Underpin down,
AotC in LoU,
and 1800 in PvP.
Think that’s a good round robin. What an adventure.
I wanna share my thoughts on the journey.
Note I don’t M+ and this will not reflect M+ in the slightest. Also I’m not factoring in minor content patches too much, I’m focusing on the core aspects of the season I’ve played.
Undermine
Undermine is one of the coolest zones ever added in the game. It’s a singular, compact city but there’s so much stuff crammed into it! Even now I’m finding new things I didn’t see before, or locations that were so out of the way.
Did you know Undermine has an underground church? I didn’t! Gob Pallies, please.
The campaign was more about gobs themselves than about the cosmic powers that be, and I found it a lot more enjoyable as a result. A lot o the struggles gobs go through are pretty darn relatable, and it was such a fun time trying to resolve their problems, sometimes in the most roundabout ways.
I’m happy that gobs weren’t written to be these meme machines. Yes, there’s money and explosions, but there was a good amount of good character building, and I think it was really well done.
My biggest complaint, Renzik being dead silent the entire time. It was jarring pre-patch, it’s jarring now. Fella had a short story, fully narrated, in his honor, and him being silent is so off to me. I’m sure there’s a reason, but the solution being dead silence is just…not great.
No, Undermine is a great location, and honestly, I feel it will be hard to top. We’re talking Suramar tier.
Delves
Think everyone can agree that Delves were drastically improved over S1. Increased rewards, more stories, more mechanically heavy stories, and a new boss. T11s went from “web bolts hit you for half your HP in Myth tier gear” to “okay web bolts hit for like 25% but that’s manageable”.
It was a pretty great progression curve! T11s can be difficult but rarely overwhelming, and having lives really helped with the potential burden of failure. I liked the new stories and delve sites, and how old stories were revamped to feel refreshing despite being the idea. It gives me hope future delve seasons will follow this formula.
The underwater delves were also vastly improved, with a good number of stories redone to be less cramped and giving you someone with the bright idea of selling air. I no longer avoided underwater delves like the plague.
The only delve story I disliked vehemently was Site 9’s mining story. It’s still bad. The sheer amount of elite-tier enemies that can spawn all at once, all with a singular focus on you is downright dangerous.
Still, I enjoyed delving a whole lot! I understand I’m typing this before the new delves are out, and I am really looking forward to those, too.
Now, Underpin. I did this early in the season, retrospectively.
As per tradition,
I’ve had time to think on this fight. And I think I like it. When you boil down to it Zekky is a test against patience. Even if he heals there’s no rush to finish the fight. You can fight him for an hour. It’s a really bizarre decision to have P2 be easier than P1.
In Underpin, there’s no ‘easy’ phase, it’s all a rough ride throughout. He autoattacks, he has adds, he has bombs, he has mechanics, and he has a self heal and DPS race. There’s no extra phases, it’s a grueling, relentless dance you have to perfect to get him down.
Or play a tank and do a bazillion damage for no reason but I’m referring to us who don’t have the luxury.
My big complaint about it is that, one, it was extremely buggy early in the season (Brann just up and dies which makes the fight unwinnable, adds in bleachers, other bizarre happenings), and two, it didn’t reset your cooldowns in between wipes. Every other boss in every other delve does. Zekky does. Underpin, nope, you’re waiting 5-10 minutes per pull for optimal results.
It may have been fixed by now, but really I think I really liked the fight. It took me roughly over 250 attempts to down him, but I feel like I earned it by the end.
Overall, Delves got a lot of love and if trends continue, will continue to receive it. It’s such a great addition to WoW.
Liberation of Undermine
Easily one of my top five raids, and sure is high up there. Compared to Nerub-ar Palace (Which I will admit I only did in LFR since I was just coming back to the game from a forced vacation) it is exploding with character and personality. It also incorporated the entire city, and it was real cool to zoom around on your cars from boss to boss!
The bosses themselves are great. Really memorable, pretty cut and dry mechanics (difficult ones, but understandable without addons which I don’t use) and the Gallagio, holy cow, it looks absolutely beautiful. Please let us be able to go in and do stuff outside of the raid.
My complaints about LoU are the trash, and just how much there, Bunkjunker isn’t doing his job all that well, and how all these neat services the raid provides, services that could very well be in the city itself, are locked to the raid until you max the reknown chart. That is wild.
Really the only thing stopping me from using Undermine as a hub is the lack of anything. It has a bank, even! But it’s not an in-game bank! It makes no sense!
Anyways, the raid is great. The music is great, the fights are great, it’s a really fast paced and frantic race with minimal downtimes, and the last three bosses get downright spooky as the fights go on.
I’m a big fan.
PvP
I dunno, it seemed fine. I think Evokers being unbothered by any snares and just flying off into the distance with flags is silly, but outside of that I was pretty key at killing EFCs, defending points, and making healers absolutely miserable. So, mission accomplished!
It was the first time I did RBGBs seriously and I find them really fun! Honestly, more fun than the regular BGs. I think the template (and the inability to use any outside items like BG pots) should be integrated into unranked BGs, I think it would be a lot more fun. You may even have people trying to PvP casually instead of doing an Unranked, going against someone in full Conq popping a Saltwater Potion with full buffs and wondering what just happened in the last three seconds.
But no, that’s all I got for PvP. I enjoyed it for the most part!
Conclusion
I think S2 was a vast improvement over S1. I was pretty lukewarm towards S1, like ‘This is okay but that’s about it’, but S2 is a pretty cool vibe throughout. I really enjoyed the raid, and I’m really enjoying Delves.
You were a good time, S2, I’m looking forward to S3.
