I would say it’s, so far, a solid 7 in my books!
Pros:
- Covenant Content is fun, I like how versatile Anima is vs War Resources and enjoy SL’s iteration of the Mission Table quite a bit in terms of gameplay and reward structure. I also really enjoy the conduit system and think it’s pretty great so far.
- Torghast is by far one of the best pieces of new content added to the game in years! (Note: I have a bias as I love Roguelike/lite games)
- Step back from massive, infinite, grinds though I think it could have gone further.
- In general the story feels pretty decent though I am uneasy on how Sylvanas will be handled. I really hope they don’t try to redeem her…
- Leveling is well paced and threads of fate is very alt friendly/cool. I think Blizzard has made some amazingly fantastic strides in terms of the leveling experience with Shadowlands from the experience itself to major UI changes/updates.
Cons:
- The Maw is by far the worst experience I have had with the game in a long time. I don’t want to take up too much space here with it but I have expressed why I dislike it in other threads.
- Covenant Abilities. These detract so much from he rest of the covenant experience for me and are the sole reason I am not entirely satisfied with my Covenant choice nor is it possible for me to be. I 100% think these core abilities should be separate from the covenants themselves. I have also made several posts on this point as well.
- Class Balance (not design) feels way off in so many aspects and is especially felt in group PvE and PvP. I never expect things to be perfectly balanced, they never will be, but there are some very drastic power gaps that make it feel really bad to play some classes/specs vs other classes/specs and that is before bringing covenant abilities into the mix. Really hope we get a class tuning patch before the raid with some major changes.
- Minor nitpicky but Oribos is a bit too large and spread out for my taste but I wouldn’t really say that affected my personal rating.
Just my two copper pieces on Shadowlands so far and the main points in both the positive and negative for me.