So I realize that I've written several posts about future expansions, and ultimately Blizzard has managed, in the past, to pull the rug out from under me (while I predicted a Deathwing-centric one, I definitely did not predict Mists or Warlords, and Legion was one that I always knew they'd eventually have to do, but always put that in the "eventually" category.)
With Legion, there is a real question of where we go from here. After Wrath of the Lich King, a lot of players were talking about how it seemed like there was nowhere to go after Arthas, but those of us who knew a bit more about the lore knew that there would have to be figures like Deathwing, Cho'gall, Xavius, Azshara, and of course Sargeras for us to face.
Three of those are checked off already (Cho'gall twice!) And Sargeras is probably going to be the final boss of Legion - in one form or another (my money's on "while trapped in an Illidan Stormrage-shaped prison.")
Given that Sargeras is the Big Bad of the Warcraft universe, those questions that people were asking about a post-Arthas world are starting to feel like they've got more traction.
Now, all this being said, the Warcraft universe is a diverse one - unlike Diablo, where everything ultimately boils down to either angels or demons, Warcraft is a lot more like the real world in that there are unrelated cultures and threats that don't depend on each other to exist. Beating the Scourge did nothing to harm the Legion, Old Gods, Deathwing, or any other major threat. And when we got to Pandaria, it turned out there were people like the Mogu to worry about that we had never heard of before.
And on top of that, just because a leader dies does not mean that the whole organization is gone. That's something we've learned pretty painfully in the real world time and time again. We had to install Bolvar Fordragon as the new Lich King lest the Scourge just go rampant, but there are strong hints that while he might not be trying to take over the world right now, this Lich King is not exactly the same lawful good paladin he used to be. Demons existed long before the Burning Legion came to be, and without Sargeras to threaten them with annihilation should they stray from his leadership, demons could be a whole new thing - we might not encounter the kind of concerted effort to invade and conquer, but we'll probably be dealing with a million different factions of unpredictable demonic gangs - and let us not forget that the Dreadlords might go back to serving the Old Gods...
So now we move into prediction time:
Rather than speculate on the myriad possibilities for expansions, I'm going to make my guess at the next one. It's no guarantee, but Blizzard has really laid out some serious groundwork.
For an expansion about the Burning Legion, Legion is filled with references to the Old Gods. I won't go into every bit, but I seriously think that we are being manipulated into using the Pillars of Creation. While these may indeed do their stated goal - closing the portal to Argus - I am about 99% convinced that they are also going to serve as the keys to the locks on the prisons of the Old Gods. C'thun and Yogg-Saron might be dead (or they might be regenerating after we beat them) but N'Zoth is, as far as we know, in perfect health. N'Zoth also just awoke from the Emerald Nightmare, meaning that he's likely to start taking bolder steps in the physical world.
We have also seen a larger presence of Naga in Legion than we have recently. The Naga are of course remnants of Azshara's inner circle, and Azshara herself appears in Azsuna. The Naga are ostensibly helping the Legion - it's less explicit in Azsuna, but we know some will be fighting for them in the Tomb of Sargeras.
And on the surface, this makes sense. Azshara was on team green in the War of the Ancients, and perhaps she never abandoned her plans to marry Sargeras (however impractical that might be.)
But that was ten thousand years ago. And all that time, the Naga have been, well, Naga. Transformed by the Old Gods after the Sundering flooded Ancient Kalimdor, the Naga have been allied with the Old Gods for far longer than they were actively engaged with the Legion. We know that they fight alongside each other thanks to the events in Vashj'ir.
N'Zoth in particular is the Old God associated with the deep sea, and thus is probably the one who played the biggest role in the transformation of the Naga. He's also the Old God who stands to gain the most (because he's unambiguously still alive) by manipulating us into freeing him (using the Legion to provoke us into doing so.)
Ok, so we've got a main villain (N'Zoth) and a major raid boss (Azshara - who could be the final boss of the first or second raid tier.) We have a setting (the South Seas - islands surrounding Ny'alotha, which is presumably where N'Zoth is imprisoned.)
And we potentially have a new playable race in the Naga. I know there are lots of mechanical issues to work through with Naga (like pants and shoes and mounts) but lore-wise, Blizzard has explicitly said that while most Naga are loyal to their queen, they are still individuals with their own ideologies and factions. Thus it is not impossible that a group of Naga would break away from Azshara and potentially join the player factions. I don't know if they'd make it a Pandaren-style neutral race or if they'd come up with a different race for the other faction to play, but playable Naga are something Blizzard has talked about.
We're still many months from Blizzcon, but I really think we could see this or an expansion like it as the next one after Legion.
Monday, February 20, 2017
Is Switching Specs Too Hard in Legion?
I'll come out and say that I think that Legion is one of the best expansions World of Warcraft has ever had. After the supreme disappointment of Warlords of Draenor, Legion has felt not only like a return to form, but an expansion that has contained a kind of ambition that I wasn't sure Blizzard still had for the game. Legion competes with Wrath in my mind for best expansion (and of course there are plenty of system changes over the years that have solidly improved things over time, such that if we were simply dumped into Wrath as it was in 2008, I probably wouldn't like things as much mechanically.)
