Torghast

Torghast is an interesting experience, especially as I've been playing Hades lately.

Torghast consists of multiple wings, each wing with multiple layers, and each layer with 6 floors. Two wings are open each week. You unlock layers by completing the previous layer (though once you've unlocked, say, Layer 3, you can access Layer 3 on any wing). Torghast's main reward is Soul Ash, which you need to craft Legendary equipment.

Each run of Torghast involves you going through the six floors in a layer. The layout of each floor is more or less random, with a vendor on the 3rd floor and a boss on the 6th floor. You have to beat the boss to complete the run and get the reward. As you progress you get random "anima powers" which boost or alter your abilities, or give you buffs. Most of the time, you get to select a power from up to 3 choices.

Torghast scales from solo to a group of five players. I've done runs solo, in a duo, and in a group of five. Elites and bosses have stacking buff which increases their damage, so there is a DPS check which you have to meet. So you have to balance anima powers between offense and defense.

It's pretty interesting because different builds can focus you on different powers. But so far, the boons don't do anything too drastic. You still play your basic rotation.

I recommend always choosing anima powers which will help you with the end boss. In my experience, the end boss is the most difficult part of a run. The closest I've come to failing was a run where I took too much defensive powers, and had real trouble meeting the damage check.

Another tip is, that at least when you are solo, it's possible to pull carefully and only get a small number of enemies at a time. For example, if two elites appear to be sparring, you can pull one of the elites without getting the other.

There's one wing where an assassin spawns when you are out of combat. I kept a mawrat in combat with me most of the time, and that stopped the assassin from spawning. Blizzard did nerf the assassins later in the week, though, so it might be easier to kill them.

Torghast is a pretty fun experience, and Blizzard has done a nice job of allowing you to farm or progress. If you just want to farm, you only have to do two layers each week to get the maximum rewards. The anima powers allow you to construct weird, broken, or amusing combinations, without breaking the rest of the game.

Night Fae Covenant, The Maw

Night Fae Covenant

In the end, I turned my back on Holy Paladin theorycraft and joined the Night Fae Covenant. The abilities are mediocre, but the covenant itself is really enjoyable. 

The initial quests were amazing! The Fae put on a play explaining the events of the last two expansions, complete with audience reactions. It was hilarious! If you've played through the last two expansions, especially if you're a steady player, you have to take a character through this Covenant.

Otherwise it's pretty much been steadily unlocking facets of the covenant. I like the new adventure table. It's much more of a real game with strategy. I think it's based off "auto-chess", which is a genre I really haven't looked into.

The Maw

The Maw is okay. There are a couple of weekly quests, a couple of daily quests, and some rares and bosses. Not being able to mount is unusual, but you get used to it pretty fast.

The daily cap mechanic is interesting. Every major thing you do in the Maw (bosses, quests) increases the Jailor's Eye on you and adds more and more annoying mechanics. Level 1 makes some wandering monsters hostile. Level 2 periodically bombards your location, forcing you to move. Level 3 has assassins appear when you fight new mobs. Level 4 has Mawsworn swoop down and pick you up. I think you have to kill them before they drop you to your death. Level 5 is an auto-kill I think. I try to stay below Level 3, as I find the assassins very annoying.

It's a really interesting way of doing a soft cap on your activities (with a hard cap at Level 5).

The Maw is okay, I guess. It's not particularly interesting, but the game encourages you to limit your time inside the Maw, meaning that it doesn't become overly tiresome. It's pretty comfortable moving it down the list of priorities, but slowly working on the story.

Ardenweald and Revendreth

This post contains spoilers for Ardenweald and Revendreth,

Ardenweald

I loved Ardenweald. I've always liked the fae in fiction, and I think Blizzard did a great job with their version. The NPCs are great and likeable. The Winter Queen is appropriately powerful and mysterious. The story itself is excellent, especially if you played through Legion.

The quests with Ysera were very well done. I especially liked that, when you replay her death, your character shows up to attack, labeled as 'Hero'. I made sure to breathe fire on my character.

I really enjoyed playing through Ardenweald. It was my favorite zone this expansion. I'm probably going to go Night Fae for my covenant.

Revendreth

Revendreth is Victorian Gothic, with an interesting spin on punishment and redemption. It had a lot of interesting concepts, especially the idea of "sinstones" acting like true names and giving power over a character. It was also interesting that all the Venthyr NPCs, even the friendly ones, were once terrible people. The main villain was also quite good.

