WoW: Battle for Azeroth (8.3)

Silithus
Check that... A rather bland handful of quests in Silithus available to 110's.

Vargen wrote:
thrawn82 wrote:

But... the horde as always been cast as a villains. Like since Warcraft 2. Wasn't the intentional appeal of the horde in vanilla getting a chance to play the savage bad dudes against the stuck up goody two-shoes?

Somebody skipped Warcraft 3. And this dude named Thrall who used to lead the Horde.

Warcraft 3 actually did a really good job of presenting a complex web of shifting alliances, because it was good for gameplay and mission design to let any army fight itself and/or ally with any other army.

Then we jump to World of Warcraft with the set-in-stone limitation of exactly two factions that can never change. Over a decade later and we're still feeling the whiplash of that change in the story.

Oh I definitely played and loved Warcraft 3, but the best you can say about the horde in that game is they are portrayed as "noble savages", complex and heroic in a lot of ways but definitely not 'good', plus there were no forsaken in that game, the undead you played were scourge.

Moving forward to vanilla wow: Horde got sole claim to Shamans and they got undead as a race to round at the number, Alliance got sole claim to Paladins and kept the 4 component races of the alliance from Warcraft 3.

Ok, so still not sure where it is going, but those cinematics were pretty awesome.

fangblackbone wrote:

Silithus
Check that... A rather bland handful of quests in Silithus available to 110's.

There is pre-patch stuff in silithus, but i think you don;t have to do it to do the pre-patch stuff that gets you the mount, that stuff starts with your faction leader in your faction's home city, and should have a pop-up quest to go talk to them as soon as you log in.

thrawn82 wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:

Silithus
Check that... A rather bland handful of quests in Silithus available to 110's.

There is pre-patch stuff in silithus, but i think you don;t have to do it to do the pre-patch stuff that gets you the mount, that stuff starts with your faction leader in your faction's home city, and should have a pop-up quest to go talk to them as soon as you log in.

This. It tells you to talk to Sylvanas in the Undercity.

Sylvanas being brutal is not new - scheming to turn humans into Forsaken and such makes sense. She is clearly afraid of the Forsaken (and maybe more importantly herself) dying for good.
Sylvanas being 'stupid evil' is new. Serves no purpose to burn the tree other than making the alliance particularly pissed, make the horde turn against you, and make druids everywhere transform into really sad pandas. If Blizzard wants to go there, at least they should try harder to give her reasons.

As for the horde, around War3 timeline they certainly seemed more 'good' than the alliance, considering the humans had concentration camps.

I think a splinter of the forsaken and the dawn of a 3rd faction is born! /brilliance

ranalin wrote:
thrawn82 wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:

Silithus
Check that... A rather bland handful of quests in Silithus available to 110's.

There is pre-patch stuff in silithus, but i think you don;t have to do it to do the pre-patch stuff that gets you the mount, that stuff starts with your faction leader in your faction's home city, and should have a pop-up quest to go talk to them as soon as you log in.

This. It tells you to talk to Sylvanas in the Undercity.

Alliance version sends you to Anduin's throne room.

NB: The first set of quests just sort of ends. For Ally, the second set of quests (i.e. last week's) starts in Lor'Danel in Darkshore. There's no bread crumb, but you should see a yellow ! on your map.

I'm not even sure if the Silithus quests are active, tbh. They were all about super-powering your artifact in advance of de-activating it.

The one thing that puzzled me most about Sylvanas' recent turn is that she wanted to murder Malfurion. That just makes no sense whatsoever to me. What did Malfurion ever do to her? The only possible effect of that would be to martyr him and give the alliance a godlike figure to rally around. Not to mention infuriating Tyrande, who is effectively an avatar of Elune walking around on Azeroth.

But then the Banshee Loon quadrupled down on the crazy and committed genocide on Teldrassil.

It just doesn't make any sense I can fathom. A good villain has to be at least somewhat sympathetic. A minute long flashback of Arthas turning Sylvanas isn't enough. This was the same thing that made me tune out in the second half of Pandaria. The Garrosh story just didn't make any goddamn sense, and Vol'Jin the OG prototype Shadow Hunter didn't make any sense as a leader, either.

I must say, though, Jaina's Warbringers short has me intrigued.

I don't think that Horde players are justified in feeling betrayed for being portrayed as villains. Saurfang is not going to put up with Sylvanas' bullsh*t, and he is at this point the Horde's most respected warlord.

I say all this with a full roster of Horde and Alliance characters, one of each race and class. Gotta get to work on those Allied races, though!

thrawn82 wrote:

Oh I definitely played and loved Warcraft 3, but the best you can say about the horde in that game is they are portrayed as "noble savages", complex and heroic in a lot of ways but definitely not 'good', plus there were no forsaken in that game, the undead you played were scourge.

