Thus far, I’ve only been able to do the Timeless Isle and Throne of Thunder with regards to patch 5.4 so this view might be slightly tainted. I have viewed various streams containing the new Siege of Orgrimmar and have heard how Flex Raiding has gone. So with that in mind, I’m going to offer my thoughts on the current patch (with some spoilers).
The first thing I did, of course, was check out the Timeless Isle. After hearing about how great it was from the developers, I figured it would be a nice spot to check out since LFR isn’t out yet. The first time through I found it a little confusing and chaotic. Obviously, in any given patch with new content as big as a dedicated zone, there’s going to be a lot of familiarization involved. So there’s a few starter quests to get you going on the Isle. You should really read the flavor text if you’re starting out since a few quests might not be too obvious.
Almost immediately, when I arrived the first thing I did was give the world bosses a try. The entire time it was pretty competitive from both the alliance and horde since the bosses are faction tagged still. However, the new world bosses are pretty nasty as I found myself dying frequently. There’s a lot of one shot mechanics that I think people are beginning to understand, which probably caused quite a few deaths. But it was a learning experience for everyone so this might be reduced in the long term. Unfortunately, on the two toons I did try this on, I received nothing as I wasn’t prepared with the new Warforged Seals, which are this patch’s re-roll token.
Next, I spent the first session running around trying to complete quests and gather chests. As I did so, numerous groups formed to go after the various rares on the Timeless Isle. I initially avoided the regular mobs until I received quests that required killing them. So I gingerly went what I perceived were the easier mobs. Many mobs, for whatever inane reason, are elites and higher level than you, making it imperative that you have reasonable gear and are hit/expertise capped so that you won’t miss and can do some decent damage to survive. They recommend that you have ilvl 496 or so for the Timeless Isle. I think you can probably get away with a lower ilvl but you probably should avoid solo’ing most mobs until you get some gear.
Although all my toons except my monk are geared, I feel that a fresh 90 can still hit the Timeless Isle and do well. The main thing is to avoid solo’ing mobs and focus on rares with others. The reason is that you want to do some of the starter quests, one of which will provide you with a device that will help you craft items you find for your class. Do these and focus on running around, picking up chest to get you coins and possible crafted items. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to gear up pretty quickly.
The gear that yo do receive are not really that great in terms of stats. The gear is pretty random and almost resembles greens, except for the fact that they’re “epic.” However, I feel this is a misnomer because they tend to have one useful stat that, while inflated compared to other greens, will probably need to be reforged. There is another item you can find that will allow you to take a pre-crafted item and convert it to an ilvl 535 item. But again the stats are pretty garbage so you’ll still need to reforge it. They’ll help your ilvl overall but I don’t think it’s all that great compared to stuff from say Throne of Thunder or potentially LFR Siege of Orgrimmar once it gets released.
Another absurdity in terms of gearing is that the cost for gaining old Mogu Runes are 2500 coins. It might not seem like a lot but I feel that it’s a little outrageous given that you might have some other toons to gear. It feels that they want you to mostly use the Timeless Isle to gear if you need to catch up quickly. But that leaves older LFRs to die in some way and pretty much almost makes Throne of Thunder worthless since you can get ilvl gear to enter Siege of Orgrimmar LFR once it comes out. I kinda liked the LFR progression mechanism and thought about doing it on my monk once he reaches level 90. But this pretty much makes me lose incentive for doing older LFRs on my monk once he hits level 90.
The Timeless Isle itself is a real mixed bag for me. It feels like they combined the Northern Barrens with the treasure room from the Isle of Thunder and bits of the Isle of Thunder. I’m glad that they don’t have any dailies outside of the trivia pursuit game and the pet arena. But the downside is that the Timeless Isle is pretty unfocused overall. You tend to wander around looking for items but mostly it feels like another grind, except more tedious because you cannot fly on the Timeless Isle. The real meat and potatoes of the Timeless Isle are the rares. Unfortunately, because of the size of the Timeless Isle, by the time someone announces that a rare is up, it’ll be dead. So you have to be lucky and at the right place to down one.
One thing that I didn’t care for was the gating of Ordos. In fact, there’s a whole section that’s gated off. I wouldn’t have minded that aspect if it weren’t for one of the stupid quest that requires you to get to that section using a terribly designed mechanic (the albatross). But that whole area is pretty lame in how you pretty much need the legendary cloak to proceed (more on the legendary cloak in a bit).
The island mobs are pretty dangerous. I found myself getting one shot quite often. The main mobs that I was getting killed by were hot fixed/nerfed but overall these mobs can prove to be a challenge. The elite and higher level aspect are really mislabeled since you can solo these mobs. I haven’t tried all my classes/specs to see what works best. But I found at least as a retribution paladin, I didn’t have much difficulty.
