I feel Mists did most things right, but the Legendary Cloak, I'm not so sure.

[Jayjayhey]

This isn't a qq thread about people getting free legendaries.

I have a couple points I'd like to get to about the cloak. I have been playing since release, and I've seen the ways legendary drop.


I am very close to obtaining my legendary cloak, even while quitting through most of 5.2, I am close to obtaining my cloak.

1.) I love the quest line. I love Wrathion. I like the Lore involved with how the questing went. However, I do not feel the cloak is of a "legendary" feeling. Again, I am not complaining everyone is getting free legendaries. What I'd like to complain about is how it's almost a guaranteed goal to obtain one. This isn't Thor'idal where one person can use this. Everyone can obtain the cloak. No, I'm not saying it's welfare. I'm not saying "baddies can get ez legendaries lol!!". What I am saying is, I feel as if obtaining the cloak is mandatory for high dps. You may ask what the issue with this is. I will get to my second point now.

2.) Alts. I've thought about getting on an alt and leveling him and gearing him. Then I thought, well wait a second, I'm going to be screwed on my dps because I don't have the legendary cloak, and have to start from scratch on the quest. How is this fair? People would work on the cloak all expansion and then have an alt that's hindered? What if you want a new character? My third point now.

3.) Blizzard has once again put the importance on guilds. Does anyone remember Val'anyr? While it didn't have a random drop chance like Glaives, you did see the items drop FOR the item itself, letting a guild decide on who would obtain the legendary. I feel as if this brings the guild together, and I feel as if doing it the "solo" way alienates you from the rest of your guild. Next point.

4.) Skill level. What if you're a really good player, know your class to the T, and don't have the cloak? What if you simply joined half way into the expansion? How does this help subscription numbers?

Overall, I just don't think it was a good system, and this is coming from someone who is very close to obtaining the cloak.

TLDR: I don't think the cloak is legendary enough. No, it's not welfare. We did earn it. But it was almost expected.

Would you have liked your favorite show as much on tv, or movie, if you KNEW the ending? I know I wouldn't.

[TheWindWalker]

I would normally disagree with you on principal, but good god does my cloak make up a noticeable chunk of my DPS. Even on short single-target pulls. The catchup mechanic is pushed pretty damn fast but it could still take you six months with bad RNG luck.

[nuclearkite]

I dont have the schedule necessary to raid consistently with a guild, so most of what I do when I play is soloable or lfr. I have my cloak but only from running lfr for weeks each patch to get the items necessary, then grind the reputation, then group up for the quests. People see this legendary as free because it doesnt have the RNG or normal guild raiding requirement but would the cloak be that much more lengendary if it was just "do a few quests and get 20x SoO items that only drop 5% of the time"?
The fact is that the legendary questline spanned nearly a year for many of us, and it took weeks to get everything for it each patch, which sounds like it was exactly what I would expect a legendary to take.

[Libertarian]

I agree with the cloak. Luckily they made a "Catch up" mechanic with SoO first 8 bosses, but it is still extremely unfriendly to alts. Plus nothing about the cloak felt legendary.

[Travio]

2.) Alts. I've thought about getting on an alt and leveling him and gearing him. Then I thought, well wait a second, I'm going to be screwed on my dps because I don't have the legendary cloak, and have to start from scratch on the quest. How is this fair? People would work on the cloak all expansion and then have an alt that's hindered? What if you want a new character? My third point now.

4.) Skill level. What if you're a really good player, know your class to the T, and don't have the cloak? What if you simply joined half way into the expansion? How does this help subscription numbers?

Overall, I just don't think it was a good system, and this is coming from someone who is very close to obtaining the cloak.

TLDR: I don't think the cloak is legendary enough. No, it's not welfare. We did earn it. But it was almost expected.

