Got really into retail during legion, played the hell out of it during bfa. Was on moonguard. Made sure I got the season 1 pvp plate set for ret Paladin for exactly this reason of wanting to come back to retail one day and play my human ret Paladin with that mog. Had some of the greatest 1v1 open world pvp experiences in bfa vs orc warrior with org tabard in bfa. It was like the cinematic. So yeah I really enjoyed bfa. Played some of shadowlands but didn’t get as committed to it.
Sod raidlogging getting a little stale and Im starting to really miss the aspects that retail had to offer. If I liked bfa a lot (ik thats controversial), it a good time coming back to play on moonguard? How fast can I catch up?
I can’t speak to how Moonguard is these days but I think its a fine time to come back. Gearing is pretty quick as you can get gear crafted for you thats pretty darn good, and mythic plus gives alot of loot. It might be a bit bumpy to get your foot in the door but once you’ve got some keys under your belt it gets alot quicker.
not bragging, just giving context - that I play the game
That all said…I don’t think it’s a good time to come back. The tier sets that are literally required simply seem to force talents (largely unwelcome talents) onto the player. The “new talent trees” were proclaimed to add “choice” - but with the addition of tier sets, they are nothing but forced paths in those talent trees. We’re not talking about a 7% difference. We are talking upwards of 25-30% difference if you don’t toe their talent line. Until they can figure that out - I wouldn’t come back to retail, personally.
Catch up is pretty quick. Sounds like it would be a fun change of pace for you. It’s not going to complete you as a person or anything but it’s something to do.
No, Blizzard doesn’t deserve anyone to come back. They continue to crap on players dreams and hopes and call it “clever.” Continue to change the rules to increase grinding and player frustration. Continue to schedule maintenance during North America daytime.
Total disregard for the player base and as usual, just a money hungry corporate machine.
To me Dragonflight is almost as good as Legion. I still place Legion and WOTLK above it, and MOP tied, but there isn’t a huge gap. I tie Dragonflight in the #3 place, with MOP, behind Legion and WOTLK.
I completely agree with the analysis of the impact of tier sets on talent builds. But I, as a data point of 1, don’t really care. I don’t spec shop, I play what I like, and, yea, I don’t care for the Demonfire mechanic (I don’t like channeled spells), but I use it because of the tier set, and I coped. Not a big deal for me.
Others, sure, who knows. But not for me.
The modern game lets you power up fast, the zones are glorious, the story isn’t completely dreadful (I have low expectations). And it’s not an endless borrowed power grind, so you can level alts, NOT PLAY, farm gold, whatever you want. Much less “forced” content.
And Dragonriding is a blast.
I’m not particularly bouncy happy about profs, but that’s me.
My man if you like World PvP there’s is plenty to be found if you look for it, and sometimes even if you don’t the Emerald Dream and Dragon Isles are lawless lands, there are faction neutral PvP areas that don’t despawn and always have someone to fight.
I’ve been having loads of fun with it especially with all the new WPvP consumables, makes it very interesting to have a Knock BAck Bomb, a potion that pulls rogues out of stealth, and a fruit that makes me run fast enough to catch a Drakthyr. Also the dismount feature on the dragon riding mounts is tons of fun, when a warcrate drops and just out and about sometimes you have an epic aerial dogfight before one of you ends up on the ground missing a 3rd of his life or dead then you go in for the kill.
In WoD, if you didn’t raid, there was little to do.
Now, if you don’t raid, there’s tons of open world events you can do for transmog sets, there’s a gear upgrade system, you’ve got Achievements.
Yes. Delves could potentially be the thing that brings WoW back to the top. I know that’s super optimistic, but the game itself is fantastic. So much lore, so much to do. It’s not perfect (no game is), but the depth and fun it provides are hard to beat.
If you liked BFA, you will probably not like the new direction of the game as it has moved away from power-based grinds and is not faction war centric.