This is a solid example of a great idea followed by missed execution.

Ancient Mana is the alternate currency in Legion, found in Suramar.  You collect 3-6 per kill, can collect various ground items for 5-150 (depending on the item), and can carry a varying total amount, which depends on your quest progression and a few items found around the map.  At max, you can carry up to 2000.

You spend it on 3 things.  First is 3 daily turnins for faction with the Nightfallen that also give a 1 hour buff each.  Second, there are random items around the map that you can spend mana on for another buff, either a companion, a shield, and so on.  Both of those are rather low cost, typically around 50.  The last item is the Withered Army training, which costs between 400-2000, available every 3 days.  This gives you ~450 rep, some toys, a chance at an artifact appearance (depending on class) and some gear.  It’s worth doing.

Getting to 2000 though, that’s a challenge.  You need to farm the items and I hate farming.

In Legion, when you harvest either a herbalism or mining node, it’s shared with other people on the map for a few seconds… 10 or so.  On the positive, no one can really steal a node.  This means less bad feelings and everyone gets a piece.  On the bad side, you see trains of bots harvesting.  Blizz has a solid record for banning them, but it takes time and even a few days of bots have a big impact on the economy.  Still, bots were there before and this actually makes it easier on honest players.  I should also mention that harvesting skill doesn’t gate you from harvesting.  My DH had 10 skill and was able to get herbs.  My monk with 800 gets more per plant, but that’s it.

The Issues

• It’s a competitive resource that cannot be traded or sold.  This limits supply when others are around
• You need to collect a fair amount to get to 2000
• There is only 1 area (vineyards) that provides a decent pace of items to collect, without massive guards
• Combined, this means 1 area is full of people all competing for limited resources

The Options

• Increase the cap of mana to 2500 or 3000.  This means you don’t go back to zero when you do the withered army training
• Increase the rate of ancient mana acquisition.  Similar to other harvesting abilities, let people get better at it over time.
• Make the nodes shareable, like other harvesting abilities

It’s not like this is the end of the world, far from it.  It’s more of a reminder of what the game used to be like when everyone was competing for the same resources rather than working together.  And it’s not like the mana is absolutely required.  It’s more of a pet peeve/irritant to take 30 minutes to farm something when in reality, it should take 5.

It was the last “shazbang” at the cottage this weekend, we’ll be closing it up for the winter in a few weeks.  Guess it’s just bad luck now, but the last half dozen trips up have all been met with rain and cold.  Offset of the great summer I suppose.

What was going to be a rather simple weekend, turned into a nice adult party without kids.  The earliest riser on Sunday was clocked in near 11am.  When is the last time an adult, who has kids, ever got up at that time?  I’m still feeling the after effects.

At least I got a few hours on the water fishing on Saturday morning.  The fall colors are starting, and with a low cloud cover on the hills… it’s quite spectacular to see.  I live in an amazing part of the world.  More than thankful for it.

Levantus

I spoke about this WQ weekly boss before.  I had done it with my DH, who is fairly self-sufficient in the healing department.  My Monk is not so lucky.  4 deaths, mostly due to some sort of lag.  Mind you, there were 11 healers, so there’s some blame to go around.  Bad luck on drops, 3 boss kills, 0 loot.

Vault of the Wardens

Here’s a link to the strategy guide.  It’ll pop open in a new window.  If you haven’t done this dungeon, take a look-see.

This is the same place that the DH starting zone takes part of.  I like the aesthetics.  There’s very little trash in this place too, but that’s made up for by having 7 bosses.  Well, 4 real ones I guess, and 3 mini-bosses.  But they are still a pain.

The run was helped by a rogue who was massively overgeared for the dungeon.  I was tanking and he was leading.  The first few buggers went down pretty easily.  Then the fire/ice giant who had a neat mechanic to increase damage.  Glazer is your regular eyeball, though you use mirrors to have him eye beam himself.  Overall, it works.

Then you get to Cordanna.  There’s a pitch black area ahead of here, which teaches you some mechanics for the upcoming fight.  As the tank, I pick up a light object and use it to clear the way.  Ok, makes sense.  Then you reach the baddie herself.  Holy mechanics batman.

The first attempt she bugged out on us and we couldn’t get her out of the shadows.  The second one…that was a fight and a half for normal mode.  Big damage spikes, knockback, adds you can’t see, a need to keep her from moving.  All in one boss.  The healer did a great job, even though we lost 2 DPS in that fight.  I’ve done all but the 2 Nigthfallen dungeons now, and Cordanna takes the cake in terms of difficulty.  And for ilvl 805 loot no less.  That’s after I killed 5 bears and took 7 eggs for a pair of ilvl 830 pants.  An odd level of balance, that.

