Write a review of Shadowlands so far!

[garicasha]

I've loved it so far! The storyline has been cool, I loved Revendreth and Castle Nathria, Bolvar is a great protagonist and Sire Denathrius is a great villain, the cinematics with Sylvanas are great, and I can't wait to see how the Anduin / Sylvanas arc ends.

Going in to more detail I think Sire Denathrius is actually my favorite part of this patch. He is such a royal pretentious d---. His voice acting and dialogue are perfect for someone that's been the king of Revendreth for time immemorial. Even better when you get in to phase 3 of his encounter in Castle Nathria he gets pissed and as he starts to realize he's losing he screams at the raid like the entitled overconfident p---- that he is.

Mechanically I hated that fight in the beginning but slowly learned to love it. Every week I learned something new. I reviewed so much video and I kept finding new details that made the fight easier. I almost exclusively pug and I always find it amusing when someone without AotC whispers me that "they know the fight." I wish I had the time to explain that if I've spent 20-40 hours doing 150 pulls plus all the hours reviewing those pulls and their parses, then someone that hasn't ever even finished the fight doesn't know the fight in nearly the level of detail I want. In my opinion that is one of the hardest heroic fights ever, with tons of one-shot mechanics, narrow windows to phase transition, and a knockback or pull-in going off every 15 seconds during phase 3. (I didn't raid BfA or Mists much but the only encounters that I feel are in the same tier of difficulty are Heroic Kil'Jaeden and maybe Heroic Archimonde.)

Switching to the covenant system, I think that was a neat idea and I'm glad they tried it. We all knew that there'd be a few OP covenants and that everyone would pick, but I think the four different flavors add a little variety to the game. In some ways it's more fun to be one of the classes that doesn't have an OP covenant, in which case your choice actually matters.

Moving to Torghast...Torghast is a bit more of a mixed bag. I really struggled with it on my priest, they've received a few better powers but in the beginning I felt like I had to cast Mind Control on every d--- mob and it just took forever and was clunky and not that much fun.

After doing it for weeks on my priest, I went in there on my death knight. My first anima power increased my damage, and I was thinking...wish my priest had some of these!!! The death knight powers are a lot of fun so I enjoyed it quite a bit more and it went by MUCH faster. So I think Torghast I'd like to see a little more balance. I am optimistic that 9.1 will bring some fun stuff like the ratings, new layers, and permanent upgrades, so I'm excited for that. The one thing that I think is genuinely bad about Torghast is how punishing it is for alts. To play an alt I NEED that soul ash and having to do Torghast 4 times, 6 times, etc. really turns the place in to Boreghast.

So I'm giving Torghast a "B", but I do think that an opportunity was missed to do something more like the Mage Tower from Legion. The mage tower was really interesting and even though I was a mythic raider at the time, I struggled quite a bit learning how to do that and it definitely made me a better player. There were some ways that my spells interacted (I was a resto druid at the time) that I literally didn't even know from two tiers of mythic raiding.

There's a place in the game for very challenging solo content that isn't timed. I definitely prefer the difficulty being in finishing the fight at all as opposed to the mythic+ timer. Although part of the price we pay for having twelve different classes with three specs is that it takes way too many developer resources to create, test, and balance thirty-six different dungeons.

Next subject: The Maw. It has great theming. It is Hell. It plays like Hell. It's supposed to. That doesn't mean I like it.

(Getting the mount helped a lot, although I was already exalted by the time I got it.)

Balance: Raid balancing isn't too bad at least in my experience pugging at the heroic level. Raid healing, raid DPS, and raid tanking are in a pretty good place. And WCL stats show all the healers being pretty dang close to even. There's definitely some over and under-achieving specs but you generally don't see heroic sire pugs asking for specific tank specs or specific healers.

Mythic+ is a little less balanced, with DHs and holy pallies obviously being over-represented in high keys and OP in lower keys. That's unavoidable though, if classes have unique abilities then some compositions will be better than others when in small groups.

One thing that could be re-balanced however is the importance of covenant dungeon bonuses. I feel my necrolords bonuses are kind of underwhelming in Theater and Plaguefall, and in several weeks of grinding out KSM I never once saw an ad that said "Must be Necrolord". As opposed to Halls of Atonement, where I wouldn't even join a group that didn't have a venthyr, the way the gargoyles are placed makes them quite difficult to skip. And doing De Other Side without a night fae on fortified week is GG on the berserker trolls.

There's also a bit of a gap between dungeons. If I could do anything I wanted to the game the first thing I would do is take a minute off the Spires of Ascension timer and add it to De Other Side. The bosses in Sanguine Depths are quite difficult and the bosses in Halls of Atonement are quite easy. (Echelon is balanced appropriately though.)

Gearing:
This is probably the weakest aspect of this patch. The Great Vault overpowers all other loot and it just makes it difficult to gear quickly. +14s giving higher ilvl gear than heroic Sire Denathrius has also steered a lot of people away from doing him which is a bit of a problem for a guy like me that runs a pug most weeks. I didn't play many dungeons without the valor system, but I can't imagine running all these dungeons and not getting gear of an appropriate ilvl from the end chest. 14s and 15s do not reward gear appropriate for their difficulty from the end chest at all.

Random tidbit:
I love the new animations for paladins...I used to summon the light with a "whoosh" but now it's a "POW!!!!"

