Legion: They haven't fixed professions.

So, I have enjoyed professions in World of Warcraft in the past…

     Let me take a step back first and say despite the tone of this post, I am still loving the crap out of Legion.  While it's early to be very judgey it has some of the best starting content we have experienced in game in my humble opinion.  If the rest of the expansion lives up to it's launch it is going to be a great time in Azeroth.

    Warlords put a bullet in the head of professions.  Last expansion with all the garrison options almost no one needed to work on creating potions, armor, and the rest because other than in a very few choices you could have a shop in your garrison for what you needed.  This meant that my paladin didn’t need to have my DK fashion plate armor for him, he could just make it himself.  And ore? Shoot, if he didn’t feel like going out there was a steady supply coming through his garrison.

    The only point I will give Warlords in regards to professions, is that they were still useful when you leveled.

     Legion has killed that for me.  In almost every past expansion my engineers have worked hard to grind up mats so I can have engineering googles to start raiding with.  I love the techno look mixed with the usefulness of being able to make myself a decent bit of gear to hop in with.  In this expansion, not so much.

     By the time I got my first recipe for goggles, I had already out geared them.   I made a pair and threw it on for transmog, but otherwise I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to use them well for leveling.  Now, at 110 I have a quest to be able to make my ilevel 815 goggles, but I can’t access the dungeon they are in until I’m further in Suramar.  To top that, I already have an 840 helm from world quests, so I am in no hurry to make them.  Now I know I can with the fel forge (I can’t remember the exact name) make items to level the goggles up.  But stating at 815, (825 if I get lucky and it wins an upgrade roll) that means I have to make, and destroy a few dozen items after doing a quest that cost me about 30k gold after completing to level them to the point of this drop.  That means my profession goggles, the thing that marks me as an engineer is useless for anything but transmog.

     And I have heard other professions having similar issues.  I heard a complaint about it with Blacksmithing on a podcast I listen to.  Now I haven’t played deep enough to know if this is all professions, but if it is then yes then what use are they?  Why do I want to make gear I will never be able to use, unless I put a lot of effort into making it equal to what I can get with a five-minute world quest?

     Of course, Alchemy, Jewelcrafting, and Inscription may not be effected by this.  I’m thinking mainly crafting professions like Leatherworking, Tailoring, Blacksmithing, and Engineering.  Unless we get some pizazz and sizzle in each patch to make these worthwhile, it is going to be another expansion where people don’t care.

     Or am I wrong?  If I am let me know.

      All I know is that I have every profession at least once with all my alts.  If there is no bonus or point in doing my professions why should I bother leveling them this time around.  IF there isn’t reason, it may be the final nail in the coffin for me.  And I have always enjoyed professions before this point.

     Heck, I had three engineers at the end of Cataclysm….

     How are you feeling about your professions?

Lag

I'm Legion it

So we are a couple weeks in, and it’s still a bit overwhelming.

     I make 110 about a week ago, and sadly have not been able to dedicate as much time as I would like to doing everything.  Of course, as soon as I take my Network+ exam next week, should I pass I will have a bit more time.  Until then it is mostly crunch and study time.  This is supposed to be a very hard exam, and so far from what I am seeing I believe it.

     In the game though, is what we are worried about.  Let me tell you, the experience is great at the moment.

      Once you open up world quests, which you will do if you have finished the main storylines in the zones and get friendly with Suramar there is plenty to do.  I still have to finish the Nightfallen quests, I haven’t had time to do more than a handful of world quests, but those are fun, and the dungeons have been great so far.

     The note on that, is I have only run a few dungeons on normal, so I can’t speak to heroic or mythic modes.  I still have only scratched the surface of the Suramar quests and I still feel like I have at ton to do.  It honestly borders on discouraging that I am so overwhelmed with stuff in game, with not much time to play at the moment.  I look forward to finding the time.

     The Legion app they released helps a little.  If you don’t have it yet, what are you doing?   The problem I am finding with it, is by constantly doing Class Hall missions and sending my followers out, I am bleeding through resources much quicker than I am collecting them.  Unlike the Garrisons in Warlords, you don’t have a cache that grows said resources, and you don’t have follower quests to gain them either.  So if you don’t have much time to go out into the world, you are facing the choice of just stopping the missions for now, or burning your resources to the ground and not being able to do your research for Class hall abilities etc.  In short, you have to play to keep up and while that is not necessarily bad, it feels punishing when you can’t get on a for a couple of days.

      Suramar itself is not clicking with me.  I liked the other quest zones, but something about the crack (magic) addicted night elves (Nightfallen) just isn’t doing it for me.  I find it strange because I normally like anything elven, and the story seems great.  I might just need to push further in before it matters to me.  I do find it frustrating that if I don’t quest there for a day or two, I have to feed mana to the NPCs before I can pick up and continue quests.  I know the mana is easy to grind up, it is everywhere, but it seems an unnecessary hurdle to have to jump.

