Legion

12 Hours and 20 Minutes from 100 to 110

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That’s the time it took for me to level from 100 to 110 on beta. I can do better than that.

Anyway, related to the Legion leveling dilemma of pure quests versus incorporating dungeons, I did a straight run yesterday from 100 to 110 on my Priest. Here’s the times and rough paths:

10:38 AM: Timer starts at Dalaran, selected Stormheim
12:06 PM: 101
13:12: 102, unlocked both artifact weapons for Holy and Disc, moved to Azsuna (which flows nicely with Enchanting and Tailoring profession quests)
14:40: 103
15:58: 104, moved to Val’Sharah, and restock up on Legion level food and water
17:10: 105, back to the Class Hall to start some player XP work orders (2 hours)
18:10: 106, moved to Highmountain
19:13: 107, back to the Class Hall to redeem and start another set of player XP work orders
20:39: 108
21:45: 109, back to Class Hall to advance class mission scenario
23:01: 110

All of that took around 12 hours and 20 minutes. Ended up dying 4 times overall. Embarassingly enough, my first death was during the initial Shadow Artifact weapon quest. Oops.

Oddly enough, the longest part should have ended up being the 100 to 101 area between unlocking class artifact weapons and moving Dalaran over. I suspect this might even take longer on live.

Speaking of artifact weapons, I lost some major time on the Discipline one because I screwed up the encounter with the Fire boss. Didn’t make the connection that Mind Control was supposed to be used (and I’m surprised that spell didn’t get pruned). That’s why ultimately level 102 took way longer than needed.

High Mountain is actually a tricky zone. It can be optimized more and there were a few Hearthstone tricks I didn’t properly do. Not to mention, the main quest area is on top of a freakin’ mountain with lifts. What is it with Tauren and living on top of giant mountains and using elevators anyway?

I literally completed all of the zone storylines in all of the major areas. I think there was one (or maybe two) of those free form quest areas that I missed out on in Azsuna that I’m going to have to incorporate in my live run. But at 49% into 109, I ran out of zone quests. Thankfully, I still had class quests I could accomplish and a few profession ones remaining.

I did end up having Auto Turn In installed but forgot to install an autovendor addon for trash drops. Ended up having to manually sell items on my mammoth during the dialog based cut scenes (which can’t be skipped). Incidentally enough, those are great times to re-buff yourself with food buffs.

Zoopercat has a post on Ask Mr Robot with some additional detail on Artifact Power and the quests. Since I’m raiding as Holy and levelling as Shadow, my run did not incorporate the use of activating Artifact Power or buffing weapons. I went straight to 110 with a naked Artifact weapon. Between Zooper’s post and my experience, you’re better off investing the AP right away even if you plan to raid as a different spec. You don’t lose that much time or progression and between some of the dailies and other wards, you will catch up quickly on the 2nd weapon anyway.

Last piece of advice, fruit platters are awesome for maintaining energy and alertness. I hate blueberries though.

We are Legion

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My name is Legion: For we are many.

Couldn’t help but think back to that Mass Effect 2 quote. Where do I start here? A quick guild update is in order. Archimonde on normal is now cleared. On the heroic front, we bypassed Iskar and gunned straight to Socrethar and Xhul knocking both of them out this week and placing the guild at 8/13 heroic. Unfortunately, I lost a Resto Druid last week and our resident Mistweaver Monk has gone missing in action. Our auxiliary and off-spec healers have done an admirable job filling in the for them. It’s only going to get harder for them and I didn’t bring them on board to heal full time despite their insistence that they’re willing to do whatever’s needed. I brought them in to deal copious amounts of damage and we’ve invested the damage gear into their characters. Resto Druids continue to be the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher for my guild, it seems.

Okay, let’s talk about Legion.

That was much more information than I expected from a non-BlizzCon presentation. I assume this means that Diablo 3 is going to headline BlizzCon this year.

The classes

Demon hunters. Straight up 2 specs: Damage and tank.

I’m mentally grimacing because it’s another tank class and another melee class. Is there any point to bring in rogues now (other than Smoke Bomb?). Yeah, too early to tell since there wasn’t much in the way of class information. From the few highlights and abilities, they certainly appear to be a fun and high-mobility class especially with their double jumps. Can’t imagine significant raid combat bonuses though other than being able to traverse slightly larger than normal void zones.

Conditions for raiding as a Demon Hunter

  • Player must make a generous donation to the guild bank
  • Player must find someone to replace their role (if they’re not melee)
  • Player’s Demon Hunter performance must exceed their previous role

If those conditions are met, their request to go Demon Hunter will be considered.

Speaking of classes, Icy Veins with their fantastic interview out this morning, confirmed that Survival Hunters will be switching to a melee class. There was speculation since their artifact shows them wielding a spear instead of a traditional bow or a gun.

Great.

More melee.

I’m glad that hunters get more of a diversity among their 3 specs. But the GM in me is visibly annoyed at this, because this means yet more melee. More players that’ll get struck by cleaves or other close range boss attacks and so forth. Conquest has traditionally been a melee heavy raid and we’re trying to move away from that so we get a little more wiggle room. This doesn’t help us much. Unless Survival Hunters are clearly superior or offer an irresistable utility that’s needed, I don’t plan on actively snagging any for the roster. Could change though.

But ugh, another healer or a ranged class would’ve been nice.

Artifacts

Hey look at that, no weapon drops for this expansion. Once we receive our class weapon, we get to grow with it as we adventure onward. Paladins get to utilize Ashbringer, Death Knights get Frostmourne, Hunters get a random bow and a spear, and what about us Priests?

We have no idea yet. Blast. There’s some speculation that it would be Benediction or Anathema, and I confess, I thought similarly. After further thought, I realized it wouldn’t make sense. Veteran Priests already have those. While they’re certainly iconic Priest weapons, I can’t fathom from a lore or gameplay sense that they’d be “rebooted” and awarded to us.

Gathering the shards of Benediction somewhere in Stormwind Cathedral? Why not use the one that’s just sitting in my void storage?

Now, I were a betting man (which I am), I’d put my gold on Fearbreaker. Anduin is going to pass his iconic mace to us, the “leader” of the Priest class order as his prince duties tie him up elsewhere.

Speaking of Anduin, anyone else amazed at how much he’s aged?

Or maybe they just conjure up a new staff from out of no where and apply some lore magic to it. Maybe it was one of Alonsus Faol’s old staves that was buried with him in his grave somewhere that we need to retrieve.

Class Orders

It’s being billed as similar to garrisons but on a much smaller scale. Instead of raising an army, we’re building a smaller strike team. They should’ve sold it as the class version of the Avengers or something. Actually, if they gave our followers here a talent tree like the Diablo 3 followers, I’d be greatly interested. I suspect it’s a much more developed version of the level 3 Barracks where we can activate select followers to escort and assist us around the world.

Going to be odd though to be the leader of the class order when there’s going to be other priests in the same area with the same title.

Good thing we’re not paladins and watching everyone around us with Judgment gear.

More stuff coming down the pipeline, to be sure. Can’t wait for beta!

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