Titanforge Podcast 196 - Counterplay and Everbloom w/ Avade

This week we're joined by Liquid's Avade to talk about the opportunities for Counterplay in WoW, particular
0:00 Intro
8:00 Counterplay in WoW
50:00 Tip of the Week
55:00 Everbloom
1:12:00 Patreon Thanks
1:17:00 Q&A
Check out our Patreon at / titanforge
Come join our Discord: / discord
Music: Take a Chance by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song...
License: creativecommons.org/licenses/b...

[@nickstilwell760]

Missing Trell, but Avade was a great guest! ❤

[@Hubris21]

As someone who mostly pugs high keys, I very much prefer the timer NOT being the limiting factor. When the timer is the limiting factor, people hearth after a single mistake. The obvious solution here is "play with a group of friends," but someone has to speak up for the pugs. Pugs are better when the time isn't the limiting factor.

[@amethonys2798]

? They will still do that though and it is honestly WORSE when the boss is the limiting factor. If you wipe to something like Tyr with lust chances are you are never killing him without it and people are going to outright leave right then and there since the alternative is mindless banging your head into a wall for 7 minutes waiting for Sated.

[@handsomebear.]

As a full pug player, just don't constantly make mistakes. But if a mistake is made and you had _anything at all_ to do with it and/or you could've prevented/mitigated it by playing better- take full responsibility in chat and then do your best to either 1. not repeat your mistake(s) and/or 2. prevent/mitigate the consequences of someone elses mistake(s). Also pm leavers and shame them then put them on ignore before they have time to answer. _Just don't make the message too explicit due to the new hilarious social contract meme :V_

[@ragnarmcorcy]

People tend to forget that a large portion of the player base, pug everything

[@jamesraab214]

3k io opinion I only pug and I much much much prefer the timer being the limiting factor so I know that we’re not going to time this key ten minutes in rather than get to the last boss wipe twice to unfortunate overlap or one shots and waste 30 minutes.

[@guffels]

Flash backs to Nokud second boss if the healer couldn't do the hos check, it was an insta abandon. Putting the onus of the key on DPS instead of HPS is the biggest thing needed for game health

[@jneal713]

You aren't missing out on playing the Dragonflight dungeons. This season is the best because there's only two Dragonflight dungeons in the pool for m+.

[@BeepBoop335]

I have always thought that updating affixes to work like Hades heat would be interesting for M+. Remove key level and just have sliding scales for fort and tyran and then you can opt in to as many affixes as you want and/or increase their severity/proc rate. You could even have certain affixes locked for each week like we do now, but you can add more to increase the challenge - the goal being to force some diversity in affix loadouts. This type of system would be ideal for an ever-changing dungeon pool where certain affixes become way worse in some than in others.

[@carteks1]

In the craziest turn of events, avade has been by far the best healer you’ve had on the podcast.

[@ArizonaBreakdown]

52:30 Just checked the dungeon journal and it turns out Tettles is right Aqueous Burst: "Upon reaching zero health, the Aqueous Globule erupts and inflicts X Front Damage to all players" Genuinely never knew killing the orbs does dam, haha

[@Muspelful]

For those who are curious, based on some quick napkin math, an orb would deal about 500k damage on 25 Tyran.

[@ivanleonov4579]

Yup I knew that and it's funny how they gaslit him into thinking he's wrong lmao

[@mattayers4592]

love you guys . keep it comming

[@CoffeeBeerHeals]

Damage taken being the limiting factor to timing a key makes Aug a guaranteed spot at a certain key level. I think the only way to fix that is to add more supports or change the limiting factor

[@unknownsoldier452]

that waycrest hotfix actually has bugged the triad boss - we had one of the sisters randomly run in to the corner of the room and tank couldnt get a control of her

[@ZKrinny]

Tank threat on that boss has been fucked all week. Its like you’re not getting full threat on your abilities and dps are that cleave have to constantly taunt the non active ones or someone gets random melee swing when it goes active

[@ac833]

​@ZKrinny that's not even a threat issue. I tanked it today and it happened to me and the mob just stops interacting. It doesn't respond to taunts and it stops casting and just runs

[@ZKrinny]

@@ac833 my plater shows i get aggro for like 2 gcds after the taunt then its gone again

[@dirusj4006]

We had the same thing happen. The final sister just flat out ran from us. It was rather funny but could easily brick a key if they reset because of it.

[@Kittsuera]

just want to point out that that ping tip of the week is an S tier tip. solves so many issues finding party members in all the chaos. just did a "/ping [@Target] Assist" one.

[@alenpotocnik1522]

They should have made abom limb to change color based on the spec, red for blood, green for unholy and ice blue for frost (imo)

[@Kittsuera]

What if tyrannical added an extra ability or mechanic to the boss encounters? Or what if the order of abilities was changed? Or instead of direct damage or hp it got a 15% haste buff? Or the spell ques was like 5 seconds faster between abilities, so they rotate faster. What if it added a few extra adds to the fight? Like, you dont necessarily need to kill the extra adds but they are more things you need to think about. Extra cc targets.

