We are now just about three weeks into Shadowlands and so far it’s been a busy – and slightly obsessive – couple of weeks, with gearing up for raid and keeping up with all the new things to do. The most exciting new thing that released with season 1 is the first raid Castle Nathria, a gothic-themed castle that takes its inspiration from Dracula and Castlevania. As always, a new expansion means spending lots of time checking out the new features and I have thoughts on them.
This post is going to be a casual one, being that the expansion is very new and I’ll have complete thoughts about things around the time of patch 9.1. My favorite thing to do right now is spending time in the Maw, completing dailies and work on my rep with Ve’nari (maybe one day she’ll appreciate me.) Realizing the Maw is my favorite took me by surprise, because my early impression about questing in the Maw was that it was going to be a very bad place to be, and that I wouldn’t have a reason to stay. While the Maw is very dangerous and unforgiving – players lose a portion of their Stygia after death, which they need to run back to their body to recover – it’s so great to see so many people down there with me, whether it be for dailies or for the daily rare bosses. In fact, I wish I could spend more time there, but increasingly deadly penalties are placed on players by the Jailer who kill too many of his minions. Penalties reset daily, but it gets to a point where I just need to leave and wait it out. Besides that, I’m enjoying slowly uncovering the mysteries of the Jailer’s realm and learning more about the shady Ve’nari, who has somehow eluded capture for a long time.
The Ardenweald Covenant campaign has been great so far, with provides some insight into Tyrande’s descent to madness. Everything involving my Covenant Sanctum – and doing daily quests for Marasmius – has been fun, and there’s tons to do. I can’t wait to see how the story with Ardenweald and Tyrande will evolve.
So far my guild has only raided Castle Nathria once since it was released, and it was obvious after a couple pulls that we were under-geared. Next week our full raid schedule will resume, and I’m interested to see how we’ve improved as well as the tuning Blizzard has given to some bosses. I’m getting a good feeling from the raid though, and the bosses that we’ve fought so far have been fun and interesting. In particular, I like the Artificer Xy’mox encounter.
I’m eager to level alts and start delving into the other Covenants’ stories, even if gearing up for raid is my main priority right now. I hear the Kyrian campaign is very good, which is the least exciting new zone to me, however I still can’t wait to catch up.