Obliterum Forge

I decided to take the plunge and make the forge.  Bars sell for 2.5k.  The mats to complete this quest set me back just around 10k.  You can only obliterate crafted materials, which not only includes gear but also potions.  I am going to have to math that out a bit more.  For the time being, my gut is telling me that this is a break even proposition.  We’ll see.

My Demon Hunter hit 110 and was just a couple quests away from friendly with Stormheim when it happened, around the Tree Face area.  So there’s a lot left to do there.  Everywhere actually… given that I skipped a fair chunk of side quests.  Which also means quite a few flight paths are not yet unlocked.  More of an issue for world quests mind you.

Speaking of which, it’s an interesting change to have WQs handing out gear like candy again.  The first two I did were for weapon relics, then I started the rather quick climb in ilvl gear.

The item rewards are based on your total ilvl, so upgrades to lesser items seems to have the largest impact.  As it seems with all alts, jewelry and trinkets are the ones that are most behind.  Thankfully, with an entire world of WQs available, it was only a half dozen or so quests to bring nearly everything to ~810.

Big Baddie

This week’s world boss is Levantus, who is a kraken-like demon living in the waters of Aszuna.  I joined a group of 40 or so, which in hindsight was not such a smart move.  My laptop can play most any game at high (if not ultra high) and WoW’s Legion update sometimes makes use of that power.  40 character battles with sprites and ground effects… that was not pleasant.  Moving in 3D due to the depth of water, not pleasant.  Having to run circles around the boss to avoid a massive cone attack in the middle of all that, not fun. And then I went LD with 4% to go.  Quite a bit different than last week’s boss.

Class Hall Quest

My Monk’s quests was rather straightforward.  Sure, there were the odd missions for the champions.  I only ever needed to run a single dungeon.  I did need to give 20 leather to an NPC, which honestly made no sense.  It wasn’t costly mind you.  The rest sort of just happened with many instanced quests back in Pandaria.  It was neat.

The DH though.  Now that’s a different fiddle.  Some of the quests are instanced (like one that looks like the Black Temple) but a few are in the open world.  Having to fly around the Broken Isles to kill a few rares, who pose no threat, isn’t that much fun.  Plus, it didn’t make any real sense.  I have an upcoming dungeon run, which is ok.  But it’s followed by a quest to collect 15 boss kills from dungeons and one obliterum.

That is the item that people can make using the Obliterum forge.  If you’re not a crafter, then you need to buy 4 bracers to open access to this thing, and each bracer is 2k.  To make a piece of it, you need to feed it green/blue gear, enough to make 100 dust.  You get about 24 per piece of gear, so just shy of 4 pieces per bar.  They sell for ~3k each on my server.

I’m not strapped for gold in any sense of the word.  I’m not sure if this is case for everyone though.  And it’s certainly a significant step away from the Monk Class Hall quests.  And that doesn’t cover the 5×12 hour missions that close off the chapter.

Fingers crossed.

I mentioned  that I had a set of goals for my DH, and the most basic of which was to quickly unlock world quests.  To do so, I need friendly with all the factions.

It is extremely surprising how little questing you have to do in order to achieve this.  I’d say even half of the main line in each zone is actually required, with the exception of Nightfallen in Suramar.  My DH is 109 and skipped every quest that wasn’t directly tied to, or offered by, the main line quest giver.  I’m up to Havi in Stormheim now, to finish off the gang.

And this is more of a fault of mine being goal driven than task driven.  I like to achieve things, and will optimize the method to get there.  The task itself provides little meaning, other than a learning experience to avoid it in the future.  Now, had I set myself the goal of learning the lore, I can assure you that doing quests would be one way of getting there.  The faster way would be to bookmark and scour WoWpedia.

Don’t get me wrong, the quests themselves are neat when I did them the first time.  My Monk did nearly all of them, for no real purpose than completion and learning.  I read that book.  My DH doesn’t so much need a reminder than those kobolds don’t like me stealing their candle, certainly not a couple days after my Monk had the same experience.

I think this is why I run multiple alts over a long period of time.  I usually end up with 1 or 2 mains, then I have a stale of alts at all sorts of levels, going through the content at different paces and places.  I might spend a night with a DK in the 80s, or a couple hours with the Warlock in the 50s.  If I’m only there for the alt experience, I won’t bother developing the character past the “get gathering professions” stage, so that I don’t feel too bad when I re-create that character later on.  It’s somewhat enjoyable to come back a few months down the road, and get back into the groove again.

