Two zones are down, and now I direct my attention to the haunted coastlines of Azsuna. I didn’t know too much about Azsuna going in, but I had heard it had a lot of connections to Highborne history and ancient magic, so my warlock seemed the obvious choice to be the first to set foot on its forgotten shores.

A seaside holiday:

Azsuna is the first zone I’ve played in Legion that doesn’t feel like a clear attempt to recapture the magic of some region from World of Warcraft’s past. While I’m not opposed to the occasional shameless play to nostalgia, it’s good to know Legion is also capable of charting its own course.

Azsuna is also the first zone so far where I’ve encountered the Legion directly… which is rather strange when you think about it. I’ll need some more time to decide how I feel about the Legion not being seen in the new content very often; it has its pros and cons. But either way I’m glad to have at least one zone where we fight the demons directly, even if it’s only a relatively small part of the experience.

Undoubtedly the most memorable thing about Azsuna is its visuals, which are absolutely stunning. Every zone so far has been nice to look at, but Azsuna is just breathtaking. The somber ancient architecture, the shining ocean waters, the verdant plant life, the brilliant colours of the leylines… There is nothing about this zone that isn’t gorgeous.

Every WoW expansion has improved on the last when it comes to graphics, but Legion may represent a quantum leap forward not seen since Wrath of the Lich King. The depth and detail is unlike anything we’ve seen in this game before.

I can keep going for ages and still not do justice to just how pretty Azsuna is. It has to be seen to be believed — even my screenshots may not be entirely doing it justice.

That’s not to say that Azsuna is all style and no substance, though. The actual content of the zone also impresses.

Azsuna’s storyline isn’t the best Blizzard’s ever done, but it is definitely the best of the expansion so far. I greatly enjoyed the tragic story of the Court of Farondis — doomed to eternal damnation for trying to do the right thing — and Prince Farondis himself is pretty much my new hero.

It was also nice to see Azshara again, however briefly. It’s a long way from the Azshara expansion I’ve been fantasizing about for the last several years, but it’s good to know Blizzard hasn’t forgotten her entirely.

It seems like slightly more effort was put into quest mechanics in this zone, too. I particularly enjoyed a quest where you experience what an NPC was doing while you were otherwise occupied, ultimately ending up with you (as the NPC) turning the quest in to yourself.

There are a few dull quest chains, but they’re the sort of thing you can easily skip on subsequent playthroughs.

The zone’s leveling dungeon, the trollishly named Eye of Azshara, was also quite enjoyable. It’s very well-paced, and the final boss fight was an epic, visually spectacular experience.

I did find the soundtrack in Azsuna a bit dull. Which, come to think of it, has been a bit of a problem throughout Legion so far… and in Warlords of Draenor. Is Blizzard’s excellent soundtrack finally slipping? That would be a real shame, as often the music has been among the most enjoyable things in WoW. It certainly makes the endless grinding a lot easier to deal with.

Another disappointment is that, despite the name, we learn nothing new about Azsune in this zone — she’s never even mentioned. I’ve been wanting answers about her basically forever, and I thought now I might finally get them. Maybe in another fifteen years or so…

Even with those complaints, though, Azsuna was a great ride. Easily the best zone of the expansion so far, with Eye of Azshara also being the best dungeon so far.

Warlock woes:

If anything truly detracted from the experience, it was my continued unhappiness with the state of warlocks.

Really this is an excellent lesson in the power of inertia and nostalgia. I don’t doubt that I would have enjoyed the actual gameplay more as a demon hunter, or really almost any other class. Instead I chose to suffer through insane ramp-up time and no combat visuals to speak of purely because of the history I have with my warlock and my fondness for her as a character.

After finishing Azsuna, I got my second artifact, the Scepter of Sargeras, and I think I’ll try playing destruction again for a while. Thinking it might be my solo spec, while affliction is reserved for grouping.

These days choosing a spec as a warlock is really just picking how you want to suck. Do you want to be able to get up and make a sandwich while chaos bolt is casting, or do you want an eternity of ramp-up time coupled with an utter lack of combat visuals, or would you rather just give up fighting altogether and become a buff bitch for a bunch of mindless NPCs?

