Last week I took a week off work in anticipation of the latest expansion to World of Warcraft - Legion. After reaching the new maximum level cap in little over 24 hours from launch, I have since experienced most content currently available at the current point of the game. In my review here, I will discuss the content I have played through, detailing my thoughts on each part of the game.
Introduction Quests:
Although these were available quite a while before launch, eventually climaxing on launch night, I felt it pertinent to discuss them here. For the most part, after running through them more than twice, they became long drawn out lore-fests. They were enjoyable for the most part the first time around, luckily they did become skippable after launch, cutting down severely on time required to get stuck in to the new content.
Leveling:
There are only four zones in total to level through in Legion, however don't let you fool this into thinking there is a lack of content in each zone. With the exception of Azsuna, and to an extant Val'sharah, each zone tends to have a small set of introductory quests, explaining the story behind each zone (Azsuna inflicts this knowledge onto you whilst flying into the zone). Ultimately, specifically in the case of Stormheim, these are the downsides to the zones themselves. Highmountain, which regardless of what I'm about to say is still the best leveling zone in my opinion, also has a few filler quests, which seem forced upon the player in order to extend the zone in line with experience gained from other zones.
Every enemy you find, no matter what zone you're in out of the four outlined, will be scaled to your level, so there's no worry of having to give up on a zone to move on via outleveling or gearing a certain area.
Dungeons:
This is one part of the expansion I cannot yet cover as a whole. Overall, the new dungeons seem rather linear in layout, overloaded with trash monsters, with new(ish) niche mechanics on bosses. Many of the new mechanics have been carried over from the invasion events that occurred pre-launch. Normal dungeons scale to levels as with zones, so if your friends are lagging behind at all, you can still easily play with them to experience the content together. From what I have experienced of heroic dungeons, they do not bear the same challenging resemblance to very close to post-launch as Wrath or Cataclysm, but still offer an ample challenge at the current point in the expansion.
End Game:
I will split this part into two categories. World Quests and Suramar.
World Quests:
This piece of entirely new content (to WoW at least) is the jewel in the already gem laden crown of Legion. World Quests are your source of daily, sometimes bi/tri-daily, reputation, gear, order resources, gold... Everything you could possibly imagine. It will be interesting to see how World Quests develop given the gear it offers are oft better than that available in heroic dungeons, although quite whether an elaboration at the moment is even needed is very questionable.
Suramar:
Suramar becomes your hub for end game questing content, opening up an entirely new faction to develop, and gain reputation with. The quests that arrive with Suramar are on a somewhat new level for WoW, very involving and entertaining, but you could say the same for the majority of the expansion, particularly Class Order quests. The zone itself is quite honestly one of the most beautiful creations to take place on Azeroth. Suramar is by far and away the zone you'll find yourself in the most come maximum level, so brace yourself before taking on it's introductory quests, it can be quite hard to stop once you've started. One single quest giver can often lead to a chain, from the same NPC I may add, of 5 up to 8.
So there you have it. A masterstroke at first glance, and although we're only a week in, it's exciting to think what may be around the corner. Indeed if the new content patch's teaser trailer is anything to go by, we're in for a joyous ride.
If you'd like to follow my progress through Legion, you can follow me on Twitch.
I hope to see you out there on the Broken Isles.
