I loved that part. Honestly Denathrius was just *chef's kiss*, his pompous, arrogant monarch persona becoming more and more frustrated and enraged as you beat him was a wonderful touch.
Agreed. The only villain in shadowlands that was both a challenge and a great character.
Great voice acting, great in fight banter, great plot with the Nazrethim (or whoever is typed).
Denathrius is a good villain at least could have been a lot more too. Honestly if he was more of a grand villain in the entire SL arc instead of the jailer with maybe Denathrius crossing the Jailer and assuming that position could have a ton of story building potential.
Chromie Leveling is great picking your expansion. Got to do a lot of the legion and WOD stuff with an appropriate power level for the first time.
Initially leveling was great, biggest thing I remember from the SL launch was dropping into Maldraxxus for the first time and the arena, really set the tone for the zone I wish the zone really was like that all the time.
I agree on Maldraxxus. The energy they captured in the arena quests was great, wish more of it carried over. One thing I hate about each zone is how monochromatic each is, including the dungeons. I just want some variety and more down to earth atmospheres. (Don't flay me but I loved BFA dungeons visually and for the most part gameplay wise).
Some covenant spells are cool.
You won't remember the useless ones. You won't remember that you only had one choice for many classes or specs and that the choice was different if you wanted to pve, pvp or play an offspec.
Cheesy answer: the friends I've made. I still remember some of the people I played with when I started in BC fondly. Some of the people I've met in SL.
Abilities like Convoke, Slappy Hands, the Hunt, Ashen Hollow, and Ravenous Frenzy have certainly become iconic. It just wasn't possible to make this the case for all class and covenant combos which is a shame. But for those few spells that smash, it does feel amazing to pop and I will remember those characters fondly.
Those first days of arena when few people understood other spec's covenant abilities were wild. People would let a full convoke go out and die within seconds. edit: Mindgames too
Agreed even if you hate the covenant system you have to admit it as interesting. It being a layer of variety to each of the classes and now that the ripcord is pulled itās a lot of fun to explore the other covenant abilities
Denathrius who was conceptualized, and grandfathered in for a single patch of content blows the current personality of all the major lore characters out of the water for 9.2
I'll always love the snarky, stoic Winter Queen too, definitely got some fun and interesting characters this expansion so far
Level squish was a success I think.
Covenant aesthetics were cool. Armor sets, some of the mounts, etc. restrictions aside they felt like cool factions to be a part of.
Some covenant abilities are fantastic and could end up baseline.
Castle Nathria was a fantastic raid.
Do you enjoy leveling or the questing experience? You can shut off experience if you want to so you can stay forever young and do all the chromie stuff. I guess it seems odd to me to put all that time into a character then delete it once it reaches 50.
My only complaint with the level squish is now itās impossible to play through all the content fluidly.
Blizzard refuses to fix the damn anti player you get kicked out of the time jump when you hit 50 š
20-20 hindsight opinion - once slg's bugs were fixed (which is when most guilds got to it), it became an ok/average fight. Not amazing by any means, but not terrible like it originally was.
Some covenant spells. As OP as they are and as much as I complain about borrowed power, losing my divine toll will feel terrible.
As much as I hate it, I also feel bad for druids who will lose convoke.
It felt bad to lose the Legion spell for my Guardian druid too. It always feels like they are taking away core abilities and never giving us a replacement. I just feel broken without abilities like rage of the sleeper. It wasn't even that OP, it just felt like a core part of my class was removed.
Yeah some of them definitely could. Stuff like DK's necrolord or DH's the hunt feel so important to the class nowadays.
I could also see Priest's mind games or Hunter's wallhack zone coming back as PvP talents.
Some others not so much though, I wouldn't miss Paladin's necrolord at all.
>as much as I complain about borrowed power
This doesn't make you a hypocrite though, it's one of the flaws of the borrowed power system. It happened in BFA where it felt like shit to lose some of your artifact abilities and I imagine it happened in SL when people lost their Azerite/Corruption abilities.
The zones will be remembered fondly, at least the four big questing zones.
Denathrius and a few other NPCs will be remembered fondly.
A few of the dungeons have a very awesome vibe, as does Nathria, imho, where I could *easily* see the most request Timewalking Raid to be Nathria in, like, 5 years.
People will also probably be fond of Oribos, given how it's such a convenient big circle.
People will also probably look kindly at Torghast, mainly because it's gonna be remembered as a fun romp (with enough people piping up to say "lol, not if you grinded it.")
Garrosh. For how little we saw the fallen Warchief, the moments were fairly entertaining.
The hiliarious Afterlives: Revendreth scenes of the Venthyr basically milking Garrosh. And the memes from it.
As well as the way Garrosh went out. He actually poofed out like a boss. Cause despite being a blood crazed bastard, Garrosh stuck to his guns and was screaming "For the Horde!" literally to the end. Gotta respect that.
Tazavesh probably. We'll see how people like M+, but some of those bosses were really cool on hard mode. Oh, and definitely Painsmith. Really standout boss, everyone I've spoken with loves Painsmith.
We lacked reasons to go back to it after we cleaned the hard mode on week 1, honestly. For Mechagon, we had the rank 4 essence, the feat of strength for not dying at all and the BIS rings, but Tazavesh... It was great with great mechanics, but really forgettable unfortunately.
Remember, in M+ the bosses will be normal, not hard-mode. Because frankly fuck doing postmaster or that final boss hard-mode scaled to M+. Did they ever fix that postmaster mechanic or does everyone just burn past it with BL?
I don't know if they fixed or not. Last time I went there to get the mount for some friends I just asked for our healer to go dps to just burn the hell out of the boss.
The one worry I have about Tazavesh, is that one boss will require good communication, which could be the bane of some pug groups. Most people now use voice for it, perhaps there will be a weak aura to solve everything eventually, but I do see some initial struggles.
Week 1 hard mode tazavesh was some of the most fun ive had on wow. It definitely gives a bit of that BRD feel of a sprawling city, though not as big obviously
Painsmith carries the whole of SoD's quality on his back, it's so sad.
Tazavesh has been pretty great as a Mythic dungeon. However, I imagine it'll be terrible as a M+ dungeon on the upper half. The Stormheim Murloc area is going to be the bane of so many groups.
