What’s new?
New Timewalking Dungeons
Since this feature was live, I think I ran only 2 old dungeons through Timewalking: Mana Tombs and Nexus. I didn’t get why I need them at all.
If you felt any nostalgy or wanted to do some achievements… you could solo them without any Timewalking. Now I’m exactly soloing Lich, Cata and Panda dungeons to cover old achievements, and I could do them without waiting for groups with my own pace. Solution: soloing old dungeons on my main. Whichever I need for achievements despite availability, whichever I feel like doing at the moment and whenever I want to without waiting for “events”.
If you need any gear – well, I don’t need any gear this way. Same as with free gear in Tanaan, I feel it extremely unbalanced considering effort/reward. You get your 675 or even 695 piece for NOTHING, while LFR gear is 675-685. Timeless Isle prepared players for raiding, you could farm a 496 set in one day and then go to LFR for your 528 pieces. Now, the free gear makes even Normal Raid gear useless. It’s not about casualising the game, it just doesn’t make sense.
Cross-Realm Mythic Raiding
A devoted LFR player is writing this post here.
Item Upgrades and Valor are back!
Yes!! But like with flights, they’re late with the feature for at least 6 months. After my 3-months HFC marathon which I don’t want to repeat for at least until new year, I don’t imagine why I need any Valor now.
I would definitely spend my time upgrading my items if I farmed Valor throughout Draenor. But you have to do it during current raiding, during current dungeons, during current dailies. Now I don’t see any reason to waste huge amounts of farming time only to upgrade my gear 10+ points. Be it 50+ points, the green gear in Legion beats it in the first day, and in Draenor I can cope with my current ilvl. Farming for farming sake? Gee, thanks.
Baleful Item Level Boost
Baleful tokens are the worst in loot system and they suck. It’s the same as if you’ve got a gear piece of level 545 in Pandaria for doing Halfhill farm routine, while Siege LFR gear was 528. Why not make them 785 at once? It will make people farm more Apexis! Not me though.
Warlords Season 3
I don’t care about any PvP at all. I don’t even know what “season” or “cap” means.
Archimonde’s Moose
Although I’m craving to learn how they mashed up Moonglade druidic circle with Draenor and Archimonde, I’m not doing Heroic Raids.
Conclusion
All in all it’s hardly a content patch that could get me busier in WoW. Just because I like the game for other things. A piece of story, maybe?
This patch says: you’re so pissed off grinding same Draenor that we want you to grind old dungeons until you hate them too. Free loot!
Ugh.
Gnomecore 
New player perspective here, i never did most of dungeon at level, when i reached level 90 i started soloing them which was not much fun, there is no challenge, i did them for achievements, with time walking i can go back to experience these dungeons at level, wipes can happen because people don’t use CC, or pull too much or don’t interrupt casters.
The other motivation to do them is the quest to do 5 of them and get a heroic HFC item level, and now with Valor and the time walking currency there is more reasons for me to do them, i want to buy mounts and upgrade.
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When I did this Timewalking run, it was the same as while leveling. It’s no effort!
The group just swipes everything in our way. I think one of the reasons is that we have a full arsenal of spells at 100, while at current leveling content it was like… half of abilities? Anyways, it took us 5-15 minutes to finish any dungeon while leveling, it’s the same with Timewalking.
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It looks like most of this mini-patch isn’t aimed at the “I ran 11 toons through the whole legendary quest via lfr” demographic ;-)
The upgrades are just a way of nerfing content over time, ‘earned’ rather than freely-given nerfs, to help raid guilds clear a few more bosses.
The by-product is that it gets people running more dungeons.
Perfect for me and my guild.
Timewalking is more group content and I can see it’s appeal (even if it isn’t for me), it’s the closest you can get to the original experience (even if it is a long way off).
I like that Blizzard are making some of their older content relevant in some small way, some of it really is fantastic.
I definitely agree that the timing is off though, did it really take this long for Blizzard to realise that there needed to be some rewards attached to dungeons?
I don’t understand your hatred of Baleful gear.
Timeless prepared you for lfr, Baleful does exactly the same. It starts at 655ilvl.
But it also allows you to put in more time/effort and bypass lfr to go straight to normal if you prefer.
More diverse gearing routes is exactly what the game needs.
Why that moose is gated behind Archi HC I have no idea though, Blizz have completely lost me there.
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I don’t like that when I one-shot a random orc in Tanaan I can acquire a 675 level item.
Compare to a Socrethar fight or a Kilrogg fight which also provides you with 675 level gear. Are these efforts equal? That’s the point.
I deliberately get rid off any baleful items if I have a replacement from LFR, even if it’s 10 ilvl less. That just feels more fair.
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Ah cool, I understand. Fair enough, I can definitely get behind the idea.
If it was just 655 gear (no epic procs) and you had to grind, thereby putting in some time and effort, for the upgrades would you feel that was a fairer system?
Maybe the empowered ilvl would also need to match lfr ilvl if we want the effort/reward balance to be closer.
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Yes, of course. For now, just doing dailies, 650/675 gear rains upon you. And Apexis just drops by itself, plus Garrison missions.
You could farm Tanaan for a day and then just sit in your Garrison, watching your gear items upgrade by themselves, to the point that excedes any LFR gear, even the warforged ones.
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