Overtime, however, I feel that the Timeless Isle will lose appeal. Eventually, the treasures will lose its luster and the grindiness from slaying mobs and collecting stones and coins will die down. This aspect is too much like the Northern Barrens weekly quests. The only three aspects I can see sticking around are the rares, world bosses and treasure chests. But the grind will die down and eventually become semi-group oriented. I really don’t think that the Timeless Isle is all that social as Blizzard had envisioned in trying to increase the difficulty of the mobs to force people to group up. Outside of the world bosses, I never found any incentive to group up out of necessity. Pretty much because rares are faction tagged you don’t really need to belong to a group. Farming groups might be okay but I think they’ll only form at the start of the week.
On to other aspects of the patch. First, there’s the Throne of Thunder improved drop rate. This part is great as I’ve been gearing off specs and picking up a lot of missing pieces. It’s motivated me to run my alts. Since Valor Points really aren’t that important at the moment, I’m just focused on doing Throne of Thunder. One cool thing is that they MASSIVELY made Durumu easier with the maze. Sadly, people still cannot figure out that mechanic. But at least with the improved 30% drop rate for Throne of Thunder stuff, it makes the wipes worth it.
Some of the things I’m doing is trying to gear off specs and giving other specs a try. I finally started playing a Fire mage for shits and giggles. From what I’ve heard, Fire mages depend heavily on procs and criticals so most end up switching to Frost for a while until their gear gets good enough to switch over. The thing with Frost is that this patch has nerfed them (and fire too with regard to Combustion). But I’m just so sick of Frost and want to give another spec a try for a while. Fire looks like fun since you don’t have to worry about your pet. So my theory is to create a separate gear set just for my Fire spec and play that spec out a bit.
Also, my Shaman’s Elemental side now is at the four piece mark. I play really like having the choice of switching between Enhancement and Elemental depending on the fight. Same with my Druid. I figure if I am still running Throne of Thunder, why not gear up my off spec and play them? It’s really liberating having that freedom, especially considering how certain fights can be a bitch depending on your spec.
I still intend to give Arms, Unholy and Subtlety specs a go sometime. With the drop rate increased, this will provide me an opportunity to try other specs to figure out which one plays out the best or suits a fight. Regardless, I feel more motivated to try different things as I wait for each of the Siege of Orgrimmar LFR wings come out.
Now, one thing that I’m itching to try is Flex Raiding. From what I’ve heard the difficulty level is around LFR level rather than harder than LFR level. My theory is that people have slightly higher requirements for getting people to join them in Flex Raiding and that communication is better, which leads the experience to excel that of LFR. So on this level I’m hoping to get a chance to join up with a Flex raiding group. I heard it’s very puggable so many servers are doing these rather than normals. My guess is that in reality the difficulty level is around ICC level difficulty.
I have not tried the Proving Grounds as of yet. This is something that I’m not hugely interested in but I can see the point. I’ve been gearing some classes for stuff like tanking and healing but never really have tried those playing styles in group settings. I think tanking is kinda stressful so I might avoid that for a bit. But I have worked on my priest’s holy spec with regards to gear and want to give it a try some day. This might be the thing to use then later going into Flex or World Boss groups in the future after I get a handle on the basics of healing.
Something I decided to go back to though is the Legendary quest line. I managed to finish up the legendary weapon meta socket. I was pretty happy with that, despite having to do some PVP. In reality, I kinda enjoyed doing the PVP parts since I rarely PVP outside of attacking jack asses who try to grief us during World Boss raids. But I did want to do random bgs down the line out of boredom on occasion or just trying something new.
That said, the next parts are going to be pretty tedious with gathering all the Secrets of the Empire and reputation grinds remaining. Not to mention the scenarios and other grind after the Secrets of the Empire. But I figured it might be worth giving the Legendary Cloak a shot since it’s really cool looking and a pretty nice item to have. Also, I’m not happy that Ordos and a section of the Timeless Isle is gated off. At least, if I can get the Cape on one toon, the rest of my toons can access that section. I’m not all that happy that I have to play catch up though. But I think once I get these items, my paladin’s DPS is going to soar through the roof, which makes it worth the effort.
Lastly, (spoiler alert!) it was revealed who the new Warchief of the Horde will be: Vol’jin! The video went up and answered a burning question many lore fans had since the start of the expansion. Many people aren’t really surprised by this move and during the expansion they had been building up Vol’jin as a fair leader. In fact, they started his rise since Cataclysm if you really think about it. Going into the starting zone in Durotar, if you do the quest where you get to view the interchange with Vol’jin and Garrosh, you can see some of the seeds being planted although it wasn’t exactly clear that Garrosh would be displaced at that point in time.
