BlizzCon 2016 – Schedule (WoW/Blizzard panels)

Today, the schedule for November 4th and 5th has been released. Below is the current times and locations at BlizzCon that are related to Legion (or WoW in general(including the E-Sports events)). Also covers the Opening and Closing Ceremonies.
This also marks Blizzard’s 25th anniversary. And they have an hour-long thing that I feel people should watch. This ends with a Q&A session (Blizzard-related questions only).

So here’s the schedule;

DAY 1 (Friday, November 4th 2016)
9:00am-11am PDT (12:00pm-2:00pm EDT): ‘WoW Arena World Championship’, Tournament Stage. Covers the elimination rounds of Groups A and B.
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11:00am-12:00pm PDT (2:00pm-3:00pm EDT): ‘Opening Ceremony’, Main Stage. Doesn’t list who’s going to be playing this year.
———–
12:00pm-4:00pm PDT (3:00pm-7:00pm EDT): ‘WoW Arena World Championship’, Tournament Stage. Goes over the decider rounds of Group A, B, and Semifinals 1 and 2.
———–
1:00pm-2:15pm PDT (4:00pm-5:15pm EDT): ‘Warcraft: Your Class! Your Champions!’, Voice Actor Stage. Goes over the voices behind the Honor Halls in Legion.
———–
2:45pm-3:45pm PDT (5:45pm-6:45pm EDT): ‘World of Warcraft: Legion – What’s Next’, Main Stage.

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DAY 2 (Saturday, November 5th 2016)
10:00am-11:00am PDT (1:00pm-2:00pm EDT): ‘World of Warcraft Art’, Creative Collective Stage.
———–
10:00am-11:30am PDT (1:00pm-2:30pm EDT): ‘WoW Arena World Championship’, Tournament Stage. The finale of the WoW Arena World Championship.
———–
11:30am-12:30pm PDT (2:30pm-3:30pm EDT): Blizzard 25th Anniversary – A Look Back, Main Stage. Not related to WoW, but something people should watch.
———–
1:00pm-2:00pm (4:00pm-5:00pm EDT): ‘World of Warcraft: Legion – Design Retrospective’, Main Stage.
———–
2:30pm-3:30pm PDT (5:30pm-6:30pm EDT): ‘In-Game Cinematics – The Cutscenes of Legion’, Panel Stage.
———–
3:00pm-4:00pm PDT (6:00pm-7:00pm EDT): ‘World of Warcraft Design’, Creative Collective Stage.
———–
4:00pm-5:00pm PDT (7:00pm-8:00pm EDT): ‘World of Warcraft Q&A’, Main Stage. The big one that everyone waits for. Have your questions ready!
(And pray that red shirt guy returns to make the devs groan)
———–
6:30pm-9:30pm PDT (9:30pm-12:30am EDT(Sunday)): ‘Closing Ceremony’, Main Stage. Doesn’t list who’s going to be playing this year.

So there you go. Lots more to see on Day 2, as usual (as Day 1 is usually Blizzard’s other games).
This unfortunately is going to get in the way of me launching to WP8 of the GNE.

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Patch 7.1 “Return to Karazan” Q&A Twitch Chat this Friday

Just a small heads up. Blizzard’s doing a Q&A this Friday at 11am PDT to cover the upcoming 7.1 patch on their Twitch channel (twitch.tv/warcraft).
You can ask questions in this thread, or use the hashtag (#LegionQA) via Twitter to ask your questions.

I expect there would be a lot of questions, and they obliviously won’t get to all of them. Thankfully my primary one has already been answered by Heol, if this is going to make Kara non-soloable now. He told me that it’ll be a separate instance and not affect the old Kara content.
I’ve also submitted a few others. They’re kind of related to the patch (basically in hopes of getting a passive heal for Hunter pets, since this ‘new’ version of Spirit Bond… sucks).
It’s going to be interesting.

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Suramar City, and why I want to bomb it from orbit!