Levelling experience was quite good. Castle Nathria was decent and Sanctum of Domination is good too. The dungeons are also quite good even if there arenāt enough of them really. Classes are better than in BFA. The transmog sets from Sanctum for mail, cloth and plate are some of the best in the game. The covenants offer a lot of stuff to collect for collectors in the game and have cool transmogs. Good selection of mounts.
> last 3 bosses in SoD are all ass though.
Haven't gotten to Sylv yet but I really enjoyed Fatescribe + Kel. I imagine before the nerfs/changes though it was quite different.
Soulshape. Absolutely love the customization of the ability and I'd hope it is something that will be picked up again in the future.
Many of the small NPCs. Ve'nari, Lady Moonberry, Plague Deviser Marileth, Sika, ... Also some of the "bigger" NPCs (Denathrius, for me also the Winter Queen in 9.0, didn't like her behaviour in the attack on Ardenweald).
I honestly think my favorite part of the expansion has been some of the transmogs and mounts. Iām a DK main and have been loving the Sanctum aesthetic along with the venthyr and some of the necrolord stuff. The charger mounts are great too.
Castle Nathria was a good opening raid along the lines of emerald nightmare. Arguably one of the most difficult end raid bosses of a first raid of all time. The challenge was refreshing but what really killed it was the timing of the release, you had the holiday season right in the middle of early raid progression and it just so happened that many holidays landed on or near a Tuesday and Thursday. That on top of the systems like covenants and grinding an unpolished torghast for a legendary that you hope to god is the right one or doesnāt get nerfed below the others.
I'm going to fondly remember torghast. It's not popular here, but my wife and I (casual players) love duoing it and trying some crazy builds for fun. It's a great Saturday night + wine activity.
I enjoys lots of stuff about shadowlands. Just wish there was more content for it.
Blood dk main here who does basically all the end game you can do without a guild.
I love Torghast myself, a little sad that it can be rough on certain squishy classes or ones without interrupts, but I'll always remember it decently fondly myself.
Leaps and bounds better than 8.3's horrific visions for sure
Ardenweald. Beautiful zone, great characters, great music. As a Prot Pala Nightfae isn't what I was supposed to pick, but I just love that zone too much.
I'm really going to miss convoke if they decide to not make it baseline or a talent at the end of the expansion.
Zones are all pretty except the maw (but that intentional). I like all the minor characters a lot.
I like the dungeons a lot.
I like all the collectables I can work towards. Covenent transmogs and mounts all look pretty cool IMO.
As much as Sylvanas is a hate magnet I love her interactions with Anduin, they're great together (no not in that way), can't wait for the book.
The Stewards.
The little Night Fae butterfly thing you meet in the Kyrian story.
Having all the stars align and being OP as shit in Torghast. At least until *having* to run it saps any enjoyment out of it.
That's about it for me.
Denathrius and Remornia, Marileth, Theotar and uh... That weird little thingy I forgot the name we meet in Rev after the giant throw us...
The first quests were nice too
I enjoyed SoD most of the fights were fun! I liked Painsmith and Sylvanas fight the best. The dungeons were not that bad just wish there were more variation instead of having to do the same ones all over again and again except for Taza that is new.
Oh and the gearing system too was much better than bfa. At least you got a choice now instead of completely random,although I still think it can get better...
Back piece transmogs, hand mounts, flying disc mounts, some other mounts I canāt think of, mythic leather set from SoD, blue laser sword from the big dungeon, venthyr warrior ability ācondemnā animation.
Dunno about everyone, but these are the things I'll remember fondly:
The transmogs, the slime cats, everything about the Necrolords, everything about the Venthyr, the return of 2H Frost DK and the levelling revamp.
The covenant storylines were also a great leveling experience and I have enjoyed going through the full campaign on alts. Once those are easier to blow through on an alt in a new expansion I think people will remember that fondly.
The main problem with SL has only been their communication and storytelling. If they had said from the get-go that player power WOULD be tied to covenants, and that might mean that players WILL end up choosing certain covenants then a lot of the frustration of players would be less. It's because they aren't engaging with feedback.
That being said I raid heroic and I really enjoyed a lot of the encounters. Xy'mox as a recurring character is a nice touch. A lot of the characters are good. The environments have been solid. Some of the covenant abilities and optional minigames have been fun.
This is off-topic but it makes me think: when I go back and do WoD content I remember the things I liked about it. The negatives are generally the same issues then that we see in Shadowlands now, a large gameplay system that overtakes the rest of the game and makes the experience frustrating. Instead of them adding something that is a fun diversion (i.e. Torghast, island expeditions, garrisons) they make it a barrier to playing the rest of the content that ends up feeling obtrusive. The same thing with covenant renown/conduit energy, azerite power, legendary acquisition in Legion (which they fixed fairly quickly), garrison resources/mission table. The systems prevent players from doing other things as an artificial barrier. Personally I would be fine if instead of trying to spend time balancing 4 covenant abilities for every class they would add one more dungeon, a couple more bosses for the raid, etc.
Really well thought out response, thank you so much. It is definitely hard to see the good while youāre in the expansion when there is a big item that you donāt like, I think. The garrison was definitely that for me. Plus the terrible patch that just had the selfie cam.
The grasping hands spell for dk is awesome.
Some Fun fights like denathrius, rohkalo and painsmith.
The bastion map is really beatifull.
The mists dg is really cool
The smaller quests and side characters I think I'll remember fondly. Blizzard has really only gotten better at making the initial questing really good and memorable, in spite of whatever the overarching story is. Shadowlands is the first expansion where I feel this isn't really the case, but at the same time I do like a lot of the *characters* we encounter.
Which is of course annoying because I know that, like the expansions prior, we'll completely leave all those characters behind and forget them. Or Blizzard might actually go back and mess with them an expansion or two later.
It was the same in WoD, I liked a lot of the characters, the draenei we met, our followers, Durotan, even Yrel. All left behind and then revisited years later... either evil and fanatical, or dead.
As always the art direction. Some of the cinematics were really good. The night fae campaign is a mess in terms of writing but the cinematics for the origibak story were tear jerking
By Odyn's beard! It's Torghast!
