WoW: Dragonflight

thrawn82 wrote:
merphle wrote:
thrawn82 wrote:
merphle wrote:

So I just watched the cutscene that plays just before getting the Heart of Azeroth, and I have questions. Since when were there literal super-planetary gods in space ships? I last played the Draenor expansion, so was this part of Legion, or BFA?

I'm working my way through all of the BFA questlines now, and enjoying them. There's a decent bit of variety and unique things to do in there. I suppose I ought to go back and try the Legion stuff too... but how?

That was legion stuff, although there are a lot of giant space gods in earlier expansions. Lich King had a good number of those features in the raids and in the snowy areas quests.

Hm, this might be my miss, then. I did a fair bit of Dungeons, but not much in the way of Raids after vanilla (and maybe Burning Crusades? I don't remember, it was a while ago). I think I play MMOs wrong -- single-player, mostly. I get anxious in parties (both MMO and RL).

Theres a big tower thing on northrend in the mountain zone, with Loken at the top, he's sort of one of those titan gods, and then in Uldum there's more avatars or whatever of titans you fight/rescue.

Quick corrections (with no malice intended!):

The guy you'll find on top of one of the towers is Thorim. Loken is the boss of one of the dungeons there in the Storm Peaks around Ulduar.

Both Thorim and Loken are Titan Keepers, but not the gods themselves. They were basically constructs who were made the Titan Pantheon after ordering Azeroth to help maintain balance, keep the Void/Old Gods imprisoned on the planet in check, and hit the reset button (Algalon) if things really hit the fan.

The Titan Pantheon is the... god-like race that has been wandering the cosmos, generally looking for planets to do the same with, as that helps birth their race from said planets. The one you saw with the sword who stabbed the planet is Sargeras. He was originally a member of the Pantheon who... depending on what year you're looking at the lore in, either met the Eredar who corrupted him, or found a planet corrupted by the Void (the Old Gods main power source, and one of the two primal forces that apparently clashed birthing the cosmos as a whole in the first place). This caused him to believe that creation was fundamentally flawed as long as the Void could manifest and consume the cosmos, and thus the best plan was to starve them out by destroying everything first... thus the Burning Legion.

What you saw was basically the ending cinematic for defeating Argus, restoring the Pantheon, and the Pantheon using their powers to finally bind Sargeras for his betrayal both against them and creation so long ago. That strike was his last ditch attempt to destroy Azeroth which he saw as basically one of two things, either a perfect place to create his own partner to help destroy creation (keep in mind, we're talking ALL living planets, across all of time, and apparently multiple dimensions, thus why our killing of Archimonde in WoD is permanent now)... or a place as proof of that void corruption, to study, and then destroy.

Not getting option one, and not getting the time for the first half of option two, he decided it was time to destroy Azeroth. Keep in mind, not the first time he's done that to a planet either...

IMAGE(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a1/18/72/a11872660fd29048764604f0ac80cc4c.jpg)

Sooooooooooo, yeah, kind of a huge deal lorewise, as the Burning Legion were kind of the BIG BADS since like... what, Warcraft 3? Primary motivator of Illidan, Arthas as the Lich King, Velen, and plenty of others. BFA was, by comparison, kind of a weird end to another villain group, and Shadowlands is basically setting itself up to help restock the shelves now that we've taken out most of the big known threats from the last 2 decades of WoW lore. The whole of the expansion (or at least the start, anyway, who knows what else will happen with the first patch) takes place in only one of the now 6 primal forces' realms: Death.

IMAGE(https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/944052.jpg?maxWidth=800)

Demosthenes wrote:
thrawn82 wrote:

Theres a big tower thing on northrend in the mountain zone, with Loken at the top, he's sort of one of those titan gods, and then in Uldum there's more avatars or whatever of titans you fight/rescue.

Quick corrections (with no malice intended!):

Corrections appreciated! I was going off the top of head and I don't think I've done those zones since they were live content.

