid is that. Blizz bring back reforging please. I also had a blast running Mythic's this weekend, Even when a certain hunter had a unfortunate Barrage "incident".

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    1. Was I in the group with you? :P

      I did that once or twice, but on purpose for fun. It was an all guild group. I said, lets see how many I can get and we still destroyed them. The plant packs in everbloom are great for mass pulling.

      Gear is weird that way sometimes, even more so when there is a gem slot involved.

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  3. I agree about WoD gear. It's definitely that bribe money from Ask Mr Robot to make gear as complicated as possible. I just want a few different pieces in each slot that you could equip, with fixed stats and no RNG bonuses, and an intuitive way to know which piece will be better for increased DPS, increased survivability, etc.?

    I got through LFR quickly on Tuesday and Wednesday, and a few heroics. LFR that's over quickly is the best LFR. Oregorger never gorged ore. Iron Reaver never left the ground. Archimonde died in less than three minutes from the queue popping.

    Haven't done mythic dungeons, because my guild doesn't have a lot of people doing them, and my social anxiety handles random anonymous queues for easy content a lot better than applying to groups in the Group Finder for harder content.

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    1. Funny how they made gearing "easier" (their words not mine) and it seems to be more annoying than ever for a fair deal of players. Doesn't seem like they succeed in making it all that much easier to me.

      The groups were how it should be if only LFR capable people were in them. They should not be designed for people that vastly over gear them to make them fun like that. It is a huge design fault on blizzards part.

      I have some serious issues with that too lately and it is getting worse. The groups make me not want to meet new people any more.

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  4. I did my daily heroic every day and I did all the HFC LFR wings on Tuesday (insta-queues for DPS FTW!). And the weekly timewalking as well.

    No Mythics for me. I'd need to pug them with the group finder and umm... no thanks...

    Not a fan of random warforged and sockets...

    Really, really wish they'd bring back reforging, but they always flat out say "NO"...

    I was really annoyed that they're pulling the same shit with flying in Legion...

    I wish we could chain run the heroics for valor up to a weekly cap, instead of only getting it from the first one each day.

    I like Thuggs idea of a weekly valor cap with a catch-up like Conquest. Valor should be for gear from the start of the expansion, not upgrades (and not only for the content drought)...

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    1. That weekly cap with the catch up for conquest gear is the best thing they ever added to the game. It should be the base design. I love it.

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  5. I tried pugging HFC HC last week and had a dreadful time. I didn't have my 4 piece, and had to post a fake AotC to get in, but it was a wipe-fest with the lowest 4 dps kicked after every pull regardless of what happened, which mechanics were screwed up, etc. A miserable experience I have no wish to repeat. That a player of your ability found it equally risible confirms my decision to stick with guild runs. I'm pretty sure we'll get Archie down on normal before the end of this month, and frankly that'll do me for this xpac. I hope we try on heroic too, but I don't think our guildies are up to the task sad to say. Maybe once we're all 10 ilevels higher from Valor it'll get easier. Fingers crossed.

    I must say I've loved the Valor runs we've done in guild. I've concentrated on Mythic dungeons and Timewalking because they're the most fun, and all the TWD were "new" to me, so that's been very refreshing and welcome this xpac. Not seen any new stuff since T2 in 6.2 and the few extra novelty bits added in 6.2.2.

    I don't want refording to come back, I want gear to provide the right stats for your spec, just like pieces can provide STR or AGI. Or boost each stat by a flat rate (like the Chipped Prism trinket from Kazzak). Make it a total non-brainer whether it's an upgrade or not to avoid people equipping what looks like better gear only to drop dps because of it. That is utterly ludicrous.

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    1. I would rather wait a little bit until we down it then pug, the groups are hell. Am I upset I am usually done with the raid by this point and I am not now? Absolutely, but no big deal, I have 10 months to get it done.

      You were not playing when the TWDs were new, than that is extra awesome for you. Get on voice chat with people that ran them back when they were current and hear some of the stories. I have some great ones and I am sure we all do. Makes for fun for everyone.

      I'd love to get gear with good stats, but blizzard is not going to do that. So reforging is the next best option.

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  6. I am a very lazy dungeoneer. I did not even do my timewalking in the week just gone. I did however fo some mythic dungeons.
    I did a few guild runs and then did one from trade. The trade channel one was with some stellar dps and a tank from the top guild on the server so it was going to be easy. However the high dps hunters were quite condescending to the 3rd dps who was a mage. When the asked me to do more I pretended I was saved and politely left group. On Monday night we had 4 guildies and I put in a premade run looking for one dps. I put an ilvl of 690 on it and got tons of applications and took the lowest ilvl person since we figured we couldn't use any loot but someone might. It made me think of your declines from pugs and ilvl required.

    I had to say the 725 ilvl with 40k dps made me laugh. I am 715 and a minimum of 50k dps is our benchmark for archi - if you can't pull 50k with 725ilvl you must be doing something wrong.

    However I disagree about reforging. I think that something needs to change if we need to go to AMR or some other 3rd party to figure out which item is better for us. Blizz doesn't like that and hopefully they will do something about it.

    Hope you get your HArchi soon.