Suramar City, the Utopian-Distopian jewel of the Broken Isles. Some say it’s the last of the High Elves who didn’t get turned into Naga. I say… if this is Blizzard’s way of “apologizing” to us for not giving us the promised quest hubs in WoD? I refuse your apology.
Now it’s not the fact it’s bad content. It’s..FRUSTRATING content!! You have to be sneaky. You have to continuously be on guard for people that can see your disguise, less the ENTIRE FUCKING CITY COMES AFTER YOUR ASS!!
At least it feels like it sometimes. I seriously wish I could wipe the city off the face of Azeroth!!! D:

Clearly, they took pointers from the Assassin’s Creed series (but gave it the WoW twist..making it three times more difficult). You’re given a disguise to be able to move around the city. But you have these disguise stealers patrolling around the city (including demons that can insta-remove it).
What makes it “three times more difficult” is these guys don’t have a circle of detection (unlike a typical stealth quest), giving you no clue how close you can get to them. Unlike the Assassin’s Creed series, there aren’t certain off limits areas. The entire city is off limits, constantly being patrolled by annoying fucks who can and will show up out of nowhere, giving you three seconds to get out of their detection range until you’re spotted.
If you’re revealed, you’re pretty much fucked up the ass. You got to also watch out for anyone with yellow names, for they will turn hostile if you’re spotted. And they have insane health pools. And if you see a lot of them and you’re revealed? I’d hate to be you.

But again, Suramar City isn’t bad content. It’s new. It’s fresh. The city itself is quite beautiful. But constantly having to make sure I don’t get spotted is VERY annoying.
I hope eventually to finally show them that the rest of Azeroth didn’t disband them in their time of need (and to be able to freely walk around the city). It will take a lot of work (and I pray some of it doesn’t mean going into a dungeon/raid), but I hope it pays off at the end. If not, then… well, this’ll be the last time I do this content. Thankfully there’s still World Quests to do.

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Legion’s endgame, and why it’s SO much better than WoD

When you feel like you have too much to do (in a game) and not enough time to do it, that’s a sign of a good game. And this is probably the most fun I’ve had out of endgame content since I started soloing old world dungeons/raids for a living.
And yes, I mean every word I say here. Blizzard did a damn good job. A much, much better improvement compared to the dullness of WoD’s ingame.

Where to start explaining how good this is? Hmm.. OK.
-World Quests. I thought these were going to be as boring and mind-numbing as dailies of the past, of being told to “wait ’till tomorrow to do it again”. But no. Infact, they’re literally follower missions — but for the player! The reason I say that is they have a set time limit, ranging from a few days to less than 30 minutes.
So instead of ‘wait ’till tomorrow’, it will reward you after completion. And it specifies what it will reward to give you a choice if you wish to do it or not.
You can also use these for endgame gearing, so you don’t feel ‘forced’ to do dungeons.
The last thing, these ‘fill the bar’ quests that I didn’t like hearing about? They are NOTHING like they were with WoD! Just kill 40 or so mobs and boom, you’re done!
——–
-The rebirth of Mr “YOU ARE NOT PREPARED” Illidan Stormrage. This blew my mind (and also made me a bit nervous). I .. met one of the ancient Narru (named “Xe’ra”) who spoke to me after using the Tears of Elune to unlock a relic I found as I was leveling up. It told me something that has been obvious for over 10,000 years — the titans are dead and Sergaras is the only one still alive (in spirit). What’s scary, is if the Burning Legion aren’t stopped, they won’t just stop at destroying Azeroth — but also head to other planets. This is a greater threat than Deathwing, and the Aspects can’t help us out this time (as they’re gone since his defeat).
Xe’ra feels Illidan is the only one that is powerful enough to stop the Legion, and it’s up to me to somehow resurrect him. The question is…will he agree to let go of the hate he had for us in TBC? This Narru believes, he can (and has to).
I told Khadgar this, and he was …shocked to hear this. I thought it was obvious. It’s been written like this in the lore on the website.
——–
-Getting Rexxar to be a follower. This..was something I don’t think I want to do again (yet it was also new and fun..to an extent). He challenges you to survive on your natural human instincts; to survive the night for three minutes. I barely did it. Blizzard threw in a Survival aspect for this, of killing pigs, getting their food, cooking it, and eating it before you starve to death. What was hard is the food bar dropped so quickly, giving me very limited time to react.
What was pretty wild, was when I completed it. It was night already. Then when the quest completed, the sun rose and it got day, then it sat and it went night again. Quickest day/night cycle I’ve ever seen in this game.
——–
-The Trueshot Lodge Hunter Questline (aka helping the ‘Unseen Path’). This is what I enjoy the most about Legion — the fact the world doesn’t revolve around your decisions. You are the ‘guy behind the guy’. You might be the supposed ‘leader’ of the Unseen Path, but it isn’t “here you go, good luck!” like WoD did it. It’s having an advisor by my side to make sure I don’t fuck up. And this advisor watches over the lodge for me while I’m gone.
I don’t feel glued to the lodge. I LOVE that feeling! Well done, Blizzard! Huge improvement from WoD.