Full Circle

Which brings me back to the start.  The questing experience for my DH isn’t terribly motivating right now, as it’s a means to an end.  That’s not to say that it’s a poor experience, in fact, I would argue it’s a marked improvement over other expansions because it’s optional.  I had more than enough headaches being forced through the zones in WoD or MoP in order to unlock various features.  It’s nice to have choice here.

Once the DH does hit 110, then there’s the entire Suramar line that needs to be done, as well as the Class Hall.  I think both of those lines are really solid and am looking forward to them.

I can say that given my playstyle, I am not for lack of things to do.

I played Warcraft 3, and I played some Burning Crusade.  Demon Hunters are the bad guys, the ones who justify the means to get to the end.  They have a fair bit in common with Death Knights I suppose.  Funny how both “hero” classes are anti-heroes.

My main is a Monk, what with being able to run 3 roles and whatnot.  That makes queues instant.  The Coren Direbrew daily run pops up faster than I can swap to my healing spec.  Given that Legion really likes sending you to dungeons, I wanted an alt to have at least 2 roles, and as in a previous post, I selected a Demon Hunter.  DK is close by, but he’s not yet 100 (96 I think) and my highest level warrior on this server is 6.  They stink.

I have a few goals here.

• Complete enough of the zone quests to get friendly.  This is usually done by only doing the main line.
• Harvest every herb and mining node possible, and turn in those quests when my heartstones allow
• Use only rested experience
• Avoid dungeons unless it’s gating moving forward (Azsuna does this)
• Class Hall followers will focus on either moving the class quests forward, or running +character exp missions.

I’ve completed 2 zones and hit 107, all on rested experience.  I’m going clockwise starting at Azsuna this time, saving Stormheim for last.  It really helps that I know what to do in some of the more complex quest lines.  And which bonus objectives are worth it.

To Tank or Not to Tank

I started off with the DPS spec, Havoc.  It’s quick (very quick) and I guess resembles a warrior in many respects.  It has relatively high damage as compared to other classes, but can’t take much damage.  And due to the way Legion works, I’d say half the time I’m stuck in some sort of AE situation.  And any rare boss can take out the DH unless I’m spot on with my cooldowns.

So, swap to Vengeance (tank mode) and give ‘er a go.

First off, tanks are nigh unkillable while leveling.  My DH has pulled 8 to 10 enemies and killed them without dropping below half.  He also takes more time to kill 2 enemies individually than he does groups of 5 or more.  He hits like a wet noodle on bosses but feels like he’s immune to damage while doing so.

I ran Eye of Az as a tank too, which was an instant queue I might add, and things went relatively well.  Rotation is a fair chunk different, and movement more complicated with casters all over the place, but DH can tank with the rest of them.  Serpentrix, the poison spitting snake of nightmares, was rather a cake walk due to the self-healing and ease of movement.

So Far, So Good

The DH class quests are interesting as well, as they tie back to BC in many ways.  There’s one crappy “kill 100 demons” quest, but the remainder have all been quite interesting.  The Akama quest had a neat ending!

As compared to the Monk class quest, it’s an interesting comparison.  MoP as a soft spot for me, so the lore works even though it has next to nothing to do with the actual expansion.  DH lore is certainly tied in better, and the events themselves are more focused.

The hall itself is built in a bugger fashion, mind you.  I like movement on the X/Y axis, horizontal.  The Monk hall has this, and you can mount up to move around.  The portal in is right next to the weapon modifier, and the mission table is a short hop away.  The DH entrance requires movement to the mission table (about the same as the Monk), and the weapon table is 2 floors below.  It has 4 total floors, well 5 if you count the daily boss room, and there’s something useful on each.  Eh.  At least the DH has decent movement tools.

Overall, I’m enjoying the DH more than I thought I would. That’s always a good sign.

Last night was the first night of raiding in Legion.  Not only was Blizzard suffering yet another DDOS attack (every other day it seems), but Stormrage decided that it had enough and it went back to the 2 hour queues. After a week of no queues.  Odd.

Old Flying

None of my characters have the ability to fly in Draenor.  I quit long before it was even an option.  There were many a time that I wanted flying to be available, but with 2 heartstones, it wasn’t too bad.  Well… except for Nagrand.  That place can take a hike.