One of the interesting changes to come in Legion was the expansion of the dual-spec idea. Rather than having too "modes" for your character - something that was primarily useful for those of us who like to do group content as a tank or healer but prefer to solo as DPS - they now let us change between all three specs any time we're outside of combat. It really equates to the old idea of "tri-spec" (or quad spec for Druids.)
So on the surface, this means that switching specs is easier than it ever has been in Legion. And to be fair, if you're playing a character who is below level 100, that's true.
But once you get into the current expansion's content, you get somewhat locked in.
Two factors are at play here:
The first is Artifact Weapons. This is particularly noticeable for classes like Mages or Warlocks, who could use identical gear for all three specs. Now, if you want to switch specs, you need to really invest a lot of time in leveling up a different artifact weapon.
They do provide a kind of built-in catch up. Between the steady progress of artifact knowledge and the fact that traits become more expensive on an exponential rate, it will probably take you far less time to get twenty traits in a second artifact unlocked than it did to get them in your first.
Still, especially now that we're getting to a point where some players have their full 54 traits unlocked (that's including the 20 "prestige" traits that I think Blizzard expected almost no one to complete,) it means a really massive investment of time and effort into fully powering-up your artifact weapon.
And with no more artifact knowledge coming at least until 7.2, we can't expect it to be easy to catch up on these prestige traits.
The second factor is legendary gear.
Legendaries in Legion are a very different beast than they've been in prior expansions. In fact, these pieces of gear now work almost exactly as they do in Diablo III - each has a special effect that often interacts with your class' specific spells or abilities.
In Diablo III, once you get to the level cap, you basically try to get a full set of legendary items (along with an armor set - the set bonuses in Diablo are far, far more powerful, increasing damage done by like 20,000% depending on your build.) In Legion, you can get some very powerful legendaries, but the droprates on these are such that you're really not expecting to have access to all of them.
But because the droprate has bad-luck protection - which, glass half-full side, means that you're more likely to get one if you haven't yet but glass half-empty side means you're less likely to get one if you already have one - it means that getting a legendary for one spec means you're less likely to get one for a different spec. For example, my Mage just got his first legendary while doing an LFR wing in Frost spec after having played as Arcane for much of the expansion. The good news is that I think 7.1.5 fixed most of the problems I had with Frost this expansion, so I'm ok with playing that spec again. But for example, my Demon Hunter has been lucky enough to get two legendaries, both of which are for the Vegeance spec. Nowadays he's primarily Havoc, meaning that the only benefit he gets from those pieces are the admittedly great stats.
Ultimately, these might not be such a bad thing. Back before 3.1, you chose a spec and you stuck with it. Changing spec (or even just redistributing your talents) was a pretty costly endeavor, costing up to 50 gold back when that was a significant chunk of change. We lived with that system - and that was before they really made it easy to solo in any spec.
Still, dual-spec was one of the most popular features they ever added to the game, so you could argue that reverting to that "choose a spec and stick with it" system isn't really a good move.
I'll be curious to see how things work out going forward. They say we'll be leaving our artifacts behind in the next expansion (but keeping the appearances for transmog, I believe) and I imagine that they'll come up with a different system for legendaries (perhaps going back to the Mists/Warlords model.) So maybe these issues will simply evaporate.
One of the interesting changes to come in Legion was the expansion of the dual-spec idea. Rather than having too "modes" for your character - something that was primarily useful for those of us who like to do group content as a tank or healer but prefer to solo as DPS - they now let us change between all three specs any time we're outside of combat. It really equates to the old idea of "tri-spec" (or quad spec for Druids.)
So on the surface, this means that switching specs is easier than it ever has been in Legion. And to be fair, if you're playing a character who is below level 100, that's true.
But once you get into the current expansion's content, you get somewhat locked in.
Two factors are at play here:
The first is Artifact Weapons. This is particularly noticeable for classes like Mages or Warlocks, who could use identical gear for all three specs. Now, if you want to switch specs, you need to really invest a lot of time in leveling up a different artifact weapon.
They do provide a kind of built-in catch up. Between the steady progress of artifact knowledge and the fact that traits become more expensive on an exponential rate, it will probably take you far less time to get twenty traits in a second artifact unlocked than it did to get them in your first.
Still, especially now that we're getting to a point where some players have their full 54 traits unlocked (that's including the 20 "prestige" traits that I think Blizzard expected almost no one to complete,) it means a really massive investment of time and effort into fully powering-up your artifact weapon.
And with no more artifact knowledge coming at least until 7.2, we can't expect it to be easy to catch up on these prestige traits.
The second factor is legendary gear.
Legendaries in Legion are a very different beast than they've been in prior expansions. In fact, these pieces of gear now work almost exactly as they do in Diablo III - each has a special effect that often interacts with your class' specific spells or abilities.
In Diablo III, once you get to the level cap, you basically try to get a full set of legendary items (along with an armor set - the set bonuses in Diablo are far, far more powerful, increasing damage done by like 20,000% depending on your build.) In Legion, you can get some very powerful legendaries, but the droprates on these are such that you're really not expecting to have access to all of them.
