Being Saleh: Legion!!!

So at the end of Warlords of Draenor, the alternate reality Gul'dan escaped to the main timeline and begin the third (fourth??) invasion of the burning legion demons, and to be honest he started off pretty nicely, summoning every demon WOW player have vanquished during this 15 years, destroying both the Horde and Alliance head squads and seemed to have endless supply of energy and portals to finally summon the big ol' Sargeras himself,

So as I started questing my first demon hunter on the new Broken isles zone something bugged me, why didn't he, you know, just did it? There's literally nothing in his way now as The Alliance and Horde are both retreating

The answer is this:

BREAK YOURSELVES UPON MY.... oh nevermind

That's my troll warlock holding his artifact weapon: Scepter of Sargeras, in this new expansion every class and spec got their one and only weapon, which can be obtained via a story quest, it will level up as you do and as the expansion progress. All 36 spec has their own story, for example: demon hunters sent to retrieve their mighty warblades/warglaives from traitorous ones, while warlock (destruction specifically) was sent to coax Gul'dan and stole the scepter which apparently is the key to summoning more demons, so yeah the reason why Gul'dan didn't do what he's supposed to do is because I stole his boomstick, ruin the summoning rituals and use the scepter to summon multiple chaotic unstable portals which destroy some of his army, I was hoping there's a scene where Sargeras scold him for his failure, it'll be priceless.

Welcome to Legion, the newest expansion of World of Warcraft, and guess what: I'm not lagging behind :D

As I mention on my previous post that I will return to WOW only for friends, they're just recently started playing so i joined them, but this expansion was so refreshing and liberating that my mostly solo experience was so good, in this xpac I decided to retire my Warrior (since I don't like the look of their artifact weapons) and have a hard time choosing between my warlock, create my long time dream shaman, or starting a demon hunter. In the end I did them all mostly because the pre-expansion event -- the demon invasion was a good way to level up, I ended up leveling my shaman to 100 solely with demon invasion, that's 90 level straight in a week, so at the beginning of the expansion I have three level 100.

Stories!!

 
The new legion questing zones are Aszuna, Highmountain, Val'sarah, and Stormheim, they scaled with your level (100-110) so you can choose which zone you want to pursue first, the last zone: Suramar was solely for level 110, the story begins with the pre expansion broken shore scenario where Alliance and Horde fleet tried to prevent Gul'dan from summoning his army, they failed, like really failed, and in that mess people died, important people (not Thrall though: spoiler) even with this Game Of Thrones-que events I was still shocked about how ugly their death is, it's like watching Sean Bean died, twice, or three times and then watch a Fel Reaver teabagging his corpse. After choosing your artifact weapon and obtain it you'll gain access to your order hall based on your class, this is where everyone with the same class as you hang out, Shaman got the maelstorm from Cataclysm as their home base. In this not-garrison place you can research your weapon, powered it up, unlock new traits, and send champions to do some mission which will yield artifact powers, xp, and quest items.

Although saving Go'el feels a bit of a chore now (spoiler: he's retired)

So back to the zones, don't worry about class halls, they can be managed through the new android/ios application so you can run around helping people, logout and manage them in your bed before sleep (like I did), the premise of the Legion story is simple: Find pillars of Azeroth (artifact forged by Titans) to thwart Gul'dan once and for all, but then as you quest throghout the zones you'll realize that it wasn't so simple to the point when you gather some of them you'll realize what you have lost and the legion was still going strong and maybe just maybe this is the expansion where the hero will screwed up because all the bad guys seems like doing their job so goddamn well (even after you stole Sargeras' boomstick). To make matter worse you'll realize that every step you take is only opened up more questions.

Suramar is a home of the nightborne, a faction of night elves recently allied themselves with the Burning Legion, in order to help some of the exiled resistances (called the Nightfallen) you have to infiltrate it, walking in disguises, avoiding demons patrol, killing some of their leaders discreetly and so on, it's assassin's creed style gameplay (combined with the instinct to quickly find a getaway route before the guards overwhelm you) the nightfallen themselves are mana addicted so each day you'll have to gave their mana fix (gathered around Suramar), it's heartbreaking and infuriating at the same time, and as Suramar is connected with all the previous zones there are denizens around it that will need your help too, from a tauren shaman tried to calm the raging elements around Suramar to the lone druid fighting a hundred years war against army of arachnids, their story are also well written to the point I want to do more for them even when the questline is ended.

World, Class, and Profession Quests!!

 
World Quests is the new daily, after got friendly with all the faction on Broken Isles it will open up and will be shown on your map, it's a dynamic event tied to factions, you got into the area you'll get the quest, finish it and you'll get repuatation for one or several factions, they also yield you equipments, order hall resources for missions, and/or artifact powers. Every day you'll get an emissary quest, finish five specific faction world quests and you got additional reward and reputations

Professions are getting better, every material is harvestable on any level, plus you'll get profession quests from your trainer, some item you found during gathering process will nab you another quests. On crafting process you'll get legion recipes from your trainer's quests, the things you can create also upgradable, cutting the materials needed to make it, this way you will never go back to low level area just to gather materials to level up your professions so you can create something or depending on your garrison to level it up but the quests sometimes take you to old zones for a bit of nostalgia (if you're a veteran player)

Umm.. no, he's not in this expansion, get back to your own obsolete content!!!

Endgame and Verdict (for now)

 
There's only one raid right now: The Emerald Nightmare, unfortunately no LFR wings has opened yet, but in two days I have finished all the heroics on my shammy, they're not that hard anyway, I haven't tried mythic dungeons yet since my friends are currently swept away by normal/heroic/mythic raid (and by wives) :P, but I love how encounter was designed, Maw of Souls is my favorite since it's taken place in a ghost ship with some familiar Lich King characters, dungeons also can be tied to world quests and have some rare monsters among the mobs which will yield you additional loots, relics, and artifact powers. I just recently finished my shaman order hall campaign quests (which made me travel to old cataclysm zones, another welcomed nostalgia).

For short it was a blast, a real blast, I never found myself so invested and never look at the XP bar since the age I stopped my xp gained to experience the whole burning crusade quests, and I definitely never found plot twists so good since the day Putress bombed both the Horde and Alliance in WOLTK, Warlords of Draenor was so bad in everything (except garrison) some of them are have to be tied in nicely in Legion, but yeah I guess we can just leave alternate reality Draenor to rot.

Although I love this toy