World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth – The Road so Far
I’ve played World of Warcraft since the Wrath of the Lich King expansion and I’ve loved the series from before the MMO even existed. I quested and raided my way […]
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I’ve played World of Warcraft since the Wrath of the Lich King expansion and I’ve loved the series from before the MMO even existed. I quested and raided my way […]
I’ve played World of Warcraft since the Wrath of the Lich King expansion and I’ve loved the series from before the MMO even existed. I quested and raided my way through all expansions up until Legion, though in both that expansion and its predecessor, Warlords of Draenor, my life took a few turns that meant I couldn’t play nearly as often as I wanted to nor do so with my American friends.
I missed out on some content, getting raid clears only on one-off appearances. But with Battle for Azeroth, World of Warcraft’s latest expansion, I’ve made it my goal to return to the old days, when I logged into Azeroth at least once a day and completed every task set before me. Yes, it’s a grind, but it’s a fun one, especially during the initial stages of the expansion.
So far, I’ve levelled my character, the Druid Kadrell, to level 120, completing the questlines of Kul Tiras, and loving every single moment of it. I’ve often claimed to be a quest whore (or as WoW puts it, a Loremaster), you put a quest in front of me and I’ll do it. So in Battle for Azeroth I’ve been in quest haven. Between storyline quests, one-off missions and world quests, I’ve had so much to do, so much to enjoy. And best of all, I’m not even close to done! As of reaching level 120, I’ve discovered brand new quests that I’m certain weren’t there as I levelled, unlocked perhaps as I reached this expansion’s level cap.
I play an Alliance character and though that often means I miss out on some Horde stories, this is the first time I’ve been tempted to create a character on the other side—I really don’t because I’m not one for alts and all my friends are on the Alliance side—because there’s so much there to explore, particularly with the Zandalari Trolls, whom we’ve just seen in the past as enemies. I’ve seen some of the cutscenes on their side, and the stories are great.
But on the blue and gold emblem side, the Kul Tiran stories are phenomenal:
Prevalent throughout the experience wasn’t just the clever writing and quest design, mixing it up every so often to break the monotony or give you something truly silly, such as riding ornery boars through enemy lines, scattering them like bowling pins, but these three important things:
I’m enjoying the new Azerite mechanic. It was a bit unusual to see chest, shoulder and helm gear pieces without any secondary stats but instead these highly customisable ones that can give you greater survivability or trigger massive damage bursts. I would have loved this system to be more prevalent, say have all armour bits and even weapons get azurite traits, but I don’t mind the way it’s done and the grind for Azerite feels much less punishing than the ar3tifact weapon grind was in the previous expansion, especially since the “Artefact Knowledge” trait—a multiplier on the amount received—will scale automatically week to week.
Dungeons are super fun and visually unique, with interested mechanics throughout. This is the first time I’ve geared up so fast, going through a few normal dungeons, skipping over to heroic and even Mythic dungeons within days of the expansion’s launch and it’s great to see the increase in complexity from one difficulty to the next. There are so many left to do, and there is no single tank & spank boss. They all have at least one mechanic to keep you on your toes, even the gigantic T-Rex with the enormous hit box. Can’t wait to see what the first raid, Uldir aka Titan Umbrella Corp. has in store for us.
I’ve even had a bit of PVP, though completely by accident. I tried to do a World Quest but went through the main horde city in stealth to do it. A few guards discovered me a flagged me for PVP, meaning that players in War Mode, where you’re constantly flagged for PVP (there no longer are PVP only servers) could target me. Had a nice fight against a Shadow Priest and would have won if he hadn’t waited to attack me after quest mobs left me at a quarter of my maximum health. He didn’t kill me though. After a bit of self-healing stalemate, when things turned in his favour, I used my many movement skills to put some distance between us and go into stealth mode again, finding a dark alcove to hide in and teleport back to the safety of an alliance base.
Last week I didn’t publish a single thing or even upload any video on this site or my YouTube channel, and didn’t even think of doing something with my Twitch channel, because I spent every moment I could in Azeroth fending off against horde forces, searching for Azerite and getting my ass whooped.
It’s been a hell of a ride so far…and it’s only just beginning. There are dungeons to run and they’re a lot of fun, there is gear to unlock and professions to max out. I have to practice my rotation and get my DPS to a nice place so I can do well once raids unlock. Just a couple more weeks for that to happen and I’m eagerly awaiting it!
Nicely summarised write-up of what you’ve encountered so far, Kevo! You almost enticed me back. But I’ll still stay away – I’ve got Two Point Hospital to look forward to very soon!
Hahahaha
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https://polldaddy.com/js/rating/rating.jsI’m one of the few people on earth that never played WoW until this past weekend. I decided to try it out after a few friends of mine begged me for the 1,000th time. I’m actually enjoying it a lot and I’m looking forward to putting in some more time.