2 weeks in beta. Overview.

[Useful]

Greetings, fellow players. I barely post but I think it would be a good idea to share my 50 hour experience in Legion beta. I main a druid and raided as feral > resto > boomkin during HM > BRF > HFC respectively. I play WoW since 2004 closed beta and its my third beta invite after vanilla and Wotlk. So going into beta I made a desicion to start as feral. Copy character option was not available so i pre-made a 100 kitty. Kittytest, here we go.

1. Graphics, zoom and other visuals.

Broken Isles is a beautiful place. I enjoyed it a lot. Every zone has a different theme, from glowing forests to dark shores and high mountains. I dont own a strong gaming machine. Heck, everything in my build except a video card is pretty much outdated. But having a 100+ fps while questing and 50 in Dalaran makes me think that some rework was done to the engine. Game runs smoothly. On the other hand they did not optimize heavy AoE spells some bosses like to do. The legion version of Anub Arack impales you, your party, and your FPS. Could be the reason of possible game crashes in raids. Many tears were shed in mourning over zoom distance. I, myself, played on maximum range as well. Well, its not THAT bad on practice. I got used to new distance very quickly.

2. Questing to 110.

Some ppl claim they lvl to 110 in 10 hours. Well I call it pushing, not levelling. I took the long road and /played right after I hit 110 said 25 hours. I switched out of feral and went guardian on 103 level. I feel bad for ferals out there because from my perspective (dont forget I had 650+ greens on start) levelling as kitty was quite uncomfortable. Sometimes I had to kite a single non-elite mob because 5 cp HT wasn't enough to outheal its damage. What can I say about bears? They freaking rule this world now. The range of moonfire allows you to pull half of the location and then swipe them all to death. Single target damage is lower than in a dps spec but huge aoe pulls will compensate that. Also 2 aoe cooldowns: Lunar Beam and Artifact itself will make your life a lot easier.
Other thing that surprised me was the amount of cleared zones that took me to 100. It was two. I dont know will they tune down the exp, but on beta I found myself in a weird position, when I needed reputation to progress further into druid campaign and I had 0 quests done in another zones. On the other hand, finishing a full zone quest chain will give you some nice rewards as gear upgrades and artifact power tokens.

3. Artifact.

That was the most confusing thing to me. I had to make a skype session with my more experienced guild mate for explanations. Imo – its still very unintuitive part of building your character. And most important. As a result, I wasted a lot of artifact power (well wasted is not a correct word to be fair), spending it on feral spec, which was abandoned and took the wrong route, building my bear artifact. To avoid that – a player must have a plan, which I had not. The goal is to reach first perk as soon as possible. It took me a bunch of time to get to Embrace of the nightmare.
Anyways, druids have four artifacts to obtain. The quest chains are very well done. Also focusing on class campaign and order hall campaign, rather then doing zones and dungeons will repay you big time.

4. Dungeons.

Not much to say. Normals are very slow paced because of gear. Your damage is low. Mobs have low damage as well, but overtuned health pools. You can stand in aoe and still stay pretty much alive. Heroics go much faster, because of 810 ilvl requirement. Legion beta has 8 dungeons, which is a bit less than I expected. If you get bored running them as tank you can try to Q up as dps or healer. Heroic tanking is fairly easy, but healing becomes more stressful, if your party wants to face roll the place.

5. What to do on 110.

As simple as it goes – world quests. This is the way to earn artifact power, order hall (ex-garrison) resources and reputation. You need all that to boost your item level, get ready for mythic dungeons and raids. Personally, I am having a blast as guardian druid, doing all that stuff.

That's pretty much all, folks. Hope it was a useful read. If you have any further questions – feel free to ask, I read the forums frequently.

[Deleted]

Legion has 10 dungeons, fyi. The last 2 will be unlocked after some questing in Suramar.

[TommiTMX]

...snip

Other thing that surprised me was the amount of cleared zones that took me to 100. It was two. I dont know will they tune down the exp, but on beta I found myself in a weird position, when I needed reputation to progress further into druid campaign and I had 0 quests done in another zones.

...snip

This part intrigues me. To remind myself of the and check if there were any drastic changes (I hadn't leveled to 110 since Alpha) I leveled with a friend this weekend. We ran through the zones (as if it was launch night) and admittedly skipped a few quests by accident (it had been a while and we were rushing) and had to complete all zones (going back to other zones to complete some of the "hidden" areas). We strictly ignored any chests/rares that weren't directly in our path (though their XP yield is quite low) and did no dungeons at all during the process.