Oh man am I lost. Just picked up my old account from when Cataclysm came out.I am not lvl 35. Not sure how but I got to Kul Tiras? Something about an admiralty. I have quests active to start a campaign (I am not sure what that is about). And something about visiting Chromie in the caverns of time, that is Cataclysm right? Is kul Tiras where i want to be? I really have no idea what I am doing any more.

Igneus wrote:

Oh man am I lost. Just picked up my old account from when Cataclysm came out.I am not lvl 35. Not sure how but I got to Kul Tiras? Something about an admiralty. I have quests active to start a campaign (I am not sure what that is about). And something about visiting Chromie in the caverns of time, that is Cataclysm right? Is kul Tiras where i want to be? I really have no idea what I am doing any more.

Lol, yeah so much going on.
The Caverns of Time thing is the 16th Anniversary event stuff, so you can ignore that if you want.
Assuming your Alliance, yeah Kul Tiras is where you'd go for the newest stuff. Otherwise, up to 50 you can go to Chromie in Stormwind to be able to replay the old expansions.

Igneus wrote:

Oh man am I lost. Just picked up my old account from when Cataclysm came out.I am not lvl 35. Not sure how but I got to Kul Tiras? Something about an admiralty. I have quests active to start a campaign (I am not sure what that is about). And something about visiting Chromie in the caverns of time, that is Cataclysm right? Is kul Tiras where i want to be? I really have no idea what I am doing any more.

Maybe this will help.

If you're level 35, it looks like you can stay in Boralus (aka the capital of Kul Tiras) and level up that way. That's current content. Follow the bread crumbs. (That's my advice, btw.) If you hustle, you should be able to hit 50 before Shadowlands comes out.

That campaign you mentioned? That's the war campaign, which is the main narrative for the Battle For Azeroth expansion. (Legion had one, too.) Both Ally and Horde have their own versions. You'll want to do this, or as much as you can until SL comes out.

The leveling system has been drastically overhauled. Instead of doing Classic (1-60), BC (60-70), Wrath (70-80), etc., everyone picks a starting area for 1-10 (either Exiles Reach, which is new, or the traditional racial starting zones) and then an expansion (BC, Wrath, Cata, etc.) for leveling to 50, which is the new max level. (It's 60 in SL.) Everyone ends up in Kul Tiras eventually.

If you're completely freaked out by all this new stuff and want to turn back the clock to the Cataclysm where you left off, go find Chromie in Stormwind (she's in the northern part, where all the fields are) and pick an expansion. Good luck!

Once you do the short intro series dailies are active for 11 total tokens. I ended up with 19 total tokens today when done. Also 4 rare mobs spawn every 20m with a shot at ilvl 110 weapons. So you can get a least 1 piece of ilvl 100 gear today.

Medmey wrote:

Once you do the short intro series dailies are active for 11 total tokens. I ended up with 19 total tokens today when done. Also 4 rare mobs spawn every 20m with a shot at ilvl 110 weapons. So you can get a least 1 piece of ilvl 100 gear today.

So I understand dailies, blue quest icon's if I remember correctly. But I am unaware of either where to find them. Or the intro to them, or what tokens your mentioning. What is ilvl? Are the rare mobs the star icon's on the maps? Been hitting them when I see them.

You get the intro quest as you log in to WoW the first time during event but you need to be lvl 40. Quest chain starts in Org/SW after that is done you get sent you to Icecrown. You do a few short quests and you get dailies unlocked for event. 3 available with more to come as the event goes on. These are the blue ! on map.

You get Argent Commendation tokens for completing the quests. which can be turned in for item level 100 (ilvl) armor. Basically your gear score in WoW. Item level is the blizzard term.

For the event, the rares will appears as a skull on your large map every 20m in Icecrown with a zone wide announcement saying which one is spawning.

So, let's say I wanted to start a fresh level 1 and have never done any of the BFA content. Is there a preferred chromie time path to get to 50 on? Once 50 do I start working on iLevel to get ready for Shadowlands or will the Shadowlands beginner quests basically level me up past the grind? Do I stop doing chromie time at level 40 to do the BFA stuff?