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    1. Carry me to a heroic kill. j/k I might even get back on my horde hunter to finish off the ring. I have not logged into him in months. :P

      It is like I say about DPS all the time and why I call it the hardest role in the game. Even if everything does nice and easy, the lowest DPS is still "shit". That is what makes it the hardest role to fill in the game. I feel bad for that guy.

      That is what I am saying, if you are doing that low at that high of an item level it is the gear doing the work for you, not you getting the most out of your gear.

      They need to remove random stats and random gem slots. That is what needs to be done and that is why we still need to go to AMR.

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  7. Anon, Grumpy's former Guild Leader:

    Y'all sure do play a different game from me. Now most of my past weekend spent in-game was spent on my alts, gaining a level or two here and another one or two there. I fully approve of the valor restoration, even if it is still to limited in scope; but in truth, I earned not a point of valor nor did I want to do so. It is not that I don't see value in the +10 upgrade for surely it is there. It just doesn't matter to me for what I want to do.

    My game in WoW centers on solo play. I like having others around, and enjoy talking with folks but for game play I just as soon go off by myself and do whatever I want to do. As much as any reason, it was this that put me in the pro-flier camp. *

    Even though I play a totally different way than most of you gathered here at Grumpy's place, I am glad to see you guys get something good for a change. Just hope it works out for the long term.

    My big adventure of the weekend was carrying my paladin into Firelands. I barely remembered the place. As my paladin had never been there, I also got some achievements, including some that my main priestess never got.

    * I believe the Blizzard personal transportation system should run like this:

    level mode
    20 normal mount riding training 150%
    40 epic mount riding training 200%
    60 normal flight riding training 250% (Zen Flight 170%)
    80 epic flight riding training 300%

    As per the way ground mount riding is treated, i.e., once learned, it is applicable almost anywhere aside from indoors; I believe once flight riding training is learned, it should also be applicable in nearly all situations aside from indoors. The statement that it makes questing to easy simply means the developers need to improve their game in designing quests to begin with. They act like a person always descends directly on target, with never a patrol or guard noticing. That is not how I have observed folks playing personally. Sure sometimes you can do that, but most often you have to go down and then kill a bunch to finish your quest before you can mount up and fly away.

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    1. That must have been a throw back for you. As I recall firelands was the last raid where you were a regular raider. You tagged along a little in DS but you were mostly a fill in or part timer in groups 2 or 3. So firelands was the last time I recall you being a pushing raider.

      I believe I should be able to stay mounted even indoors in my garrison. Hey, I own the building, if I want to ride a bear into it I have the right to do so. :P

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    2. Anon, Grumpy's former Guild Leader:

      Yea, DS was me as a fill-in, and actually, it became me as a fill-in during Firelands. Heh, I did tag along in DS but I did so much tagging along, I finished the whole thing with both my main priestess and my number three priestess. I did a lot of filling in at that point in time. Since then, I have only been in one guild raid, that being BRF. It was fun and I seriously thought about getting back into raiding, but the gear grind is still there and that above anything else is what I despised about raiding.

      Odd how the one thing that motivates most to keep on raiding is the one thing that makes me not want to raid. Even at the height of my raiding days (nights), I never quite achieved BiS for every slot, though I came close. What makes that odd is the fact I frequently would win a roll and then give it to someone else who either needed it more or was going to be a baby and get all upset over not winning and thereby hurt the raid team. Hells bells, I virtually outfitted at least one warlock and one shadow priest that weren't my own doing so. Or at least it seemed so to me, though in truth it was probably only a few slots for each of them.

      If Blizzard ever had the odd weird notion of designing stuff to be fun in and of itself, then I might well consider raiding again. Until such unlikely an event occurs, I am probably at best a fill-in when absolutely needed (as in never virtually).

      I tried FFXIV, and it may well be a viable substitute for WoW, but I really do like the World of Warcraft. I know it's history. Heck, I played it all out from Orcs vs Humans on. I don't know the history of FFXIV in that way, so until and unless I finally quit WoW altogether, I am guessing I am not going to be changing games anytime soon. Blizzard keeps making dumb, stupid decisions on how to develop the game though, so it well may be that I quit sooner than I hoped. Already as it stands, I am determined to wait on purchasing Legion due to their flight stance.

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    3. History plays a big part and that is no small reason why many people are still hanging on to warcraft even if we are unhappy with it. We know the history, we have our own history, and we like that and can not let it go, or just do not want to let it go.

      It also helped that we had very few on the paladin priest warlock tier so you get all your tier sets really easy. Even my priest got geared in just a couple of runs thanks to that, and so many others.

      I am like that too. Even if I have horrible luck with gear I always seem to pass it to someone else I think might need it more. It is just our nature I guess.

      As long as RNG remains a factor, and even more so now with warforged and gem slots, raiding will never be pure fun. The random nature of gearing completely prevents that.

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  8. Just a small comment, it might be worth bonusrolling in GRD, for Kihra's. For me it simmed bis in the two highest ilvls (along with the boa trinket against demons...)

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    1. I was wondering about the BoA trinket. Seemed like it might be good on a couple of fights.

      Are you talking the one from the dungeon? Its stats seem really lackluster because how poorly they scaled mythic dungeon trinkets, but at least the on use is in line with normal trinkets even if the base stats are not. I can see that being really good for BM but I run mostly as MM, so it would not be as good for me I am sure.

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