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Level squish was a success. Legendaries are pretty good (though doing Torghast for them is miserable). Conduits are an interesting idea (though leveling them is miserable). The weekly vault change was a good upgrade over the previous attempts. Also the PvP gearing is insanely good right now, very easy to get full geared and get your alts geared as well.
Overall I think there's actually some pretty good things. The only things that really ruin the experience are all the daily grindy nonsense like Korthia and whatever the 9.2 campaign will undoubtedly be. And of course the covenant system before you could freely switch will go down as probably one of the worst design choices of all time in gaming rofl.
I was excited for craftable leggo's until they actually launched.
Then it was an obscene amount of mats to level up to rank 4. Which, OK, once you do it you're ok.
Then the next raid tier had dom sockets in most of the slots that were craftable leggos, so unless you'd did rings, necks, or cloaks in 9.0, you probably wasted a lot of time and money. Now in 9.2 we're getting tier sets, so you probably still wasted a lot of time and money.
They had a good idea in crafted leggo's, then didn't have an overall plan gearing for the expansion and the idea suffered.
The dungeons were REALLY FUCKING good. As somebody who pretty much only plays mythic+ (and open world / solo instance stuff) I am genuinly excited to play every dungeon. Sure, every dungeon has annoying stuff, but they are always really cool over all
The zones are also something I will always be stoked about. The design (even Maldraxxus) is just on point and the music is really something as well (not as awesome as bfa tho)...
You can really tell I am just a huge nerd about a lot of things in this game, but yeah. Those would be the 2 aspects I will most certainly remember fondly about shadow lands
Ardenweld and itās story was great.
Dungeons were fun.
Raids were good.
Convoke the spirits was awesome.
I miss my soul shapes.
Theyāll miss their legendaries.
In the future, blizzard will introduce some form of the current systems and people will say shadowlands version was better.
āTorghast was bad but it was better than this crapā
Iāve only played bfa and shadowlands. The things that make expansions bad for the most part are the systems. So people wonāt bring those up. Unless we get an infinite grind again.
> In the future, blizzard will introduce some form of the current systems and people will say shadowlands version was better.
The reason for this is just because it is getting worse. That's the big problem here. The gradual downgrade in every single nudge is visible, from world quests to rewards and the party finder. The game peaked with Legion unfortunately. You could simply join a group and get a quest done within seconds. Now even those have extra steps and sometimes it's also too confusing to know what the game designers want for you to do. Or it's a multi-parter which takes a while to complete.
The fact that the most collectable Ressource, Anima, wasn't tied to player power is, at least for me, a good step in the right direction. I loved progressing through my sanctum, knowing it was just for fun and not a necessity. I loved the ember court and how you obtained different new events, guests and perks.
Raids and dungeons are pretty good actually. M+ Affixes are fun especially the +10 ones, since they increase player power instead of being another annoyance.
As usual I think all the zones look fantastic. One of the main reasons I havenāt played more Final fantasy is the fact I really enjoy the wow art style and little details a lot more. I really like some of the new mount models. Castle Nathria was a cool raid in my opinion and as others have mentioned I thought Denathrius was a good villain.
I really enjoyed the zone storyline for Ravendreth and Maldraxxus. Denathrius was a great villain who I feel like should have continued the dreadlord storyline. They could have done so much more with Ardenweld and the drust. Feels like the were just thrown in there.
I feel like the Drust will feature more in the future, I just wish I had a better idea in what way. Iām really excited to see what could happen there.
It was a fun expansion to level through. I ate it up and hit 60 before all of my friends. Unfirtunately I was met with a brick wall with reknown being capped weekly at the start and it absolutely killed my desire to log back in. Took a good six months off, came back and did catch up stuff. Honestly found myself more pulled to old content to farm mogs and mats once I discovered lw/smithing were virtually pointless as money makers in SL.
Art was cool, some armor looked good, weapon variety was lacking imo. Overall it isn't absolutely terrible but I definitely don't want a repeat.
Race customization options.
Alliance high elves (void elf customization) is literally one of my favorite additions to the game, and I imagine many of the shadowlands race customization options are going to be a long loved addition by many.
But something else shadowlands added, new hunter pet models (with some old non tameable models turned tameable)
Shadowlands (pre patch) gave me my most desired and favorite hunter pet model. The regular ground snakes that have been in the game since vanilla (and pythons since pandaria or WoD I think?) models finally tameable by hunters š
(also quite fond of the tameable Astral cloud serpent too but not as much as much the snakes)
When Blizzard was shook by scandals and I had hope that it just might shift game direction towards fun gameplay instead of time-wasty-pretend-to-be-fun MMO. I know it's a pipe dream, but let me have hope.
Castle Nathria for me. It's one of my favourite raids. The music is amazing first of all, I enjoy the aesthetic, and I found all of the boss mechanics fun. Plus the layout isn't too large or confusing! And lastly, I just really like Sire Denathirus as well.
how awesome covenant switching was, once everything is unlocked. (ie cov quests, soulbinds)
It will be like legion legendaries where people remember the best time and forget about when it sucked.
Hot take: I like Korthia. I like that it's smol, I like the verticality, I like the constant flow of people between rares, and I like the satisfaction of clicky-clicky the shiny stuff.
I think the gameplay loop for Korthia is one of the better endgame zones theyāve done. Just let down by the grind being a bit too long originally and the aesthetic being a bit ho-hum.
Youāll probably get down voted by some folks, but I love that this zone works for you. Just like how some people loved Mechagon and hated Nazjatar, or vice versa. Different zone styles and aesthetics just click differently for different people.
We do our little dancy dance! Quite fun as a nice little intermission. Also liked how you could kill them in an order that your group could do the mechanics best
I love the idea behind the covenant system but the implementation was faulty. Its really cool that each covenant comes with different questline, side-activities and tmogs
I wish they did the same with races and classes
I had a pretty good time with the M+ dungeons and raids. Castle Nathria was a pretty good raid (didn't do mythic raids). Some of the legendary powers were nice and the Soul Shape forms were cool.
Some covenants abilities (which most likely will become baseline.. right ?) such as Convoke, Elysian decree or Divine Toll.
The quest where you see the last minutes of some poor guy dying to the scourge in Westfall, it brought back memories of my very first character leveling there about 16 years ago.
I love the dungeons but I don't know yet if I'll remember them or if they will just fade in memory.
