The Top Floor

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Wow-64 2016-08-21 01-07-10-94

Off and on throughout this event I have used the “elevator” metaphor to explain how the experience bonus of the invasions has felt.  It started off as a steady elevator, and then took a bunch of detours for maintenance.  However at the end the final version felt like it was picking up speed as I finished the climb towards the top.  The other day Devolore made a comment about this invasion that I think is worth sharing.

devolore_comment

While I realize the goal of the event was not to level everything to 100… that is precisely what I set out to do.  Before the initial change I managed to get my Priest from 92 to 100, and then turned around and got my Mage from 90 to 100.  That left only my little monk that starting last Wednesday was sitting at only level 53.  In the last four days I have finished the climb to 100, finally dinging off of an invasion last night after we wrapped up recording the podcast.  It was a wild ride filled with pure madness, but overall it was an enjoyable one.  This is the feeling I have been chasing for awhile, going into an expansion knowing that every single character on at least my primary server was ready to go and awaiting the next content release.  There are a bunch of things I learned on the trip, and I took care last night to log some of my findings.  The rest of this post is likely going to be a bunch of bullet points explaining what all I found out.

  • It took a total of 49 Invasions to go from level 53 to 100
  • I was wearing full heirlooms the entire way, so adjust accordingly
  • That makes it .95 levels per invasion completed
  • I saved 97 loot boxes while doing the even, 49 Blue, 48 Green.

The Loot

97_chests

This is what 97 loot boxes from the event looks like sitting in my bank.  I saved every single one from the moment I started climbing from 53 to 100, in a large part because I wanted a bunch of information to be able to draw conclusions from.  On a whim I ended up opening all of my Green chests first, and they my Blue chests… which caused me to notice a pattern.

Phase 2 – Small Legion Chest – Can Contain

  • Bracers
  • Gloves
  • Belt
  • Boots
  • Weapons

Phase 4 – Large Legion Chest – Can Contain

  • Helm
  • Shoulders
  • Chest
  • Pants
  • Weapons
  • Coalesced Fel

In the course of the events I ran I got 118 items to drop from the chests, and around 2000 nethershards… but I was not keeping as good of track on that number as I did the others.  As I opened the boxes I recorded the what dropped and divided up level 700, 710 and 720 drops in the hopes of being able to pull some percentages together on the chance of each.

Level 700 Item Drops

  • Helm – 9
  • Shoulders – 13
  • Chest – 10
  • Bracers – 11
  • Gloves – 11
  • Belt – 8
  • Pants – 9
  • Boot – 6
  • Weapon – 14
  • Coalesced Fel – 9

Level 710 Item Drops

  • Helm – 2
  • Shoulders – 1
  • Bracers – 2
  • Gloves – 1
  • Belt – 3
  • Pants – 1
  • Boots – 5

Level 720 Item Drops

  • Shoulders – 1
  • Belt – 1
  • Pants – 1

So in total I got 100 level 700 drops, 15 level 710 drops, and 3 level 720 drops.  Using some quick and dirty math that means that I got a Warforged 710 item 12% of the time, and a 720 item 2.5% of the time.  In any case… my Monk is likely going to be my best geared character once I complete the Broken Shores content and get my ring and trinket.  Leveling through Invasions was often times frustration… but overall it was an extremely enjoyable experience.  I would love to say I would do this same rough on my hordies… but with only nine days until the launch of Legion I just am not sure if I have that sort of grind in me.  More than likely I will be focusing on filling the gear holes in my various characters, and pushing them all through the broken shores and follow-up content.

4 thoughts on “The Top Floor”

  1. Lore can say what he wants now. But, Blizz obviously overtuned the exp from invasions when they first came out and people noticed and started to use it. Then Blizz tried to scale it back and all hell broke loose.

    While the purpose of invasions may not be to level all your alts, Blizz put things in place for people to do just that.

  2. There’s truth in what devolore says, but it’s also ambiguous truth.

    “Reality is…” “… NOT get every class to 100.”

    What you did: “While I realize the goal of the event was not to level everything to 100… that is precisely what I set out to do.”

    The real reality is likely that the truth is many people were like-minded and whether Blizzard themselves said the point is not to get every class to 100 – the reality is many made it the point to use invasions to get to every class to 100.

    And then there’s those that are just using it “to have fun” – and they are still being handed extremely large buckets of XP which is… getting their classes to 100(and very fast).

    I find invasions strange and bewildering. One person told me its intended mechanic is to play catch-up and get people geared – to more quickly fill in the gap and let us quickly better our gear for new content.

    It’s of course all of the above really. I find that Blizzard always does a great job of killing 20 birds with 1 stone and utilizing mechanics in WoW to work well for many different reasons from many different angles, regardless of how players approach them.

    There’s now more than ever, very little need to have an XP and leveling system in WoW at all. In fact, much of the newer content(which is fun) doesn’t utilize it at all, but does utilize “hidden” leveling and multiple currencies. The shunt it over to Garrison Resources, shards, and gold to level in Garrisons.

    Honestly, I think Blizzard is going to be able to keep WoW going for many more years due to slowly changing the game, not straight adding to it.

    For me the game is about leveling some garrison buildings so I can go after some wolf mounts. Others it’s about PvP, playing pokemon, farming, collecting mounts/pets/costumes. I think actually gaining power/raiding/leveling is being phased out, because it’s not a game about any of that anymore(or it’s the minority now).

    Invasions serve as an extremely quick(whether AFK or not) method of jumping ridiculous levels, so we can start playing the game, because leveling isn’t very much of a part of “playing” the game anymore.

    Invasions kind of is about getting all your classes to 100.

    But… being at 100 doesn’t mean anything in those old-timey definitions of the term or terms it used to be associated with.

    There’s so much kinda fun, cool stuff to do. I’ve spent a week mostly-enjoying going after my first wolf mount which has nothing to do with old-school MMOing at all. And after that, I’m going to go after a crap-ton more mounts which will all have very different methods of fishing, crafting, questing and non-MMOing fun to go through to obtain those other mounts. Then, I’m likely going to do the same for finding the coolest outfits/skins and pets.

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