And that’s basically all I’ve seen, other than the profession quests. Speaking of professions…I dunno why I’m even skinning/mining anymore. It doesn’t tell me what these things are used for. I guess I need to get Auctioneer installed to find out what they’re worth on the AH. Do like the fact they stack at 200 instead of 20, but that’s been a change since WoD.

Overall, I really enjoy this expansion. I’m glad I wasn’t part of the Alpha or Beta, so I never got spoiled. I feel Blizzard definitely has learned their lesson from WoD. And I could literally pretend that WoD never existed.
And because of that, I feel I should ‘attend’ BlizzCon this year via the Virtual Ticket (wish I could go to California and physically attend it for the first time in my life).
As usual, I’ll be “broadcasting” BlizzCon via this blog starting on November 4th, by typing down what’s going on at the WoW stage (and then give my opinion afterwards).

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The road to Level 110 is over. Max level reached!

I’ve started at Stormheim, and ended at Azsuna. At the end, it got me 50% to Level 110. What did was ironically a modified mechanic of WoD I disliked greatly; the follower system. It was my two champions (and the completion of side and profession quests) that got me there.
Started playing on the 4th. It’s now the 10th. Roughly a week. Feels like it took four days, but no.

So, this thing about Honor Points being useful for the artifact you’re holding as a weapon? This is unlocked at Level 110. It takes two RL days to complete research on your weapon to do this. Thankfully I don’t have to sit for two days.
And you also have to get Friendly status with all factions in able to unlock World Quests – including zones you haven’t been to yet – on your road to Level 110.
This also unlocks a really neat thing, of summoning a special flying mount that will take you to a nearby FP.

So the questing was pretty good for a game that’s 12 years old. My only complaint is they were pushing the dungeons a bit too much. I would base this on the ending of the Spires of Arak.. actually no, that was worse. But the ending of the main questline is so unbelievably predictable.
Every zone is based on “recover X, it’s a powerful item in the fight against the Legion”. Yet at the end, it’s;
You: There it is!
Boss: NO! IT’S MINE!! *stops the player from reaching it*
*Boss jumps into a portal or runs away*
NPC nearby: [Player], you have to get a group and do this dungeon to get X!”

Every. fucking. TIME it was the same thing! Sure, they may change it around, but it all ends up like that. The thing you need to get, snatched by the final boss of a dungeon, and you’re told to go do it with a PuG! WTF!!
I liked it when dungeons were optional. I understand that they’re trying to push the dungeon into the story. But to do this for every fucking zone?! Come on, Blizzard!
What pisses me off the most is how they hype this item of power to the point you feel “YES! I have to go get a random group of people I’ve never met in my life and pray they know the fights (and don’t make fun of my DPS)!”

I even feared that Blizzard was going to force me to do these dungeons, to really go anywhere in the game. So far, that doesn’t seem the case (as I can get access to World Quests without ever having to step into an instance portal).

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Moving on from that, there’s also something that’s been puzzling me. The lightning wolf I got at Level 100 to get Titanstrike? I’ve seen quite a few Level 110 BM Hunters with .. matching pets. I checked my weapon and I don’t see anything about “Hati clones your current pet” (or anything of the sort). Maybe it’s an artifact relic you can only get from Suramar(the Level 110 only zone). Would make sense.
That or maybe it’s a relic you can only get from completing some dungeon. It’s got to be something that’s challenging to get. 😛