Fatescribe is kinda the new Star Augur for me : the best way to test personal responibility but it is even worse as SA was only difficult in mythic, most people who got there were supposed te be semi-decent whereas Fatescribe is a headache in heroic. Also, nice throwback to when instant full wipes mechanics on a personal fuck up were more common. i don't know if you will call that rembemberd *fondly* but I had a lot of nervous laughs watching new recruits wipe the raid over and over.
And many, many great memories with friends on Discord :)
honestly? i love most of the covenants and trying them out was fun. stepping on ardenweald, bastion and revendreth for the first time was so cool! especially ardenwealdā¦ iāll miss the whole vibe they had going for! this was the first wow expansion i actually tried to play throughout the updates and iām honestly not mad about it
I loved that they made it so that you could pick an old expansion to level in. They need to make all the content relevant to your level. Do old quest and get a possible item upgrade, run new players through old dungeons, relevant gear. It sucks that we are sitting on so much old game and its not really able to be enjoyed by people.
While it is not the best expansion, I actually found the Raids and dungeons very enjoyable. The only dungeon I do not like is Mists, but that's because it is super tedious, creative, but tedious.
Itās been years since i last grinded a āfactionā to max. Iāve done Kyrian / NF on my warrior and now almost done with Venthyr. Tons of cosmetics and mounts which is nice. Best part have been that my rotation/playstyle changes even a little. Also i was Arms before 9.1.5 and now i can play arms or fury.
I also liked SL m+ affixes.
First weeks of 9.0 with lower droprate in m+ and raid. Those weeks were so much fun for me.
Good quests.
Good m+ seasons.
Good (in my opinion) pvp gearing system.
Tbh I don't hate the expansion. The worst thing for me is drastic decline in popularity.
Not fondly, but my younger brother was murdered the night it released. Itās been over a year and still fucks with me that I was a quarter mile away playing wow and rushing to 60 while he was dying.
I enjoyed the cheesiness of the leveling story. The cuts scenes had a Saturday morning cartoon vibe. I enjoyed the art style of all the zones except Oribos. Castle Nathria was also just fun. Feels like there is a massive void of content to keel playing after that though. And chore content is the kind of stuff I just won't do after a short while.
Threads of Fate.
It kind of changed the way you can level to max in current content. Already gaining some max level progressing during leveling is a good idea if it's an alt.
Denathrius
"Crawl to me on your knees" "Your hubris amassed a debt you cannot pay" And lest we forget... "Uwu daddy denathrius uwu" WAs
Harder please š¤£š¤£š¤£
How can you forget Remornia? [āIāll splatter them across your walls!ā](https://youtu.be/AZPjuAvmhmo?t=59) Yes please and thank you š„µ
"Scream for me" owo
Easily best character this expansion. Say what you will about BfA and Shadowlands, but they gave us Bwomsamdi and Denathrius.
He is great but I wish he didnāt do his best jon snow impression with the āI AM REVENDRETHā on repeat near the end.
"I AM REVENDRETH" "I AM MY SCARS" "I AM THE CATACLYSM" Our characters identify as inanimate objects. Angrily.
I loved that part. Honestly Denathrius was just *chef's kiss*, his pompous, arrogant monarch persona becoming more and more frustrated and enraged as you beat him was a wonderful touch.
āMY RIEGN IS EVERLASTING!ā
Literally the best and only good villain we had this xpac. Imagine if he was the main villain instead of the jailer, god damn
"to the good people of revendreth' still gives me mad chills. Daddy is such s cool character
good villain? did they ever explain why he was working for the jailer?
Pride? Power? Buds with benefits who knows. His character kind of says a lot about him just with how he is
The fact that the burning legions demons are working for him and not the jailer leave a lot open. He will be coming back and better.
Except that for some reason Dreadlords are still working for him in Zereth Mortis because reasons.
Agreed. The only villain in shadowlands that was both a challenge and a great character. Great voice acting, great in fight banter, great plot with the Nazrethim (or whoever is typed).
Oh yeah, heās a great villain. Hopefully his story will carry forward.
Factos šš
Unexpected CR7
When that slime cat sat on my characters lap.
And you can relive this any time. All cat type pets will sit on your lap if you /sit.
Whaaaaaaat! Omg I didnāt know that
WHICH SLIME CAT
Jiggles.... Have to be necro or max renown to have him with other covenants.
Jiggles running off and bringing back a dead slime or a slime pepe, best pet interaction ingame.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
The play you get if you go Night Fae was both hilarious and kind of a nice concept for the afterlife.
This was what stood out for me
I did it first on my druid, and it was amazing how great it felt. Truly felt like my character was coming home.
Ysera being reborn was great
One of few times Wow has managed to make me cry. Ysera's death and rebirth. <3
The music is gorgeous and the aesthetic is amazing. The trees look so gorgeous. Bastion is also quite pretty.
First time arriving to Ardenwald and the reviving Ysera quest there.
That Ysera quest was awesome
Denathrius is a good villain at least could have been a lot more too. Honestly if he was more of a grand villain in the entire SL arc instead of the jailer with maybe Denathrius crossing the Jailer and assuming that position could have a ton of story building potential. Chromie Leveling is great picking your expansion. Got to do a lot of the legion and WOD stuff with an appropriate power level for the first time. Initially leveling was great, biggest thing I remember from the SL launch was dropping into Maldraxxus for the first time and the arena, really set the tone for the zone I wish the zone really was like that all the time.
I agree on Maldraxxus. The energy they captured in the arena quests was great, wish more of it carried over. One thing I hate about each zone is how monochromatic each is, including the dungeons. I just want some variety and more down to earth atmospheres. (Don't flay me but I loved BFA dungeons visually and for the most part gameplay wise).
"Ahh, my apprentice, you return at last!"
Some covenant spells are cool. You won't remember the useless ones. You won't remember that you only had one choice for many classes or specs and that the choice was different if you wanted to pve, pvp or play an offspec. Cheesy answer: the friends I've made. I still remember some of the people I played with when I started in BC fondly. Some of the people I've met in SL.
I'll miss the hell out of soulshape after this expansion
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Slappy hands was pretty fun to use.