And aside from Cataclysm (hex be that name), no expansion has ever launched with flight available at the start.  Sure, once your first character hit max you could buy it, but it forced you to play the game at least once.  I don’t think I could have done LK or MoP without flying on alts, the mountains and cliffs and just overall poor placement of flight paths made it cumbersome.

New Flying

Draenor gave folks an achievement to acquire in order to fly, and that came with a lot of hoopla.  It wasn’t hard, just time consuming.  By the time it became available, the only big part left was a faction grind.

Legion, we’re not sure yet.  There’s at least 1 achievement that’s required but we can’t complete it yet due to some quests that are not unlocked.  The biggest pain here is time again, faction grinding.  We’re months away, so I’m not too stressed about that fact.  It’ll come naturally I’m sure.

The Ground is Fine

That said, I have no real issues with the current model of movement.  As a Monk, I even get a free teleport to my home base, connected to Dalaran.  The Flight Master’s Whistle is an amazing tool.  I’m just fine using the ground.

And thinking about it, it has more to do with the way the world works in Legion.  World Quests focus you around the map so there aren’t that many “dead spots”.  Enemies scale, so you never really feel like you’re running in empty fields.  The world just feels, I dunno, relevant.

Plus, I’m making a killing off selling herbs.  Near 6k for a 20 stack.  Without even trying, I’ve made 100k in 2 weeks.  Mat prices will drastically drop when flying comes in.  Come to think of it… flying actually helps bots out.  Where a real player would navigate so as to avoid combat, bots just work in straight lines.

All told, I’m not itching for flying now.  It would only provide a marginal benefit (though providing re-useable gliders would be nice) today.  Legion really seems to have taken a smart look at why people fly, and compensated in all sorts of ways.

Stomrage had no queues last night at 8pm.  From 3 hours last week and 6000 people, to dink all.  All without a peep from Blizz.  I work in IT and with client relations.  I can honestly say that I’ve never seen this type of behaviour before, at least not at this scale.  Impressive kahunas.

The Maw

There was a +41 relic as a WQ reward, plus I had a couple quests to complete in the Maw of Souls.  The tank was new to the dungeon, the healer was taxed, and one of the DPS (a DH) must’ve had issued because he died a dozen times during the run.  Including 30 seconds into the final boss.

The bosses themselves weren’t too bad, 3 majors, 2 minors.  This one was much more melee friendly than others, though there was certainly a fair chunk of movement for DPS.  Being a WW Monk, and Helga being the last boss, I only ever really saw her belly.  I’m sure that the bellows effect would be hard to detect for some folks, as positioning can be a challenge.

Anyhoot, the tank did a superb job.  There was one really rough pull inside the ship, but we pulled through in style. And I think the root cause/solution is simple enough, interrupts and positioning.

Go to the Place

DH tanks, so far, have been a challenge to play with.  They move a LOT.  My guess is that they’ve mapped their movement buttons into their DPS play and just forgot that it’s a bad way to tank (and not needed).  A boss that spins continually means cleaves for everyone, and melee folk are running everywhere.

A solid tank will put the boss in one place, typically with the tank’s back on a wall.  If they need to move, they do so in small steps.  Enough to avoid whatever spell they need to avoid, but not so much that they cross the entire floor.

Press the Buttons

I am still of the firm belief that Proving Grounds should be mandatory for everyone, if only to show them where, when and how to use an interrupt.  Is the cast time under a second? Don’t bother.  Is it a channeled spell? Whack that crap.

Helga had an AE spit attack that hit random spots on the ground.  She didn’t when I used my interrupt.  Some mobs had an AE fear attack, not when they are sucking floor from a Leg Sweep.  You know how much DPS you lose while being feared?  More than if you miss a GCD, that’s for sure.  More than if you’re dead, too.

WoD Woes

And I think this is just me gripping because of what WoD has left as a legacy.  Heck, what LK started if we’re going to get at it.  AE everything, ignore the mechanics.  Power through everything and close your eyes.  And truly, that works.  Once you’re 3 months in and 100% more powerful than the expected level, that is.

Which makes each new expansion a challenge.  How to make people play smart again, when the last year+, and the solo PvE content for that matter, requires no thought?  All of a sudden you have to pay attention.

Legion sort of addresses that with world scaling.  Even at 110, things hit hard.  An ilvl of 840 (850 is current cap) still wouldn’t mean a cakewalk.  Elite WQ can, and will, kill you.  I like that.  People complain about it (they complain about the sky being blue), but they will learn and it will be a good way forward.  I’m a bit worried about power creep, where when we’re in ilvl 890 we’re right back to WoD, but that’s for another time.