But because the droprate has bad-luck protection - which, glass half-full side, means that you're more likely to get one if you haven't yet but glass half-empty side means you're less likely to get one if you already have one - it means that getting a legendary for one spec means you're less likely to get one for a different spec. For example, my Mage just got his first legendary while doing an LFR wing in Frost spec after having played as Arcane for much of the expansion. The good news is that I think 7.1.5 fixed most of the problems I had with Frost this expansion, so I'm ok with playing that spec again. But for example, my Demon Hunter has been lucky enough to get two legendaries, both of which are for the Vegeance spec. Nowadays he's primarily Havoc, meaning that the only benefit he gets from those pieces are the admittedly great stats.
Ultimately, these might not be such a bad thing. Back before 3.1, you chose a spec and you stuck with it. Changing spec (or even just redistributing your talents) was a pretty costly endeavor, costing up to 50 gold back when that was a significant chunk of change. We lived with that system - and that was before they really made it easy to solo in any spec.
Still, dual-spec was one of the most popular features they ever added to the game, so you could argue that reverting to that "choose a spec and stick with it" system isn't really a good move.
I'll be curious to see how things work out going forward. They say we'll be leaving our artifacts behind in the next expansion (but keeping the appearances for transmog, I believe) and I imagine that they'll come up with a different system for legendaries (perhaps going back to the Mists/Warlords model.) So maybe these issues will simply evaporate.
Sunday, February 19, 2017
Warcraft Chronicle Volume Two
Warcraft Chronicle Volume One was a really interesting book for any lore aficionados. While many of its revelations have since made it in-game, the book really laid down some firm information about the primary setting of the Warcraft games. We learned, for example, the fate of the Titans, why Sargeras went evil, what the Old Gods want, and what it is that really makes Azeroth so special.
Volume One focused entirely on the world of Azeroth and its pre-First War history. The opening of the Dark Portal is really the moment that the Warcraft calendar is built around, and thus Chronicle Volume One is all about "BDP," starting with the absolute beginning of Azeroth's history - when it was a planet whose powerful Titan World Soul was drawing too much of the Spirit element from the surface, thus leaving the indigenous elementals to war with each other without given the lack of that harmony-building essence. We go from that state all the way to the state of things prior to the First War.
Volume Two seems to be less linear. It appears to tell the stories of the First and Second Wars (the Third I'd bet they're saving for Volume Three) but it also leaves Azeroth to start examining the history of Draenor. (I'm hoping we'll see some stuff about Argus as well, but I don't know that we will.)
Draenor is of course the clear second-most important planet in the Warcraft games, as it is home to the Orcs, whose actions really define a great deal of the games' recent history.
In the sample pages previewed by IGN, we actually learn some interesting facts about Draenor.
Spoilers to follow.
Volume One focused entirely on the world of Azeroth and its pre-First War history. The opening of the Dark Portal is really the moment that the Warcraft calendar is built around, and thus Chronicle Volume One is all about "BDP," starting with the absolute beginning of Azeroth's history - when it was a planet whose powerful Titan World Soul was drawing too much of the Spirit element from the surface, thus leaving the indigenous elementals to war with each other without given the lack of that harmony-building essence. We go from that state all the way to the state of things prior to the First War.
Volume Two seems to be less linear. It appears to tell the stories of the First and Second Wars (the Third I'd bet they're saving for Volume Three) but it also leaves Azeroth to start examining the history of Draenor. (I'm hoping we'll see some stuff about Argus as well, but I don't know that we will.)
Draenor is of course the clear second-most important planet in the Warcraft games, as it is home to the Orcs, whose actions really define a great deal of the games' recent history.
In the sample pages previewed by IGN, we actually learn some interesting facts about Draenor.
Spoilers to follow.
Sunday, February 12, 2017
The Grimtotem Conundrum
One of the engines that a game and story like World of Warcraft can use to perpetuate its conflict (and given that it functions in a comic-book-like world of infinite continuity, that's what you want) is the judicious use of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" with the addendum: "for now."
The Alliance and Horde do this all the time. While there's some seriously bad blood (and we really might have to consider leaving the Forsaken out) the general moral of Warcraft is that if people (specifically the mortal races, though to be fair we are kind of excluding non-playable ones) could just get over themselves and their grievances, they could all get along. Hell, the Orcs and the Humans, who have the most conflict-per-years-they've-known-the-other-existed, are actually pretty much the equivalents of one another for their own worlds (this is a weird tangent, but I think technically Draenor's elves are the Arrakoa and their dwarves are the ogres. Moving on!)
But while that's a theme we've seen over and over, I'm thinking about it on a more individual level.
Some mild 7.2 spoilers here.
In 7.2 we're all getting new class hall champions (and I think we'll also be able to have one more active as well.) While a lot are pretty straightforward (Thisalee Crow, for example) one that was pretty surprising is Magatha Grimtotem.
Now, Magatha's one of those characters who has been around since Vanilla but her story hasn't really gone anywhere since Cataclysm. The Tauren are almost entirely good people - one of the most benevolent playable races. But Magatha represents the exception to that rule.
Magatha was always a rival to Cairne back in the day, and even though she was allowed to live in Thunder Bluff, many of her tribe were openly hostile to Horde and Alliance alike even then.
When Garrosh became Warchief, Cairne challenged him to Mak'gora - a duel to the death to challenge him for the position. I don't think Cairne expected to win, but he was resolved to make Garrosh earn the position and, hopefully, teach Garrosh to respect the power that was handed to him.
