A Gamer Geek's Cogitations, Conjectures and other Cortical Experiences

Tag: World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth

WoW: The Battle for Azeroth is Over

The Battle for Azeroth is OverLast week the pre-patch event for Shadowlands began. As we embark on our journey into the afterlife, let’s reflect on Blizzards 7th expansion. Battle for Azeroth had a tough act to follow. Legion, in my opinion, is the second best expansion since Wrath of the Lich King. Unfortunately BfA didn’t quite live up to the same level as Legion and Wrath. Personally, I would rank this expansion around the middle of the pack. Now that the Battle for Azeroth is over, what ruminations do I have from the past 2 years?

Honestly, the first half of the expansion was pretty good. I enjoyed meeting Jaina’s family and restoring her people’s faith in her and meeting Taelia Fordragon and learning her story. I hope Blizzard will pursue a possible love interest between her and Anduin. It has been a long time since there has been a Queen in Stormwind. The real story is told by the raids and I’m pretty split on that.

WoW: BfA State of the Raid

I feel like I use to write “State of the Game” or “State of the Raid” posts in the past, however I cannot seem to find one. I prefer “State of the Raid” as a subject because it’s more applicable to me (and my raid friends). It’s also the primary reason I log in every day. However, this post is about more than just our progress in Ny’alotha; it’s also about my progress with all end game activities.

Ny’alotha Raid Progress

Ny’alotha is the final raid of the Battle for Azeroth expansion. We are fighting to save Azeroth from N’Zoth, who has nightmarish plans for the world. In Normal we are consistently 11/12 within a lockout. N’Zoth, even on Normal, is a very challenging boss so we have made the logical choice to start working through Heroic content. The gear, hopefully, will help us to be successful against N’Zoth. We are currently 3/12 in Heroic.

We are also working on completing through Carapace of N’Zoth within a single night so we have more time to focus on Heroic. After the current lock out, however, we will have completed the quest to unlock the skip mechanic. Therefore we will likely focus exclusively on Heroic very soon. Ahead of the Curve is our goal, as always, which awards the Uncorrupted Voidwing, a freaking sweet mount! I’m a little worried though; N’Zoth seems perhaps a little over tuned and/or overly complex. I’m honestly kind of hoping for a nerf, however I have confidence in our raid team (Humpday!!)

Assaults, Visions and Alts

This expansion is one of the weaker ones. Probably not as weak as Warlords of Draenor. Perhaps more on par with Cataclysm. I was interested in the story through the previous patch, in which we faced off with Azshara, a baddie that dates back to Vanilla. Now we are facing off against another old god, who seem to be the antagonists behind all that plagues Azeroth. I don’t find the battle against N’Zoth as epic as it was fighting Azshara. The advantage this expansion has over previous weaker expansion is the non-raid end game activities that are available.

I really like the corruption visual effect

When I’m not raiding, my wife and I are completing Assaults and running Horrific Visions to upgrade our cloaks. We are current as of this post (i.e. Rank 12). The higher the rank we have on our cloaks the more corrupted gear we can have (which improves our survivability and contributes to our raid progress). After cloaks then it’s usually the alts I spend time on. Most things you can solo if you don’t want to group. I find that appealing as I’m not always interested in group activities (unless its with my wife). Granted I’ve only completed up to Rank 5 on an alt; soloing Corrupted Zones or *shudder* Lost Zones is frightening.

The Azerite system is OK. There are times when I feel its tedious to have to go to the Chamber of Heart to active a new trait. Also, getting a new piece of Azerite gear can be a little annoying, especially during raid when you are trying to bust through content to get to your progression point. Having to stop and plug in Azerite traits slows things down, especially if you have to look them up on icy-veins (or similar web sites).

Aside from getting the Ahead of the Curve achievement, I will have to start making my end-of-expansion goal list. Shadowlands is just around the corner.

duke-nukem-sm If zombies attack the world, everyone will run and hide. Except for us gamers, of course. We’ve been waiting for this all our lives!

 

WoW: Waiting for Rise of Azshara

How about a gaming update! We are waiting for Rise of Azshara, the 8.2 patch for the Battle for Azeroth expansion. We know this patch is on the PTR, and Blizzard is teasing us with a plethora of details (some containing spoilers). While I am avoiding the spoilers, I do read about some of the new content including the new zones, encounters and, of course, the new mounts! However, this isn’t about those details. What is there to do while we wait??!

Raiding and AOTC

Ahead of the Curve (AOTC) is an achievement for defeating the final boss of the current raid tier before the release of the next tier. It’s a goal many guilds use as a guideline for remaining in sync with the expansion storyline.