Did you do dungeons while leveling? If so I imagine that's where the discrepancy is, if not I'm curious as to whether you found more of the "hidden" quest areas that I wasn't sure about to do 100-110 in two zones!

[Mazeari]

1 leveled 1 char. I did highmountain fully and the other zones major storylines to get to 110. And eventhough there are plenty of side quest, it does feel like you did 4 zones.

[Soisoisoi]

Yeah, I've leveled 3 chars to L110 now and they roughly all dinged L110 halfway through the 3rd zone. I did two-three dungeons on them each. I don't think two dungeons compensate for 1,5 zones though. So I'm really not sure why some people claim they need to fully finish 4 whole zones to ding. Does not compute for me.

I've only ever done a single zone on any individual character [have done all but one of the zones, though], but always ended up just short of 102. I assumed it would go 100-102, 102-104, etc. Does it jump up and you start getting more levels per zone?

[orgonutil]

On my third char i did with rested xp all the way the order hall quests, the falling star quest chain and all quests required to loremaster and just 1/5 of the bonus objectives in the way and skipped all dungeons and professions quests and stopped at the begining of 109!

So, yes, you can do everything required to loremaster and fly before to get 110, just skip optional things

[Cronovey]

I've only ever done a single zone on any individual character [have done all but one of the zones, though], but always ended up just short of 102. I assumed it would go 100-102, 102-104, etc. Does it jump up and you start getting more levels per zone?

If you did this early in the beta, it could be why. The experience gains have been tuned more and more as the beta goes on, where generally you'll hit 110 after the first major hub in the fourth zone if you're doing all the main quests and a few bonus objectives, as well as the dungeon quests at the end of each zone.

[Soisoisoi]

If you did this early in the beta, it could be why. The experience gains have been tuned more and more as the beta goes on, where generally you'll hit 110 after the first major hub in the fourth zone if you're doing all the main quests and a few bonus objectives, as well as the dungeon quests at the end of each zone.

I did it about two or three weeks ago at most. I did my Rogue's first artifact quest, then did ALL of Val'sharah leaving me at nearly 102 - finished the 2nd and 3rd artifact unlocks and that 3rd one dinged me.

Had a similar experience when I did Stormheim and Highmountain, too. Though I did those back in Alpha, without the 2nd/3rd Artifact unlocks.

[Cronovey]

I did it about two or three weeks ago at most. I did my Rogue's first artifact quest, then did ALL of Val'sharah leaving me at nearly 102 - finished the 2nd and 3rd artifact unlocks and that 3rd one dinged me.

Had a similar experience when I did Stormheim and Highmountain, too. Though I did those back in Alpha, without the 2nd/3rd Artifact unlocks.

The experience tuning is completely changed from the alpha, which is probably a large portion of it. Val'sharah was generally getting me to around 103 and somewhere around halfway to 104 if I did all the bonus objectives and the quest for Darkheart Thicket at the end of it. You may have missed a few odd quests here and there, because there are a LOT scattered around that no major hub points you towards at any point, although if you miss them you'll end up finding some as world quests and just complete the original and the world quest again later when you go to do the world quests.

[Maudib]

On my third char i did with rested xp all the way the order hall quests, the falling star quest chain and all quests required to loremaster and just 1/5 of the bonus objectives in the way and skipped all dungeons and professions quests and stopped at the begining of 109!

So, yes, you can do everything required to loremaster and fly before to get 110, just skip optional things

A little misleading... better to say you can complete the loremaster portion of the Pathfinder achievement... you cannot complete the entire pathfinder part 1 before 110.

[Soisoisoi]

The experience tuning is completely changed from the alpha, which is probably a large portion of it. Val'sharah was generally getting me to around 103 and somewhere around halfway to 104 if I did all the bonus objectives and the quest for Darkheart Thicket at the end of it. You may have missed a few odd quests here and there, because there are a LOT scattered around that no major hub points you towards at any point, although if you miss them you'll end up finding some as world quests and just complete the original and the world quest again later when you go to do the world quests.

I did Val'sharah most recently [3rd of July as per the achieves below]. I completed every quest I could when I did it, opened up all the dungeons etc, got the Loremaster too. Including having the quest for Darkheart Thicket. With that said, there is 3 subzones I haven't explored, but there were no breadcrumbs to go to any of them.




I still doubt those 3 subzones could get me another TWO levels on top of what I have though. That makes no sense unless they near enough doubled the xp in the last few weeks?