I'm not sure joining halfway is really much of a reason to not have the cloak. The only real roadblock now is the three weeks of Valor capping that's requred. Aside from that, you can pretty much grind out the various stages in next to no time. I just returned to the expansion - I leveled a character from 85 to 90 last Tuesday, had him ready to do LFR that evening thanks to the Timeless Isle, and had him through the entirety of the first chapter of the quest chain by Thursday (yes, I had some time off and nothing else to do). If it wasn't such a time block for the 3000 Valor (which yes, I understand was previously 6000 so it's nice that it's reduced), you could effectively do the entire legendary chain in a very short amount of time.

[Jayjayhey]

I'm not sure joining halfway is really much of a reason to not have the cloak. The only real roadblock now is the three weeks of Valor capping that's requred. Aside from that, you can pretty much grind out the various stages in next to no time. I just returned to the expansion - I leveled a character from 85 to 90 last Tuesday, had him ready to do LFR that evening thanks to the Timeless Isle, and had him through the entirety of the first chapter of the quest chain by Thursday (yes, I had some time off and nothing else to do). If it wasn't such a time block for the 3000 Valor (which yes, I understand was previously 6000 so it's nice that it's reduced), you could effectively do the entire legendary chain in a very short amount of time.

How is this fun for someone who has already completed the chain and has to do it on an alt or two next?

[Rucati]

I much prefer this type of legendary over what we've had in the past. Something that was completely random and uncontrollable is just silly. People make a huge deal about Warglaives, and they were insanely good in BC, my guild had 0. The other guild that progressed as much as we did on the server had 5 of them in the same amount of kills. It was random, and idiotic. Doing a long quest for a legendary is significantly better than having to just sit around and hope an item with less than a 1% drop rate decides to drop for you.

[Travio]

How is this fun for someone who has already completed the chain and has to do it on an alt or two next?

The only thing that would be blocking you is the Valor Cap though. You're probably going to be doing most of the things required of the quest chain anyways on the character.

[Jayjayhey]

I much prefer this type of legendary over what we've had in the past. Something that was completely random and uncontrollable is just silly. People make a huge deal about Warglaives, and they were insanely good in BC, my guild had 0. The other guild that progressed as much as we did on the server had 5 of them in the same amount of kills. It was random, and idiotic. Doing a long quest for a legendary is significantly better than having to just sit around and hope an item with less than a 1% drop rate decides to drop for you.

Val'anyr was uncontrollable? That legendary IMO was PERFECT.

The only thing that would be blocking you is the Valor Cap though. You're probably going to be doing most of the things required of the quest chain anyways on the character.

Why would my alt in full 496 gear want to do MSV/HoF lfr?

[Travio]

Why would my alt in full 496 gear want to do MSV/HoF lfr?

Valor for the 522 gear? Besides, the Sigils drop in both ToT and SoO. The only time you have to go in is to get to the Sha of Fear, which gets you a half decent weapon.

[Drithien]

I think that they simply shouldn't have tagged it as "legendary." Just an overarching questline, unfolding throughout the expansion for anyone that wishes, and is able, to keep up, with an interesting storyline, some fun elements, and a powerful reward at the end. And most problems would have been avoided.

"Legendary" as a tag just brings so much baggage with it. Such an item is almost always going to be "imbalanced and "unfair," because that is its nature. It is supposed to be overpowered, that's what makes it so exciting. By trying to streamline it, and "be fair to all" about it, they tried to remove what made these items so cool. And for what? A vast sea of whining. I would think that they didn't see it coming, but after so many years how could they not? When was the last time they gave away things in a "welfary" way and they didn't stir trouble with high-performance players AND casuals that just wanted more, but less, but different, a bit more challenging, not hard, and so on...

They should have left legendaries alone; made them even harder to obtain actually, and introduced an expansion-wide questline separately for everyone to enjoy a special journey through the expansion's events and get rewarded with a poerful item in the end in my opinion.

[TheWindWalker]

"Legendary" as a tag just brings so much baggage with it. Such an item is almost always going to be "imbalanced and "unfair," because that is its nature. It is supposed to be overpowered, that's what makes it so exciting. By trying to streamline it, and "be fair to all" about it, they tried to remove what made these items so cool.

Unless that last sentence only has to do with the "welfare-y" part and doesn't disregard the stuff before it about it being "overpowered", then you're kind of in the wrong thread.

