Legion Pre-Expansion Patch Hits - everything changes

[Xanthippe]

Started my priest first (disc). Got within 3 bars of 110, and got so stuck that I had to put in a ticket. Can't use hearth or /stuck, because it says I'm moving. (I used levitate and ended up in a crystal cluster that I cannot get out of). Response time on ticket estimated at 24 hours.

I started in Highmountain (really liked the questlines), and then did Val'sharah.  Maybe I'm more of a lore nerd than I used to be, but I really enjoyed the story lines.

I am very impressed overall with this expansion. So far, I'd say far better than the last two.

So now, although I wish I was playing my priest, I'm starting my BM MM hunter.

**Edited - I just found out that MM hunter is where my speed went.

[Merusk]

Open up help, there's a "character stuck" option that will force the hearth. If that doesn't work then right below it has the kill option that will teleport you to graveyard. Are those not working?

[Xanthippe]

Open up help, there's a "character stuck" option that will force the hearth. If that doesn't work then right below it has the kill option that will teleport you to graveyard. Are those not working?

Correct. Those are not working. The game thinks I'm moving.

[Ginaz]

I did LFG in Assault on Violet Hold with 2 other mages today.  One was fire, one was arcane and I was frost.  I'm not sure if this is going to hold up in raids, but my dps as frost was only slightly lower than fire and a bit better than arcane.  It seems like all 3 specs might be viable when raiding.

[SurfD]

Open up help, there's a "character stuck" option that will force the hearth. If that doesn't work then right below it has the kill option that will teleport you to graveyard. Are those not working?

Correct. Those are not working. The game thinks I'm moving.

Priest? Queue for a dungeon as a healer, use hearthstone after you zone in?

Maybe see if  you  can whisper a warlock  to summon you somewhere?

[Xanthippe]

Oh, I should have tried to queue! Thank you, I didn't think of that. As a healer, I've had insta-queues for dungeons.

Blizz fixed it within a couple of hours.  I was surprised at how fast they got to it.

On the plus side, I got my hunter started.

After doing some more reading at Icy Veins, I might switch to BM for the first part of leveling, and then back to MM. I think I would kind of like to have two viable specs. OTOH, hunter is not grabbing me all that much. I do want to get Loremaster for Legion on my hunter, who has most of my achievements, and whatever fishing and cooking achievements. Druid is beckoning to me for playing.

I am impressed so far with this expansion. The artwork, the stories, the exploring, the lands. The Broken Isles seem larger than Draenor - Northrend sized.

[Xanthippe]

One thing I noticed yesterday when logging in and out of my characters.

None of the characters that I had not logged in on since Tuesday had rested xp, but the ones I did log in on had a little.

So, if you want rested xp to start, log in on a character. Otherwise the little rested xp thing is at 0.

[Selby]

So, if you want rested xp to start, log in on a character. Otherwise the little rested xp thing is at 0.

This has been an issue since Wrath at least, no rested XP at the start of an expansion/major overhaul if you don't log in first.

I'm really tempted to resub for this but am not sure... My old friends are playing again.

[Merusk]

I'd forgotten that tip, thanks for the reminder. With one of each class rested XP makes a yuge difference.

I agree the hunters don't feel the same anymore. Worst will be when I try and do dungeons as Marks. Half my skills are AOE, I'm going to really have to watch positioning.

[Hawkbit]

Besides saving them to use on a different artifact, is there any reason to not use the items that give artifact xp?

[Merusk]

Not since they fixed the exploits, no.

There IS still an argument against picking up all the world drops and dares until later, though. I'm finding its more fun to just pick them up anyway.

ed: To expand now that I'm at the office.

That post I made earlier in the "WOW in 2016" thread about the 'catch-up' and experience bonuses once you complete the 108 quest for Artifact Knowledge still stands. That's still a mechanic and a method to really make those pickups go a long, long way. However, it's not retroactive to anything you've picked-up already. Once you pick up an item its fixed to the AK level you're at. For those of us who haven't done it we're at AK level 1.

If you hold off and wait you can get one measly little 10AP item to give you up to 2490AP at Artifact Knowledge level 25. That lets you do 6 whole nodes from that one little 10AAP item you find in almost all purple chests strewn all over the place.  However it's something like a 50-day grind to get there.

