Even though I main a Paladin, and thus it's not like I don't get opportunities to play one much (even in his offspec - though given how little I've been running dungeons or raiding, Ret has felt more like a main spec this expansion than Protection,) I knew as soon as Lightforged Draenei were announced that I'd want to make one as a Paladin. I mean, the Draenei in general are very obvious Paladin-types, and the Lightforged in particular, who have been living in more of a militaristic environment than their blue-skinned brethren for a very long time, seem even better-suited to the role of a holy knight. (Sidenote: Given that Turalyon and Alleria experienced what was to us about 25 years after the destruction of Draenor as 1,000, if the Lightforged experienced the same time distortion consistently since they fled Argus, that would mean that your Lightforged Draenei could be literally over a million years old - and it's not like you see a bunch of children amongst the Lightforged, so it would stand to reason that, given the extreme longevity inherent to the Eredar/Draenei physiology, plus the Light's life sustaining properties, the Lightforged are insanely old.)
But this isn't really a lore post.
I decided to get my Lightforged Paladin, Armaad (I only realized after I came up with the name that it's a pretty close anagram of Maraad - which was not intentional) up to 120. He was the first allied race character on which I earned heritage armor, but was sitting around at 110 for much of the expansion (I've actually still not leveled my Druid or Monk to 120, though I did get my Kul Tiran Druid to 110 so he can take over from the likely retired Night Elf.)
Anyway, with the quarantine buff, I went through the main story quests of Tiragarde Sound and Drustvar and hit 120 while inside the walls of Corlaine (I held off until dinging to make sure I got the axe off the vignette mob there when it was at its highest item level.)
But hitting 120 has meant some very strange things.
First, I grabbed all the plate Black Empire gear I could find, though I also went and bought Benthic pieces of Azerite gear (given that blue gear still only has one major trait and no medium traits.)
However, even after blasting his Heart of Azeroth about 8 levels in a single emissary quest, none of his Azerite traits are even usable yet.
It occurs to me that if I want to play him at all seriously at 120 (which, to be fair, isn't super likely - he'll probably sit there until at least Shadowlands) I'd have to go through a whole lot - unlocking his essence slots, doing the whole Ny'alotha intro quests, and grinding a whole lot to get his Heart of Azeroth up to a decent level.
Now, obviously, any alt is going to have to do some work to become as powerful as your main, and I don't think it's a bad thing for there to be some effort involved.
But it's remarkable to me how many things don't come online when you hit the level cap on a new alt. Even with a bunch of catch-up gear, which boosted his item level by about a hundred, he's still extremely far behind.
I've mentioned before how all the various different systems that have come in with each major patch of Battle for Azeroth have been excessive. Frankly, I think the Essence system is actually decently cool, and while I wasn't too troubled by Warforging/Titanforging, I think the Corruption system is sort of interesting (frankly, I like the Horrific Visions more than Corruption itself, I guess just because I enjoy them conceptually and also having solo content is fun.) The Azerite Armor system, of course, has been a train wreck that they've kind of sort of made less excruciating (a bit).
But it wasn't all that long ago that we didn't really have these sorts of systems to worry about. Warlord of Draenor was not a good expansion, obviously, but it wasn't the fact that we were just traditionally gearing up that made it bad.
I loved Artifact weapons, but the thing I loved most about them was the flavor of them - the stories and visual design for them. And yes, it was fun to get all the little bonuses (I loved that the Subtlety Daggers made it so you took no fall damage whatsoever, meaning I could fly over a world quest and just dismount from a mile up, stealthing and dropping into Suramar like some sort of special-ops commando). But once artifacts started getting into that feature-creep space, like the Netherlight Crucible (which felt a lot like Azerite Armor's system, frankly) it got less exciting than annoying.
Shadowlands is going to have systems like this - it seems to be the way Blizzard is going with WoW for the foreseeable future. But I hope they'll learn to take a lighter touch. Get the initial system working right, and don't go totally crazy making it more complex. They got extremely carried away in BFA. Let's see some restraint in Shadowlands, shall we?
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