[@amethonys2798]

It's just insane to me how we can have mobs like the Juggernauts and Berserkers who have very little counterplay in the same pool as the snake miniboss in Rise who does effectively the same thing (charges a player's location) yet the latter can be played around without mandatory 3rd party tools since not only is he just slower in regards to travel speed, but has a cast animation indicating he is going to charge you in the first place.

[@ztormur6504]

i think they have been successful on making the keys more about the dungeons and less about the affixes. but i also feel like as we have stripped the affixes a bit down, it has highlighted the difficulty disparaty between fortified and tyranical weeks. especially in this dungeon pool.

[@pamelajacosqui]

4:32 I have the exact same feeling - as a shadowlands baby having to learn new dungeons (to me) that everybody else already knows is difficult bc there’s the expectation of knowledge that it kinda puts me off I also wonder how much of the whole “+28 is the highest possible key to complete” is also bc people already know routes/mobs/so it’s basically reclear instead of learning and developing routes?

[@ziminar93]

Last season should be 8 Dragonflight dungeons to finish off

[@VersusAllOdds]

Barely any are enjoyable... they are nasty from start to finish, except for AA maybe.

[@ThatFatGuy6969]

​​@@VersusAllOdds I wasn't the biggest fan of them either tbh. Part of why I stopped playing in S1 Also isn't Algethar Academy the one with the tree boss that spawns adds? Most of my PUG groups couldn't handle that one 😅

[@VersusAllOdds]

@@ThatFatGuy6969 it was one of the more difficult ones during tyrannical, but it was at least partially fun. Ohn'ara, Azure Vault, Neltharus, Ruby... all of them are horrible dungeons.

[@firdatgame]

What if above 20/25 the difficulty stops going up, but the timer starts going down?

[@Joakim9595]

Then it just becomes MDI

[@Spyger279]

Or the enemy HP scales more than the damage.

[@Kittsuera]

It could infinitely scale still but it needs to be scaling by a flat rate and not multiplied harder. By lvl 30 it should be 150% of the damage and 300% more hp. Or reverse, 300% damage but only 150% more hp. Ex: 10 damage base is now 25 damage. And 100 hp is now 400 hp

[@zeitz4473]

What I do in my keys is when bolstering hits the berserkers. We have the ranged somewhat group up then aoe stun the berserkers and if they are still alive we place a ring of peace in front of the caster group. Binding shot and ursols also works. But many classes just don't have counterplay

[@shmooperdoodle]

I was really excited about Waycrest coming back, but it has been so buggy. Like “Tol Dagor” buggy. So many abilities pull mobs through walls or from an upper floor. It’s so frustrating.

[@quintit]

I've been so confused, sometimes my plater profile just goes grey on some mobs. No idea why

[@amannotnamedbob]

I find it fun to brainstorm on ideas. Tyrannical could scale up based on key level so a M+10 would be +10%hp/5% damage or Alternatively make it different “Bosses seek to dissuade you”causing your timer to be 1 min less per boss or by a percentage per boss

[@reidom1994]

Bring back teeming but contributes partially to mob count too

[@Gorthaal]

Could tyran/fort be put in the 7/14 pool with the rest and then have a seasonal affix or something??? I’m sure I’m not the first to think about that

[@WraghEU]

How about change Bolstering to : "bolster on death with % dmg and hp equevelent to count dead enemie give to mob count" ? This way big pulls with small mobs would not nuke team with one left-alive gigamob

[@WarMage]

something i haven't seen mentioned yet, maybe could be looked into and a topic for discussion, keys are scaling differently this season... i checked 18 to 23 on monday night by resetting my everbloom we decided not to run, got the following numbers: 297, 336, 380, 428, 481, 539... that's a 12% to 13% increase per key level, not the 10% they did last season...

[@michaelwhatley]

If bolstering and frenzy affected only melee hits instead of spells, that would be good.

[@amethonys2798]

Bolstering should just only affect tank damage. They determine pull size anyway. Getting farmed by non-tanks getting one shot from unavoidable damage is unbelievably cringe. Also, even though it isn't Bursting this week, the fact they STILL haven't made it work like Bolstering where the "stacks" are independent of each other is insane.

[@EpicGarfield]

According to Adventure Journal, killing the Water Orbs on Writhebark deals damage to all Players.

[@amethonys2798]

13:25 XIV is usually pretty "decent" with this. It is straight up impossible to react to a lot of hitboxes shown (see things like bonds on P10 or partner/lp stacks in P11), but at least when you do get hit you realize "oh it is about a 5 yard hitbox" or "oh that spawns a doughnut aoe" or whatever.

[@thatepicwizardguy]

everbloom salvo on tyran is my least favorite thing from this entire season. it's so ass on that 3rd boss... how many defensives am I supposed to have for that boss? jesus christ lol it's like either my healer can somehow insanely heal through it or not and god forbid a single person get hit by anything cuz then it's a wipe. awful. EDIT: true, that stun tree is fucking awful too. should be a root not a stun.