The REAL reason for AK is because the cost of nodes skyrockets after your 13th unlock (which is 5 nodes on most artifacts).
Nodes 1-7 increase at a cost of 25, going from 300 to 450.
Node 8 increases by 75
Node 9 increase by 100
Node 10-12 increase by 125, ending with a 1000AP cost for the 12th node.

Node 13? 6840.
Node 14, 15, 16, 17? 8830, 11280, 14400, 18620.

So you don't do any harm picking-up and using those AP items as you find them while leveling. You're not going to unlock node 13 before you get to the endgame. However, once you hit 9 or 10 unlocks you should slowdown or stop finding those world treasure chests and rares if you're only doing one spec. Each one you use is lost AP later when you've got some Artifact Knowledge.

World quests apparently grant AP and are affected by AK, so that's got you covered for later on down the line when costs get really stupid.

[Draegan]

Only level 106 but I love healing on my disc priest.

[Merusk]

Only 104, having fun taking it slow with the wife. Me as a DK her as a Priest. We might try tanking/ healing tonight and watching all the DPS rage at the deaths and my refusal to go too fast.

[Hawkbit]

Thanks, Merusk. I think I'm just going to play and have fun with it instead of min/maxing it to death.

[Merusk]

Thanks, Merusk. I think I'm just going to play and have fun with it instead of min/maxing it to death.

Yeah I realize now my TLDR should have been there:

Just use the things until you hit 13 unlocks. It's more fun and you don't lose anything doing so.

[luckton]

Did another marathon today...

- Ding 110
I think as a result of everything scaling to your level, grinding isn't really a concern for Bliz anymore. I did every "Bonus Objective" mission as they popped up along my questing, and got a crap-ton of CH resources and XP as a result. Now that I'm 110? No more Bonus Objective pop-ups in the zones outside of Suramar. I know this because I did a couple zones in beta and saved them for last on live. Regardless, the journey was fun. Fun enough to finish...

- All of the Exploration/Adventure/Loremaster/Treasure Finding stuff for everything but Suramar
"lorelol" and Green Jesus cat-call all you want, but Bliz has gotten a hell of a lot better at telling a story in-game now. And they're not afraid to kill off characters anymore. The world design is top notch, and chock full of rare NPC fights, treasures, and terrain to explore.

- Progressed the Light's Heart chain up to where you can
At any point from 100 to 110, Khadgar offers you a quest to find a thing that fell out of the sky. Not going to spoil anything, but so far this chain is a real treat for long-time devotees of the lore/story of Warcraft. Someone(s) put a lot of time into this one to make it compelling.

- Worked on available profession quests (LW/Skinning)
At the end of the day, professions in WoW are the same as they always have; nice little filler things to help augment your gear, but never a true replacement for raid stuff. That said, the journey to get the recipes and up your skill is a LOT more involved now. Again, good story telling and really good use of exploiting the content they're introducing.

- Started on Suramar before I started making dinner
As I stepped foot into the current "end-game", I was rewarded with an artifact token that gave me 800 AP. That's more than anything I've gotten from questing or treasures, and no artifact research yet. Party on, Wayne.

[Merusk]

The Surimar quests give you a ton of AP since they're endgame focused. That was the big hubub about "don't wait to start them, it won't matter"

[lesion]

I two-manned the first boss of an instance on my pally tank with a shadow priest buddy...it was fun! But slow as hell. So we did the rest with guildies. It struck me at one point that I was playing for the fun of it and not to get loot or level up (despite doing both). Video games?!

[SurfD]

Just wanted to confirm (being a psycho altoholic who WILL want to eventually work on 6 or so alts to 110):  Artifact Knowledge is Account Wide, right?

Edit: Shit.  A quick search on google turns up the info that AK is only per character,  NOT account wide, however Research times for AK levels will get shorter as time goes on, so reaching high AK levels on alts will  be faster.

Guess that means focus primarily on one or two mains for "active" content like dungeons / raiding etc, and just putz around on sideline alts who are more for Crafting and whatnot.