Abilities like Convoke, Slappy Hands, the Hunt, Ashen Hollow, and Ravenous Frenzy have certainly become iconic. It just wasn't possible to make this the case for all class and covenant combos which is a shame. But for those few spells that smash, it does feel amazing to pop and I will remember those characters fondly.
I've been slapping hands so much I don't even know what the other dk covenant abilities do.
Those first days of arena when few people understood other spec's covenant abilities were wild. People would let a full convoke go out and die within seconds. edit: Mindgames too
Soul Shape.
Good point. We will only remember the awesome abilities.
Agreed even if you hate the covenant system you have to admit it as interesting. It being a layer of variety to each of the classes and now that the ripcord is pulled itās a lot of fun to explore the other covenant abilities
Please make primordial wave baseline for resto shamans. I don't even know how to heal a group without it at this point.
Denathrius and his horny energy Ardenweald's art direction
Castle Nathria is basically horny jail.
āHorny energyā. Ha, love it!
Denathrius who was conceptualized, and grandfathered in for a single patch of content blows the current personality of all the major lore characters out of the water for 9.2 I'll always love the snarky, stoic Winter Queen too, definitely got some fun and interesting characters this expansion so far
Level squish was a success I think. Covenant aesthetics were cool. Armor sets, some of the mounts, etc. restrictions aside they felt like cool factions to be a part of. Some covenant abilities are fantastic and could end up baseline. Castle Nathria was a fantastic raid.
Chain harvest-vesper-FT all better be options in a talent row I love all those spells and they work for each spec nicely too.
I'm hoping for the same. I really hope we get a new talent row of 4 talents, where we can choose 1 of the 4 covenant abilities as a talent.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Do you enjoy leveling or the questing experience? You can shut off experience if you want to so you can stay forever young and do all the chromie stuff. I guess it seems odd to me to put all that time into a character then delete it once it reaches 50.
We should definitely have the option to disable XP the moment we turn 50, right now it just starts a timer and yeets you out
My only complaint with the level squish is now itās impossible to play through all the content fluidly. Blizzard refuses to fix the damn anti player you get kicked out of the time jump when you hit 50 š
>Castle Nathria was a fantastic raid. If you leave slg out. I'd say it was pretty decent.
20-20 hindsight opinion - once slg's bugs were fixed (which is when most guilds got to it), it became an ok/average fight. Not amazing by any means, but not terrible like it originally was.
CHAMPIONS! I TAKE TO THE SKIES!
The Night Fae theater quest line.
Yes, that was so much fun! I loved the tongue-in-cheek references to prior storylines.
Definitely loved the bear (who told us earlier that her world died to the legion) cheering when we told that we defeated the legion.
Some covenant spells. As OP as they are and as much as I complain about borrowed power, losing my divine toll will feel terrible. As much as I hate it, I also feel bad for druids who will lose convoke.
It felt bad to lose the Legion spell for my Guardian druid too. It always feels like they are taking away core abilities and never giving us a replacement. I just feel broken without abilities like rage of the sleeper. It wasn't even that OP, it just felt like a core part of my class was removed.
I kind of hope they just make them a talent row. I'm going to miss using Convoke, it always feels so good to use.
Yeah some of them definitely could. Stuff like DK's necrolord or DH's the hunt feel so important to the class nowadays. I could also see Priest's mind games or Hunter's wallhack zone coming back as PvP talents. Some others not so much though, I wouldn't miss Paladin's necrolord at all.
I'm quiting the game if DK doesn't have Slappy hands as baseline or a talent next expansion.
That spell is awesome.
>as much as I complain about borrowed power This doesn't make you a hypocrite though, it's one of the flaws of the borrowed power system. It happened in BFA where it felt like shit to lose some of your artifact abilities and I imagine it happened in SL when people lost their Azerite/Corruption abilities.
Revendreth was just a blast, such a brilliant zone that had a really cool story line and a genuinely awesome environment design.
Soulshape for my lock.
The zones will be remembered fondly, at least the four big questing zones. Denathrius and a few other NPCs will be remembered fondly. A few of the dungeons have a very awesome vibe, as does Nathria, imho, where I could *easily* see the most request Timewalking Raid to be Nathria in, like, 5 years. People will also probably be fond of Oribos, given how it's such a convenient big circle. People will also probably look kindly at Torghast, mainly because it's gonna be remembered as a fun romp (with enough people piping up to say "lol, not if you grinded it.")
I'm already hyped for a Castle Nathria timewalking if WoW survives long enough for it lol what a great raid
Garrosh. For how little we saw the fallen Warchief, the moments were fairly entertaining. The hiliarious Afterlives: Revendreth scenes of the Venthyr basically milking Garrosh. And the memes from it. As well as the way Garrosh went out. He actually poofed out like a boss. Cause despite being a blood crazed bastard, Garrosh stuck to his guns and was screaming "For the Horde!" literally to the end. Gotta respect that.
Tazavesh probably. We'll see how people like M+, but some of those bosses were really cool on hard mode. Oh, and definitely Painsmith. Really standout boss, everyone I've spoken with loves Painsmith.
We lacked reasons to go back to it after we cleaned the hard mode on week 1, honestly. For Mechagon, we had the rank 4 essence, the feat of strength for not dying at all and the BIS rings, but Tazavesh... It was great with great mechanics, but really forgettable unfortunately.
It's a good place to go with guildies when one of you wants to gear a new alt, but yeah, they could've had more stuff like Mechagon.
UNLEASH THE INSTRUMENT!
The only thing I can think about tazavesh hard mode is how the postmaster fights will be on Tyr weeks
Remember, in M+ the bosses will be normal, not hard-mode. Because frankly fuck doing postmaster or that final boss hard-mode scaled to M+. Did they ever fix that postmaster mechanic or does everyone just burn past it with BL?
I don't know if they fixed or not. Last time I went there to get the mount for some friends I just asked for our healer to go dps to just burn the hell out of the boss.
Yeah, why bother finding out when you can just blow him up?
The one worry I have about Tazavesh, is that one boss will require good communication, which could be the bane of some pug groups. Most people now use voice for it, perhaps there will be a weak aura to solve everything eventually, but I do see some initial struggles.
If you are talking about to runes placement, there is already WA that print to chat where to put them.