But Magatha, who had always sought to undermine Cairne as the leader of the Tauren, had Garrosh's weapons poisoned. This did two things: it ensured that Cairne died (even though it was only a superficial wound) and it also robbed Garrosh of legitimacy. People were already concerned about this brash, inexperienced and bullheaded new Warchief who had come into a leadership position with a seriously simplistic and outdated understanding of the very system he was now supposed to run, and now doubts were cast on his ability to even live up to his claims of personal skill and strength. The Mak'gora, though brutal, was meant to be fair. Not only did the poison suggest that the new Warchief was a murderer with no respect for the traditions he claimed to represent, but it also raised the question of whether he even would have won had the fight been fair.
This was a master plan, and even though Magatha's machinations were discovered, it still left Garrosh with the Horde in an uproar and with Cairne, her old nemesis, dead.
After Cataclysm came out, Magatha was understandably no longer in Thunder Bluff - and would presumably be killed on sight if she returned. But players encounter her in Thousand Needles, where she guides you in dismantling the Twilight Cult's operations there, but in doing so, also has you grant her an artifact of incredible power.
Magatha is a master manipulator and also a very powerful shaman. And she's going to be working for us!
Incidentally, my Shaman is a Tauren who has an all-consuming hatred for the Old Gods, the Twilight's Hammer, and very very much Magatha Grimtotem, so this will be interesting.
Given that we are fighting the Burning Legion, this is a time for strange bedfellows. Already Death Knights have allied with the Lich King (on one hand, Bolvar's a very different sort of Lich King than Arthas, but on the other hand, he is still absolutely the Lich King.)
Given that the Legion was founded to defeat the Old Gods and the Void Lords, it makes sense that, among the people aiding us in the fight against the Legion are members of Twilight's Hammer.
Members plural.
Magatha Grimtotem did help us defeat Twilight's Hammer in Thousand Needles, but she's also a member herself. It's implied that she wishes to take over the cult. And with Cho'gall and Benedictus dead, she's probably in a decent position to do just that.
Milhouse Manastorm is already a class champion, but remember that he was also affiliated with Twilight's Hammer, working for them in Deepholme. One gets the sense that Milhouse is less ideological and more just maniacal. He did fight against a minion of the (other, non-Azerothian) Old Gods in the Arcatraz, but there isn't really anything he's done to suggest that he isn't still very much in the "let's blow up the world" camp.
I don't know that there are any other class champions who are members of Twilight's Hammer, but then, we didn't know that Benedictus was for a long time.
Given the theories about the Old Gods manipulating the Legion into invading in order to get us to use the Pillars of Creation to unwittingly set them free, it would actually make a huge amount of sense that our class orders are being infiltrated by people in Twilight's Hammer.
In the face of the Legion, though, we have to take any help that we can get. But I think we should keep our eyes open. Once the Legion is defeated, we're going to have to watch our backs.
Because someone might be getting ready to stick a dagger in it.
The Alliance and Horde do this all the time. While there's some seriously bad blood (and we really might have to consider leaving the Forsaken out) the general moral of Warcraft is that if people (specifically the mortal races, though to be fair we are kind of excluding non-playable ones) could just get over themselves and their grievances, they could all get along. Hell, the Orcs and the Humans, who have the most conflict-per-years-they've-known-the-other-existed, are actually pretty much the equivalents of one another for their own worlds (this is a weird tangent, but I think technically Draenor's elves are the Arrakoa and their dwarves are the ogres. Moving on!)
But while that's a theme we've seen over and over, I'm thinking about it on a more individual level.
Some mild 7.2 spoilers here.
In 7.2 we're all getting new class hall champions (and I think we'll also be able to have one more active as well.) While a lot are pretty straightforward (Thisalee Crow, for example) one that was pretty surprising is Magatha Grimtotem.
Now, Magatha's one of those characters who has been around since Vanilla but her story hasn't really gone anywhere since Cataclysm. The Tauren are almost entirely good people - one of the most benevolent playable races. But Magatha represents the exception to that rule.
Magatha was always a rival to Cairne back in the day, and even though she was allowed to live in Thunder Bluff, many of her tribe were openly hostile to Horde and Alliance alike even then.
When Garrosh became Warchief, Cairne challenged him to Mak'gora - a duel to the death to challenge him for the position. I don't think Cairne expected to win, but he was resolved to make Garrosh earn the position and, hopefully, teach Garrosh to respect the power that was handed to him.
But Magatha, who had always sought to undermine Cairne as the leader of the Tauren, had Garrosh's weapons poisoned. This did two things: it ensured that Cairne died (even though it was only a superficial wound) and it also robbed Garrosh of legitimacy. People were already concerned about this brash, inexperienced and bullheaded new Warchief who had come into a leadership position with a seriously simplistic and outdated understanding of the very system he was now supposed to run, and now doubts were cast on his ability to even live up to his claims of personal skill and strength. The Mak'gora, though brutal, was meant to be fair. Not only did the poison suggest that the new Warchief was a murderer with no respect for the traditions he claimed to represent, but it also raised the question of whether he even would have won had the fight been fair.