I started a fresh Human Paladin in the Abbey in Elwynn Forest (note: I think there's now two starting zones to choose from for each race?) a couple of weeks ago. Leveling is extremely quick to 8, and I think by the time I was done with Elwynn Forest and most of Westfall, I had hit level 20. At level 20, I got a quest to go to Boralus - the Alliance city in the BFA region. I didn't stick around for long, but at that point, I believe I could have done ordinary (non-campaign) quests in the region, and then the campaign quests starting at 35 or 40 (which would be in different zones still, so it's not like you'd have to go through places twice).

The nice thing about this whole new leveling arrangement is you can basically go wherever and do whatever you want. Everything(?) scales to your level. You presumably also should be able to go back and do expansions via Chromie in whatever order you want.

Igneus wrote:
Medmey wrote:

Once you do the short intro series dailies are active for 11 total tokens. I ended up with 19 total tokens today when done. Also 4 rare mobs spawn every 20m with a shot at ilvl 110 weapons. So you can get a least 1 piece of ilvl 100 gear today.

So I understand dailies, blue quest icon's if I remember correctly. But I am unaware of either where to find them. Or the intro to them, or what tokens your mentioning. What is ilvl? Are the rare mobs the star icon's on the maps? Been hitting them when I see them.

Blue exclamation points = daily quests. You'll see them around capital cities for the most part. They were important back in the day but they're less so now.

World quests are marked on your world map. You have to be lvl 50 and do a few other things to unlock them in the Battle for Azeroth zones (the ones around Boralus for Alliance and Zuldazar for Horde) if this is your first toon to 50.

There are also world quests in the Legion zones, but I have no idea how you go about getting them now.

iLvl = item level. iLvl is on each piece of gear, and each character has a composite iLvl score. i100 is considered above average; I'd put i110 at pretty good. (It's somewhere between normal and heroic Ny'alotha, which is the final BFA raid.)

PS: Don't worry about being lost. I take so much for granted bc I've been playing for so long that I forget how complicated how some of this stuff is. And it is complicated. My advice? Follow the bread crumbs and don't worry about doing it right. We'll all be the same lvl 50 in two weeks when Shadowlands comes out.

Medmey wrote:

Once you do the short intro series dailies are active for 11 total tokens. I ended up with 19 total tokens today when done. Also 4 rare mobs spawn every 20m with a shot at ilvl 110 weapons. So you can get a least 1 piece of ilvl 100 gear today.

The rares-that-drop-loot is good news. I've got plenty of slots that could use the upgrade. I figure I'll grind out tokens for the plate / mail / leather appearances. Time to freshen up the ol' look.

Clumber wrote:

So, let's say I wanted to start a fresh level 1 and have never done any of the BFA content. Is there a preferred chromie time path to get to 50 on? Once 50 do I start working on iLevel to get ready for Shadowlands or will the Shadowlands beginner quests basically level me up past the grind? Do I stop doing chromie time at level 40 to do the BFA stuff?

Chromie Time path is up to you. Some folks say Draenor goes the fastest. My advice? Pick an expansion that you enjoy. They all have upsides (and downsides, too, I suppose).

Chromie Time will take you all the way to 50. At 50 you'll get sent to your faction's capital city, and Magni will offer you the Heart of Azeroth neck piece if you want to play with that for two weeks.

When my mage alt emerged from Chromie Time Draenor at level 50, his gear iLvL was only about i50 -- less than half that of my main. If you intend on leveling right away in SL, sure, get your toon some gear so he doesn't get smoked the minute you log in on Nov 23. No, I don't know what minimum acceptable-so-you-don't-get-squished gear will be in SL. But every expansion has offered pretty quick upgrades, and I don't think SL will be any different.

The Scourge Invasion event that started today will probably be the most efficient way of gearing up right now if you don't mind crowds. It doesn't look like (though I'm not 100 percent sure) you can earn many tokens toward gear until Week 2, so you might want to do some BFA content (story quests in the zones, War Campaign, world quests if you can active them) to see if you can get some incremental upgrades.

