Legion Invasions and Legacy Servers...they're linked you know....

But how, you're asking.....well let's get to that shall we.

*NOTE THIS IS PTR BASED, Not Beta* (Blizzard hasn't given me a Beta Key) 

So this passed week the 7.03 Pre-Lauch content went up on the PTR, and I have been LOVING it. Included are all the class changes, new talents, UI improvements, and new Transmog System.

Let's look at the changes first, before we get to the Invasions.

I am playing a Ret Pally on the PTR (my Live main is a BM Hunter), and I am very mush enjoying this class again. Ret was my Vanilla/BC/Wrath main, and I just fell out of love with that toon. But with the new Talent tree and talents, I have fallen in love again. That old main Ret Pally has become an Alt and I still play it (just got legendary ring last week) and is doing roughly 35-45k DPS in WoD raids at ilvl 696. Now I didn't copy over this toon to the PTR and just created a lvl 100 PTR toon, and with the new talents and the Fel gear that's dropping in the Invasion's I am ilvl 691 and doing 85-90k DPS. It is super exciting to see this and I may go back to maining my Ret Pally, but I really do like shooting stuff, so who knows.

I also created a Surv Hunter, and I am not sure yet. Requires more testing.

Transmog changes are what I am loving the most so far though. The ability to be able to see a full set put together (without MogIt), and save the sets is nice. I haven't been into transmog a lot since it was introduced years ago, mainly because I didn't like the way the System was put together, and ALL the bag space it took up. But I got more into it in Diablo 3, and said from day one of transmog in D3, they need this in WoW to fix it. Low and behold next BlizzCon, Blizzard announced they were putting it in. I spent 3 hours on Saturday, just playing with creating outfits on my BM Hunter who I copied over to the PTR. I wish I had screenshooted some of the outfits, cause they would of been Fashion Police cringe worthy. But the system is smooth, although I am sure they haven't unlocked ALL the quest reward gear yet like they said they were going too. But I imagine they will get it all unlocked by the time it goes live. My only beef is still that I cannot Transmog my Hunter in Leather, and Pally in Mail. All toons should be able to Transmog into gear they can wear. Yes, I know seeing a Warrior in a Priest robe is wrong, but it could make for some fun Xmogs in the future.


Let's move onto the Invasion's now, so I can link it to Legacy Servers, sorta

So at two zones at a time, a Legion Invasion starts and you must go to the Zone and complete the 4 stages. You get a chest with Nethershards, ilvl 700, Weapons and Armour, and weapon upgrade token at the end of Stage 2 and 4. The Weapon with be ilvl 700 at start and the token with take it to stages 2-6 up to a max of 5 ilvls per token, to a max of ilvl 725. In each Zone is an Illidari Camp that has vendors to spend your Nethershards on Food buffs, ilvl 700 back cloak, rings, necks and trinks and full Cloth, Leather, Mail, and Plate armour sets. Each Invasion nets you around 240 Nethershards.

Stage 1

Defend <Enter Town/Area Here> (right now it's Kharano's, Ogrimmar Rear Gate, Tarren Mill, Westfall, Gadgetzan, Crossroads)
You and everyone else just kills stuff till the bar gets to 100%. This is usually the quickest Stage.

Stage 2

Kill the 2-3 Lieutenants and Commander attacking said town.

The 2-3 Lieutenants will spawn first and once you take them down the Commander will spawn and you take him down too. Then you get some Nethershards and a Chest, which contains the above mentioned items.

Stage 3

Defend Zone.

So a bunch of Legion buildings and demons will Spawn ALL over the Zone you're currently in, and you need to go take them all out. Each building is surrounded by Legion toons, that you need to kill to get near the entrance to the building. Once inside kill the Stone and building goes away. Keep doing this until the progress bar gets to 100% like Stage 1. This will take a LOT longer than stage one, and killing 5-6 regular non-elite Legion demons will only net you 1% on the progress bar. Elite's only give 6-8%.

Stage 4

World Boss Demon

You will be forced to fly back to Town you're defending and kill a bunch of regular demons until a World Boss spawns. The boss's HP will go up based on how many people are attacking. For example, I was in Westfall on my Pally. When the boss first spawned, it has 150m HP, by the time everyone started attacking it that was in the Zone, it was up to 292m HP. These world bosses do have mechanics you need to watch out for, cone attacks, player debuffs (one Eraedor had one that wouldn't let players heal, gross) etc. Once boss is down, you get more Nethershards and another chest with above items in it.

All in all these take roughly 20-30 mins to complete. Also my fav thing about this is that Alliance Players can do the ones in Horde Zones and vice versa. The guards in the towns go passive and bother Horde and Alliance work together to stop the Legion, no matter what town/area it is in.

So how does this link to Legacy Servers, sorta...

Well it brings back the sense of community that WoW hasn't had since Wrath. I firmly believe these invasions are one of many tests by Blizzard to see if the community will work together again, and how they feel about it. I for one saw many people on the PTR so happy that so many people were in one place. One thing the legacy servers will require is everyone working together again like the old days and these Invasions will be a great test for that.

The invasions made me miss old WoW more so than ever. I never played on Nostralious, but I did try a couple others (hated them cause they changes lvling mechanics and invented they're own specs and classes) and I must say they way the community worked together made me weep for the current non-social state of WoW, Thanks Obam....oh wait....not his fault.

Some side notes relating to other things.

I am working on a new layout for the blog. I may switch to WordPress and buy a domain. The new layout should launch (as of now) with the launch of Legion.

I am also considering making a Facebook fan page, and doing some live stream testing on it when Blizzard implements the Facebook API into all the games. Wouldn't be twitch like at the beginning. Won't be able to switch to Twitch until we move back to Ontario and I have a nice private office to work out of. Right now I WoW in the living room while the wife watches TV, so I cannot stream twitch style.

Let me know what you think about these changes.

Karlsson......OUT!