This was a master plan, and even though Magatha's machinations were discovered, it still left Garrosh with the Horde in an uproar and with Cairne, her old nemesis, dead.
After Cataclysm came out, Magatha was understandably no longer in Thunder Bluff - and would presumably be killed on sight if she returned. But players encounter her in Thousand Needles, where she guides you in dismantling the Twilight Cult's operations there, but in doing so, also has you grant her an artifact of incredible power.
Magatha is a master manipulator and also a very powerful shaman. And she's going to be working for us!
Incidentally, my Shaman is a Tauren who has an all-consuming hatred for the Old Gods, the Twilight's Hammer, and very very much Magatha Grimtotem, so this will be interesting.
Given that we are fighting the Burning Legion, this is a time for strange bedfellows. Already Death Knights have allied with the Lich King (on one hand, Bolvar's a very different sort of Lich King than Arthas, but on the other hand, he is still absolutely the Lich King.)
Given that the Legion was founded to defeat the Old Gods and the Void Lords, it makes sense that, among the people aiding us in the fight against the Legion are members of Twilight's Hammer.
Members plural.
Magatha Grimtotem did help us defeat Twilight's Hammer in Thousand Needles, but she's also a member herself. It's implied that she wishes to take over the cult. And with Cho'gall and Benedictus dead, she's probably in a decent position to do just that.
Milhouse Manastorm is already a class champion, but remember that he was also affiliated with Twilight's Hammer, working for them in Deepholme. One gets the sense that Milhouse is less ideological and more just maniacal. He did fight against a minion of the (other, non-Azerothian) Old Gods in the Arcatraz, but there isn't really anything he's done to suggest that he isn't still very much in the "let's blow up the world" camp.
I don't know that there are any other class champions who are members of Twilight's Hammer, but then, we didn't know that Benedictus was for a long time.
Given the theories about the Old Gods manipulating the Legion into invading in order to get us to use the Pillars of Creation to unwittingly set them free, it would actually make a huge amount of sense that our class orders are being infiltrated by people in Twilight's Hammer.
In the face of the Legion, though, we have to take any help that we can get. But I think we should keep our eyes open. Once the Legion is defeated, we're going to have to watch our backs.
Because someone might be getting ready to stick a dagger in it.
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
Royal Atheneum, Nighthold LFR Wing 2 Opens
I've now run the second wing of Nighthold in LFR, or at least part of it. Unfortunately I got in having read up on the wrong fights - of the three I read up on, the two that were still up when I got there were both ones I did not realize I'd be facing. So let's make this clear:
Royal Atheneum is Spellblade Auriel, Star Augur Etraeus, and High Botanist Tel'arn.
I'm not going to go into my usual guide mode, as I'm still kind of processing the fights (when I run it on other characters, I'll try to get that out there.)
This has the players emerge out from the sewers and take the fight to Elisande's main forces. I suspect that Etraeus and possibly Tel'arn are both optional fights when you do this on Normal or above. Notably, Star Augur Etraeus has the tier 19 gloves (something I got the LFR version of, which are 860 item level.)
While certainly not as mind-bending visually than the Emerald Nightmare, Nighthold really seems to be a continuation of the Suramar aesthetic, something that I think they've really pulled off well this expansion. In fact, when the raid was announced, I was pretty disappointed that the Emerald Nightmare wasn't even going to be the headliner of its own raid tier, but while I still think they could have done that (I'm glad there will be three raid tiers after Warlords' disappointing two, but I honestly think they could have held Emerald Nightmare back as tier 20 and then done Tomb of Sargeras as 21 and Argus as 22, matching Wrath with four raid tiers) I'm actually finding myself way more invested in the Nightfallen/Suramar storyline than I expected myself to be.
We're also in a pretty interesting position gear-wise, given that Nighthold LFR is now giving gear that's on par (or even exceeding, I think) Return to Karazhan gear and Emerald Nightmare Normal. I still haven't gotten very far in RtK (I think we may have gotten Attumen down once...?) but I'm hoping we can get a little farther before the far easier, queueable heroic modes come out.
I have to wonder what the plan is for mythic dungeons. Yes, I realize mythic plus allows them to scale sort of indefinitely, but I'd rather that mythic plus worked more like standard difficulties - without time limits so that if someone has to go to the bathroom or something they aren't penalizing the team. The point is that at this point, with LFR giving gear that's 15-20 item levels higher than mythic dungeons, dungeons are in danger of falling back into Mists/Warlords-era irrelevance.
Royal Atheneum is Spellblade Auriel, Star Augur Etraeus, and High Botanist Tel'arn.
I'm not going to go into my usual guide mode, as I'm still kind of processing the fights (when I run it on other characters, I'll try to get that out there.)
This has the players emerge out from the sewers and take the fight to Elisande's main forces. I suspect that Etraeus and possibly Tel'arn are both optional fights when you do this on Normal or above. Notably, Star Augur Etraeus has the tier 19 gloves (something I got the LFR version of, which are 860 item level.)