This patch will remove the AOTC achievement for Battle of Dazar’alor. Therefore raid teams are feverishly trying to defeat Jaina on heroic difficulty before the patch drops. Our raid team, however, has already accomplished that (huge props to everyone that made it possible). While we wait for 8.2 we are working on AOTC for Crucible of Storms, which only consists of two bosses and, therefore, shouldn’t be too difficult.

Non-Raid Goals (i.e. ALTS)

We only raid two nights a week and, since a release date hasn’t been announced, we are not in a hurry to bring down Uu’nat. If your only in-game goals are related to raiding then you’re probably pretty bored right now. Me, on the other hand, have 13 other toons that I would like to get to 120.

Currently I have 9 alts at max level (meaning I have 10 characters at 120). I made it a goal to try to get all of them to 120 before 8.2 drops. My main purpose for this is that I neglected my alts during most of the previous expansion. I waited until the final patch to diligently level the alts. I did not accomplish everything I had hoped to do before the expansion ended. Hence my reasons for more proactively leveling my alts.

Leveling Is A Science

I can usually reach level 120 in about two weeks, a little over one week if the Darkmoon Faire is active. I’ve learned there is a science to leveling in Battle for Azeroth. Before you begin leveling an alt, I would highly recommend picking up the 7th Legion Scouting Map (or Honorbound Scouting Map) from the Emissary. This is a Bind on Account item that will discover all the flight points on Kul Tiras and Zandalar on each character it’s used.

Basically I begin by picking one of the zones and I focus on the main storyline for the zone. I will do a couple of side quests along the way, but I keep doing the main quests until I have the quest for the dungeon (which marks the end of the story). Once you have all three storylines completed then you have a choice.

If you focus specifically on the storyline quest chain, you will not hit 120. Depending on how many side quests you do you will still need about 1-2 more levels. I would highly suggest you work on the three war campaigns next. You can wait until 119 if you want, since you will get an item from the first one you complete. I suggest completing these before 120 because you will want the waypoints out to your faction’s respective camps when you unlock World Quests and Faction Assaults.

If you still haven’t hit 120 by the time you complete all three war campaigns then its more side quests or dungeon grinding. And more waiting for Rise of Azshara.

Happy Leveling!

duke-nukem-sm If zombies attack the world, everyone will run and hide. Except for us gamers, of course. We’ve been waiting for this all our lives!

 

 

WoW: Battle for Azeroth Impressions

Battle for Azeroth ImpressionsWe are about six weeks into the eighth World of Warcraft expansion. The Battle for Azeroth has begun; the Horde and Alliance are engaged in fierce warfare to control the Azerite. The first raid, Uldir, is available and Blizzard has already announced the first content patch, Tides of Vengeance. Therefore, by this point in time we have experienced everything that is new to the game. While there is more to come, here are my Battle for Azeroth Impressions thus far.

Battle for Azeroth: The Good

I know why Blizzard doesn’t allow flying in new expansions. I “complain” about not flying quite a bit but it’s only to be an irritation (*cough* “Tony” *cough”). However, in all honesty I do enjoy using ground mounts exclusively at the beginning, for two reasons.

  1. The artists put so much work into the landscape and scenery I feel that flying, right out of the gate, would negate all that effort.
  2. I rarely get to use my ground mounts when flying is available. It’s nice to have a reason to see all my favorite ground mounts.

The story arc I’m looking forward to most is Queen Azshara. We saw her briefly during the Court of Farondis questline, but heard very little of her after that. She’s clearly involved in this expansion so I’m excited to see if she will be a raid boss. It’s time she is put down!

Battle for Azeroth: The Bad

While I don’t think this expansion is starting out as great as Legion, I couldn’t think of a lot of things I think are “bad”. The one item I’m still not happy about are dungeon quests required for professions. Granted I have not reached the max level in all the crafting professions, however Anchor Weed, the rare herb in this expansion, has a dungeon quest required to reach rank 3. It also appears that herbalism is the only gathering profession that has a dungeon component to it.

I don’t mind using quests to reach ranks 2 or 3, but I do not like profession quests that require a dungeon.

Battle for Azeroth: And The ‘Meh’

The Story

As much as I do like that Queen Azshara is mentioned a lot, I’m still not as into the story as I was in Legion. Granted, I don’t think it’s as weak as the story for Warlords of Draenor but the whole “Horde vs Alliance” feels a bit cliche. Perhaps the reason I’m not as into the story is that I actually like Sylvanas and the fact that she’s lost her mind is fantastic. Unfortunately, 98% of the community disagrees and they all hope she dies (btw, I even play Alliance). I’m sure I will be labeled a traitor when I say, I really hope we don’t kill her; in fact I think she’s under the influence of Queen Azshara. While I don’t think she makes a good war chief, I would rather over throw her than kill her (thus killing another Horde leader).