Note that the gear from WQs is dynamic -- the better your iLvl score, the better the gear on offer. Pay attention to the emissary quests, too. (Emissary quests are the do-four-quests-for-a-faction-and-get-a-prize thing; they're listed on the bottom left of your in-game map.)

PS: I've update the GWJ Alliance guild info post. Here's a direct link, or folo the link in my sig.

Scratching my head on why I would grind tokens for gear that gets replaced in 2 weeks. They did this with legion invasions and that gear got swapped out very quickly.

I guess for brand new 50s it might have some value.

Heretk wrote:

Scratching my head on why I would grind tokens for gear that gets replaced in 2 weeks. They did this with legion invasions and that gear got swapped out very quickly.

I guess for brand new 50s it might have some value.

If they've got neat skins for transmogs?

Heretk wrote:

Scratching my head on why I would grind tokens for gear that gets replaced in 2 weeks. They did this with legion invasions and that gear got swapped out very quickly.

I guess for brand new 50s it might have some value.

Yep. That.

I'm doing it mostly for the transmogging.

Update. Finished the 3 daily quests and killed 3 rare event raid bosses in Icecrown. I ended today with 34 tokens on one person with minimal time played. So 2 gear pieces are available to purchase.

Going into shadowlands with a full set of ilvl 100 vs ilvl 55-80 will make a difference in killing things. The gear is for alts who are behind in gear. Grinding here will be the easiest way to gear your alts/main for start of Shadowlands. So far the word grind is not really holding true. It can be replaced with daily casual play.

Medmey wrote:

Update. Finished the 3 daily quests and killed 3 rare event raid bosses in Icecrown. I ended today with 34 tokens on one person with minimal time played. So 2 gear pieces are available to purchase.

I killed two Icecrown rares and Nathanos (who's in EPL; there's a quest to take him out) and ended today w 33 tokens. Took about an hour, and much of that was the travel for the intro quests and to EPL and then to Icecrown.

It's 1-3-5 tokens per quest. The wild cards are Darkened Scourgestones and Pitch Black Scourgestones. Both drop off of any Icecrown mob, and both can be turned in for tokens (25 per). In theory you could grind out all your gear and the toy and pet tonight, but one dwarf paladin can kill only so many undead.

PS: I got a sweet sweet i115 2H sword off of Nathanos. It looks like he's dropping weapons, but I don't know if you get one shot per day or per the entire event at this loot pinata.

PPS: Lots of class damage changes today. Ret pal and arms warriors got nice buffs; BM hunters got a big fat nerf; and tanks got a threat bonus.

Can I just say how much I love that all of these questlines (I think they're all Legion and BFA?) lead me by the nose to "old" zones, and into unique versions of solo dungeons. Really enjoying that.

Also, I just finished the 12-step [Ready For War] BFA campaign. Judging by the achievement list, there should be another war campaign to do for the Alliance side?

So speaking of transmog ... the armor you can buy from the Argent Dawn vendor is the same skin as bfa warfront set? If thats only option then its laaame.

Heretk wrote:

Scratching my head on why I would grind tokens for gear that gets replaced in 2 weeks. They did this with legion invasions and that gear got swapped out very quickly.

I guess for brand new 50s it might have some value.

I'm doin it for the mogs. if you don't care about transmog patterns i wouldn't bother, honestly.

Heretk wrote:

So speaking of transmog ... the armor you can buy from the Argent Dawn vendor is the same skin as bfa warfront set? If thats only option then its laaame.

It's not identical to the warfront set, I have all those and my mog tracker still has all the pieces marked as unacquired. I heard it's the same as a tier pvp set (which there is zero chance of me acquiring from pvp so I'm ok w that)

Or unless you really want to kill a certain boss level character that's a huge dick.