[@wowsew]

The intro makes me think im watching star trek lmao ggs on the video

[@Dooferification]

Fort and tyran should just be part of the scaling so week to week half the dungeon isnt trivialized. They could still be an affix so there is the 5 min boss week but i dont think it should be every other

[@FoliumSakura]

instead of fort/tyran, just run a different "seasonal style" affix each week. Those kiss/curse bone/bane ones, would be a way to add flavor each week while giving people something to look forward to in a dungeon rather then just hating every affix

[@FoliumSakura]

oh heck, they mentioned that, the seasonal affixes

[@ScottMys]

What if instead of Tyrannical for that week timers are 20% faster?

[@hankmartin9455]

What if fort weeks were the same with needing mob %, but boss kills weren't required (but give a lot of %) and tyran weeks had much less % needed but all bosses need to be killed?

[@duetobe]

I think the thing is, when dungeons are infinite scaling, it should be lack of dps that means you cant time, not dying.

[@merenwen_gaming]

Entangling with last boss Murozond Rise when you have to stand under the ball but you have to move out or else you get stunned…. …. THAT is an unfair mechanics.

[@amannotnamedbob]

Fortified could be increasing the number of certain trash mobs but don’t add count. Or increasing the required count that could be scaled by key level.

[@grubgrub1809]

Nice

[@lukemoore6325]

The best bolstering is the bats in BRK bolstering. reeeeeeal spooky

[@travislamar5986]

Avade!

[@danielsun9124]

Everbloom is infinitely better than Iron Docks or the Train Ride dungeon , comparing that they came from the same expansion

[@prisonmike2107]

Not the bees!

[@syzmical]

All episodes could be double length in my humble opinion. However this one in particular could have gone for double digit hours! Brilliant conversation despite missing Trell the havoc push god.

[@amethonys2798]

I think Raging could be "solved" with it simply being a sliding scale of "CC Reduction" applied based on their health. They are at 63% health? They have 37% reduced duration of CC. It would still be "near immune" when low on health, but it wouldn't be a guaranteed wipe when Knife Dance goes off since even at 1% health they are still stunned for 0.01 seconds or whatever.

[@TheDarkRival]

Tettles was right about Yasma's soulrend, I've played WW a bit this season and I can kill my team with touch of death on the adds

[@remsavirempoker6876]

Is there anything Avade doesn't know in keys?

[@danielschultz96]

tettles is right, killing the water orbs does dmg, but 1 at a time i dont think will ever kill you

[@RobertRaithel]

So enraged should work like this, 'mobs under 30% health enrage. when mob enraged, deals 'x' increased damage unless crowd controlled, while crowd controlled, enraged mobs receive 'x' % increased damage' this would punish you for not cc'ing, but reward you for doing so. literal 'kiss/curse' shit ion has been talking about for awhile.

[@loganboyd10]

Yeah only tanked BRH one time but Strike Down is burned into my memory

[@Ruti528]

10.2 pull the goblins back to spawn get farmed by one shot spears until the pack dies if we only die to it 20 or 30 times we might still 2 chest

[@vustag6325]

all affixes are bad, it's just a matter of how bad. throwing a random mechanics at a random time in a dungeon is never going to make for a smooth experience. The only virtue of affixes is that they change things up every week but frankly in every other way they are just straight up detrimental to the m+ experience. a solution would be no affixes but tyran and fort and then rework those to add thoughtful mechanics to bosses or trash to make it different and interesting. make tyran make the bosses 5 min instead of 3 min and give them extra mechanics to match etc.

[@ScottMys]

Avade sounds just like Preheat to me

[@fendo89]

Tyran makes bosses annoying, Fort makes the entire instance annoying. I will never understand why people complain about Tyran but give Fort a pass....

[@luuxii]

Everbloom is just not fun imo for any role

[@dojyr3130]

i like tanking it

[@ThePolarpop]

I mean make the 2nd bosses cast slower and make 3rd boss not complete rng and it becomes ok I think

[@AlexanderForsman]

Outside of broken mechanics, the easy solution to beating tyrannical is stop AOE whoring and chose ST talents instead

[@Charlee4459]

Since there is a timer, the time lost clearing trash with single target FAR outweighs time lost on bosses.

[@AlexanderForsman]

@@Charlee4459 not if you can't kill them with AOE

[@Charlee4459]

@@AlexanderForsman single target talents may shave off 2-3 minutes on bosses but you lose 5-8 minutes not being able to kill trash. So the greater good is take classes that can do both well (dh, be, evoker) but the more important part will always be aoe damage.

[@Charlee4459]

@@AlexanderForsman and… it’s what everyone does. You don’t know better than the people who are 3700 IO.

[@AlexanderForsman]

@@Charlee4459 Actually, calcualtions was made that that's jsut not the case. And even know you can see classes with different talents for ST and AOE switch between them on different weeks. =D

[@TheGImp1214]

I’ve been watching you guys for years, tettles lately has gotten so lost in the sauce and being a doomer i’m mo longer interested in watching podcasts with him involved. Good luck to you guys