What is the TLDR on shadowlands? Better or worse than BFA?
I wouldn’t say the verdict is in yet. A lot of the things that were concerning from the beta are not even in the realm of a realistic problem. Not near as many came back at launch, but instead are filtering in now.. a month later.
1. Covenants are no where near balanced as far as abilities. But generally, 2 of the 4 are at least viable picks. Whatever. Fairly easy to change to a brand new one and catch up quickly.
2. Soul Binds are an after thought and you basically get them from everything you do. I have Ilvl 200 on 90% of them and that’s really good. The differences are really small between ilvls though.
3. There is no AP grind in terms of character power. Everything related to anima is quality of life or cosmetic. Good.
4. WQ’s are an afterthought but the daily calling is a good source of money for 15-20 minutes of WQing at 2kish. Good.
5. The Maw is a shit hole. It doesn’t get better. The best thing that’ll happen to you is getting exalted with Ve’Nari so you can finally take a break from the place (until you need sockets. Which is idiotic if anyone is putting them on anything less than heroic bis. Weekly quests should be enough Stygia after the rep grind. I’m at 37k. Bad.
6. Torghast is very much lack luster. The “idea” of it was beautiful and everyone hoped for Hades. Instead, it’s just a half brained attempt at putting WOW classes into Hades. You’ll leave the place thinking “they could do so much more”. Soul ash for legendaries is all you’ll get and you’ll just want to get it over with rather than play it randomly. Bad.
7. Rep grinds outside of the maw are really only necessary for professions or cosmetics. Which is nice imo. I’m revered for the main ones just by doing the weekly and callings.
8. Legendaries are a lot easier to get than what beta alluded to. You get enough soul ash to build them fairly quickly. I have two at 210 and saving up soul ash for my 235 tank one on Tuesday. Its basically an upgrade a week which is a good feeling.
9. Professions seem empty or gutted? But have enough in them to keep people busy. The legendary base pieces are some real Grindy shit though. Thankfully time is on the buyers side as prices continue to fall. Hopefully they’ll add more recipes etc. - “so-so”
10. Mythic + didn’t change much. Dungeons are all around well received, though. Kite meta is a thing for tanks at high keys and won’t change from that at least in this season. Hello demon hunters. Not a fan of this meta but it’s tolerable. -“So-so”
11. The raid is fun. Overturned in some parts, but the change in loot drops and difficulty has basically extended the raids longevity for the better. Mythic wasn’t beaten in a day, but took ..8? 9? Days to clear. Itemization could have been better. I have almost no interest in the raid since just about everything in there is not bis for any slot for my class. - So-so.
12. Class balance is no where near as bad as it was in bfa. Still some outliers, but I haven’t heard of anyone being in a complete shit hole. Mostly a good improvement over last expansion. The community will make you think warriors are in a tough spot, but I had a warrior in an 8 mots group that was constantly in the 3.8-5.2k range. /friend request - good.
13. Gear drops have been neutered. You can kill the entire raid and might get just 1 piece if you’re lucky. You can run several mythics and not get shit (been ilvl 200 for about a week now.) I have yet to get gear from lfr or the world bosses, regardless if I need it. Debatable if this is a good change or not. I’m happy to just get a piece of gear now. But there was a while where my secondary stats were just flat out awful.
13(cont) - the vault that resets weekly has been a pretty good change over the weekly chest. I really only have 5-6 options a week, but you can have up to 9. Seems like shit at first cause you might want them all - but I really only wanted 1 thing out of all 6 options I had this past week. Thankful I could choose that one over the other possible outcomes, basically. - Unsure.
14. Nerfs. They have touched covenant abilities and legendaries but they haven’t neutered them. Subtle changes only. It’s been said there are some changes coming, but they won’t happen till a major patch. - good.
At this point, I really just want to know what’s next and when it’s coming. Feels like plenty to do this expansion, but not really. There really isn’t a lot you can do to improve your character. I enjoyed Legion a lot more, but by no means has this been a shit expansion so far.