Prob means I will focus on my Druid and DK as my primary mains, and leave the rest to what i can get around to.

[Setanta]

You are better than me. What AK means to me is that I will probably level 1 or 2 to 110 and then unsub because it's just another variation on alt grind=content.

The other 9 alts can get fucked at which point the untidiness of not having all at 110 will annoy me enough to uninstall the game :D

Which is a shame as I liked levelling alts but refuse to level them all and their weapons.

I just realised it's a variation on Diablo 3 (level and hit gear for season then stop playing) or Hearthstone (get cardback and quit for the month). Blizzard are shit at working out what fun is

[Hawkbit]

I'm almost 110 on my ret pally that I'm going to 'main' this xpac. I decided to try my Unholy DK at 100 with his artifact last night - I can't believe how much faster it kills through content. I feel slightly squishier than the pally, but I kill so much faster it's not even comparable.

I think I might try to play a Holy pally at some point soon. I've never healed, so some PUGs are in for some fun 5-mans. :)

[Merusk]

I've heard from a few folks that Ret is decidedly fucked this X-pac. Maybe it'll get better with higher gear or tweaked, but most were saying to just level as Prot instead. You kill a lot and you kill at the same speed.

One thing to watch out for is that your DPS/ ability to kill PLUMMETS at 110. I'm getting wrecked by level 101/ 108 players in dungeons. The scaling at 110 must assume a higher ilevel on gear vs. the lower ends so the mobs have more mitigation.

On a "Fucking COOL" note:

The DK class quest has you, as an agent of the Lich King Bolvar, re-form the Four Horsemen. I just hit the 3rd and geeked out because I always liked the character.

The other two were:

[Zetor]

FWIW elemental shaman seems to be absolute bottom of the barrel dps too, with mediocre survivability. Switching to enhance with no trinkets and a 0 AP artifact weapon increases dps/mobility/survivability significantly even though I haven't played enhance since levelling back in BC. Hell, switching to RESTO is better for solo questing, since it kills single targets almost as fast as ele (unless ele hits the rng jackpot) and literally never dies + has zero downtime.
As a bonus, ele is probably the worst spec in pvp against melee, which was fun when leveling on a server with a 2:1 horde:alliance ratio. I switched to resto for soloing now and I can at leastsurvive and get away from most ganks unless it's like 1v3.

Performance of ele in dungeons is similarly sad, though some warlock specs and maybe arcane mages have it bad too...

[Rokal]

I had the identical experience. Leveled from 100-110 as Elem, got crushed in DPS by lower-level players in dungeons. The only areas I accelerated were very large AoE groups if I stacked some cooldowns. Though as Merusk posted, this seemed like it was partially some scaling weirdness in Normal Dungeons. I also noticed the normal dungeons that had been a total breeze to heal from 100-109 as Resto got way harder to heal as soon as I hit 110. That seems to vary wildly based on the levels of the other people in your group, if you go in with a full group of 110s it'll feel as easy and balanced as it does when your lower levels.

In any case, I could do okay as Elemental at 110 in world content as long as I was stacking, say 2-3 of my best DPS cooldowns for a Rare or Elite mob, but I'd get killed without them and ended every fight needing to hard cast 2-3 heals before the next mob.

I swapped to Enhance at 110 on a whim with 0 Artifact Runes or Artifact power invested and suddenly the game got much easier. Higher DPS, more reliable single target and AoE damage, better utility, more survivability, etc. Once I had a few green-quality Artifact Runes to boost my weapon ilvl I was blowing everything apart with no effort, elites and Rares included.

The most puzzling difference was that Enhance got instant-cast heals for a small amount of Maelstorm Power. Elemental, which uses the same resource system, has to hard cast them. Not only was I taking more damage as elemental, but I had to sit around like an asshole hard casting heals when Enhance just zips along with instant cast heals mid-fight or out of combat. Zero reason for elemental to not get the same option to trade Maelstorm power for instant cast heals, since both specs have a finite amount of healing they can do with their small mana pool anyway.

I've noticed most of the groups I've healed so far have been very Melee heavy, so I'm not the only one finding the ranged specs for most classes lacking in Legion.