[Varaben]

This part intrigues me. To remind myself of the and check if there were any drastic changes (I hadn't leveled to 110 since Alpha) I leveled with a friend this weekend. We ran through the zones (as if it was launch night) and admittedly skipped a few quests by accident (it had been a while and we were rushing) and had to complete all zones (going back to other zones to complete some of the "hidden" areas). We strictly ignored any chests/rares that weren't directly in our path (though their XP yield is quite low) and did no dungeons at all during the process.

Did you do dungeons while leveling? If so I imagine that's where the discrepancy is, if not I'm curious as to whether you found more of the "hidden" quest areas that I wasn't sure about to do 100-110 in two zones!

It's pretty much always been the case that you level faster in beta, right? They want you to test the end game stuff and by the time max level opens up, theyve had time to test the lower levels anyway.

[orgonutil]

A little misleading... better to say you can complete the loremaster portion of the Pathfinder achievement... you cannot complete the entire pathfinder part 1 before 110.

It was what I meant, ty

[Useful]

Did you do dungeons while leveling? If so I imagine that's where the discrepancy is, if not I'm curious as to whether you found more of the "hidden" quest areas that I wasn't sure about to do 100-110 in two zones!

Yes, I did. They are part of class campain which i was focused on. Also i did profession quests. The zones I did were Highmountain and Valshara.

[grexly75]

I have played pretty much all the zones, had a go at Emerald Nightmare LFR only 2 bosses but they were fun, lots of creeping pools of death and more..

1 With what you said here Lost Isles is a great place has many and varied places, on your bit about camera zoom just as well you said it here. If you said about how you got used to the camera zoom and found it not to bad and that you adapted really quickly, on the blizz forums you would have been down voted into oblivion and also met with as much toxicity as a toxic waste dump it is that bad over there..

On dungeons they are fun with Neltharian's Lair being really fun what with a cool barrel ride down a fast running underground river, I found all the dungeons fun though never got to do Court of Stars..

Once at 110 yeah it is a matter of doing all the fun bit of rep grinding, world quests, world bosses though Withered J'im is a nasty one.. Getting enough order resources for your followers missions, Order Hall upgrades and Artifact Knowledge which is just as important as Artifact Power, since once you get past level 3 or 4 in Artifact Knowledge you really do start having fun mowing down mobs..

In all I will be having fun and for the fact that I have upgraded my account ready for Legion is how much fun I have had in beta..

[emidas]

Yes, I did. They are part of class campain which i was focused on. Also i did profession quests. The zones I did were Highmountain and Valshara.

Can you touch on profession quests? Do you need to be 700+ to get them? How good was their XP, where did you obtain them, how easy to complete, etc.

Thanks!

[Useful]

No u dont need 700. My pre-made character didnt have any professions so i picked Leatherworking and skinning. The quests are obtainable in Dalaran from the training NPCs. Some are simple like collect x skins from y mobs. Some are killers like visit 4 mountains in Highmountain. And this zone is a pain to navigate. XP was just the same as from regular quests. Anyhow, those quests are a breather from grinding routine and I enjoyed completing them.

[TommiTMX]

It's pretty much always been the case that you level faster in beta, right? They want you to test the end game stuff and by the time max level opens up, theyve had time to test the lower levels anyway.

Initially yes (it was substantially quicker to level in Alpha), as it gets closer to live they move the XP to match the experience so they can monitor peoples levels as they flow through the content etc. to ensure it's not over/under tuned.

Yes, I did. They are part of class campain which i was focused on. Also i did profession quests. The zones I did were Highmountain and Valshara.

Thanks, that would likely explain the disparity, the dungeons and quests can add up to over 33% of a level! You can still hit 109 after 3 zones though if you do most Bonus Objectives and hidden quests. That leaves you dinging 110 on the first hub of the last zone you pick.

My intent when Legion is live is to do Order Hall, Class Missions and Dungeons at max level to save interrupting the levelling flow and to maximize gear from dungeons etc.

[SirCowdog]

Legion has 10 dungeons, fyi. The last 2 will be unlocked after some questing in Suramar.

Another 1 or 2 in later patches too. keep in mind the suramar dungeons will be mythic only, and not something you can queue for.

Don't underestimate the grind and burn out that will occur a few months in, on top of the world quest repetition. things will get old fast.

[nazrakin]

Another 1 or 2 in later patches too. keep in mind the suramar dungeons will be mythic only, and not something you can queue for.

Don't underestimate the grind and burn out that will occur a few months in, on top of the world quest repetition. things will get old fast.

Well mythic is the only mode worth doing. You'll out grow the queueable dungeons in the first week. There will absolutely be burn out, thats a problem MMOs will never solve.