Moving forward to vanilla wow: Horde got sole claim to Shamans and they got undead as a race to round at the number, Alliance got sole claim to Paladins and kept the 4 component races of the alliance from Warcraft 3.

I'm pretty sure the Forsaken show up in some form in the WC3 expansion. At least, I watched a bit of a stream of it the other day and a newly-independent Sylvanas was a big part of what was going on.

I'm not sure if you can count the WoW Alliance as having all the WC3 Alliance races. I guess the High Elves are still sort of around, even if they aren't playable. And weren't the Gnomes busy with internal matters during WC3?

At any rate, I'm still kind of annoyed that the Night Elves are just another part of the Alliance. They were my favorites in WC3 and I don't like seeing them play second fiddle to the Humans.

Shadout wrote:

Sylvanas being brutal is not new - scheming to turn humans into Forsaken and such makes sense. She is clearly afraid of the Forsaken (and maybe more importantly herself) dying for good.
Sylvanas being 'stupid evil' is new. Serves no purpose to burn the tree other than making the alliance particularly pissed, make the horde turn against you, and make druids everywhere transform into really sad pandas. If Blizzard wants to go there, at least they should try harder to give her reasons.

As for the horde, around War3 timeline they certainly seemed more 'good' than the alliance, considering the humans had concentration camps.

Notes:
1. Given Sylvanas's overriding fear of her own death and the hell that awaits her, all thanks to Arthas (so thanks again, jackass)... her "more Forsaken thing"... really doesn't. She spent the better part of 3 game cycles (Vanilla, TBC, and Wrath) lamenting the Forsaken's fate and wanting no more undead. Sylvanas recognizes how awful death after undeath is and decides... more people should experience it so she doesn't. That is officially kind of stupid evil, for me anyway. She spends over a decade talking about the basically torture and violation of Arthas's raising her... then has no problem turning over a new leaf to do the same to as many people as she can.

a. Addendum, this make Lilian Voss teaming up with the Horde under Sylvanas all kinds of stupid for the Horde war campaign too. Voss specifically hates all necromancy and hates those who practice it... then... joins the Horde whose leader is... oh wait.

b. Addendum again, the idea that Sylvanas has so completely fallen into "basically Lich Queen but without quite the same level of control" with little to no self-reflection/self-awareness of this is kind of staggering for someone who, again, lamented her fate and sought little but revenge against what she has now become for over a decade... like, wow.

2. I still think attacking the Night Elves was stupid, but securing your homeland and the surrounding lands against threats isn't really THAT stupid either. It at least makes sense. Going from occupation to Sherman's March to the Sea makes far LESS sense. Outside of lumber, there weren't a terribly high amount of resources for a war in Darkshore/Teldrassil. Toss in how the remaining dragon aspects aren't going to be thrilled with her and how they COULD get the Watchers and more involved... again, not terribly well thought out, but ya know... it's not like the Aspects have done much recently and as much as it would make sense for Alexstraza to see the return of the Blight as a weapon as something she would fight against... something tells me we're not going there anytime soon unless Sylvanas manages ANOTHER major Blight attack now that the first one's done.

3. Speaking of the Blight, what the absolute HELL rest of the Horde? Seriously, Lorthemar and Baine just watch that sh*t happen and say... NOTHING? I mean, I'm not claiming to be an expert... but I seem to remember literally everyone saying Sylvanas developing the Blight as a weapon was unacceptable... then, oh just a few different attacks with it in a single day, ho hum, who cares... Seriously, she killed off a good chunk of her own army with the Blight, raised them all into mindless undead, then unleashed the Blight a second time... and... let's just all ride away together in this Zepplin Warship.

b. Addendum the third, what the hell Jaina, teach my Arcane Mage that cannon spell and I'd totally be rerolling RIGHT NOW.

[quote="Demosthenes"]

Shadout wrote:

3. Speaking of the Blight, what the absolute HELL rest of the Horde? Seriously, Lorthemar and Baine just watch that sh*t happen and say... NOTHING?

If you do the scenario from Horde side you get a little more cut scene and you can clearly see Baine is not happy about the way it unfolded.

He probably sends his thoughts and prayers.

Edit; I guess Jaina has to die now. That was completely unfair.

Jaina is absolutely the deus ex machina in the Lordaeron siege quests.
I mean with that kind of power it is puzzling that any major events in the timeline going back to 2004 happened at all with her "Nope!" casting ability. BFA mages should be pissed!

Spoiler:

I mean that ship can level any major city and she can teleport the ship seemingly at will.
And then she can blow away football sized fields of blight so no scourge and no Forsaken.
Oh and in the extremely remote chance she gets into trouble, bubble teleport you and a handful of others.
If I were a mage main, I would be screaming at the blues for a galleon pet/mount!

