Legion is Live

The new World of Warcraft expansion went live on 30th August although technically in the UK it went live at 11pm on the 29th due to us being 1 hour behind the rest of Europe.

I logged on a few hours earlier to run some final invasion events and level up my alts a bit more. I haven’t gone crazy with leveling alts like a lot of others did as I didn’t want to burn out on the pre-expansion before the expansion went live. I did about 1 invasion on each alt every few days but it was enough to get quite a few levels done. I also created a dwarf shaman and levelled from 1 to 19 in one 30 min invasion. 

In the couple of hours before Legion went live I got my level 100s (I only have 4) to Dalaran and cleared their bags ready for collecting new stuff while leveling then logged on my Paladin main and hung around waiting for launch. 5 minutes to 11pm i got my quest early and headed to the Broken Isles. 

Within minutes of Dalaran relocating to the Broken Isles I got my quest to get my artifact weapon and had to choose which one I wanted. I always level as dps but go holy and heal at end game so ideally I need both the dps and healing artifact weapons but I can only have one initially and get the other later on at level 102. The dilemma I had was that the artifact weapons level up as you quest so I can either level as dps then at max level my healer weapon won’t be as strong or level as holy which is usually a bad experience but my weapon would be stronger for healing at max.

After looking online I come to the conclusion that you get more consistent artifact power at max level than you do leveling so I’ll just level as dps and go holy at max and then level my holy weapon. So I took on the quest to get the dps weapon.

The quests for the weapon was straight forward enough. It has some good story telling and lore so it feels like you’ve earned and deserve it rather than just being given it. The quests also lead you to your class halls which are the Legion equivalent of WoD garrisons.

The Paladin class hall is nice, it gives the feeling of being a holy warrior and is situated under a church accessed by a hidden door in the floor. Once the quests have been done there is a portal between there and Dalaran which makes it easy to get back and forth.

After you have your artifact weapon you can then pick where you want to quest. I like how they have done this as you can pick any zone and it will scale to your level which means not everyone will be in the same zone making it laggy and fighting over mobs.

I spent about 3 hours playing on launch night to 2pm focusing on leveling my Paladin. Surprisingly there was no problems. The launch is the best I’ve experienced of any game or expansion. No disconnects and no bugs makes me a happy gamer. I could have played for longer but I had to be up for work 4 hours later.

I’ve booked in early finishes from work all week so yesterday I was back online about 1pm. First thing I wanted to do was get my other 100s to the Broken Isles and get their artifact weapons. I haven’t decided whether to start leveling them after I max my main or maybe just to level 101 to gain access to the class hall champion missions.

I decided my Hunter would go as Beast Mastery. I thought about marksman but I like my pets and a survival melee hunter has no appeal at all. The quest line was OK, it was easier than the Paladin quests but slower paced. I like the Hunter class hall, it’s a hunters lodge and has a good feel to it. 

Next up was my Druid. This is what I used my Legion level 100 boost on after I preordered the expansion. I always wanted a Druid, mainly for easy farming gathering materials in travel mode but also like my Paladin I can play different roles.

My Druid is specced as balance as I like being a moonkin. The artifact quest line was OK but nothing really impressed me. It could be because i was dying a lot as it’s under geared and I haven’t played it enough to understand the class mechanics. The class hall is nice and has some portals to various parts of the world which could come in handy.

Lastly is my Demon Hunter which is the new class for Legion. Demon Hunters only have 2 specs, one dps and the other tank. I’ve never liked tanking so it’s an easy choice to go dps.

The artifact quest line was good. Again I died a few times as I’m not familiar with the class but I like how it played. The class hall doesn’t seem that good. The layout seemed confusing but I’ll get used to it.

Overall I liked the way they have done the artifact quests and introduced the class halls. Each artifact has a background story to them and the quests are good to get them. It makes me want to level up more alts to experience their quests.

I think Blizzard will be happy with the launch this time around but it’s still early so things could still go wrong and bugs will be found.

On a final note I’ve decided I am going to take it slow on this expansion and not rush to max. I done this a little by getting my alts to their class halls but as of last night my main is level 103 so I’m not going that slow but a lot slower than I’ve done in the past and a lot slower than most in my guild who are almost maxed. Hopefully I won’t burn myself out in the first few months.

-Sparko Marco