While certainly not as mind-bending visually than the Emerald Nightmare, Nighthold really seems to be a continuation of the Suramar aesthetic, something that I think they've really pulled off well this expansion. In fact, when the raid was announced, I was pretty disappointed that the Emerald Nightmare wasn't even going to be the headliner of its own raid tier, but while I still think they could have done that (I'm glad there will be three raid tiers after Warlords' disappointing two, but I honestly think they could have held Emerald Nightmare back as tier 20 and then done Tomb of Sargeras as 21 and Argus as 22, matching Wrath with four raid tiers) I'm actually finding myself way more invested in the Nightfallen/Suramar storyline than I expected myself to be.
We're also in a pretty interesting position gear-wise, given that Nighthold LFR is now giving gear that's on par (or even exceeding, I think) Return to Karazhan gear and Emerald Nightmare Normal. I still haven't gotten very far in RtK (I think we may have gotten Attumen down once...?) but I'm hoping we can get a little farther before the far easier, queueable heroic modes come out.
I have to wonder what the plan is for mythic dungeons. Yes, I realize mythic plus allows them to scale sort of indefinitely, but I'd rather that mythic plus worked more like standard difficulties - without time limits so that if someone has to go to the bathroom or something they aren't penalizing the team. The point is that at this point, with LFR giving gear that's 15-20 item levels higher than mythic dungeons, dungeons are in danger of falling back into Mists/Warlords-era irrelevance.
Monday, February 6, 2017
The Fractious Legion
The Burning Legion is terrifying.
Let's break it down. First and foremost, we have beings of chaos who are tied to the Twisting Nether. The Nether is a realm of unending disparity, a borderland between the Light and the Void, with limitless potential that tears itself apart. It might be shocking to realize that the source of Fel magic contains both Void (which we all think of as pretty pure evil) and Light (which we think of as pure good) but I think that the nature of Fel magic and demons is not one that is necessarily consciously evil - it's consciously destructive. Allowing things to remain Void would not sate the Fel's desire for rapid, unpredictable change.
Which means that demons, in the Warcraft universe, are more than anything interested in tearing things down, and never being satisfied with what has been built up in its place.
Keep that in mind.
Demons don't really exist within our universe. Even when we fight them, even when they kill our people, it isn't really "them" there. They have bodies, but their demonic souls are at the very most temporarily housed in those bodies, and it's more likely the souls never leave the Twisting Nether at all, their demonic bodies are controlled remotely. This is why you can kill a demon over and over again at they will keep coming.
Demons are mostly, or possibly all, corrupted versions of races that once were humanoids, beasts, or possibly elementals. We've seen Eredar and Night Elves who have become demons (Man'ari Eredar and Satyrs, respectively,) and we've seen other races approach total demonic corruption, such as Orcs and Blood Elves.
In the Paladin class hall campaign, players encounter and wind up recruiting Lothraxion, an officer of the Army of the Light who appears to be a holy Nathrezim (aka Dreadlord.) Lothraxion has the cloven hooves and wings of the Nathrezim, but he does not have horns and he radiates a pure holy light.
We know next to nothing about Lothraxion. Some have speculated that he was once a demon but has now been redeemed. I have a different take: The Army of the Light is said to be formed by the survivors of worlds that the Legion conquered or destroyed, who have banded together to fight back. Given that the Legion appears to recruit from its conquered worlds, I suspect that if we were to encounter the main force of the Army of the Light, we would actually find many familiar races - races that we would normally consider demonic. For all we know, the good guys on Argus are composed of Eredruin, Mo'arg, Shivarra, Anihilans, and other creatures who would appear demonic at first, but turn out to be anything but - much as the Draenei first appeared to those who first encountered them on Azeroth.
In fact, the very founder of the Burning Legion was once a different sort of entity. Sargeras was a Titan - a being of Order. The Titans had spent eons fighting the demons before the Legion was created, and it never seemed to be that much of a challenge for them. It took the corruption of Sargeras in order to bring the demons together enough to vanquish the other Titans, and in fact, Sargeras was so unimpressed even in victory that he sought out the Eredar to serve as officers for his demonic army.
Sargeras' stated purpose for the Legion is to purge the universe of anything that could be corrupted by the Void. While it seems pretty hypocritical to fight void corruption with fel corruption, in his eyes, the goal is not to leave behind a corrupted universe but rather to leave behind no universe at all. He wants everything to burn so that the Void Lords have nothing but ashes to corrupt. It's the kind of grand, uncompromising vision that you'd expect a Titan to have, but there are a couple problems with it:
First is that even Sargeras seems to be straying from this vision. In the lore for the Scepter of Sargeras, you find that the eye motif in the center is actually meant to be the Eye of Azeroth. Sargeras had a vision in which the Titan World Soul of Azeroth looked back at him, and his desire seems to be not to destroy Azeroth, but to recruit her to his side (there might even be a romance angle, but these are planet-sized gods, so I wouldn't get hung up on that.) I don't know what he expects Azeroth to do once birthed, but I doubt he has good intentions.
But let's say that Sargeras is removed from the picture - in fact, I think that at least temporarily (but seriously) defeating him has to happen at the end of this expansion. That leaves Archimonde (assuming his defeat in Tanaan Jungle wasn't a permanent one - Mythic raiders beat him in the Twisting Nether, but he corpse falls in the Jungle, so I'm not counting him out) and Kil'Jaeden (likewise him in Tomb of Sargeras, but we don't have the details on that yet) left in charge of the Legion.
