Battle for Azeroth: First Impressions

It's pretty late for a first impressions post, but I played a lot on launch week (though I didn't take time off or anything). Then I went on vacation for a week and didn't play at all. So now I'm back, and currently behind everyone in my guild. Oh well, they can carry me for the first couple weeks of raiding.

Some scattered impressions:

• There is a ton of content. I'm still not finished with Kul Tiras on Coriel, though I'm close. Then there's the whole Horde side to go. It really feels like two expansions in one.

• There seems to be a lot of angst about level-scaling. Honestly, I didn't really notice any real change from 115 onwards. Before 115, Coriel out-geared the mobs, so it was a bit faster.

• Azerite gear and mechanics seem okay to me. I do think that Azerite gear makes a bad first impression, especially compared to the artifact weapons in Legion. Maybe I'll expand on this later.

• I actually like the talent setup a lot, at least for Retribution. I've been playing around with the options, and they all play slightly differently. Inquisition, no Inquisition, Wake of Ashes, no Wake, more or less Art of War procs, faster Crusader Strikes, Divine Purpose procs. You can tailor your rotation to just how you like it. I use faster Crusader Strikes, Wake of Ashes, and no Inquisition. Fairly straightforward, with a small amount of procs to make life interesting.

• At least, you can tailor your rotation if you don't care about absolute max damage. For raiding, you'll probably get stuck with the cookie cutter build. But for levelling and solo play, it's quite good.

• There are a lot more cutscenes than I expected, and it's nice to see that a lot of them feature your character.

• Normal mode dungeons are pretty solid, though best with a steady tank instead of one who pulls everything. For some reason, out of all the tanks, Brewmaster monks seem the most impatient to me. Which is rather ironic.

• Professions are pretty good. I really like having a separate rating for each expansion, rather than one giant bar. It also looks like Blizzard has made the ranks easier to get. In Legion, it kind of felt like Blizzard expected Rank 2 to be the standard, and then Rank 3 was a bonus that a given character might or might not have. However, everyone got upset when they didn't get Rank 3.