Finally, the day we have all waited for is here! As of Wednesday, September 17th 2014, all the content that is meant to be in the beta for Warlords of Draenor is finally available and fully testable.
Even more surprising is that, in the case of the Legendary quest line, it appears to be damn near finished!
Khadgar’s Task:
The quest itself, which apparently starts at level 98 to give you a head start, begins in your garrison with the all too familiar Khadgar’s Server elemental creature. You’ll recognize this studly ele from the TBC days where Khaddy G would send you on a jaunt around the town with his petty servant as host.
It appears, even now, the archmage is too busy to address you directly, even though he is happy to freeload near your garrison’s campfire.
What’s stranger yet is that, despite the fact that the man is standing 100 yards from his “servant,” I have to fly all the way across the world to get the rest started. I suppose we are still in Beta for a reason, but there just seems to be a lot of inconsistencies in where these major characters are meant to be. I frankly don’t see why you would even try to have them in the garrison at any one point. I know each player’s story is meant to be seperate from everyone else’s but how is it possible, even in these crazy situations, that Khadgar is in my garrison while I level 10 times? Surely he has somewhere more important to be, no? Helping oversee the Ashran hubs? Helping the Alliance? JK hes chillin next to the fire with Drekka. ezmode life #khadgar.
Anyway, back to the task at hand. Once you pick up the quest from the Servant, you’ll head out to Khadgar’s secret hideaway in an area known as Zangarra, which certainly resembles Zangarmarsh in every way, even in location. Despite sitting in my garrison, he has apparently had the time to order an entire tower built for his studies.
When you reach him, you realize his greatest concern is a looming threat unnamed at the start. He claims we need to work together on this matter, and in order to do so we need to establish a link. He originally suggests creating an amulet, but apparently our character turns down the offer and decides a ring is the best option. Just flavor, nothing more.
Anyway, the telepathic ring that he will channel his energy through must be created using a number of items from 5 mans. In order to get the band for the ring,we must take one from the Arrakoa, specifically the final boss in Skyreach. It doesn’t specific normal or Heroic here, so I’d imagine this is meant to be done on normal, and the later parts on Heroic. I can’t verify one way or another, as the servers are down YET AGAIN, but I’m going to stick to this as the way it is, assuming they want the legendary part to be gotten by those capable of completing Heroics. 
Regardless, the band comes from Skyreach and once you turn it in, you see a wrathion style cutscene where he explains the whole of the trouble and its root: Gul’dan. No surprise, but I am a bit shocked to see the blatant similarities between the way the two lines starts. The scene is already fully voice acted and animated, so expect videos to come.
After you get the first step, which is the Epic 640 ring, you then have quite a few tasks set in front of you. In order to complete the legendary portion, it appears you then need to loot items from 3 of the last bosses of heroic 5 mans. Core of Fire from Slagmines, Core of Life from Evergrowth, and Core of Iron from Iron Docks. There is also a Apexis component, that is currently set at 986, a very odd number likely not intended. I’d expect it to be a large enough number that will impact the first few week’s gathering, but if its that low, that can be gained in 1 day.
After that, it appears the ring will be granted to the player, something I will personally be testing out whenever they decide to keep new builds up for more then 10 hours.
Challenge Modes:
Even Khadgar wants nothing to do with CMs! What a noob!
The current talk of the town is the lack of strange niche items like the Battle Horn to be used in CM. Personally, I prefer a slower pace, and now with the removal of Vengeance, I feel there is a LOT less importance placed on pulling 20 mobs at a time. You see, in the MoP model with Vengeance, it was actually much quicker to pull more mobs, because it elevated the tank to a level of DPS higher then the DPS themselves. Now, a tank does equitable damage through out, and if they use their CD’s properly they can still do a great amount of AOE, but it will increase because it hits more mobs, not because more hit them.
Items and strategies like this are fun, but I’d MUCH prefer one pack at a time with some preparation and maybe (dare I say it?) Crowd Control placement. That was part of why I enjoyed TBC five mans, because no matter when you did them, they always required CC. This was partially a product of threat though, so I can’t imagine this mechanic to return too greatly. In the beginning, people will CC some, but once they see people do without, then there will likely be a lot less caution and a lot more big new strats.
Especially with the advent of a separate health potion CD, I see this being even more prevalent.
Either way, when I get in there, you can bet you’ll hear all about them! Stay tuned!
Recent Comments