FAQ
Is there a PA guild?
There is not a PA guild associated with this thread. We do however have a discord channel that we use to organize. Permanent link is:
https://discord.gg/ZrDh6u5, or ask @ Dhalphir
There are both Horde and alliance toons in there, so feel free to message people and start groups together. Seriously don't be a stranger, there are a lot of helpful people.
There is also a Horde guild on Chogall that is run by the fine people of SE++ which you can find more info about in their
thread.
I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention the ancient Penny Arcade Alliance on Dark Iron. Founded by Tycho himself, <Knights of Arcadia> is still going strong. You can contact @ SniperGuy for more info there. Be forwarned, Dark Iron is a PvP server with a serious imbalance in favor of the Horde, so you know if you're not ready for some 1v5 action...
I haven't played since <Previous Expansion>, what's changed?
Let me explain... No, there is too much,
let me sum up.
Class Fantasy
As is customary with each expansion, classes have gone through significant changes. The focus for Legion was on refining Class Fantasy: giving each class defined strengths and weaknesses, and moving away from the homogeonized jacks-of-all-trades they'd become. You can read more about Blizzard's philosophy on each class here at their
class preview page. You also get a free boost to level 100 with purchase of Legion, and the opportunity to do a trial run with a new class before locking in your choice for that boost.
Order Halls
Garrisons are dead! Long live Order Halls! Seriously, though each class gets it's own Order Hall complete with a class quest chain that awards a set of armor at max level with a unique look for each class. Order halls also give follower missions (similar to Garrisons) and are generally really awesome looking with tons of followers walking around in teir gear, etc. Full
Wowhead guide here.
Artifact Weapons
Each spec has it's own unique Artifact Weapon, which you'll be using exclusively here on out. There are no weapon drops in Legion, instead there are relics which work like gem slots and will increase the ilevel of your weapon. There are no new talents or abilities given to each class in Legion, instead character progression is gated behind powering up your artifact (through the aptly named Artifact Power consumables) to add new abilities and passive bonuses. All AP is gained via using consumable items, so you can totally queue and play as a tank but put all your AP into your DPS spec instead. Additionally, after reaching 110 you can start researching Artifact Knowledge which increases the amount of AP you gain from each consumable earned afterwards. AK research has a catch-up mechanic, so even if you're just starting now you won't be permanently behind.
Warforging & Titanforging
All loot drops from max level content; World Quests, dungeons, raids, pvp chests, etc, have the chance to proc additional ilevels in sets of 5 up to the current maximum ilevel of 895. Each item also has a chance to proc the tertiary stats (leach, speed, avoidance, and indestructible) and/or a socket. So you potentially could get a Titanforged ilevel 895 helm with leach and a socket from your very first world quest. You would then also immediately need to buy a ticket to Vegas and put it all on red.
World Quests
Across the map you'll see quest icons. Going to the specified area will generate a quick audio intro to the quest and automatically add it to your quest log. Finishing the objectives will automatically complete the quest, and leaving the area will also remove it from your log. I'm not going to lie to you; these are reskinned dailies with better rewards, but we don't care.
Legendaries
There are currently 160 new legendaries for legion. They are divided up among class and spec with a few shared by role and 2 universal ones. You can get Legendaries from almost any activity at any level in legion (yes, you could get one at 98 from your very first dungeon run). They are currently ilevel 895, and will continue to scale throughout the expansion, as well as provide some crazy overpowered effects for your class/spec. Expect to never get one yourself, unless it drops for you on an alt you don't really mean to play.
Dungeons
There are four difficulties for dungeons this time around. Additionally, why leveling dungeons scale to your individual level; so a level 108 tank could be healed by a level 101 healer and a level 100 DPS could (and probably will) pull more weight than a level 110. Normal loot drops scale with level and cap at 805. Heroic dungeons drop ilevel 825 items, and require a min ilevel of 810 to queue for (but you can form a group yourself and walk into any heroic naked if you want). Mythic dungeons can only be completed once each week and drop 840 gear and can't be queued for. You will have to put together a group the old fashioned way, but there are lots of resources for doing so. The in client group finder tool is a good way to start, as is joining our discord server. Realize that the ease/difficulty of finding groups is 80% of what we argue about in this thread; join in!
Finally there are Mythic+ dungeons which require a
bit of explaining. After completing your first Mythic dungeon, you'll get a Mythic Keystone which will be attuned for a specific dungeon. Putting the Keystone into the Font of Power at the start of the appropriate dungeon will start a timed run of that dungeon. Beating that time will level up your keystone allowing you to take on increasingly challenging dungeon content. At Mythic 4+ your keystone will gain an affix like "Teeming" which will increase the difficulty even more by adding more mobs or other effects to the trash. This provides small group friendly end-game content as the rewards scale with the difficulty. Unlike regular Mythics, there is no lockout on Mythic+ dungeons.
Raiding
Raiding also has four difficulties, and each has it's own lockout meaning you could masochistically run the Emerald Nightmare 4 times in the same week! Looking For Raid can be queued for, and has reduced difficulty and fewer mechanics allowing it to be completed by
unwashed uncoordinated masses and drops 835 loot. Normal (850) and Heroic (865) difficulties require preformed raids (so, you know, get social), but can be run by and scale to group sizes between 10 & 30 people which gives groups some great flexibility. Mythic raiding requires exactly 20 players who are all on the same battlegroup, and is the only content restricted in this way. Mythic drops 880 gear that is permanently stained with salt.
