With the next raid, Blizzard is building upon the finery buff that was added in the first season. Raiders would receive a gradually increasing buff over time as they worked their way through the raid, and this week is the final amount where it will cap at an 18% bonus. The Gallagio Loyalty Rewards club aims to build upon this with additional rewards and features while raid teams progress their way through the raid. There are 20 Renown tracks which means there will be at least 20 weeks of raid because you can only progress one Renown level per week. We can easily acquire Renown just by participating in the raid by defeating bosses or knocking out various Lieutenants throughout the raid. If you happen to fall behind, there are catchup mechanics where more reputation will be earned on kills until you get closer to parity.
The big prize that stands out is the return of the bullion currency (Puzzling Cartel Chip) which can be used for a player to redeem to a vendor for any weapon, trinket, or special item from the Undermine raid. Like what we had back in Season 4 of Dragonflight, these are items on their own upgrade track (a maximum of rank 14).
Unfortunately, the two Puzzling Cartel Chips drop at Renown 17 and Renown 19.
I would much rather see the Cartel Chip moved up earlier. For it to be released at week 17 and week 19 is fairly useless because it equates to being at a similar point to where we are right now in Nerub-ar Palace. Seriously, we would get new toys 4 months after the raid releases. I’d prefer to see one come out at week 12 (after 3 months) and the next one at week 16 (after 4 months). It gives us time to enjoy where it might impact progression, especially for any mid to late mythic progression teams.
In terms of other rewards, I would also advocate for another catalyst charge or two in some of the earlier Renown tracks just to help with gear flexibility and bad luck protection, especially for teams who are just unfortunate or who have a slightly imbalanced roster for tier sets.
It’s also odd to me that Enchanted Crests aren’t anywhere to be found in the reward track here, as they were offered in the other Renown reputation tracks outside of the raid. I would add consider adding an Enchanted Heroic Crest somewhere around Renown 10 and then an Enchanted Gilded Crest around Renown 14 just to further help players (and their alts) with crafting pieces as those will continue to maintain relevancy for alts and help out players who are behind on their gear (whether it’s due to playtime or as bad luck protection).
After testing the PTR the previous weekend when it was available for normal bosses, I appreciate the lobby area, which has all of the profession tables, vendors, and craft orders. I can see them coming in handy in the future and it’ll save raid groups time if they need to grab something.
Renown 18 comes with increased movement speed and an Auctioneer, but since we can mount around inside anyway, I feel like this particular reward isn’t as necessary. I suspect many raid teams will have at least one character with some kind of Brutosaur.
The Augment Rune vendor is a great touch, even if it comes in at Renown 14. It might be a potential money machine for those with an army of alts to simply pop in the raid, grab the rune from the dispenser, then resell it (assuming they’re tradeable, to begin with).
I like the innovation going on here with the Renown feature and can’t wait for it to go live in the next patch! But please consider changing the order of that Cartel Chip reward!