Do these two want total destruction? The Eredar were offered infinite knowledge to join the Legion, and while in a way the promise was "once everything's destroyed, there will be nothing left to know" I would guess that these two are pretty happy with their positions of power and would probably be ok with setting up a universe-spanning empire.
Another thing to bear in mind is that the Nathrezim - who were the ones that led Sargeras to the Old Gods and thus proved the unfathomable evil that existed within the universe that made him snap - were in service to the Void at first. While their leader, Ulthalesh, is gone (like a lot of lore figures, he's stuck in an artifact weapon, in this case the Affliction Warlock one,) who's to say that they would remain loyal to the Legion after the death of Sargeras.
Bear in mind that the main reason the demons serve Sargeras is because he knows how to permanently kill them.
We even start to hear some rumblings from Caria Felsoul in the Demon Hunter class campaign that they're already looking at other potential alliances and alignments as paths to power.
And let's return to the core nature of demons - they are beings of chaos. They tear things down.
And over the last several thousand years, what is the most powerful institution in the universe?
The Burning Legion.
If we take out the Dark Titan, I suspect we're going to see the biggest cosmological upheaval in 25,000 years. The Legion is not going to quietly fade away in the absence of its master. It's going to go supernova.
Let's break it down. First and foremost, we have beings of chaos who are tied to the Twisting Nether. The Nether is a realm of unending disparity, a borderland between the Light and the Void, with limitless potential that tears itself apart. It might be shocking to realize that the source of Fel magic contains both Void (which we all think of as pretty pure evil) and Light (which we think of as pure good) but I think that the nature of Fel magic and demons is not one that is necessarily consciously evil - it's consciously destructive. Allowing things to remain Void would not sate the Fel's desire for rapid, unpredictable change.
Which means that demons, in the Warcraft universe, are more than anything interested in tearing things down, and never being satisfied with what has been built up in its place.
Keep that in mind.
Demons don't really exist within our universe. Even when we fight them, even when they kill our people, it isn't really "them" there. They have bodies, but their demonic souls are at the very most temporarily housed in those bodies, and it's more likely the souls never leave the Twisting Nether at all, their demonic bodies are controlled remotely. This is why you can kill a demon over and over again at they will keep coming.
Demons are mostly, or possibly all, corrupted versions of races that once were humanoids, beasts, or possibly elementals. We've seen Eredar and Night Elves who have become demons (Man'ari Eredar and Satyrs, respectively,) and we've seen other races approach total demonic corruption, such as Orcs and Blood Elves.
In the Paladin class hall campaign, players encounter and wind up recruiting Lothraxion, an officer of the Army of the Light who appears to be a holy Nathrezim (aka Dreadlord.) Lothraxion has the cloven hooves and wings of the Nathrezim, but he does not have horns and he radiates a pure holy light.
We know next to nothing about Lothraxion. Some have speculated that he was once a demon but has now been redeemed. I have a different take: The Army of the Light is said to be formed by the survivors of worlds that the Legion conquered or destroyed, who have banded together to fight back. Given that the Legion appears to recruit from its conquered worlds, I suspect that if we were to encounter the main force of the Army of the Light, we would actually find many familiar races - races that we would normally consider demonic. For all we know, the good guys on Argus are composed of Eredruin, Mo'arg, Shivarra, Anihilans, and other creatures who would appear demonic at first, but turn out to be anything but - much as the Draenei first appeared to those who first encountered them on Azeroth.
In fact, the very founder of the Burning Legion was once a different sort of entity. Sargeras was a Titan - a being of Order. The Titans had spent eons fighting the demons before the Legion was created, and it never seemed to be that much of a challenge for them. It took the corruption of Sargeras in order to bring the demons together enough to vanquish the other Titans, and in fact, Sargeras was so unimpressed even in victory that he sought out the Eredar to serve as officers for his demonic army.
Sargeras' stated purpose for the Legion is to purge the universe of anything that could be corrupted by the Void. While it seems pretty hypocritical to fight void corruption with fel corruption, in his eyes, the goal is not to leave behind a corrupted universe but rather to leave behind no universe at all. He wants everything to burn so that the Void Lords have nothing but ashes to corrupt. It's the kind of grand, uncompromising vision that you'd expect a Titan to have, but there are a couple problems with it:
First is that even Sargeras seems to be straying from this vision. In the lore for the Scepter of Sargeras, you find that the eye motif in the center is actually meant to be the Eye of Azeroth. Sargeras had a vision in which the Titan World Soul of Azeroth looked back at him, and his desire seems to be not to destroy Azeroth, but to recruit her to his side (there might even be a romance angle, but these are planet-sized gods, so I wouldn't get hung up on that.) I don't know what he expects Azeroth to do once birthed, but I doubt he has good intentions.
But let's say that Sargeras is removed from the picture - in fact, I think that at least temporarily (but seriously) defeating him has to happen at the end of this expansion. That leaves Archimonde (assuming his defeat in Tanaan Jungle wasn't a permanent one - Mythic raiders beat him in the Twisting Nether, but he corpse falls in the Jungle, so I'm not counting him out) and Kil'Jaeden (likewise him in Tomb of Sargeras, but we don't have the details on that yet) left in charge of the Legion.