      Despite everything above, I am loving this expansion.  Visually it is amazing.  The storylines are great, and important things happen.  Long known characters are killed and others are saved and you aren’t sure which ones will survive with Blizzard’s willingness to end their characters right now.  And hey, with Metzen retiring (I’m saddened by this) Maybe Thrall in next.  Mwha ha ha.  Just kidding, I like Thrall.  Still, like everyone else, he may die.

      How is everyone else’s experience with legion going?  Are you loving it? Are there things you don’t like or that you feel people are overlooking?  What is your favorite experience so far?

Lag.

The First Week of Legion's Excitement

So three days in, and I’m loving it.

   Yes, I realize that Legion still has its new shine to it, which can be heavily influential on opinions.  So far, I have been leveling my Paladin Lag as Retribution, and enjoying the experience.  The balance with this scaling seems nice as everything I fight doesn’t go down quickly, but at the same time the damage they deal is manageable.  I normally don’t die unless I have several mobs on me, or if I take something on that is bigger than I can chew.

   The only area I have finished so far is Azsuna, and I thought the zone was great.  The locations are beautiful, the stories are interesting, and I’ve flat out enjoyed exploring the area.  My favorite thing, and I know it’s silly, was the fact we have Murlocs again.  After two expansions, (I don’t remember Murlocs in Pandaria, but I could be wrong) I was questing and heard the familiar Mrggglggglggl.  My heart jumped in excitement I was down sword swinging with a smile on my face.  Sometimes the older traditional mobs are the best.

    The side quests have been fun too.  Stopping to fight a demon invasion in Exodar (I can’t say much more without spoilers) Khadgar pulling me here and there randomly to explore things.  And the artifact quests.  So far I’ve done Ret Pally, Prot Pally, and Frost DK.

    And let me tell you, (just not in this post) the DK artifact weapons quest brought up a lot more questions for me than it answered.  It also might point to some things coming up.  But after some time passes I will comment more.  Enough people are hopping in still I don’t want to destroy the surprise for anyone.  I really don’t.  All the quests and fun have been worth discovering and doing first hand.

    The one theme of this expansion I am hoping is Redemption.  I think that we will see a redemption of Illidan in this expansion.  I think he will remain demon formed and sarcastic, but there is a path set forward in which we could see him become one of the champions of Azeroth.  Hopefully this time he won’t get shafted (thank you Malfurion) and we won’t put him back into the position of being the enemy.   

    If you have read the book Illidan, you probably feel this way as well.  There are some heavy implications towards the end of that book as to Illidan’s destiny.  The other half of that book did prove that Illidan was a bit villainous, however I don’t feel he didn’t do anything for the sake of evil, more for the sake of him feeling the ends justified the means.

    I am hoping, against odds, that we see a Sylvanas redemption story as well.  This one may be a bit unlikely.  There was an interesting discussion on it between Matt Rossi and Anne Stickney on Blizzardwatch where they laid out the reasons she really can’t be redeemed.  Part of it being that she is undead and that has a severe effect on her mindset.  Meaning, some things for her are rational when they shouldn’t be. (for example, killing her sister so they can be together forever, which was one of her ideas in “War Crimes.”) And the fact she really isn’t corrupted by an outside influence. The Lich King holds no sway over her, she recovered her body so that’s her own, and other than being undead which effects how she experiences the world, her thoughts are her own.

    That being said, we have magic in Azeroth.  What if she was brought back to life somehow? Why do we consider her being brought back to life the same as redemption?  Is there an in between we could find?  There is a chance they that her redemption could be sacrificing herself for the greater good. I honestly ask these questions because if anyone deserves some happiness in her story it’s Sylvanas.  I would not be unhappy if they did find a way to bring her back to life, and or if she found redemption.  It is strongly hinted her sister Alleria will be showing up, might she have found something in her off world adventures that could bring Sylvanas back?

    I will say it now, if she stops leading the forsaken, I vote for Lillian Voss to fill that role.  I have always found her interesting, and she is probably the next most recognizable forsaken that I can think of.  While her fate wasn’t certain after Scholomance, I’m a firm believer that if we didn’t see a body, they aren’t dead.

     The trolls have a similar problem.  Other than Vol’jin, who amongst them is going to lead now?  I can’t think of a single one that is nearly as recognizable.

     What is everyone else’s thoughts on this new expansion so far? Are you loving it? Is it more of the same to you?  Or is there an opinion you would like to share that is in between?

Lag