PvP
PvP has seen the most changes this expac. Abilities now have pvp modifiers, usually downtuning, meaning your awesome 1.4 mil Justicar's Vengeance crits in pve will 'only' hit for 936k in pvp. Additionally any instanced pvp area (battlegrounds, arena) will apply a stat template to your character and ignore all gear (except for traits from your Artifact Weapon). Raising your average ilevel above 800 will give you a small bonus to your template, but generally limited to single digit percentage points which means that entering PvP is easier than ever. There is still PvP gear, but realize that it's pretty much just a visual thing now. Honor points are no longer a currency: instead you have Prestige levels which are pretty much an experience bar that goes to level 50. Along the way at each honor level you'll get nice rewards and unlock your PvP talent tree skills. Getting to Honor Level 50 let's you trade it all in for a prestige rank, netting you some cool titles and mounts and starting the honor grind all over again. Once 7.1 hits you won't lose out on your pvp talent unlocks, but until then...
Do I have to buy all the previous expansions?
No you don't! All previous expansions through Warlords of Draenor have been rolled into the base game. You just need to purchase a copy of Legion to access the current content, and doing so gives you a free character boost to level 100 to get you right into the thick of things.
I really like theorycrafting, where can I go to talk with other theorycrafters?
*work in progress
Posts
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Two people whispered me saying i was reported and the druid tank just kept opening trade with me saying "Give it." over and over.
I made the mistake of doing a xmog scan on Stormrage Alliance during server prime. 650 pages took over 45 minutes.
I know it's futile, but I will continue to grind for the Love Rocket until this holiday finishes. At the least, it's letting me re-understand how my alt classes work. My DH is quite good at holding aggro, while my Warrior (Lvl 50, so....) not so much. I seem to remember at least part of my muscle memory for Hunter, as well.
My fanatic mount-collector friend is making the mount runs with a full roster of characters every day. I dread to think what would happen if a guildie suddenly happened to get the mount with their main. Maybe my friend would go mad from the futility and pointlessness of everything and the cruelty of RNGsus.
Then again, he's pretty resilient. He's also grinded almost every Timewalk ever in hopes of the Timereaver mount, only to watch a guildmate get one from their very first Timewalking dungeon. It did drive my friend to drinking, but he recovered.
Love is in the Air event (using multiple alts of course)
Arch questline
Timewalking (need to build up coins for the MoP timewalking mount)
HotS event
Plus the other weekly resets
I'm holding off Timewalking until next month. I still have to buy all (...4?) mounts, outside of still grinding for the Timereaver.
Resets: to preserve my sanity, I tend to grind two raids at a time until I get a mount drop. Currents: DS for Experiment 12-B and ToFW for the [Direction] Wind drake (I have the other three already).
Next up will be Ulduar for Mim's Head and ICC for Invincible.
I still want the panther mount from ZG, but I don't run that as religiously as I probably should.
Just need 15 games together as friends.
I ran old ZG religiously until they removed it, never got those mounts.
The first time I run new ZG the friggen raptor drops (the panther dropped later when I could solo it). At this point I have all the 5 man rare drop mounts.
I need to start doing the weekly raid resets again (I've been doing the panda land rare spawns at least).
Off the top of my head, I have:
Dragon from air instance I can't remember the name
Deepholm drop (my brain sucks today)
New ZA
Bronze Drake
Red Drake (Wrath 5-man achiev mount)
....and I'm brainfarting
I'm passively doing rep grinds to get the Horde ones I'm missing. I have to get at least the Gnome mounts from Alliance. I'm trying to tick off the easy mounts I can grab to reach the next collection achiev. (I just got the Jade Kite, so it's.....a Dragonhawk I think?)
I use simple armory (my character is in the link as an example)
Man, Krosus gets exhausting. Think that were only 2 people alive at the end. Myself, bited it at 15 sec before kill because didn't dodged a double Fel Beam (shamefur display).
Blue Proto.
So I've pretty much been Horde, but playing my DH on the other side is sucking me in. What's the best way to rep up with the main factions these days?
I've got an 80+ Monk Alliance-side. I had him doing the Argent Tournament...figured I'm gonna want those mounts anyways, why not build up rep at the same time?
Ah, yeah! I do have the blue proto
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20753176252
Why? Because fuck you, apparently.
And it will only be partially fixed 7.2 as an incidental to the larger change to the talents. No, we're not going to actually fix it now or bother to fix the rest of it later.
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20753176252#post-15
Back in vanilla wow the only time I saw the tiger mount drop was in the train wreck of a guild
He opens up the DKP bidding then goes quiet on vent 5 minutes later he says bids are closed and invalidated and hands the mount to a girl he was trying to get with
I became very anti DKP because of this and other few reasons
That's not a dkp thing since dkp wasn't even used.
I was in a guild where one guy got the tiger to drop twice in a row when he was solo clearing.
Apparently it truly is impossible to hate someone to death.
So far is fine, there's the newer guys that want loot NOW, but eh, just clearing each week will get you loot, so don't get the hurry.
I mean, I don't play her a lot, but I do my emissaries and run the occasional M+ to get my weekly chest. But it took her forever to get her first legendary, which of course reset the bad luck protection, so, meh. RNGsus is a cruel master.
It's the boots that shorten Trueshot cd so at least I can be happy about that.
Holy shit I didn't know there are legendaries that are that bad. I thought Sephuz for MM hunter might be the worst you can get, but I guess I was naive.
That's annoying. DPS trinkets for Disc are also nerfed 66% to 'keep our DPS in line' with what is to be expected from a Disc. Problem being that our DPS scaling is garbage, going from being level or slightly above the tank in early raiding to about half to two-thirds in NH. Kind of sucks that the unique part of our spec is now so negligible.
Steam: adamjnet
Some are done, may be a few short on the TW coins, but I can just tank it up to grind through the 200 or so when the event next rolls around.
Man that Arch questline was grindy. 600 bone fragments and anywhere from 0-5 from a node.