[Obtuse]

It's a legendary item. It should take time to earn it. I much prefer the expansion long grind over a random drop like glaives. Val'anyr and similar legendarys probably tore as many guilds apart as it brought together. I much prefer a system that isn't a popularity contest. And as for it being a pain in the ass for alts; good great grand, a little separation between a definitive 'main' character and an 'alt' is what this game needs. It's not a healthy thing when everyone expects to get everything on every toon.

[Bigbazz]

The Legendary Grind! It goes against all the concepts of catchup that blizzard have long been trying to implement. The cloak + meta is a bigger dps upgrade over the alternatives than any previous legendary in the game, it is also freely available to everyone (thus required at high end raiding) and locked behind a long ass grind.

Furthermore it is tied to a world boss (Ordos) that drops gear to further boost you ahead of players who don't have it. So while on one side they have made it easy to catchup (496 + 535 timeless, cheap valor 522 gear) and jump into LFR or Flex, such a player can never hope to compete with legendary players without having the legendary, and are also further penalised by not being able to get the weekly Ordos kill for more loot, so will gear up slower.


I don't think they really did it right with this one. But meh. I think the one thing they did wrong in MOP was the insane ammount of dailies at the start of the expansion that you were forced to do in order to buy valor upgrades that had no raid drop alternative. The result meant that playing an alt was a daunting task as you were expected to grind the reputations all over again.

I realise they fixed it and made it much more alt friendly later, removing the ridiculous rep requirements on valor gear but the damage was already done. Part of the reason I probably quit was due to the burnout of having to do so many fucking dailies to remain competitive on gear during MSV HC progress.

[Mammoon]

I have 1 alt that is fairly geared, and when I have time I try to advance him toward the legendary cloak.

I have 3 other level 90s that I leveled mainly for their professions or PvP, but I can't bring myself to log on them and gear them because I know how far behind they are to anyone who has the meta or the cloak. They will never be competitive compared to people who have their metas / cloaks.

Blizzard succeeded in their goal of artificially making an annual pass (punishing players who unsub with the legendary cloak, keeping the masses motivated to stay subbed), but it has killed my desire to play this game outside of logging in to raid or PvP. There is simply little to no point in playing any of my alts unless I want to torture myself through countless runs of old content to try to catch up on the legendary questline.

[nuclearkite]

It's a legendary item. It should take time to earn it. I much prefer the expansion long grind over a random drop like glaives. Val'anyr and similar legendarys probably tore as many guilds apart as it brought together. I much prefer a system that isn't a popularity contest. And as for it being a pain in the ass for alts; good great grand, a little separation between a definitive 'main' character and an 'alt' is what this game needs. It's not a healthy thing when everyone expects to get everything on every toon.

I completely agree with this, i remember shadowmourne shards causing a bunch of drama in a few guilds on my server back in the day.

[Redpanda]

im glad we even got a legendary. or you know....blizz can do what it did before and make class specific legendaries. that would be fun rite?

[Sierra85]

I dislike the legendary cloak system and how its basically a requirement. On the other hand i think the wrathion storyline and how that story was told was excellent.

[MoanaLisa]

Over the course of the last couple of months there have been a lot of threads about this. Many people agree that it's a grind and that it's a hassle to do it on alts. Then they'll turn around--sometimes in the same thread--and proclaim it a welfare legendary. So you can't please everyone.

I like the personal effort required to get it. I'm not sure how legendary it is to have your guild grind out the pieces for it myself and then a GL/RL either decides who gets it (not legendary at all) or you were promised it all along (which isn't that different than having it guaranteed from the quest chain).

Overall I think this is about a B to a B+ in terms of how well it worked. Not perfect but not nearly as terrible as others have been. Rarity based on a low drop chance is probably my least favorite way to have it done but can be the most 'legendary' in effect.

[Daffan]

I dislike the legendary cloak system and how its basically a requirement. On the other hand i think the wrathion storyline and how that story was told was excellent.

I agree, it's really powerful. Hate my alts T_T