[Merusk]

I think its partially based on statements by Blizzard just prior to release. The lead dev said something along the lines of, "Melee will do well in Dungeons and Challenge modes and Ranged will struggle. The reverse will wind-up true in Raids and we're ok with that. Not everyone has to be equal."

So since Dungeons are the content for this part of the cycle, you're going to see more melee.

[ezrast]

I thought it was strange that my kill speed didn't go up when I tried switching from Resto to Ele. Glad it wasn't just me being bad.

Level 110 tanks are definitely a bit harder to keep alive in dungeons than their lower-level counterparts. I really don't know why they even raised the cap this expansion if everything is just going to scale anyway.

What's up with Demon Hunter tanking, by the way? I always see them drop to ~50% really fast and then self-heal most of it back by the time I get a spell off. It's really unpredictable and leaves me in a constant state of semi-panic as a healer. Is it just me or do they need a little love?

[Draegan]

I just dinged 110 on my disc priest and just entering stone/storm mountain whatever its called as my last zone before the other.

Love the healing ability on this class. Real fun.

[SurfD]

What's up with Demon Hunter tanking, by the way? I always see them drop to ~50% really fast and then self-heal most of it back by the time I get a spell off. It's really unpredictable and leaves me in a constant state of semi-panic as a healer. Is it just me or do they need a little love?

I think demonhunters play a lot like early Deathknights.  They dont have a proper "full  time" active mitigation skill (i think every other tank can keep at least one of their actives up almost 95% of the time), so they have windows where they have pretty much no mitigation at all going for them, so unless the person playing the tank has a really good grasp of proper cooldown staggering to cover the gaps, they will  be playing a lot of self heal pingpong wit the healthbars.

[Xanthippe]

I just dinged 110 on my disc priest and just entering stone/storm mountain whatever its called as my last zone before the other.

Love the healing ability on this class. Real fun.

I hate healing pugs in dungeons as disc. Holy is fine, though, and it's easy to unlock the artifact, and get it up to a reasonable level.

I have decided to shelve hunter until it's enjoyable again. Got up to 105, played both BM and MM, and realized Blizzard managed to take the fun out.

I have a WW monk that I use for skinning. It's ok, but I'm not in love. I think I'll go with druid next.

[Xanthippe]

Legion dev Q&A.

Whenever I read one of these things, it seems to boil down to that the players who are complaining aren't playing right.

Classes Balance in Mythic Dungeon
Multidotting is something that allows for strength in some situations, especially when things are split up and melee can't cleave everything.
Melee are doing well in dungeons right now, which is a good thing. Historically people wanted to bring lots of ranged casters over melee.
The team is getting a broader data set as people hit max level and gear up to make balance tweaks where needed.

Class Balance
The team would rather let things sit for a little while and make class changes all at once rather than very frequent single changes.
As raids open up the team will have even more data to balance things.
The team is targeting a set of tweaks for right before raids open to bring up under performing specs without being too disruptive to the hierarchy of specs.
Balance isn't perfect right now, the team is working on it, but there are lots of different variables.
Raids and Mythic+ dungeons are the content people care about balance most for and they aren't available yet.
Outside of balance tweaks, there are mechanical tweaks the team wants to make to improve gameplay. You won't see these via hotfixes, but should see them in Patch 7.1.
The team is actively working on fixing the mobility abilities that aren't working right.

It doesn't sound to me as though any broken classes will be fixed any time soon.

[Ragnoros]

Been piddling around with this for an hour here and there. Don't like the changes to Blood DK, which was my main in MoP/WoD. It feels like they took away most of my self healing ability, as my DK just doesn't feel nearly as survivable or self sufficient as before. Moreover, they seem to have made all the talents uncool. There's hardly any that make me actively want them. They are all like 'here's 2% more life' or 'here's 5% more energy' or 'here's yet another button to take 20% less damage for 5 seconds' or some other forgettable junk.

Vengence DH has been alright. I like it actually has great self heal, and mobility compared to DK is great. My biggest complaint is the various abilities don't feel very meaty, rather they all feel rather interchangeable. None of them seem to hit particularly harder than any others, and it just feels like I'm slowly whittling every guy down in 5% increments.