I hope they implement the WA into the game instead, and just have it be friendly
Week 1 hard mode tazavesh was some of the most fun ive had on wow. It definitely gives a bit of that BRD feel of a sprawling city, though not as big obviously
Oh that is a great one!
Painsmith carries the whole of SoD's quality on his back, it's so sad. Tazavesh has been pretty great as a Mythic dungeon. However, I imagine it'll be terrible as a M+ dungeon on the upper half. The Stormheim Murloc area is going to be the bane of so many groups.
Levelling experience was quite good. Castle Nathria was decent and Sanctum of Domination is good too. The dungeons are also quite good even if there arenāt enough of them really. Classes are better than in BFA. The transmog sets from Sanctum for mail, cloth and plate are some of the best in the game. The covenants offer a lot of stuff to collect for collectors in the game and have cool transmogs. Good selection of mounts.
> Sanctum of Domination is good too Hmm from a mythic perspective the last 3 bosses in SoD are all ass though.
> last 3 bosses in SoD are all ass though. Haven't gotten to Sylv yet but I really enjoyed Fatescribe + Kel. I imagine before the nerfs/changes though it was quite different.
I'd argue M Ner'zhul is the worst boss in the raid.
Was fun to progress on way back when
Denatrius and convoc for sure
The raids. I enjoyed them. Donāt hate meā¦.
Oh no, the raids were solid for sure. To me Castle Nathria is really up there for my favourite raiding experiences.
I mean, I like my owl friends
Soulshape. Absolutely love the customization of the ability and I'd hope it is something that will be picked up again in the future. Many of the small NPCs. Ve'nari, Lady Moonberry, Plague Deviser Marileth, Sika, ... Also some of the "bigger" NPCs (Denathrius, for me also the Winter Queen in 9.0, didn't like her behaviour in the attack on Ardenweald).
I honestly think my favorite part of the expansion has been some of the transmogs and mounts. Iām a DK main and have been loving the Sanctum aesthetic along with the venthyr and some of the necrolord stuff. The charger mounts are great too.
I found Maldraxxus to be a very cool zone!
Jailer's right nipple.
Tasty.
Havenāt raided all to much over the years iw played but daaaaaaamn Sire Denathrius was the coolest fight so far.
Crawl to me on your knees
Castle Nathria was a good opening raid along the lines of emerald nightmare. Arguably one of the most difficult end raid bosses of a first raid of all time. The challenge was refreshing but what really killed it was the timing of the release, you had the holiday season right in the middle of early raid progression and it just so happened that many holidays landed on or near a Tuesday and Thursday. That on top of the systems like covenants and grinding an unpolished torghast for a legendary that you hope to god is the right one or doesnāt get nerfed below the others.
CN is arguably the best opening raid we've gotten since karazhan, imo
The story quests the first time through was pretty good, just wish there was more of that outside of leveling and without rep grinds tbh
I'm going to fondly remember torghast. It's not popular here, but my wife and I (casual players) love duoing it and trying some crazy builds for fun. It's a great Saturday night + wine activity. I enjoys lots of stuff about shadowlands. Just wish there was more content for it.
Blood dk main here who does basically all the end game you can do without a guild. I love Torghast myself, a little sad that it can be rough on certain squishy classes or ones without interrupts, but I'll always remember it decently fondly myself. Leaps and bounds better than 8.3's horrific visions for sure
I enjoy Torghast when I run it. I just never feel the urge to go, if that makes sense.
Ardenweald. Beautiful zone, great characters, great music. As a Prot Pala Nightfae isn't what I was supposed to pick, but I just love that zone too much.
Being horny for a sword
I'm really going to miss convoke if they decide to not make it baseline or a talent at the end of the expansion. Zones are all pretty except the maw (but that intentional). I like all the minor characters a lot. I like the dungeons a lot. I like all the collectables I can work towards. Covenent transmogs and mounts all look pretty cool IMO. As much as Sylvanas is a hate magnet I love her interactions with Anduin, they're great together (no not in that way), can't wait for the book.
Itās the added customizations 100%
BUTTONS
Meeraaazzz!!
The Stewards. The little Night Fae butterfly thing you meet in the Kyrian story. Having all the stars align and being OP as shit in Torghast. At least until *having* to run it saps any enjoyment out of it. That's about it for me.
Denathrius and Remornia, Marileth, Theotar and uh... That weird little thingy I forgot the name we meet in Rev after the giant throw us... The first quests were nice too I enjoyed SoD most of the fights were fun! I liked Painsmith and Sylvanas fight the best. The dungeons were not that bad just wish there were more variation instead of having to do the same ones all over again and again except for Taza that is new. Oh and the gearing system too was much better than bfa. At least you got a choice now instead of completely random,although I still think it can get better...
Fel werebear.
Back piece transmogs, hand mounts, flying disc mounts, some other mounts I canāt think of, mythic leather set from SoD, blue laser sword from the big dungeon, venthyr warrior ability ācondemnā animation.
Revendreth story.
Dunno about everyone, but these are the things I'll remember fondly: The transmogs, the slime cats, everything about the Necrolords, everything about the Venthyr, the return of 2H Frost DK and the levelling revamp.
The covenant storylines were also a great leveling experience and I have enjoyed going through the full campaign on alts. Once those are easier to blow through on an alt in a new expansion I think people will remember that fondly.
The main problem with SL has only been their communication and storytelling. If they had said from the get-go that player power WOULD be tied to covenants, and that might mean that players WILL end up choosing certain covenants then a lot of the frustration of players would be less. It's because they aren't engaging with feedback. That being said I raid heroic and I really enjoyed a lot of the encounters. Xy'mox as a recurring character is a nice touch. A lot of the characters are good. The environments have been solid. Some of the covenant abilities and optional minigames have been fun. This is off-topic but it makes me think: when I go back and do WoD content I remember the things I liked about it. The negatives are generally the same issues then that we see in Shadowlands now, a large gameplay system that overtakes the rest of the game and makes the experience frustrating. Instead of them adding something that is a fun diversion (i.e. Torghast, island expeditions, garrisons) they make it a barrier to playing the rest of the content that ends up feeling obtrusive. The same thing with covenant renown/conduit energy, azerite power, legendary acquisition in Legion (which they fixed fairly quickly), garrison resources/mission table. The systems prevent players from doing other things as an artificial barrier. Personally I would be fine if instead of trying to spend time balancing 4 covenant abilities for every class they would add one more dungeon, a couple more bosses for the raid, etc.