Last subject of lore. It was super cool to bring back Alexandros, Draka, Ysera, and I really liked those stories. But I am so tired of Kael'Thas and Kel'Thuzad, OMG. Although I do like the stories in this game ever since Nefarian and Onyxia came back in Cataclysm I just roll my eyes at how these major villains keep coming back. We literally cut off Nefarian and Onyxia's heads, strung them from the rafters of Stormwind / put them on a pike in Orgrimmar, and then presto change-o they're back. BS.

Overall I'm giving Shadowlands an "A-". I've really enjoyed it, but gearing is the one thing knocking it down a grade. There's a couple missed opportunities in Torghast and an eighty-sixth re-hashing of some villains, and a few minor balancing issues that would've been needed for an A+.

P.S. My absolute favorite moment in so far was my first Council of Blood pull. I cracked up watching the raid suddenly split up and start dancing with a bunch of dredgers!

[lolmmofuture]

same shit still shit

lol sorry not sorry

[ro9ue]

I have hundreds of days /played in WoW since 2004. Historically, when I thought the game was bad I would be willing to write a 10,000 word essay on why I feel that way and how it could be improved. After experiencing BFA and Shadowlands, I stopped playing even before my 1 month sub ran out from those two expansion launches. Lately when I try to type out my criticisms, I can't really get past a few sentences before I realize how long the post would be and just say fuck it the game is lost and this isn't worth the time anymore.

I guess that's my review.

[McNeil]

The raid and dungeons are good, all the rest not so.

[HateTrain]

After the "New expac" shininess/honeymoon phase ended I realized that just because Shadowlands isn't BFA doesn't make it good...or even ok. It's marginally better than BFA which is a step up, but only a little one. If TBC Classic and BFA were different subs, I would have cancelled BFA sub at the end of February.

[Balrog]

Pay $25 to see my review.

[Luxeley]

Convoke the Spirits pretty much summarizes everything you should know about SL, particularly on the pvp side.

[aceperson]

the story isn't consistent and there are too many oversights. one notable example being the kyrians knowing all the souls are going to the maw and still taking them anyways. the balance has been horrible. the class design is horrible. the system design is horrible. obvious QOL oversights such as the rng conduit item is unique so you can only hold one at a time which makes it tedious. torghast was in a good spot and then ruined, etc, etc.

the game is just bad at this point. i could easily overlook all the bad business practices if the game was good. but it isn't.

[Maljinwo]

The story is terrible
The retcons are rampant
The anima farming is dull
The covenants are uninteresting
Zovaal came out of nowhere and is boring as watching grass grow

But hey, it allowed me to focus on FFXIV so that's a plus!

[Rendark]

It's not bad. Not the best they ever made but not the worst.

[Aggressive]

same boring, grindy shit. Same old spells with new lands to do the same boring spells. Blizzard can do more and make the classes fun. But they are so hard focused to try and keep classes balanced that the class are now stale as fuck and just plain boring.

- - - Updated - - -

The story is terrible
The retcons are rampant
The anima farming is dull
The covenants are uninteresting
Zovaal came out of nowhere and is boring as watching grass grow

But hey, it allowed me to focus on FFXIV so that's a plus!

This right here. I just joined up on FF XIV about a week ago. And man I am loving it soooo damn much

[Souflikar]

Too much crap to keep up with but no content. How does that happen? I quit in SL but not WOD. I guess that’s my sentiments on SL

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Much like in BfA, M+ is the only thing going for retail.

[Alydael]

Lots of potential, good at the start then Blizzard completely dropped the ball with the content drought and terrible systems that will probably have a lasting negative impact on the rest of the expansion. Due to the delayed release then the longest drought before a .1 patch in WOW's history, I expect the expansion to be cut short similar to WOD.

[Morgaith]

The raids are good but everything else is bad.

[beanman12345]

Leveling was okay, which I can say about basically every other expansion, then shortly after playing at max level, I went to play other games, which I've never done in any other expansion. Covenants and Torghast and the Maw killed motivation to continue.

[Dystemper]

Worst expansion ever

[Gref]

levelling ok, dungeons and raids are good, anything else, I never ever touch it. except the horrendous mandatory torgast runs. 1 run a week. not 2. cannot bear to do it twice. ughhh..

[Dazmalak]

I have hundreds of days /played in WoW since 2004. Historically, when I thought the game was bad I would be willing to write a 10,000 word essay on why I feel that way and how it could be improved. After experiencing BFA and Shadowlands, I stopped playing even before my 1 month sub ran out from those two expansion launches. Lately when I try to type out my criticisms, I can't really get past a few sentences before I realize how long the post would be and just say fuck it the game is lost and this isn't worth the time anymore.

I guess that's my review.

Ditto. My dislike of the game started in Legion and it's been steadily downhill from there.

[Swnem]

It's an e-sports game. There is no RPG in it.

They made sure of it by tying power to covenant choice, curtailing progression outside what i would call top end mythic+, pvp and raiding (i say this as one of them, cause i feel it on my alts) and making poor covenant rewards (color variants) and a gigantic unfun anima grind.

With that said... the e-sports part does it's job. There just isn't a point to having an outer world anymore.
Blizzard needs to stop with the e-sports BS and actually make a fun game for everyone, not just the competitive players (which also have grievances and probably would also like having an overall good game with more to do).


Oh and WQ's need to go. You have the tech from assaults. Make dynamic events (that tell a story and have a flow, not just a dumb attack here and the same one there, like assaults work), or go back to having quest hubs with a reputation you have a story with. Proper rewards apply.

You know, it annoys me that what they keep doing with islands, visions and torghast is again to try and turn them into e-sports. Wish they'd stop.
The game needs a world, not more instances. It's in the bloody name. :/