I liked Revendreth a lot. I'd rank it the second-best zone. Whatever alt I play next will probably go with Revendreth as a covenant.

Bastion and Maldraxxus

This post contains spoilers for Bastion and Maldraxxus.

Bastion

I didn't like Bastion all that much. You'd think I would like it, it being the obvious paladin covenant. But really, they came across as more cult-like than anything, with the whole erasure of memories bit and everyone being transformed into a blue human.

There's also a curiously chill and low-energy vibe, which is odd. I actually liked the bad guys a lot more, except that they sided with the obviously evil big bad.

It's really annoying that all the paladin theorycrafters say that the Kyrian Covenant is far and away the best covenant, especially for Holy Paladins. I don't really want to join that Covenant.

Maldraxxus

Maldraxxus was more interesting. I liked the different Houses, especially the House of Plagues. Lady Vashj showing up as a major player was quite fun.

The only problem was that ending was quite disjointed. I think one of my addons may have forced-canceled an important cutscene, because suddenly people were talking about being betrayed as if everyone knew it had happened. I disabled all my addons after Maldraxxus just to be safe.

The side-quest with the library was also quite fun. I missed a book on the very bottom floor, and had to go all the way back down and up, evading all the traps again.

Shadowlands: Intro to the Maw

This post contains spoilers for the intro to Shadowlands.

The introductory sequence to Shadowlands involves you and the Ebon Blade going to the Maw to rescue Thrall, Jaina, Baine and Anduin. It's a pretty good questing sequence, with some nice moments for all the cast members. Especially Thrall's search for a weapon.

The Maw has some very weird bridges too, with rows of pop-up spikes running length-wise along the bridge. That architecture doesn't make a lot of sense, but the AI programmers did a nice job of having the NPCs line up behind you as you run down the channel, and then spreading out again once you're off the bridge.

In any case, you escape the Maw, while the NPCs cover your retreat and are captured again. I guess rescuing them is going to be the main task at max level.

The one concern I have about the Maw is that it isn't very visually appealing. In the intro it was all rocks and grey metal, all browns and grays. If that's the palette, it might grow old fast if we do repeatable content at max level. Argus had a similar problem (though with added green for fel).

Shadowlands Pre-Patch Event, Week 2

The second week of the Shadowlands pre-patch event brought a continuation of the Icecrown scourge quest line, some additional dailies, the Scourge plague, and the reduction of rare spawn timers from 20 minutes to 10 minutes.

I liked the scourge quest line. It had some infiltration bits revealing the bad guy, some aerial bombardment from a gryphon, and a final fight against one of the new Shadowland enemies (I assume). Then back to Stormwind for turn-in and a Feat of Strength.

The Scourge plague is pretty fun. People become zombies and then attack other players. If you die to a zombie, you become one and can continue spreading the plague. There are lots of outbreaks in Stormwind and Goldshire. I went to Westfall to spread the plague there. I'm sure many people are unhappy about "interruptions" in their standard game-play, but I'm a fan of shaking things up for a week or so.

Regarding the new rare spawn timer, I think cutting the timer from 20 minutes to 10 minutes was a mistake. The servers have become noticeably less stable, especially around when Bronjahm (who can drop a 34-slot bag) spawns. 10 minutes has made it much easier to farm rares, and I think more people are staying online to do so, rather than going and doing something else when the next spawn is in 20 minutes.

I've collected the sets on my Paladin and Rogue, and have almost finished my Mage and Shaman. I think that will be enough for me.

A Reroll Guild in Classic

On the weekend I joined a re-roll guild in WoW Classic. Basically, everyone in the guild started a new character on one of the low-population PvP servers. I joined in, figuring that maybe it would be easier to get groups or level with.

The guild was Horde, so I made an Undead Warlock.

I have to admit that it was very nice to be in a leveling guild with lots of people. There was a lot of chatter, which was nice.

However, I think I just level too slowly for the main wave of people. I got to level 13 or so by Sunday, and attempted to find a Ragefire Chasm group. However, the main wave of people were already past that point, and doing Wailing Caverns and Shadowfang Keep. 

And because the server is low population, it was impossible to fill the group with outsiders.

So in the end, I gave up and deleted that character. If I play Classic, I'll just stick with the characters I have on the PvE server.