With that said, there’s also another thing that puzzles me, but a bit more. I feel Blizzard left a loophole the size of the Maelstrom. I found the “dying breed of blue dragons” that I read about earlier in the year. They’re in Azsuna. The name should had given a clue, as Azure is another word for “Blue”.
I was told by the dying Senegos, that since the fall of Deathwing, all dragons have nearly lost all their power. They also can’t have whelps. That sounds really bad.
But here’s the headscratcher. Deathwing has been dead since… how long? 4 years now? And these whelps are still..whelps. Plus, there are a LOT of whelps (from what I saw).
I can see how Blizzard’s saying they’re ‘dying’…but from what I see, they aren’t going to die out for a LONG time. Especially the fact dragons are immortal (unless killed by an outside source).
The fact these dragons can’t have new whelps, yeah.. they will eventually die out. But again, I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
Plus, none of them mentioned anything about Malygos, only Deathwing. Senegos is probably the last blue dragon since Malygos’ death (as he’s the oldest). Yet again, no mention of him. I found that really odd. Maybe they’re too ashamed to mention his name?
Also, if (from what Stellagosa, one of Senegos’ children says) ‘all’ dragons have been “greatly weakened” since the fall of Deathwing, then how come the storm drakes are very much alive and thriving by the number of eggs I saw?
How come my own ‘dragon form’ is still alive? Sure, I can’t fly right now. Still got to figure out how to start and complete the Pathfinder quests (and then wait for this ‘mid-expansion patch’ to arrive), but that’s beside the point. There are still dragons out there who are still alive (and able to fly). That makes her statement, very wrong.

One last thing before I close this out. I’ve learned that Sylvanas..somehow became the Warchief of the Horde. …Could had sworn Vul’gin became Warchief at the end of MoP. Maybe he gave it away to Sylvanas…or was murdered for it. Eitherway, she’s the Warchief now. Yet what puzzles me is, if she’s the Warchief, why is she and her Undead followers the only ones at the Broken Isles? Where’s the Orcs? Where’s the Tauren? Where’s the Blood Elves? … Did they all get murdered? Or did Sylvanas just leave without telling everyone else?
Dunno. Guess the only way to know is to play the expansion on the Horde side, with my Tauren Hunter.

So, that’s all there is to say. Now that I’m Level 110, I’ll start doing the endgame content and get World Quests enabled.

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P.S. One other last last thing… BlizzCon 2016 is coming. It’s coming on November 4th and 5th, which is unfortunately in the way of doing the GNE. Though I have the US Meetup if that’s the case.
Depending on how I enjoy Legion’s endgame content (from now to the end of October), I might consider attending via the Virtual Ticket.

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How Legion is so far… (Feat. WoW Legion Companion app)

I’ve hit the halfway point of 110 (105), and the things I’ve seen.. one still blowing my mind.
I’ve completed Stormheim and currently working in Highmountain. Val’Sharah is going to be my place to go to reach 110. Really enjoyed Stormheim’s questline. But my favorite part was being an ally to the Thorignir; a race of storm dragons. The reason? Well, I haven’t seen something like this since Cata of actually talking to a dragon… but the names of the quests had me tickled pink. They were titles of Dragonforce songs! 😀
I prayed one of them would pull out a guitar and start jamming to it. If I saw that, I would die. Just.. ‘ded’ from the sure epicness. Or even better, had Blizzard played a version of that song of the title.. ‘ded’. Plus getting to them, felt like I was playing Skyrim (trying to reach the Throat of the World).
I’m not going to lie, that was fucking badass! It’s a shame, though… when the final quest in Stormheim was all “you are worthy! Now, go get a group together and do this dungeon!”.. Fuck no.

Highmountain had its own surprises, such as coming to where Deathwing was banished to Deepholm. Feels right out of Skyrim, though, of Alduin being banished. What was odd, is he was banished.. by a Tauren. A Tauren Warrior named “Huln Highmountain”. I was even able to fight this vision of Deathwing. Was unnerving to see his face again.
And then it ends, with this spiritwarden guy being a black dragon who was uncorrupted by Deathwing. And I swear he thanked me for killing his father all those years ago. So that proves other black dragons who were uncorrupted are still alive, just in hiding. That’s really mind blowing. It also proves that dragons are immortal, unless killed by an outside source (such as a Human Hunter out for revenge).
I was also part of the Battle of the Ancients. And I saw Alexstraza’s consort flying around assisting the Night Elves. And it’s location, oddly enough, is also where the pre-expansion content was for The Burning Crusade; Azshara.
Overall, that was pretty good. And it didn’t even stop at a dungeon. And being the only one doing that content, it’s like Blizzard wanted me to see this. That, or the entire thing was phased to where I was the only player there. Both are cool to me.
Thanks, Blizzard. 🙂