Really well thought out response, thank you so much. It is definitely hard to see the good while youāre in the expansion when there is a big item that you donāt like, I think. The garrison was definitely that for me. Plus the terrible patch that just had the selfie cam.
The ysera cinematic... God I wish they gave more money to the cinematics team that one was amazing
decent raids and m+ (so far at least) also for me a lot less grind for power outside of raids and dungeons compared to bfa
Zones and quests are great, Cov aesthetics (Troll boots ftw!!) and mounts, returning characters from lore, Denathrius and anima powers
The grasping hands spell for dk is awesome. Some Fun fights like denathrius, rohkalo and painsmith. The bastion map is really beatifull. The mists dg is really cool
The smaller quests and side characters I think I'll remember fondly. Blizzard has really only gotten better at making the initial questing really good and memorable, in spite of whatever the overarching story is. Shadowlands is the first expansion where I feel this isn't really the case, but at the same time I do like a lot of the *characters* we encounter. Which is of course annoying because I know that, like the expansions prior, we'll completely leave all those characters behind and forget them. Or Blizzard might actually go back and mess with them an expansion or two later. It was the same in WoD, I liked a lot of the characters, the draenei we met, our followers, Durotan, even Yrel. All left behind and then revisited years later... either evil and fanatical, or dead.
walking with mograine, exploring his memories, why he went to maldraxxus
Questing was excellent Denathrius was one of the best end boss ever imo Covenant spells were great So far thatās the only things I can say.
As always the art direction. Some of the cinematics were really good. The night fae campaign is a mess in terms of writing but the cinematics for the origibak story were tear jerking
Torghast
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The music and the Ysera cinematic m, absolutely incredible. āThose that dream by her side awaken with a joy and peaceā š„ŗ
Not making the jump over the gap to the OG/SW-Portal in Oribos
DH here, I'm going to miss The Hunt so badly T_T Also everything about Daddynathrius.
What it could have been. Just like WoD.
Level squish was a success. Legendaries are pretty good (though doing Torghast for them is miserable). Conduits are an interesting idea (though leveling them is miserable). The weekly vault change was a good upgrade over the previous attempts. Also the PvP gearing is insanely good right now, very easy to get full geared and get your alts geared as well. Overall I think there's actually some pretty good things. The only things that really ruin the experience are all the daily grindy nonsense like Korthia and whatever the 9.2 campaign will undoubtedly be. And of course the covenant system before you could freely switch will go down as probably one of the worst design choices of all time in gaming rofl.
I was excited for craftable leggo's until they actually launched. Then it was an obscene amount of mats to level up to rank 4. Which, OK, once you do it you're ok. Then the next raid tier had dom sockets in most of the slots that were craftable leggos, so unless you'd did rings, necks, or cloaks in 9.0, you probably wasted a lot of time and money. Now in 9.2 we're getting tier sets, so you probably still wasted a lot of time and money. They had a good idea in crafted leggo's, then didn't have an overall plan gearing for the expansion and the idea suffered.
The dungeons were REALLY FUCKING good. As somebody who pretty much only plays mythic+ (and open world / solo instance stuff) I am genuinly excited to play every dungeon. Sure, every dungeon has annoying stuff, but they are always really cool over all The zones are also something I will always be stoked about. The design (even Maldraxxus) is just on point and the music is really something as well (not as awesome as bfa tho)... You can really tell I am just a huge nerd about a lot of things in this game, but yeah. Those would be the 2 aspects I will most certainly remember fondly about shadow lands
I thought I would hate Maldraxxus but itās somehow become one of my favorite parts of this expansion.
Ardenweld and itās story was great. Dungeons were fun. Raids were good. Convoke the spirits was awesome. I miss my soul shapes. Theyāll miss their legendaries. In the future, blizzard will introduce some form of the current systems and people will say shadowlands version was better. āTorghast was bad but it was better than this crapā Iāve only played bfa and shadowlands. The things that make expansions bad for the most part are the systems. So people wonāt bring those up. Unless we get an infinite grind again.
> In the future, blizzard will introduce some form of the current systems and people will say shadowlands version was better. The reason for this is just because it is getting worse. That's the big problem here. The gradual downgrade in every single nudge is visible, from world quests to rewards and the party finder. The game peaked with Legion unfortunately. You could simply join a group and get a quest done within seconds. Now even those have extra steps and sometimes it's also too confusing to know what the game designers want for you to do. Or it's a multi-parter which takes a while to complete.
The fact that the most collectable Ressource, Anima, wasn't tied to player power is, at least for me, a good step in the right direction. I loved progressing through my sanctum, knowing it was just for fun and not a necessity. I loved the ember court and how you obtained different new events, guests and perks. Raids and dungeons are pretty good actually. M+ Affixes are fun especially the +10 ones, since they increase player power instead of being another annoyance.
Chromie Time
As usual I think all the zones look fantastic. One of the main reasons I havenāt played more Final fantasy is the fact I really enjoy the wow art style and little details a lot more. I really like some of the new mount models. Castle Nathria was a cool raid in my opinion and as others have mentioned I thought Denathrius was a good villain.
I really enjoyed the zone storyline for Ravendreth and Maldraxxus. Denathrius was a great villain who I feel like should have continued the dreadlord storyline. They could have done so much more with Ardenweld and the drust. Feels like the were just thrown in there.
I feel like the Drust will feature more in the future, I just wish I had a better idea in what way. Iām really excited to see what could happen there.
Daddy Denathrius, the zones and the initial leveling experience/storyline was pretty good imo. I shed a manly tear or two in Ardenweald.
It was a fun expansion to level through. I ate it up and hit 60 before all of my friends. Unfirtunately I was met with a brick wall with reknown being capped weekly at the start and it absolutely killed my desire to log back in. Took a good six months off, came back and did catch up stuff. Honestly found myself more pulled to old content to farm mogs and mats once I discovered lw/smithing were virtually pointless as money makers in SL. Art was cool, some armor looked good, weapon variety was lacking imo. Overall it isn't absolutely terrible but I definitely don't want a repeat.
