World of Warcraft: Legion - Week 1 in Review

On the cards for over a year, Warcraft players saw the continuation of the Warlords of Draenor timeline split in the flesh this week with the launch of the newest expansion to Blizzard’s reigning champion in the MMO scene - World of Warcraft: Legion. The one expansion to contain only a single word title, Legion is seemingly up to offer the most striking changes to the aging fantasy role-playing game. With week one coming to a close and many people – albeit not me – already starting their hardcore artifact weapon grind, it’s time to look back on the good times already.

Legion, like every other expansion before it comes in the form of what would essentially be paid DLC – just with a box full of fancy artwork. Each usually offers up either a new race or class to level up and a massive new zone to explore for the fresh grind to the new, increased level cap. This time we’re handed the ‘Demon Hunter’ class to play around with – the first ‘Hero Class’ to be introduced since the Death Knight of Lich King fame. One that starts at level 98 ready to roll out of the gate.

But we’ll be playing as a cute Pandaren Protection Warrior.

The story behind this brand of turned Night and/or Blood Elves being our good friend Illidian Stormrage’s imprisoned combat force. They break free during the struggle on the Broken Shore and choose their side depending on their belief of the ideals of the two fueding brothers during the scenario’s closing moments. Then it’s back to the Broken Isles with them once they’ve introduced themselves – and subsequently saved – their new faction from some rather rude Legion forces.

Blizzard themselves have often stated the Demon Hunter class is designed to feel like a game breaker. Likely not in the damage sense, but in the speed of their attacks and animations. They’re often seen zipping through the enemy leaving trails of fire behind them and spinning more times than a Bladestorm Warrior.

Flowing right into the heart of things, a freshly boosted level 100 character in Legion is immediately dropped on their chosen faction’s warship as it approached the Broken Isles, a place known by both sides to the be location of the infamous Tomb of Sargeras – the supposed resting place of Warcraft’s long-standing catalyst of its constant chaos. You’re briefed on the basic abilities of your class and then thrown right into the heat of the moment when the Legion decides you’re getting a little too close for comfort.

Crash the ship, push through the shore campaign, witness Blizzard’s attempt at going all Game of Thrones by killing off some major characters and BAM – you’ll send off some alliance heroes, watch Khadgar move Dalaran to a more ‘strategic’ location, grab your class’ artifact weapon through a creative quest line and be sent on your merry way to recover the Pillars of Creation scattered around the Broken Isles’ varied, dynamic leveling zones.

If you’ve seen our earlier ‘Getting Started’ guide you’ll know leveling up this time around has taken a little bit of a different approach. We have 4 zones to run through and complete during our race to 110, but we’re not fated to complete them in any specific order. Legion employs a ‘dynamic’ leveling experience meaning each zone tunes down to your level as you enter.

It’s generally wise to stick one out until the dungeon unlocks at the end of its main story for better time management, but if you’re just not feeling a certain zone or quest hub/chain, you’re welcome to stroll over the boarders and bask in some new scenary. As of writing, I managed to complete the main scenario of Highmountain and successfully tank my way through its key dungeon – Neltharion’s Lair. Ring a bell? Yep, that’s Deathwing’s old name. If you was a fan of the Cataclysm storyline or played Warcraft II back in the day, Highmountain is the place for you.

If not, you have a few other zones to choose from – non of which you’ll be seeing screenshots of here this week! There’s Val’Sharah, Aszura and Stormheim all surrounding the final max-level zone of Suramar with Dalaran viewable in the distance thanks to the insanely expanded rendering distance introduced to the graphics options. With Highmountain being basically the furthest distance away from the Kirin Tor capital, we scambled up its peaks to get a nice view of the city in the clouds.

One of us even found a sign at its highest point and managed to glide into the level-locked Suramar like a paratrooper only to be met with a death similar to how getting too close to Gul’dan in the prologue would end in you just giving up on life by his feet. It’s a shame we couldn’t risk life and limb through the zone as a level 102, but the drift through the clouds was equal parts relaxing and terrifying at the same time. We may have strolled across a certain someone’s tomb again too…

As for questing itself, Highmountain felt a lot like the better days of Warcraft leveling. Quest hubs and chains flowed nicely into each other leaving minimal time running around trying to find the next thing to do.

While specific area campaigns are fairly new to the process, the constant stream of relevant information and tidbits of lore kept things smooth and interesting. We may have started off kicking fish into the river and slapping some murlocs around again, but we were still constantly helping out tribes of Drogbar natives to defend themselves against the fel-corrupt comrades smashing the hills apart with a the equivalent of Thor’s Mjolnir.

Everything tied together fittingly at the end with the story of a camp in peril concluding with a good few history lessons and a romp through Deathwing’s old home to beat up some scorpions and bring the goods back to a museum in our favorite floating city.

So far Legion has felt like a breath of fresh air to the leveling experience without really changing all that much. Rare mob spawns are much more frequent, appear on the mini map from a close distance for clarity and usually offer up handy boosts for your artifact weapon or a decent chunk of gold for little more than an elongated brawl. It detracts enough from an otherwise linear experience enough to feel like a short break -- even if it is just a way to essentially level up something else; your weapon.

We had a lot of fun breaking away from the hunt to tackle a few of these with a couple of other players, and it felt like proper prep work when it came keeping our eyes open for extra chests and rare elite spawns to grab that extra artifact level before heading into Neltharion’s Lair. We haven’t dabbled in the updated Garrison system just yet, but it’s clear that would certainly help the situation further. Especially when it comes to trying out the newly announced ‘Companion’ app on Thursday.

With 1 zone out of 4 claimed and conquered in no less than 6 hours or so, it seems Legion has streamlined the leveling process of earlier expansions. Blizzard know they need to find the right amount of story and end-game content to pad out its experiences for the varied set of players, and the Broken Isles are off to a promising start. There’s no reason you can’t soak up some lore, quest and gather your way to 110 in a week should you have the time – but for anyone, like myself, with a little less time on our hands, Legion strikes a good balance of fulfillment for even the little things.

Hopefully we’ll get to push through more of it this week.