These two zones, so far, it feels all expansions are being brought into it. Almost if Legion is going to be the final expansion of WoW. Too early to tell, though.
So that’s basically it. As for the Artifact Weapon, after asking how I go about unlocking Spirit Bond, it turns out I have to max out an ability before I’m allowed to have access to the branch that Spirit Bond is on. Need 375 power and I’m slowly working on that.
I also discovered that rare mobs (which are shockingly quite soloable) have a chance to drop a charm that can be used to get artifact power.

But really…..so far I’m actually living without the need for Spirit Bond. I realize now that it was nothing but a crutch to unlock my true potential, and I get the reason why Blizzard did what they did.
That and I’ve been using Feign Death quite a lot. So far I haven’t died to a mob. Came close a few times (due to my main pet dying), but I always managed to get my pets where I wanted them to (and running around while Feign Death is on cooldown also helps).
I’m also getting these runes, and have been debating on either keeping them ’till I’m Level 110 (since I don’t know if I truly need them), or just sell them.

I do miss Aspect of the Cheetah, though (before its feature was completely overhauled) — especially when trying to follow NPCs who are actually running faster than I can. But.. what can you do?
Overall, this expansion is pretty good. Love the fact I don’t have to stand around in the Honor Hall and just quest while they do their work. Also, I am glad to see that the only reoccurrence of Work Orders is to recruit archers to help the odds in my favor.
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One other thing. Checked out the ‘WoW Legion Companion’ app. It works on my phone, and it is awesome. I cannot recommend it enough. It serves as remote access to your Honor Hall, allowing you to complete and start follower missions, upgrades for you or your followers, and hire archers.. all remotely without even having to turn my computer on. And when you log in, it will give you the changes. That. is. AWEsome!! 😀
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I do have to say this in my closing. Was informed that I would be able to acquire the other artifact weapons ‘later on’. And that magic number seems to be at Level 103. But since I’m BM for life…why would I possibly have a need for these other weapons? Of course others can argue that the other specs are powerful in their own way, but I just prefer BM. And so far, the desire for my main to be the first Level 110 is slowly coming true.

The road to Level 110 continues on…

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The road to Level 110 has started

Ok, so… maybe I was wrong here, and BM Hunters aren’t fucked up the ass. Because Spirit Bond still exists.. but has been moved to the BM Artifact Weapon; Titanstrike. I also have a second pet, giving me two pets in combat. 🙂

So let me explain what lead up to this. I was leveling my Monk as usual, and I kept noticing the number of low level Hunters running around with their pets. Puzzled me quite a lot. But what made me go “WTF” was seeing a Level 103 Hunter with their pet. I tried to ask “how are you surviving”, but never got a response.

Made a thread to ask, what the hell is up with all of these Hunters. Plus telling them what I was told, that if you went Marksman, you’d lose your pet.
The responses were typically unhelpful…except one, who says the artifact weapon uses Kill Command to heal the player of a percentage of its damage. Also mentions that I “would get it early on”.
That helped boost confidence in me to try once again, and it’s a good thing I did. And to spare what happened to start the Legion questline, I’m just going to say that I’m currently in Stormheim trying to survive the best I can. The quests make very little sense to me, but I don’t care as long as they get me to Level 110.

Seems I’m going to need over 300 Artifact Power to unlock this new form of Spirit Bond. Kind of clueless on how to get more power; never gets explained in the game. With that being said, I don’t know how I’m going to get it “early on” as that person claimed in that response.
But from what I’ve seen so far, they’re found in Treasure Chests and by completing major quests. And the way I’ve seen it work, the bar has to be filled and moved over to the next level before I’m allowed to get another ability added to my weapon. First time it’s 300, then 375 and so on, and this gets longer and longer.
I have yet to see why I’m even collecting Honor Resources. I heard that it’s supposed to give more artifact power (probably after a certain time).