The one thing I can say is that the parts of being a warlock that don’t have to do with actually playing them are turning out to be pretty fun. I’m loving their class story, and their artifacts are pretty awesome.

I’ve had the absurd good luck to have both artifacts so far go excellently with my preferred outfits for the associated specs. Ulthalesh might as well have been designed for my affliction outfit, and the red tint for the Scepter goes very well with the blood mage look I prefer for destro.

With the rain and the thunder of Stormheim behind me, I now turn my eyes to the lush groves of Val’sharah for my second Legion zone.

As this is an area steeped in the culture and history of the Night Elves, it seems only appropriate that I send my monk. With the Wanderer’s Companion in hand and the backing of the Order of the Broken Temple, she is ready to teach the Legion to fear the night.

Andu-falah-dor.

Val’sharah-sharah, whatever will be, will be…

Just as Stormheim was a clear play to Wrath of the Lich King nostalgia, Val’sharah is a clear throwback to old Night Elf zones like Teldrassil and Ashenvale. Visually, it’s almost exactly a graphically updated Ashenvale, and the music is deliberately similar.

I have less fond memories of those areas than I did for the Howling Fjord, so the play to nostalgia isn’t as effective for me as it was in Stormheim.

I do like Elves, though, and this is very much the Night Elves’ show. The whole zone is so unrelentingly Elfy I can hear Syp squirming from here — an image which can only endear me to the zone. 😛

I particularly liked seeing all the updated Night Elf architecture — it’s absolutely gorgeous. I’m glad the game is finally letting go of its human/Orc obsession, at least for a little while.

With that being said, though, I think my favourite part of the zone was the wind-blown coast around Black Rook Hold. It’s stunningly beautiful, albeit in a very grim manner, and I wish we could have gotten an entire zone with that aesthetic.

All in all, I’d say Val’sharah, like Stormheim, is firmly in the “okay, not great” category. It’s not unpleasant, but nor does it rank among WoW’s more memorable experiences to date.

I’d say its biggest problem is that its pacing is off. You start out doing a lot of pointless busywork to gather a bunch of archdruids that you never see again, but then everything starts going catastrophically wrong at once, and that half feels too rushed.

It was nice to see Tyrande out and doing things again, but I would have liked to see her doing more. This is Tyrande frickin’ Whisperwind. There should have been a scene where she murders a whole cohort of doomguards with her bare hands or something.

Similarly, I like the idea of bringing Xavius back again (even if this is, like, the third or fourth time he’s come back from the dead), but he didn’t get enough attention. I wanted more explanation of how he’s come back again, and why now, and generally more build-up to make me truly hate him as a villain.

That’s not to say he didn’t do much. I don’t want to spoil things too heavily, but suffice it to say we lost yet another character. This expansion’s body count is absolutely insane, and I’m only two zones in.

I’m not necessarily against killing off [REDACTED]. But it happened too quickly, too suddenly, and with too little struggle. There should have been more of an attempt to save them. We as heroes seemed to just give up right out of the gate, and [REDACTED] should have put up more of a fight.

Also, while I enjoyed the story surrounding Bradensbrook and Black Rook Hold, as well as seeing Jarod again, I really don’t like how the game is just sort of hand-waving away all the murder and treason Maiev’s done.

This is one of those times where I really wish WoW had something like Bioware’s story choices. My monk is a loyal Sentinel. There’s no way she would have let Maiev walk away a free woman. She’d have brought Maiev to justice or died trying.

Finally, Val’sharah’s dungeon, Darkheart Thicket, is once again good but not great. I found it better paced and well-balanced than Halls of Valor, but it’s a bit visually drab.

It was very nice to be tanking again, though, even if brewmaster is not quite what it once was. I’m surprised other MMOs haven’t followed WoW’s lead in rethinking the traditional tanking model. Since active mitigation, tanking in WoW is vastly more fun than in any other game I’ve played.

I think I did reasonably well considering I’m out of practice and had never done the dungeon before. A few pulls got a bit hairy, but nobody died, and at the end, one of the DPS even complimented me on my tanking. You don’t see that often.

So that now makes two zones down, both adequate but not spectacular. It almost feels like the leveling zones became an afterthought while all the best effort was put toward the artifact quests and class stories.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though, as we’re still getting awesome story content. Just not in the way we usually would.