I got a nice boost warglaive from him. After doing the icecrown quests for another 100 piece, my DH is now a whopping GS 86! (up from 84, heh)

I am also kinda thinking that I should just suffer for a level or so to gear up in SL. I am not really looking forward to the zombie swarm. Thankfully at 3 am pacific orgrimmar was clear of that

merphle wrote:

Also, I just finished the 12-step [Ready For War] BFA campaign. Judging by the achievement list, there should be another war campaign to do for the Alliance side?

Yep. Both Alliance and Horde have their own versions of the war campaign. I think it's worth doing both simply to see both sides of the story. I *think* if you've unlocked everyone on one toon, all of the intro quests should pop on the Alliance side. If not, grind out 7th Legion rep, which isn't hard at all.

Congrats on doing one. They're both long and epic quest chains.

And just did the quest chain up to Nathanos for the 110 weapon on my unholy DK.
It doesn't take much time but it is a bit hard to avoid all his tells with the swarm of people blasting him. I died once and resorted to sending in my pets with support dots for the rest of the fight.

Any of you guys that did the Nzoth fight know if it is still possible to get the cloak from the intro quest? I never did it with any of my 50's but it seems like a good piece for a GS boost for those that haven't raided mythic.

fangblackbone wrote:

And just did the quest chain up to Nathanos for the 110 weapon on my unholy DK.
It doesn't take much time but it is a bit hard to avoid all his tells with the swarm of people blasting him. I died once and resorted to sending in my pets with support dots for the rest of the fight.

Any of you guys that did the Nzoth fight know if it is still possible to get the cloak from the intro quest? I never did it with any of my 50's but it seems like a good piece for a GS boost for those that haven't raided mythic.

I got the cloak a week or so ago. Was easy enough, if long.

So I have hit 50. 15 levels in a couple days. I feel like that is pretty quick. Certainly helped to have the anniversary bonus. Still struggling to figure out where I am going/what to do. Haven't tried any dungeons since I have been back but its been fun. They added pet battles? When did that happen? Is this wowkemon or something? Do people actually try to battle each others pets?

Whew! I just successfully completed my first Horrific Vision of Stormwind. Took me 5 or 6 attempts to get a good handle on how that place works, and implement it, but at least it's some progress.

I also went back to Legion and unlocked my Class Hall, mostly just to see what it's like; I liked how Garrisons worked. Unsurprisingly, the quests there are now trivially easy - L45 enemies for the most part, which I was one-shotting. The artifact weapon I obtained is completely inferior to what I have now; I'm assuming even if I spent the time to fully power it up, I'll still be getting better stuff from the beginning quests of Shadowlands... so I probably won't.

I'll stick with BFA stuff (loving it!) and roll over to SL when it releases.

The Legion Weapons lost their power when BFA hit. The powers from every artifact weapon were used to basically stop the giant sword in Silithus from poisoning Azeroth thus depleting their power. Kinda like cauterizing a wound. This was done in the BFA pre-patch

You will definitely want to get a better BFA weapon.

They added pet battles back in Draenor xpac I believe. I do not think there is a huge following where people actually battle each other. It is a simple system and very grindy. I only dabble in it for achievement points. Here is some basic info Pet Battle info Guide

Medmey wrote:

The Legion Weapons lost their power when BFA hit. The powers from every artifact weapon were used to basically stop the giant sword in Silithus from poisoning Azeroth thus depleting their power. Kinda like cauterizing a wound. This was done in the BFA pre-patch

Nifty, thanks! Clearly there's a lot I've missed out on (or have forgotten / blocked from my memory over the years). I think I might watch these couple of "quick" 20-minute history/lore videos that popped up after watching the one you linked. Any other good ones that folks have run across?

The prepatch event I think is definitely worth doing. Each boss does drop the stones to buy armor from the merchant, but they also drop 110 gear. I boosted a hunter to 50. That gives you a full set of 68 ilvl gear. Currently I'm at 103 after doing the event for a couple days.

You may replace pieces but going in to SL with a great set of gear I think will be important. Plus, the stuff doesn't look half bad either