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Early game Monk update

If only Blizzard would restore Spirit Bond, I wouldn’t even had created a Monk. Alas, they did and this is the only way.

So, he’s Level 15 now; chilling in Westfall. This is with no sleep bonus or any perks. Though I am wondering if I should go to the Darkmoon Faire with him and ride the carousel there, as it gives a 10% increase to XP intake for all kills. Any faster percentage to getting to Level 100 (and eventually Level 110) would be most welcomed.
I do believe that the Monk gets their own XP buff by Level 20 (which either lasts for an hour or a day), which would help even more.

I’m trying my damnest to also pick good choices in my Monk’s talent tiers. I believe last time, I picked Chi Burst as it did more damage. But this time I’m going with Eye of The Tiger, as it makes Tiger Palm better by giving a chance to heal the Monk while damaging the target. Survivability is what I’m going for. And so far I haven’t died. But this is early game. By late early game (once I reach Level 30 or so and be able to use a mount by then), the chance of death will probably raise.

I already miss the Guild XP buffs that we had since MoP. If they still existed, I would had been Level 20 by now. Some say that the buffs got removed back in Cata, but I’m pretty sure I used them in MoP (Monks as a playable class didn’t even exist back then).

One last thing, I’m also using a mod called “We Don’t Wipe” (and its WW Monk module). It’s sort of a replacement to “Bitten’s SpellFlash”. It basically helps determine a good rotation based on your current abilities to get the most DPS. Though I would prefer the other as it doesn’t add another GUI to your screen. Plus I see rotations like this which make no sense. Maybe I just need to get used to it more.

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My main is unplayable and I must scream (at Blizzard)

It seems WoD was my final expansion. And from looking back at it, maybe it wasn’t that bad…. compared to the massive changes they’ve done to BM Hunters.
Pretty much impossible to solo and stay alive. Spirit Bond IS GONE. No more passive healing, and no answer as to why it was removed. I tried to do the Iron Docks quest which is supposed to lead up to going to Tannan Jungle, and without Spirit Bond, I died so easily.
Hell, the moment I saw my spec last night, a ton of my useful abilities were either moved to other specs or ripped out of my hands. It feels like a pre-Vanilla spec (even though I never was part of the testing of the Alpha and Beta versions of WoW).
My Hunter, who I had since mid to late Vanilla WoW, is a shell of his former self.

Why, though? Just why? Why did BM Hunters get such a beating from the nerf bat? Thankfully I’m not alone in wanting an answer. Sadly, Blizzard is once again keeping their community in the dark. It’s that anger that you want answers and the person with the answers, never gives you them.

So it seems I have to do something I’ve only done once, which is to get to max level as another char. I believe it was my Rogue that got to Level 100 before my Hunter did in WoD. But this time, I’m creating a new char and getting them to Level 100 (and then using them to get me to Level 110; effectively ‘replacing’ my main).
I’m going to make another WW Monk. I read it’s still a viable choice for soloing. Yet I also read that in the upcoming 7.1 patch, that this class might also get smacked with the nerf bat.

I also asked the WoW Community (yes, I have a death wish) if the new Demon Hunter hero class is a viable option. Was told that both specs got “kneecapped” by the nerf bat in a recent patch (probably Patch 7.0.3), and like BM Hunters, Blizzard is keeping quiet on if this would, if ever, be undone or fixed.

So anyway, back to the Monk. Debating if it’s worth re-establishing my secondary account (also buying another copy of Legion) just to get this person into my Guild(to stop the pestering). And I feel (going by the fact my main got nerfed to hell and back and Blizzard not responding to it) that it’s not..at this time. There should be an addon or two to block Guild invites, and I’ll just use that.
When I eventually get to Level 110 with the Monk (and do the content my main (at this time) will likely never do), I will think about it again.

As to if I should just use the Level 100 boost, no. Learning the rotation is critical to survive. And by boosting, I won’t learn how to play my class.