However, this expansion did a lot to establish him as a decent and capable leader, especially from patch 5.1. They did a lot to highlight him and Lor’themar Theron (no relation to Charlize I suppose) in bringing their characters to the forefront. But I think Vol’jin is someone most members of the Horde can respect. If you consider how the Darkspear situation, you can sympathize for the plight of the trolls. Pretty much they had been kicked to the wayside, having no real home for a while outside of a tiny village. Then once Garrosh takes over they get shoved into a small corner in Orgrimmar and later even cast out. For Vol’jin to step up is a way to give the trolls some recognition as a race.
The one thing that is yet to be seen is how Vol’jin will handle the mantle of leadership. Right now, he seems to have the right character but his motivations seem out of vengeance partly. Thrall has been the glue holding together the Horde over the years but Vol’jin has been mostly in the corner. Although I think Baine will do well with him and maybe Lor’themar, the ending scene of the cinematic with Sylvanas still looks doubtful about her loyalty. She’s always been somewhat of a wildcard in all of this and looks like she can pop at anytime if things don’t go her way.
Also, Vol’jin does have a shady side to him. He is a Shadow Hunter and looks somewhat seedy despite displaying strength in this expansion. Unlike Thrall, he has no direct political ties to the Alliance, so his job is going to be tough in fixing the damage done inside the Horde as well as balancing the grievances of the Alliance.
What will be interesting is Anduin Wrynn’s eventual role. The cinematic touched briefly upon him still seeing compassion and being an ambassador towards the Horde. Perhaps, his time with Sunwalker Dezco has given him a new perspective about the Horde. It will be interesting to see how he fares with Vol’jin as Jaina no longer seems sane of mind.
Finally, there’s King Varien Wrynn. My friend and I had a discussion about both cinematics and we came to the conclusion that the Alliance version was done a little better overall. Most people might think of King Varien Wrynn as a type of butthead. He has that self-righteous attitude that many people might despise. However, he does face a difficult task in having the role of the king. The ending showed a very subtle side of character to King Varien Wrynn which reminded me a lot of Michael Corleone from the Godfather: both had to remain honor but firm in their position. In truth, this is all politics since a sign of weakness on either side would cause each factions’ people to view their respective leaders as incapable.
However, by throwing down his sword and telling Vol’jin that he wants to end the bloodshed, he essentially was giving the Horde a chance to continue to redeem themselves. The thing is that Garrosh has thrown a thorn in the tenuous relations between the Alliance and Horde for two expansions. Similarly, Sylvanas’ own people had shown issues that further strained both sides. While both people will probably never fully unify, it’s more than probable that the outcome will be respectfully agreeing to disagree.
With Garrosh down though and Taran Zhu demanding for Garrosh to bring justice to him in Pandera, one must wonder what will become of Garrosh. Will he just disappear and be thrown into isolation like Lord Blackthorne? Maybe sent back to Outlands? Also, is this really the last content patch for this expansion? Certainly, as far as raids go, we probably will no longer see any more raids becoming available. But no one said that this will be the last content patch for the expansion.
There’s still the Vale for instance and the aftermath of Garrosh’s havoc. Also, have we seen the last of the various entities that were hinted at in the expansion? What about the Old Gods for instance? We’ve only seen a sliver of their power in Garrosh. But will there be more that segues into the next expansion?
The other remaining question, of course, is what the next expansion will be about. We do know or hear about how the BoA weapons dropping from Siege of Orgrimmar the scale up to level 100. So does that mean the next expansion will include 10 more levels? Or will we just get an expansion with 5 more levels and a sequel that will cap us out at level 100? Also, the statement that Varian makes at the end seems to imply that there still will be tension between the Horde and Alliance in the next expansion. But how will it play out? Will Sylvanas and Jaina Proudmoore be the troublemakers for each other their factions while Anduin and Taran Zhu remain as negotiators for both sides? Also, what happened to Thrall’s wife? She’s been mysteriously absent with no word on their child.
Another thing to consider is will both factions do more to join forces? If, indeed, we are going to face things like the Burning Legion and the Old Gods as some significant foes, it seems that each faction alone might not be enough to defeat them. We also have the message from Shaohao about what we are fighting for. The thing is that it feels that the climax of the World of Warcraft series is leading to a mega battle where both factions must band together to face an ultimate impending doom like Sargeras, the Burning Legion and/or the Old Gods. The Panderan faction seems like the glue that will down the road bind both forces together somehow when confronted with a mega arch enemy. Perhaps the role of the archeology profession may eventually lead to something more important like the purpose behind both factions and races and what their true destiny is.
Anyway, it’ll be interesting to get into Siege of Orgrimmar, especially with Flex Raiding on the horizon. I would like to do it a few times to get the hang of it. But once I’m through with it, I think I’ll be able to pug it more frequently.