Treasures and Rares

This expansion is inundated with treasures and rare mobs and they have really lost their value. I have opened hundreds of treasures and killed hundreds of rare mobs and 99% of the time I only get Azerite power and vendor trash. Perhaps we were too spoiled in Legion and now expectations are too high to get more out of rares and treasures.

Island Expeditions and War Fronts

The two new world mechanics in Battle for Azeroth are Island Expeditions and War Fronts. These are essentially the evolution of scenarios. Island Expeditions is a race to farm Azerite; that’s it. They developed an algorithm so each time you enter an Island Expedition it’s different, however its only different in terms of terrain and mobs. The objective is still ALWAYS the same. Island Expeditions feel so lackluster that I’ve been renaming them to “Island Adventures”. There is good news. I believe Blizzard has plans to make some changes so they are not so terribly bland.

Honestly I think these Island Expeditions should feel more like War Fronts where the action is immersive. While the objective in a War Front is the same, you can get there by doing other things (i.e. farming iron/wood, attacking clinch points, etc). The downside to the War Front, especially when you can’t enter the battle, once you complete the quests, there is nothing else to do for several days. If you’re still trying to increase your item level or you have alts, they are a great way to get some decent pieces of gear.

Final Thoughts

All in all, Battle for Azeroth is off to a decent start. It has more going for it than Warlords of Draenor. I also suspect that there are more surprises coming for players (not just story but game mechanics as well). I feel like Blizzard is intentionally holding something back, and perhaps BlizzCon is when we will find out what else is coming.

FOR THE ALLIANCE!

duke-nukem-sm If zombies attack the world, everyone will run and hide. Except for us gamers, of course. We’ve been waiting for this all our lives!

 

WoW: Battle for Azeroth Pre-Expansion Goals

We are a week away from the Battle for Azeroth worldwide launch. Our magnificent raid team completed what we set out to do (Ahead of the Curve and Violet Spellwing mounts for all raid members). We still had several weeks between the last AOTC run and the BfA launch. Kudos to the team leadership for finding things to do to keep us all hanging out over the last several weeks. This is the most fun I have had in WoW since Wrath of the Lich King. Aside from the group events, I set out to complete a list of toon-specific goals to complete before the expansion. There are less than 8 days left, how are my Battle for Azeroth pre-expansion goals looking?

Character Goals Progress Update

Quite a while ago I posted a little chart about the goals I made for my alts before Battle for Azeroth drops. At the time of that post I still had 3 alts that had not reach level 110. Of those three, two of them are now at level 110 (the remaining Alliance warlock may get the free 110 boost because I don’t think I am going to try to hit 110 over the next week). Be that as it may, that does mean that I do have a level 110 of every class (including a level 110 Horde character). So having all classes/alts at level 110 before launch … check.

Now the more daunting task is completing the Order Hall, Class Mount and at least one hidden appearance for each of those classes. So here is an updated chart:

Class Order Hall Hidden Appearance Class Mount
Paladin
Priest
Demon Hunter
Hunter
Death Knight
Druid
Shaman
Warlock
Mage
Rogue
Monk
Warrior

As you can see I have made quite a bit of progress, unfortunately I am not finished yet. I am working on the hidden appearance quest for the warlock. The hidden appearance for the warrior requires an exalted reputation with Valarjar before the pieces drop, so, in essence I am working on that as well. The important item of note is that I FINALLY got the hidden appearance to drop for my shadow priest! I hate being at the whim of the RNG, which is why I worry about the Rogue and Warrior hidden appearances. I think I will be able to finish the Order Hall and Class mount quests for the Monk and Warrior, however I don’t know about completing the remaining hidden appearances.

Speaking of Artifact Appearances

Aside from trying to get the hidden appearances, another thing I set out to accomplish was working on a couple challenge appearances. I particularly focused on my paladin and shadow priest. Their gear scores gave me the better advantage. The protection challenge appearance is no joke, just as all the posts said. It is difficult but, in all honesty, it was fun. So I managed to complete the protection and retribution paladin challenge appearance and the shadow priest appearance. Here are some screenshots:

Prot Challenge Appearance

Ret Challenge Appearance

Shadow Challenge Appearance

 

duke-nukem-sm If zombies attack the world, everyone will run and hide. Except for us gamers, of course. We’ve been waiting for this all our lives!

 

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