Do these two want total destruction? The Eredar were offered infinite knowledge to join the Legion, and while in a way the promise was "once everything's destroyed, there will be nothing left to know" I would guess that these two are pretty happy with their positions of power and would probably be ok with setting up a universe-spanning empire.
Another thing to bear in mind is that the Nathrezim - who were the ones that led Sargeras to the Old Gods and thus proved the unfathomable evil that existed within the universe that made him snap - were in service to the Void at first. While their leader, Ulthalesh, is gone (like a lot of lore figures, he's stuck in an artifact weapon, in this case the Affliction Warlock one,) who's to say that they would remain loyal to the Legion after the death of Sargeras.
Bear in mind that the main reason the demons serve Sargeras is because he knows how to permanently kill them.
We even start to hear some rumblings from Caria Felsoul in the Demon Hunter class campaign that they're already looking at other potential alliances and alignments as paths to power.
And let's return to the core nature of demons - they are beings of chaos. They tear things down.
And over the last several thousand years, what is the most powerful institution in the universe?
The Burning Legion.
If we take out the Dark Titan, I suspect we're going to see the biggest cosmological upheaval in 25,000 years. The Legion is not going to quietly fade away in the absence of its master. It's going to go supernova.
Saturday, February 4, 2017
Orphan of Kos One-Shot
If you'll forgive a bit of bragging:
The Orphan of Kos is probably the hardest video game boss I've ever fought (though to be fair, it was Dark Souls' Ornstein and Smough who prevented me from progressing further in that game.) The massive health pool, devastating and hard to dodge attacks, and relentless pace of the fight all combine to make this a huge challenge.
On my first character, it took me at least twenty, maybe thirty attempts to take him down.
On my Arcane character (who is technically my third but has overtaken the Skill one by one boss) I took him down on my first attempt.
Now to be fair, I've probably leveled up more on this character, though I don't think my a huge amount (the Strength character was at like 45 strength while the Arcane one was at 50 arcane, though I'll also note that I have some underwhelming fire gems.)
Still, while the fight left me with zero Blood Vials, I managed to vanquish this foe in a single attempt.
This actually makes me question a bit whether my initial assessment of Orphan of Kos as the hardest boss in the game (or potentially gaming) was accurate. On the same character, Laurence, the First Vicar, took me several attempts (like the Orphan, I beat him with zero blood vials left.)
Anyway, difficulty aside, at some point I want to lay out my theories about the Orphan of Kos, Maria, and the reason the Hunter's Nightmare exists. I haven't totally nailed down what I believe, but I suspect that the death of Kos is a kind of "original sin" of the Hunters, and that perhaps the entire Curse of the Beast may be the retribution of those in the Fishing Hamlet.
So this also leaves me at a kind of "clean-up" stage with my Arcane character. I think I'm going to wind up doing the three cords ending again, as I want to see how well the Burial Blade works for Arcane. Still need to get the Rakuyo, a couple of the Hunter's Tools, and I think the Gravewarden set in the Forbidden Woods (which I imagine I'll be able to tear through.)
I really want to like the Kos Parasite weapon, given that I'm on an Arcane character, but perhaps given its lack of appropriate gems (it's a default Arcane weapon, meaning elemental gems of other types can't fit it) I'm finding it sadly weak.
The Orphan of Kos is probably the hardest video game boss I've ever fought (though to be fair, it was Dark Souls' Ornstein and Smough who prevented me from progressing further in that game.) The massive health pool, devastating and hard to dodge attacks, and relentless pace of the fight all combine to make this a huge challenge.
On my first character, it took me at least twenty, maybe thirty attempts to take him down.
On my Arcane character (who is technically my third but has overtaken the Skill one by one boss) I took him down on my first attempt.
Now to be fair, I've probably leveled up more on this character, though I don't think my a huge amount (the Strength character was at like 45 strength while the Arcane one was at 50 arcane, though I'll also note that I have some underwhelming fire gems.)
Still, while the fight left me with zero Blood Vials, I managed to vanquish this foe in a single attempt.
This actually makes me question a bit whether my initial assessment of Orphan of Kos as the hardest boss in the game (or potentially gaming) was accurate. On the same character, Laurence, the First Vicar, took me several attempts (like the Orphan, I beat him with zero blood vials left.)
Anyway, difficulty aside, at some point I want to lay out my theories about the Orphan of Kos, Maria, and the reason the Hunter's Nightmare exists. I haven't totally nailed down what I believe, but I suspect that the death of Kos is a kind of "original sin" of the Hunters, and that perhaps the entire Curse of the Beast may be the retribution of those in the Fishing Hamlet.
So this also leaves me at a kind of "clean-up" stage with my Arcane character. I think I'm going to wind up doing the three cords ending again, as I want to see how well the Burial Blade works for Arcane. Still need to get the Rakuyo, a couple of the Hunter's Tools, and I think the Gravewarden set in the Forbidden Woods (which I imagine I'll be able to tear through.)
I really want to like the Kos Parasite weapon, given that I'm on an Arcane character, but perhaps given its lack of appropriate gems (it's a default Arcane weapon, meaning elemental gems of other types can't fit it) I'm finding it sadly weak.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)