Ah, it's that odd part of the expansion where I'm not far behind the mythic raiders in terms of gearing. My Death Knight, who got to 60 in week one as well, is having absolutely rotten loot luck (of the four heroics I ran today on him, only one dropped a single piece of loot for him - thankfully the tank gave me a pair of boots - with top Frost stats - from Spires of Ascension, so it wasn't a total loss). The main paladin has had much better luck (so far) and now has a decent number of epics from Mythics, including a shield.
Hitting the level cap on your main often comes with a big blast of stuff to do, especially with the many systems they've been introducing in new expansions these past few years.
Shadowlands might take the cake for the most. Let's go through all the things you'll want to do to progress your character in terms of power and story.
Weekly:
Get your 1000 anima.
Get your 5 souls from the Maw.
Run as high up in the two open wings of Torghast as you can to maximize the Soul Ash you're getting.
Daily:
Do Maw content - as much as you can before your Eye of the Jailer level is too high to do so safely.
Do your Callings.
Farm up supplies for your covenant's special minigame. (Actually not sure if this is a weekly or daily thing).
Do your anima-conductor thing and go kill the rare or get the treasure.
Manage your adventure table (I mean - you don't have to).
Now, I'm sure that as the expansion goes on, some of these things will be more or less "completed," or we'll get to a point where we don't really need to work so diligently on them. For instance, once we've fully upgraded our covenant sanctums, and once we've finished our covenant campaigns, the weekly quests will probably be a lot less important.
I'm also really curious to see how things scale up. It's interesting to see that world quests often reward a stack of 2-4 of an item with 35 anima - rather than just a single item with 70-140. I wonder if the plan is that as the expansion goes on, we'll see quests and such giving us bigger stacks.
My roommate didn't finish his weekly 1000 anima quest in the first week, but he got a renown badge out of his calling quest, which suggests this will be a way to catch up if you fall behind. Clearly, given the way that soulbinds work, renown is going to be a major thing that every character's got to work on.
So, I believe that conduits drop for every spec, even if it's not your loot spec, which is why I've been getting retribution ones while tanking. I'm wondering if the same is true for the legendary "memories" needed to craft legendary items. Basically, my DK is 2H Frost (and yes, I went Venthyr even though that's apparently the "worst" choice for it, but A: it just seems right and B: it's actually one of the recommended ones for Blood (even if Kyrian seems to be ideal for both in single-target situations) and C: who knows how things will shift over time?
I do find myself wondering about which alt to level - normally my Demon Hunter would follow the DK, but he's also likely to go Venthyr (I tried out the Necrolord DH ability on the beta and kind of hate it) so I'm wondering if I just want to level a character who's likely to go Night Fae or Necrolords just so I can actually see those experiences.
Of course, my sense is that Kyrian and Venthyr are actually the top covenants for a lot of specs.
The alt-spec thing is a bit of a concern, although it currently kind of helps me justify what might be an un-optimized pick for my Death Knight - Blood and Venthyr go well together (and shouldn't they, thematically?) And I genuinely like using the Venthyr ability (Swarming Mist, which does aoe damage around you for a few seconds, increases your dodge chance, and gives you Runic Power when it does damage) even if it's perhaps not quite tuned as well as some others. (I'll actually admit that I'm getting used to once again actually using Death and Decay as a Frost Death Knight, but I also think that the Night Fae are possibly the least Death-Knight-y of the covenants.)
Blizzard is taking a risk here, creating a major tension between player power and the preferred story/aesthetic they wish to play with. Naturally, I'm sure all the hardcore raiders will go with the best simmed covenant regardless of aesthetic, but I also think that the vast majority of players will probably be ok. I mean, my DK is doing respectable damage so far, often topping the damage meter in boss fights (though I'd love for him to actually get some freaking gear drops.)
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