World of Warcraft: Legion – Midterm Report

Some corrections (4/21/17): One of the perils of taking a while to write an article is that references to time quickly become inaccurate. Mass Effect: Andromeda released on 3/21/17, which is obviously more than a week from when this article went live. Also, since I didn’t fully read the patch notes, I didn’t realize the new raid instance, The Tomb of Sargeras, is actually unavailable, and will be unlocked sometime later in this content patch cycle. Anyways, carry on.

So we’re at about the seven month point in World of Warcraft: Legion, the game’s current expansion. We should probably consider that the halfway point. Content Patch 7.2 includes the third raid dungeon (the Tomb of Sargeras has just been released) and we know there is at least one more raid related to Argus to come later. I had some questions about how certain things were going to shape out as the expansion progressed, and I have gotten some partial answers so far.

First things first, I’m still playing the game. I’ve been taking off a bit of time over the last couple weeks for various things as some other stuff has been conflicting with raiding. It also doesn’t help that Mass Effect: Andromeda released last week a few weeks ago. I look to be getting back to my normal raiding participation soon. So what has panned out well this expansion so far and what hasn’t?

Boring Chores are Boring

Daily quests eventually turned into a boring chore. Which is fine. I wasn’t expecting the world quest system would be at the level of “Oh Boy! Time to do world quests!” However, I am a bit disappointed they didn’t really expand the system beyond what’s currently implemented. There was a minor expansion of the world quest system in the first content patch of 7.1, but it was barely noticeable to anyone. Hopefully with the introduction of the Broken Shore and another zone in the following raid content patch, there will be some life breathed into the system. At the very least, there will be some new narrative questing stuff thrown in with the additional Broken Shore hub. I’m a little interested in seeing how some of the story threads that were left behind in the leveling up and non-raid content will potentially get resolved.

Mythic+ was a Very Good Idea

Obtaining the Maw of Souls screenshot
I haven’t really engaged in World of Warcraft: Legion’s Mythic+ dungeons as often as I would like. But they’ve been quite the boon for people looking to turn non-raid dungeons into enjoyable re-playable content. The times I have partaken in Mythic+ dungeons have been enjoyable and challenging, although certain combinations of affixes can indeed be kind of bullshit (as they could be in the higher difficulties in Diablo 3). In my guild, it seems people are running these dungeons fairly frequently. The rewards are also a somewhat nice supplement for people who have some hard luck in acquiring raid gear. You aren’t going to find super powerful stuff, but you’ll probably get something serviceable once in a while.

Raiding is Still Raiding

Raid screenshot
Raiding hasn’t really changed all that much since the inception of World of Warcraft, but it hasn’t needed to change. It’s the main draw of the game and the reason many of us have stuck around for the better part of the past decade. The first two raids in World of Warcraft: Legion have been of varying quality. The Emerald Nightmare was kind of a blah raid instance, but The Nighthold was pretty good in terms of encounter design and challenge. The latter instance certainly took a fair amount of effort to complete on normal difficulty, particularly on Elisand and Gul’Dan. Trudging through the heroic difficulty has been a real challenge. The important part, though, is that the promise of a steadier stream of content has played out, at least for now. There was a bit of a lapse in between the first two raids (about four months), but Tomb of Sargeras has come in much faster (2.5 months). My guild and I haven’t stepped into the new raid instance as of this writing, but I look forward to it once it becomes unlocked later in this patch.

Final Word (For Now)

So it seems all is well. I don’t see myself quitting the game anytime soon, and hopefully there won’t be a sour retrospective on World of Warcraft: Legion after another six months or so. Hurrah.

Miguel Justiniano
Libertarian. Ranter. Always takes the renegade interrupt. Horde4Life.

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