Order halls and artifact weapons were the best thing that ever happened to the game

[Moonrage]

I don't want this to become a Legion circlejerk thread, but honestly, Order Halls and artifact weapons were Legion's best feature.

I've been leveling a bunch of alts lately because I really don't know what else to do in the game, and I love love love the order halls. Doing the class specific quests, collecting all artifacts and their different appearances, it's just so much fun.

It really makes me wonder why Blizzard didn't use them again in any other expansion. I really wouldn't mind if we got another expansion with order halls and artifact weapons.

[Darkeon]

Because while they were fun expansion's perks, they encapsulate all thats wrong about Blizzard and their borrowed powers.

[McNeil]

I liked the garrisons more than order halls, but the campaigns and getting your first artifact weapon was a great experience. I don't think we need them to carry over every expansion but I would have loved to see more class specific content.

[Nymrohd]

Because while they were fun expansion's perks, they encapsulate all thats wrong about Blizzard and their borrowed powers.

The thing is during Legion, no one knew we'd lose everything. Oh we were all talking about what might happen but Blizzard never came out and said that it would all be wiped out. So when experiencing this during Legion, it definitely felt good.
It also helps that we got them immediately and had them grow. Especially after WoD which did have substantial borrowed power in HFC (the HFC tier sets and trinkets and the legendary just like with SoO before them were insane) but largely locked it behind raiding which not everyone does.

[SynDethroc]

I don't think we need them to carry over every expansion but I would have loved to see more class specific content.

This. It would be awesome to return to the Legion order halls occasionally in later expansions. I would also like to see class-specific storylines added, in addition to the overarching story of a new expansion. I know that is just a wild fantasy, but having more content focused on building up the fantasy of the different classes would make the game so much more enjoyable imo; think a SWTOR-like class campaign woven throughout the primary story.

[Amnaught]

I don't want this to become a Legion circlejerk thread, but honestly, Order Halls and artifact weapons were Legion's best feature.

I've been leveling a bunch of alts lately because I really don't know what else to do in the game, and I love love love the order halls. Doing the class specific quests, collecting all artifacts and their different appearances, it's just so much fun.

It really makes me wonder why Blizzard didn't use them again in any other expansion. I really wouldn't mind if we got another expansion with order halls and artifact weapons.

I really wish they would bring back Artifacts... but without their own dedicated talent trees. Following a campaign quest to obtain a powerful weapon was so much more satisfying than any weapon drop since. And then unlocking new appearances through small achievements? Shit was cool as hell! They wouldnt even need to be limited to specific classes, honestly; since theyre just appearances they could have made faction-specific or even covenant-specific ones. It was just way more fun to obtain weapons that way in my opinion. Just have +ilvl and +stat relics drop instead of weapons, man.

As for the Class Halls, I'm totally fine with each expansion having its own version of this "pick a path" campaign, like in Dazar'Alor and Sinfall, but they should definitely let us choose our home regardless of that.

What I mean, is like... equalize the fucking hubs. Every major city (Race capitals and main expansion hubs like Dalaran and Orobos) should have a barber, transmogrifier, profession trainers, auction house, and portals to every other major city. Even if it's an NPC that you pay like a flightmaster. So traveling between expansion continents is instantly a non-issue, regardless of whether you want your hearth set to Orgrimmar, Silvermoon, or Shattrath.

Then have the secondary hubs (Class Halls, Covenant Sanctum, etc) just straight up get their own dedicated hearthstone, only usable in that expansion's zones.

[Swnem]

You see, people will misread that as you saying borrowed powers systems are good. They are not.

But, cosmetics and class fantasy are. Yes, i can agree that those were the best part about Legion. But the borrowed power systems were horrible. Constantly farming AP like a hamster in a wheel every day to keep up was agony.

But,yes. Our weapons should not have been trashed and class halls should be a recurring feature.

[CasualVader]

The strength of the Artifact Weapon was that it made your class more powerful by making your class abilities stronger and class themed spells.

So you didn't really feel like your class got minimized by having weird procs and outside effects from your class but your class grew stronger over time until Argus when we got the Shadow/Light thingy.

Issue with BfA and Shadowlands is that all the borrowed powers basically go outside the class theme except covenant ability.

[unbound]

Order Halls were perhaps the best use of Garrisons but hardly the "best thing that ever happened to the game".

As for artifact weapons, people calling them borrowed powers are being generous. Another, more accurate, term for such approaches is called a parasitic power system. The problem with such parasitic power systems is that your character doesn't grow. Most specs work almost exactly the same as they do back in MoP. MoP was released 10 years ago. Apparently, our characters are so dumb that they've learned absolutely nothing in that decade.

Furthermore, unless you played Legion when it was current from the beginning, you are only experiencing a relatively small fraction of that expansion. Much of how it worked was turned off for "balance" (aka, to make it *much* easier for Blizz to implement the next parasitic power system).

[Evaddon]

Yeah Arifacts were cool to an extent (the endless power ability became a nuisance) Order Halls and Class quest however were fantastic and needed experiences in the game that I wish we could have more of frankly...the stories they told were mostly self contained and didn't break away from nor interfere with the overall narrative/story of the Expansion meaning it wasn't necessary to experience all of them to get the full story of the expansion..