Anyone have much experience with other tanks in Legion? Looking for something that feels somewhat self sufficient and has some abilities that actually take chunks off enemy health bars (at least solo). Perhaps that's just not a thing with the new legion tanking dynamics...

[Merusk]

As I understand it that's not a thing with the new dynamics. DK self-heal isn't bursty like it was, it's much more even outside of DeathStrike. Tanks are meant to rely on healers now to "give them something to do," except the DH which is the "solo tank."  Rumor is DHs are meant to be able to take on anything outside of raids by themselves by design intent. This also is apparently why they tend to make terrible group tanks and are "only if we have no other choice" for Mythic and Raids because of 'not dying' and 'fucking hell why did you pull that' aspect.

Fuckers aggro so much shit needlessly that I believe it, though it could just be the 'newness' of them. DK tanks had similar problems in WOTLK.

Druid might be more to your liking, though I don't know as I don't play them. No bear tank in what's left of my guild, so no way of knowing from that aspect either. I rely on Youtube for that info anymore.

As for "best" tanks it's Warrior/ Paladin. Pallys are simple and hard to screw up and Warriors have insane Victory Rush and mitigation combos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRdJ-edDMJM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd0fLDnRQCs

[SurfD]

First toon  to 110 here is a druid,  primarily as Tank.

As a group tank, you are quite solid.  Make sure you have mastery on everything that can have mastery on it, and you are golden.   We are basically back to being complete meatshields, but we do it very well.

At around 810 item level currently, and I find my solo self healing is kind of lacking (Frenzied Regen is utterly inferior to Deathstrike for keeping you alive, for example, unless you are taking big hits very slowly, which doesnt happen very often in solo outdoor stuff), so unless you want to spec Resto Affinity and run away / hot self / come back, you have to be careful with what you pull.  Especially as even moderate packs (5 or 6 mobs) that just mele you can still put down some hefty damage to you since you cant block, and no longer have a +Dodge cooldown.

We do get two fairly hefty "burst" healing cooldowns in the form of the Astral Beam heal talent + first major trait granting Leech to our artifact cooldown, but with a 1.5 min cooldown on both, some of the harder world elites can leave me almost dead by time i kill them.   meanwhile, I have watched DKs beat the shit out of the things and their healthbars barely move.

So far, my major complaint is that, outside of popping our artifact cooldown for damage, our solo damage feels lacking, and I find I seem to spend a lot of time spamming my main active defensive abilities.

[Maledict]

Been piddling around with this for an hour here and there. Don't like the changes to Blood DK, which was my main in MoP/WoD. It feels like they took away most of my self healing ability, as my DK just doesn't feel nearly as survivable or self sufficient as before. Moreover, they seem to have made all the talents uncool. There's hardly any that make me actively want them. They are all like 'here's 2% more life' or 'here's 5% more energy' or 'here's yet another button to take 20% less damage for 5 seconds' or some other forgettable junk.

Vengence DH has been alright. I like it actually has great self heal, and mobility compared to DK is great. My biggest complaint is the various abilities don't feel very meaty, rather they all feel rather interchangeable. None of them seem to hit particularly harder than any others, and it just feels like I'm slowly whittling every guy down in 5% increments.

Anyone have much experience with other tanks in Legion? Looking for something that feels somewhat self sufficient and has some abilities that actually take chunks off enemy health bars (at least solo). Perhaps that's just not a thing with the new legion tanking dynamics...

Um, Blood Death Knights are ridiculous at soloing. I'm fairly sure I heal myself more than the healer does on many bosses as well. There's no cap to how many things you can kill at once whilst soloing, and you can kill grouped quests solo without ever going below 90% health with Blood. Easily one of the best and most powerful levelling specs in the game currently for solo play.

[koro]

I've been leveling an Enhancement shaman from 1 after six years away from the game. It's 88 now, and I'll probably be hitting 90 before I even finish the first Pandaria zone.

Really enjoying it so far, and I have yet to run into anything short of an Elite that I can't kill in three hits. I imagine it'll change in Draenor and in Legion, but it's nice being OP while it lasts.