Isn't Silvermoon technically Sylvanas's home? I would believe a lot of this rashness and inconsistency with her if they had lain the ground work with her losing touch with humanity post banshee transformation. But then who would follow her and who would then name her war chief? It makes no sense that she would give a sh*t more about Orgrimmar than Undercity.

If you do watch the Horde side videos there is a lingering element that this was all planned. But the piece mealing of events is really hurting whatever common thread the narrative has. And I am much more interested with the non H v. A aspects of the story. (the giant sword in the planet in Silithus and the healing of Azeroth)

As a mage main, I am by default always pissed, in particular about lore magic. Why cant I mass teleport people against their will? Seemingly every npc mage have had that ability since War3.
And now Jaina got bubble-teleport, Mega-Frost Nova of Complete Denial and Arcane Cannons On A Boat.
At least I got new icons. And blink might work without failure any day now!

I liked Sylvanas more this time around. She was fairly strategic, and would have crushed the alliance twice if not for deus ex Jaina (well, second time would not have been needed).
And it makes sense she will do anything, including spreading blight literally everywhere, to protect Undercity and kill invaders (makes less sense that everyone else would be fine with it, but at least it makes sense if nobody dares to speak up in the middle of a battle, with Sylvanas' armed, loyal supporters all around you).
Burning that tree still makes no sense though. Not even as a way to goad the alliance into a death trap.

Uh, and is Undercity bigger on the outside?

Shadout wrote:

As a mage main, I am by default always pissed, in particular about lore magic. Why cant I mass teleport people against their will? Seemingly every npc mage have had that ability since War3.
And now Jaina got bubble-teleport, Mega-Frost Nova of Complete Denial and Arcane Cannons On A Boat.
At least I got new icons. And blink might work without failure any day now!

I liked Sylvanas more this time around. She was fairly strategic, and would have crushed the alliance twice if not for deus ex Jaina (well, second time would not have been needed).
And it makes sense she will do anything, including spreading blight literally everywhere, to protect Undercity and kill invaders (makes less sense that everyone else would be fine with it, but at least it makes sense if nobody dares to speak up in the middle of a battle, with Sylvanas' armed, loyal supporters all around you).
Burning that tree still makes no sense though. Not even as a way to goad the alliance into a death trap.

Uh, and is Undercity bigger on the outside?

Curved ceilings give the illusion of more space. This even applies to inner courtyards.

Ya know, bringing in a magical flying ship at a big dramatic moment just makes me wonder even harder where all the techno-magical flying ships were.

So now that the actual battle of Lordaeron is commencing, is it too late to do the earlier quests and get the mount? Ironically, I hit 110 last night so am a little bummed if I missed the party.

Nope not too late.
I hadn't done the second stage ones on my demon hunter.
I did them and then logged out and back in and got the summons to Orgrimmar for the Lordaeron scenario.

jdzappa wrote:

So now that the actual battle of Lordaeron is commencing, is it too late to do the earlier quests and get the mount? Ironically, I hit 110 last night so am a little bummed if I missed the party.

It's not too late! The first quest should open up when you log in - you'll be told to go visit Anduin or Sylvannas, depending on your faction. Then follow the bread crumbs.

Second part of the pre-patch quests shows up on the Darkshore map. There's no pop-up. The third part (Undercity) is another log-in pop up deal.

Whole thing might take a couple of hours max.

I don't think the Jaina hate is warranted. She has always been like the third most powerful mage on Azeroth (behind Medivh and Khadgar, and Medivh is... well, Medivh, and Khadgar was his apprentice). She was apprenticed to Antonidas, the leader of the Kirin Tor, and the guy who was able to shield Dalaran all by himself when Arthas and the Scourge came calling.

Jaina has always been far, far more powerful than any other mage. Like... on the order of one of the Aspects.

She survived the mana bomb WMD that leveled Theramore. She knows certain kinds of magic that nobody else knows, due to secret tomes of Antonidas that she found. She has even invented magic herself that nobody else knows. She has been biding her time and collecting her power since leaving the Kirin Tor and keeping out of the Legion invasion.

So, no. Mages are not going to get the "raise daddy's warship from the ocean and summon arcane cannons" spell.

Maybe not. But we should!
I will settle for 'teleport people against their will' however.

Mages should at least get a rowboat with a beefy crossbow!

At the very least I want a purple cannon-boat small pet. C'MON BLIZZARD MAKE IT HAPPEN

I'd just take my arcane missles firing out of a single cannon, honestly.

My take is, Jaina is uber powerful, always has been, and I am willing to go with the "I can lay down this type of power in an emergency, but i can't do it for very long and i can;t do it often, and there is a price to pay in recovery when i do"

Of course that's assuming she hasn't picked up some extra source of magic juice while she was out alone and unseen in the void and the uncharted oceans of Azeroth...