Which is an element missing from both BFA and Shadowlands, Shadowlands have whole story arcs that just abruptly end if you haven't done a specific covenant campaign which is just down right STUPID for future narrative possiblities, BFA had whole character motivations and actions just go unseen by the opposing faction. Legion had the best story telling out of the last two expansions both in structure and pace!!

I also loved Essences, they were done really well and should've replaced the whole Azerite system from the start!

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Because while they were fun expansion's perks, they encapsulate all thats wrong about Blizzard and their borrowed powers.

If they used them again in future expansions, then they wouldn't have just been borrowed power, they'd be fundamental parts of your class.

[Rendark]

It's a shame they removed the mage tower stuff. Would love to play a druid but after seeing the stuff i can't get it makes me not want to play it.

[Nathanyel]

The thing is during Legion, no one knew we'd lose everything.

Really? While it sounds a little more probable now, back then no one honestly expected Blizz to only give us one weapon only from Legion onwards.
A return to the regular system of weapon drops etc. was the most expected case.

[loras]

I don't want this to become a Legion circlejerk thread, but honestly, Order Halls and artifact weapons were Legion's best feature.

I've been leveling a bunch of alts lately because I really don't know what else to do in the game, and I love love love the order halls. Doing the class specific quests, collecting all artifacts and their different appearances, it's just so much fun.

It really makes me wonder why Blizzard didn't use them again in any other expansion. I really wouldn't mind if we got another expansion with order halls and artifact weapons.

I kinda expected the "forge your own legendary" thing to turn into a new artefact iteration. Like a legion artefact, but truly customisable.

Instead we got the present abomination.

[Unlimited Power]

I believe they commented on why they consider the Order halls sort of a failure in storytelling.

Problem is, there's 12 order halls and class campaigns. But most players play 1 or 2, maybe 3 characters at most. For those players, they're essentially only able to access as little as 1/12th of the primary story content of Legion up until Argus where everyone had the same campaign.

BFA similarly had its story content split between the 2 factions, but you would only miss out on half the story or need at most 2 characters to experience all of it.

In SL, 1 character could experience every covenant. Once the story was fully unlocked, you weren't even penalized for switching to a new covenant. Only switching back to a previous covenant had a pre-requisite, so if you just wanted to experience the story it was fairly easy, and it has only become easier since they pulled the ripcord.

[varren]

It's actually incredible that we went from that to the joke that was Azerite Armor. BFA really came across like a low budget version of Legion.

[Eosia]

The only problem with the Artifacts was that AP was attached to a specific artifact, not a pool that you just built on that was equal among all 2-4 specs. Otherwise they were a great "borrowed power" system because a) they replaced weapon drops which are always a pain (like getting three of the same off-hands but never the main-hand) and b) the way to transition out of them is built-in... loot drops in the next expansion. Plus they gave us some fun at the end with the massive power surge in them the shot them to level 100-something and then it would gain a level every other day or so regardless of you logging in or not.

The class-hall campaign was nice, but it really has to be massive and in-depth if they time gate it again. You need to look no further than the Broken Shore "campaign" in 7.2. It literally was chores that took you 30 minutes. In one case you could literally finish the quest instantly if you had farmed enough shards already. So if they're going to have me wait a week for the next chapter, that week's installment better take me hours upon hours to do with tons of cinematics to watch.

It's actually incredible that we went from that to the joke that was Azerite Armor. BFA really came across like a low budget version of Legion.

Well, Azerite was a mixed bag. They fixed the separate pools problem but then reintroduced the spec problem by making you have to pay to switch them. I could see making you pay to change from one to another in the same spec. But if you're a Paladin, then you should have one set of Azerite traits for Prot, one for Ret, and one for Holy that the system tracks independently like it does for our talents, transmogs, etc. and when you swap to another spec for the first time since acquiring the piece, it should have the talents unassigned for you to pick.

Then there was that horrible mistake of having us have to re-earn the same powers again in the next tier...

[Thelxi]

Blizzard went all out for Legion. They overhauled pretty much everything that expansion and had to package it nicely. It just shows you that when they wanted to they could do great and expensive things.

[pahbi]

Although they were borrowed power, I really liked the weapons in legion, and leveling up the weapon was fun, but even better, it saved me from having to hope I get a weapon drop.

Anything that reduces the random in wow is a step in the right direction imo.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

Although they were borrowed power, I really liked the weapons in legion, and leveling up the weapon was fun, but even better, it saved me from having to hope I get a weapon drop.

Anything that reduces the random in wow is a step in the right direction imo.

As someone else pointed out, if they'd made Artifact weapons a permanent addition to the game it wouldn't have been a borrowed power system. It would've become a baseline power system, much like Blizzard has done with PvP talents.

Having to regrind the power in a new expansion zone would've been so much better than having such notable weapons turned into complete junk (depending on your class/spec, not all artifacts are equal in their lore/stature in the game). Truthguard was meh, but Ashbringer and the Silver Hand were rather famous. Spriest I'd say had one of the best with Xal'atath (possibly the best). The story even would've permitted continuing to use the weapons, and it even had a good explanation for why you, as the hero, would need to regain the power of the Artifact after having expended it to protect Azeroth.