World of Warcraft: Legion - Week 2 in Review (Ah, the great outdoors!)
Another week has passed along the Broken Isles, and we’ve all been hard at work building up our 600k crit Shield Bash moves and pumping our artifacts full of otherworldly power for the good of the realm. Last week I only managed to scrape 2 or 3 levels out of the the Legion expansions first leveling zone – this time I’ve done them all!
Sure, maybe I was a little slower than those who reached the new level cap in a day or two, but this line of work, despite people’s preconceptions, doesn’t really allow for that kind of time dedication – especially not when you’re juggling two time-sink MMOs for the same purpose!
Now, this is a diary of sorts. We touched on this last week. For the month of September we’re documenting the first 4 weeks of an MMO’s expansion – the largest, freshest part of its waning existence every other year. We’ll handle the second week of leveling this time around, and get into the nitty-gritty of end-game in the final two articles over the month.
The Experience
I shot off back to Skyhold to spend the points I’d earned by leveling up my Artifact weapon throughout Highmountain pumping as much as I could into making my Revenge ability dish out more hurt.
The popular Protection Warrior spell has its cooldown reset consistently with blocks and dodges while throwing out potent damage to everything in front of me. When I have the survivability to take on a dozen enemies at the same time, having ever more chances to spam my hotkey made leveling a breeze when my usual partner was away on vacation. Not once was I put down through any of the zones outside of a 5-man dungeon with an eager rogue with no spatial awareness; meaning I breezed through numberous quests at a time fairly often without much thought.
I’d heard Protection Warrior was strong this time around, but it was strange to be landing further up the damage tables than some dedicated damage classes.
Regardless; I clicked through the available artifact talents and beefed up my defences a little later on. Damage is good and all, but the survivability doesn’t always apply to 5-man dungeons against less forgiving enemies.
The Halls
Venturing back to the east hall of Skyhold, I set course for Stormheim – the home of my dead Vyr’kul friends taking such care of me up in the heavens right now.
I hired some Valajar reinforcements and sent them on their way during an Order Hall mission too – something I’d keep track of with the handy Companion app on my phone throughout the week. Something I just checked again right now. It’s a disease, I’m sure of it.
Heading down to Stormheim I was already pretty certain of what to expect. If you played during Wrath of the Lich King, you’ll know the Val’kyr already. The Nordic warriors with good taste in ambient background music. The whole storyline revolved around their fallen bloodline and the inability for their beloved dead to return to Skyhold at their demise, instead being dragged down to something I can only imagine is the corrupt version of Fólkvangr.
As a big fan of Wrath of the Lich King, seeing these monstrously tall fellow sword-swingers in the limelight again was something of a trip down memory lane to me. It even adopted a hookshot-style mechanic used to scale the taller walls and cliffs scattered all over the zone, making for some pretty interesting exploration.
Stormheim itself may not have re-adopted the brunt of the Howling Fjord’s charming hills, but it surely clawed back the feel. It’ll be a little easier to appreciate through a few screenshots and a lengthy, sloppy trip through the Halls of Valor - Stormheim’s main story dungeon.
The Forest
Val’Sharah, on the other hand, has every chance of being crowned my king of zones. A lush forest so densely populated with trees, grass and centaurs my PC wasn’t sure where to focus the resources. While probably not the best place to remember to crank up the environment detail and ground clutter slider to the max, I couldn’t do the greenery the disservice.
Dense forests, numerous caves and lots of shade meant I was forever getting lost in its networks of trees and rocky alcoves – something I’d love to happen in real life a little more than it happened in game.
It’s a bit of a pain when I have a clear goal in mind, but I sure wouldn’t mind coming across a network of caves and waterfalls in a glen some time. If anything, Val’Sharah makes me think I should get out a little more and visit a few less cities in the future.
A gorgeous area with a fitting score and a couple more deaths to add to Legion’s killstreak of long-relevant characters made for a pretty wild few hours. We’re suffering a lot of casualties this time around. Evidently even the Emerald Dream can’t escape the Legion; but we’ll have to wait a few more weeks to finally see how it looks in there. You know… post nightmare, anyway. If the Darkheart Thicket is anything to go by, it’ll be a little spooky.
Even after clearing the Thicket, I stuck around the forest for a little while longer. Teering on the edge was a small village reminiscent of Gilneas - or I could use the example of York if you’re from Blighty.
While I was surprised to see Granny Marl blast a bird out of the sky by curving a bullet around a house, it was the outer courtyard of Black Rook Hold that kept me going with its stories surrounding Lord Ravencrest, the Shadowsong bloodline and the Night Elves who used it as a fortress against the Burning Legion: something we’re sure to hear more of in the top-level dungeon next week.
Shortly after reaching level 108 I handled a few side quests around the zones I’d left prematurely. At this point I was gaining a level every 3 hours or so. I understand how someone could manage to reach the cap in a few days rather than the minimum week it used to take back during my high-point of play, but other commitments meant I was bound to only get 1 or 2 per day.
The Island
Eventually, I took up the Dalaran grypon one more time and accompanied Archmage Khadgar to the final leveling zone - Azsura. Even during the trip down I was introduced to the raging Naga forces being sent by Queen Ashura herself against her own land. Though, either in a stroke of luck or some other unknown force, I managed to reach the 110 level cap without completing the main story here.
I dragged myself through its dungeon without even technically learning of its existance or why I was there in the first place, so I don’t have a whole lot to say about this one other than I’m glad we wasn’t forced to level under water again.
So the rest of the week was spent grinding artifact power and earning the required reputation rank with the people of Sarumar to unlock World Quests. Think Diablo III’s adventure mode here and you have the basic idea of how ‘end-game’ works in Legion. It isn’t all just dungeon runs.
Not quite, anyway.
The Future
Overall, there isn’t a bad thing to be said about Legion’s leveling experience. It’s swift enough to get you pushing forward with gearing up for harder content while compact enough to fill your head with satisfying lore without being overbearing.
Since the timeline crack toward the end of Mists of Pandaria, fans of Warcraft’s long-standing plotlines are constantly being gifted more insight into the events detailed decades ago. Sure, it’s all been linked to the Pantheons, Old Gods, Dragon Aspects and Sargeras before – but never so closely since the events of Warlords of Draenor essentially gave the world’s oldest characters another chance to more directly have their way.
There’s still plenty of side-quests dotted around the Broken Isles, but many still touch on the intricate threads left behind in some of the franchises’ much older entries; a welcome departure from simply killing pigs on a farm for any reason other than ‘They’re eating my pumpkins’.
There’s two weeks left to spend time gathering gear, dying in some heroic dungeons and throwing in the towel before even attempting Mythic or Mythic+. Hopefully we’ll get to delve into the Emerald Nightmare, but who knows if I’m a tank worthy of subjecting everyone else to that pain.