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Mixed opinions of returning to WoW

I’m now officially back in WoW. Got my subscription re-established and Legion purchased. As for what version I purchased, I got the Standard edition. I looked at the Digital Deluxe edition very carefully, but went with my gut. Mainly because the ‘bells and whistles’, 3/4 of them were for games I don’t (or plan to) own. I felt if I really wanted the ones for WoW, I could just buy them on the pet store. So why waste $30 more for something I can’t even use?
FYI, this did not come from “Blizzard doesn’t deserve it”. I made a decision not based off from hate, but an informed purchase.

Watched the climatic. From the start to the end, it seemed that WoD’s timeline was non-canon. Plus, how did the Burning Legion get to Azeroth? Obvious answer would be Gul’dan. It was good to see King Lane actually trying to be a hero (instead of get fat while sitting on his throne). And seeing Sylvanas being a badass with her bow was pretty cool.
Also I heard that King Lane dies in the climatic. It clearly shows he’s all “FOR AZEROTH!!” at the end, and is still very much alive. So, either everyone who heard this happen was trolled, or he actually dies (but later on).
Everything to me, as I said, clearly had WoD’s timeline being non-existent. It seems as this happened some time after WoD’s timeline (yet no sighting of Hellscream who went “I LOVE you Alliance people!” after the final raid).

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Logging in was shockingly quick. I only saw the main title screen for something like a few seconds and then I was able to select a new class (didn’t even have to log in, as if they store your info on your computer now). However, my existing chars on my primary still exist. Logged in and I was back in my house, where I logged off two years ago.
Started getting bombarded with achievements (I assume late game achievements that were created in either WoD or Legion). This stopped for a bit, then started up again with these weird achievements (I assume transmog-based).

In the Interface, I noticed a distinct lack in the number of options. Either that or they have been turned into a Neutron Star (when you play ED a bit too much…).
I didn’t see the option to disable or enable the displaying of Guild titles or any of that, which bothers me a bit. Either they forced-enabled or disabled that.

When it comes to abilities, I spent about 20 or so minutes using an old picture from the WoD Beta to set my spellbars. And I notice 4 abilities are missing;
Arcane Shot, Kill Shot, Camouflage, and Traps. Arcane Shot and Traps, I read about this earlier in the year in a video about them getting removed. But removing Kill Shot..one of the most used abilities of mine?! Not cool, Blizzard.
So instead of giving me more buttons to push and complicate my rotation, they gave me less buttons and it’s still complicating my rotation!
Arcane Shot alone used to be the opener for my rotation. Without it, I honestly don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do. Of course I’m going to have to learn a whole new rotation. It almost feels that Blizzard is literally forcing me to learn my class.
It seems Dire Beast is going to have to replace Arcane Shot. They also removed that ability they had in WoD, which was (to me) a Serpent Sting replacement. Wonder why they did that.
Another undesired change, is Aspect of the Cheetah has been completely changed from what it was since Vanilla. It’s no longer a way to travel faster when you can’t mount, but a way to avoid attacks and stuff. Because of this, Aspect of the Pack is gone. That’s really all I can say; undesired.

Overall, it feels like BM Hunters got fucked in the ass without lube by the nerf hammer. Hell, it feels like an entire new spec from what it was in Vanilla.
Undesired. Forced. Those are the only feelings I have for this. :/ And trying to look for help on Youtube, there is only one video for use in PvE with BM Hunters (with no guarantee it’s been updated for the latest patch). The majority are PvP.
And I hear Warlocks got it much worse.

Yet I believe I’m also forgetting about the Artifact weapon I’m going to be getting once I start the Legion questline. This could change my rotation once again (maybe for the better).
There’s also this new “Honor Talents” thing which is unlocked at Level 110 (which seem to possibly replace the fact there is no Level 110 tier in the talent tier list). They look PvP in nature, having a medallion mentioned several times.
So maybe your artifact weapon is your Level 110 abilities? If so, what an interesting mechanic.

So… for now, I’m going to have to be forced to learn a completely new rotation wherever I want to or not (by going to my Garrison and practicing on the training dummy), and maybe solo a dungeon or two with it (just to see what to use and when in certain situations). Also looking into mods, but the really helpful one I used in WoD and years past appears to be abandoned since last year. That is very unfortunate, but there’s nothing I can do about it.
I did find an alternative, and I hope it helps with my new rotation.

Posted in Other, PC | Comments Off on Mixed opinions of returning to WoW