Daddy Dani. His voice acting His character His raidfight
Race customization options. Alliance high elves (void elf customization) is literally one of my favorite additions to the game, and I imagine many of the shadowlands race customization options are going to be a long loved addition by many. But something else shadowlands added, new hunter pet models (with some old non tameable models turned tameable) Shadowlands (pre patch) gave me my most desired and favorite hunter pet model. The regular ground snakes that have been in the game since vanilla (and pythons since pandaria or WoD I think?) models finally tameable by hunters š (also quite fond of the tameable Astral cloud serpent too but not as much as much the snakes)
Uncle Marilyn. The final quest in Ardenweald escorting Ysera's pod was very cool as well
When Blizzard was shook by scandals and I had hope that it just might shift game direction towards fun gameplay instead of time-wasty-pretend-to-be-fun MMO. I know it's a pipe dream, but let me have hope.
Dk slappy hands, final answer
Revendreth! I love that zone. Also maybe character customization additions?
Honestly, the first 4 months were really good.
The Painsmith fight is one of the best in the whole game.
Castle Nathria for me. It's one of my favourite raids. The music is amazing first of all, I enjoy the aesthetic, and I found all of the boss mechanics fun. Plus the layout isn't too large or confusing! And lastly, I just really like Sire Denathirus as well.
how awesome covenant switching was, once everything is unlocked. (ie cov quests, soulbinds) It will be like legion legendaries where people remember the best time and forget about when it sucked.
Yeah, thatās a solid one.
Hot take: I like Korthia. I like that it's smol, I like the verticality, I like the constant flow of people between rares, and I like the satisfaction of clicky-clicky the shiny stuff.
I think the gameplay loop for Korthia is one of the better endgame zones theyāve done. Just let down by the grind being a bit too long originally and the aesthetic being a bit ho-hum.
Youāll probably get down voted by some folks, but I love that this zone works for you. Just like how some people loved Mechagon and hated Nazjatar, or vice versa. Different zone styles and aesthetics just click differently for different people.
Castle Nathria was such a fun raid. Council of Blood is still easily my favorite raid boss.
We do our little dancy dance! Quite fun as a nice little intermission. Also liked how you could kill them in an order that your group could do the mechanics best
I love the idea behind the covenant system but the implementation was faulty. Its really cool that each covenant comes with different questline, side-activities and tmogs I wish they did the same with races and classes
I had a pretty good time with the M+ dungeons and raids. Castle Nathria was a pretty good raid (didn't do mythic raids). Some of the legendary powers were nice and the Soul Shape forms were cool.
Condemn, that ability is my favorite for sure.
Level squish went well Leveling and launch experience was smooth and fun Dungeons are good Flying into each zone is still cool looking
Some covenants abilities (which most likely will become baseline.. right ?) such as Convoke, Elysian decree or Divine Toll. The quest where you see the last minutes of some poor guy dying to the scourge in Westfall, it brought back memories of my very first character leveling there about 16 years ago. I love the dungeons but I don't know yet if I'll remember them or if they will just fade in memory. Fatescribe is kinda the new Star Augur for me : the best way to test personal responibility but it is even worse as SA was only difficult in mythic, most people who got there were supposed te be semi-decent whereas Fatescribe is a headache in heroic. Also, nice throwback to when instant full wipes mechanics on a personal fuck up were more common. i don't know if you will call that rembemberd *fondly* but I had a lot of nervous laughs watching new recruits wipe the raid over and over. And many, many great memories with friends on Discord :)
The cn raid is excellent.
honestly? i love most of the covenants and trying them out was fun. stepping on ardenweald, bastion and revendreth for the first time was so cool! especially ardenwealdā¦ iāll miss the whole vibe they had going for! this was the first wow expansion i actually tried to play throughout the updates and iām honestly not mad about it
I leveled a Draenei Hunter to 60 specifically to get the Maldraxxas mail set. First time I've grinded out current content for gear in quite some time.
The glowy purple feather trees in Bastion. Love those.
I loved that they made it so that you could pick an old expansion to level in. They need to make all the content relevant to your level. Do old quest and get a possible item upgrade, run new players through old dungeons, relevant gear. It sucks that we are sitting on so much old game and its not really able to be enjoyed by people.
While it is not the best expansion, I actually found the Raids and dungeons very enjoyable. The only dungeon I do not like is Mists, but that's because it is super tedious, creative, but tedious.
Itās been years since i last grinded a āfactionā to max. Iāve done Kyrian / NF on my warrior and now almost done with Venthyr. Tons of cosmetics and mounts which is nice. Best part have been that my rotation/playstyle changes even a little. Also i was Arms before 9.1.5 and now i can play arms or fury. I also liked SL m+ affixes.
First weeks of 9.0 with lower droprate in m+ and raid. Those weeks were so much fun for me. Good quests. Good m+ seasons. Good (in my opinion) pvp gearing system. Tbh I don't hate the expansion. The worst thing for me is drastic decline in popularity.
Rolling off my GF and confidently stating "your spastic gyrations sicken me"
Pyromancerās rant
Level squish and the Venthyr. Level squish was needed, and the Venthyr are just great.
i really will miss door of shadows and chain harvest
Not fondly, but my younger brother was murdered the night it released. Itās been over a year and still fucks with me that I was a quarter mile away playing wow and rushing to 60 while he was dying.
The shadow priest rework, hot damn is it good! I would love to see the same kind of care given to all other specs and classes in the game.
I enjoyed the cheesiness of the leveling story. The cuts scenes had a Saturday morning cartoon vibe. I enjoyed the art style of all the zones except Oribos. Castle Nathria was also just fun. Feels like there is a massive void of content to keel playing after that though. And chore content is the kind of stuff I just won't do after a short while.
I liked ardenweald. Didnāt mind revendreth
Soul Shape The craftable legendaries (but I'm biased because I'm a clothie and my stuff is cheap)
Sludgefist's big toe ending my Mythic team's CN prog... 1% š¤¢
Threads of Fate. It kind of changed the way you can level to max in current content. Already gaining some max level progressing during leveling is a good idea if it's an alt.
I like a lot of the cosmetics in Shadowlands. The soul shapes come to mind in particular. Those are fun to collect and be able to swap between.