Shadout wrote:

As a mage main, I am by default always pissed, in particular about lore magic. Why cant I mass teleport people against their will? Seemingly every npc mage have had that ability since War3.
And now Jaina got bubble-teleport, Mega-Frost Nova of Complete Denial and Arcane Cannons On A Boat.
At least I got new icons. And blink might work without failure any day now!

I liked Sylvanas more this time around. She was fairly strategic, and would have crushed the alliance twice if not for deus ex Jaina (well, second time would not have been needed).
And it makes sense she will do anything, including spreading blight literally everywhere, to protect Undercity and kill invaders (makes less sense that everyone else would be fine with it, but at least it makes sense if nobody dares to speak up in the middle of a battle, with Sylvanas' armed, loyal supporters all around you).
Burning that tree still makes no sense though. Not even as a way to goad the alliance into a death trap.

Uh, and is Undercity bigger on the outside?

This is more of a general refutation towards the Lich Queen than directed at you Shadout. Just something I have been thinking about.

I have seem the idea repeated on the internet that Sylvanus is some sort of master tactician because her plans nearly worked. This is an awful take on the Lich Queen. She’s failed on virtually every level and drawn her allies into a war of choice that was poorly planned and horribly executed.

Her plans haven’t worked because her tactics are fundamentally unsound in both exploiting her enemy’s weaknesses and maximizing her troops’ strengths.

She is like the Horde’s Field Marshal Montgomery.

She is consistently outmatched and her plans are seemingly crafted for dramatic effect instead of plausibility.

Her plan was to kill Malfurion and capture Darnasuss in a dramatic coup de grace.

Failed. Malfurion is alive and Darnasuss is destroyed.

Her plan was to lure Alliance leadership into a biological weapons trap and kill them.

Double fail. Not only did she not kill the Alliance leadership she didn’t even get them all in one place. The only leaders present were Anduin and Greymane. Tyrande, Velen, and the Dwarven Council didn’t even COME to Lordaeron.

She also banked heavily on the Alliance fracturing with the defeat on Darkshore. She fundamentally misunderstands her opponents. Did she ever even consider that the Alliance would rally around the Night Elves?

And she won a few paltry battles by desecrating the corpses of her own troops. That is playing well with the Horde currently.

She’s pretty bad at Warchief, tbh.

I would agree with most of that, except the battle at Undercity. It seemed reasonably well executed. Didn't look like she wanted to kill the leaders (other than as a random bonus). First part of the fight was killing a big chunk of alliance troops with blight. The survivors seemed ready to flee.
It only ever got to the second part of trying to kill Anduin and Greymane, because Jaina showed up.
Then killing off Anduin and Greymane would have left the Alliance in shambles. The rest of the leaders would hardly matter at that point, at least for a while.

Of course having a war between alliance and horde in the first place makes absolutely no sense in the current story - but that is another matter. And the Darkshore campaign in particular is stupid. Burning the tree was the the most stupid thing, serving no purpose other than fracturing the Horde.
But "trying" to kill Malfurion likewise made no sense - unless we get some good reasoning on how she didn't want to kill him after all. I mean, she certainly did not try when she had the chance. Likely just bad writing though. Malfurion is one of the few alliance characters that I assume a lot of Horde characters respect and like (especially the Taurens), due to him being a druid god-like for all the tree-huggers everywhere.

My Legion wrap-up ...

Goal: One of each class to 110
Progress: Not even close. I got all eight of the classes I played (DK, hunter, monk, pal, priest, rogue, shaman, lock) to 110 but didn't play any others. Sadly, I didn't roll a DH. Maybe during the next down time.

Goal: 23K achieves
Progress: I had 23K before 8.0 dropped. But tne new patch downgraded about 600 achieveo pts to feats of strength. Boo. I'm close but not there.

Goal: All professions to 800.
Progress: Almost there! Just need 20 points more in inscription (which is a pain in the ass for very little reward. Inscription is literally the worst profession in the game now that first aid is gone)

Goal: 1.5M gold.
Progress: Made it. Good lord it was easy to make money in this expansion.

Overall: I had a lot of fun with this one. There was plenty to do, and the grinds weren't terrible. I liked the profession quest lines and really liked the class hall/class quest.

That said, I can see why folks wandered away. If you want to play just one or maybe two toons, you can run out of stuff to do. I found myself with plenty of time to mop up old achievements, transmogs, etc.

BfA drops Monday (3 p.m. PDT; 6 pm East Coast). Don't forget to buy the expansion! See y'all on the other side.

Holy crap!
I made a horde night elf or whatever and started from l20. I forgot how slow that is without flying.
Also, blizzard put zero thought into initial rep values for the new races. These evles are besties with the blood elves but with neutral rep to start. However, some of the other horde races they are already friendly.