Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Seals of Tempered Fate - The New Bonus Loot Coin

In Warlords of Draenor, we're going to have a new generation of the bonus roll for raid content that was introduced in Mists of Pandaria. In Mists, the way that the system worked was that you would gather Lesser Charms of Good Fortune, and then spend a large number of them (it was 90 at first, but then lowered to 50) at your faction's shrine in order to get three of the latest bonus roll currency as part of a weekly quest. Lesser Charms were originally only available from daily quests (again, dailies were definitely mandatory for pretty much everyone in the early patches) but beginning in 5.3, in certain areas and then later all of Pandaria, level 90 and higher mobs would drop lesser charms.

Each tier of content in Mists had its own type of coin - Elder Charms of Good Fortune for tier 14, Mogu Runes of Fate for tier 15, and then Warforged Seals for tier 16. As each new tier was introduced, we got new methods of acquiring antiquated coins, and these were no longer limited to three a week. Elder Charms can still be acquired in chests and off of rare enemies on the Isle of Thunder (and particularly through the Treasure Halls of Lei Shen solo scenario.) Mogu Runes of Fate can then be bought with Timeless Coins from the Timeless Isle.

In Warlords, tier 17 at least will use Seals of Tempered Fate, but the manner in which you acquire them is refreshingly diverse.

There are NPCs in the Ashran capitals that will give you weekly quests to get your seals. There are four options available - you can get them with Honor, Gold, Garrison Resources, or Apexis Shards. Honor and Gold are gotten in the old fashioned manner. Garrison resources are sometimes awarded by quests and rare "vignette" mobs, but you can also generate some through the Trading Post or Lumber Mill buildings, and your garrison will naturally generate resources that can be claimed at your garrison's stockpile, near your command building (town hall/great hall.) Apexis Shards are a new currency that are somewhat comparable to Justice Points (which are sadly disappearing.) However, you acquire Apexis Shards by killing enemies in the various "assault" areas that a daily quest in your garrison will direct you toward once you hit 100. The quests will reward typically 800 a day, while enemies will only sometimes drop one shard, so mostly you'll be getting 800 and change a day if you do those quests.

Now, reading this you might find yourself worrying: What if you hate questing and PvP and just want to run dungeons and dungeons alone? Without a source of Honor and Apexis Shards, wouldn't you be screwed out of that last seal?

Well, no. First of all, each of these quests can be repeated up to three times a week, but each repeat in the week will raise the cost. So if you have tons of gold to spare, you can buy all three of your seals in gold, but the cost will be quite high. They are encouraging you to diversify your play style, but it's not a strict requirement.

Having the Dwarven Bunker/War Mill in your garrison (at level three, I believe, which will require some hard work) will allow you to get one of those three weekly Seals for free, which is a pretty big incentive (though other buildings have pretty awesome stuff as well.)

Also, occasionally you'll get follower missions that will reward a Seal of Tempered Fate. I don't know if this actually counts against your weekly three, but as I interpret it, I believe it means that if you're lucky enough to get this mission (and have followers capable of completing it) you might occasionally get an extra Seal.

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