The Race to World first starts today in the US and OC, so Method raiders will have to wait another day to prepare for their progress in the Eternal Palace, which is why we had a little chat with a few of them. We had a short chat with Cayna, Chrispotter, Deepshades, Konah, Nnogga and Scripe about race preparations and whether they differed this time around, what their opinions are on some new patch 8.2 features, what the loss in Crucible meant and more.
So, the race is about to start again and Heroic week is here. Were there any new ways to prepare for the Palace this time around? Did you need to do anything more before the actual Heroic splits this week?
Chrispotter: This time round in 8.2 we had to farm like mad people, pearls from the new zone Nazjatar are way too valuable. You can use them to get residuum, craft on alts and gear alts up. Also getting new essences from the 2 reps, Island Farming for Traits and the essence. Way too much to do, we are all exhausted before Heroic week has even started.
Cayna: Any algans in chat?
Is there anything different to Heroic week farming this time around?
Cayna: Our splits have more outside sources integrated, in hopes of reaping the biggest harvest possible from the personal loot system, but all in all it's basically the same, a week of hefty loot funneling.
What’s the most important thing/item to have for this progress?
Nnogga: Time to farm pearls, artifact power, reputation and prepare professions is the most important resource of all. Many players are playing up to 18 hours per day since the release of 8.2. Preparations for this raid tier are more insane than any other tier this expansion.
How did not getting that 1st place in Crucible affect preparations and motivation for this one?
Chrispotter: We lost Crucible partly due to attendance issues, so we focused on getting some new recruits in and also making sure people would have the availability to progress.
Konah: Not getting Crucible 1st was crushing. I didn't play any games for over a week and just spent the time reviewing what I personally could have done differently to perform better. Preparing for this race I have invested a lot more time and reworked a lot of my UI to improve performance while also picking up how better to use VoDs to help learn fights.
How long are you expecting Azshara to last? Do you see a possibility of a Kil’jaeden three week race or even longer?
Scripe: I think it will be around 6-10 days max. I don't think we will see a Kil'jaeden ever again. (At least I hope not.)
How do you feel about the difficulty progression of raids and endbosses specifically in this expansion?
Deepshades: Pretty bad IMO. Right now its “rush” to end boss and progress that for a week. The curve seems really off. I prefer to go back to Nighthold/Tomb of Sargeras tuning.
All the top guilds will be streaming progress this time around, how much did not knowing how Pieces were doing affect your Crucible and Uu’nat race experience?
Cayna: “Guys I heard Pieces is 5%” This will now stop thank god.
Is Azerite gear less of a hassle to get in 8.2? Is it a better system now?
Cayna: No, remove it. Gimme tiersets back. Most balance feels off, only a few traits are wanted. It's legit just look for a good piece and delete the rest.
You’ve now done two streaming events while racing - for those of you that were on-site for them, how is raiding different in that environment from your usual process? How was raiding Crucible from home different from Uldir and BoD and now Palace?
Deepshades: For me personally playing at an event is way more hype and enjoyable than at home. There is definitely downsides like lack of sleep and distraction at the event site.
