Okay. I finally took my first steps into the Wrath of the Lich King expansion – the new continent! Ah yes…Northrend. It’s been a while since the last expansion and I was looking forward to it. New stuff, new quests, new lore, and new problems to solve. I’d done my best to not look into all the new stuff online prior to getting there myself but it wasn’t easy. At this point I’m pretty much full PvP gear, fully gemmed, only 1 or 2 gear enchants (which I’ve got to get fixed) and level 70.
I only had about an hour last night to run around (which means I took an hour an a half of course) so I didn’t get too far in. My first impression? There is a lot going on. I landed in Valiance Keep and was quickly immeresed in the new world. Lines of men lining up for service, a few ships here and there, soldiers training and, oh yeah, the keep is apparently under constant attack from land and air. It’s pretty neat.
There are a few “get your feet wet” quests that a Sgt. Hammerhill will give you along the lines of the “go kill 6 of these then come back” sort of quest. There are a few of the “find your way around the keep” quests and a few others right away. The graphics look pretty cool in my opinion and the gritty, front line feeling is well done.
But my time was short so I ran around and did several of the opening quests where I killed a handful of those, and a few of these, dropped some dynamite on some critter holes (tip: when you do this one step back and watch…it’s pretty neat), went looking for a few things in a nearby mine and so on. Pretty standard stuff that feels really familiar to any “new zone” experience in the World of Warcraft up to this point.
I decided to strike out and do at least some exploring before having to shut it down for the night. I’d picked up a few quests that I knew would take me far and wide however time simply didn’t allow. So I randomly picked northwest and took off at a run. Pretty quickly I came across a cave entrance with a bunch of level 68-70 mobs milling about the entrance and of course went right in.
The trash mobs were pretty easy and not too tightly packed for one Druid to move through them quickly. Once inside the entrance opens into a pretty cool multilevel mini dungeon with a descending spiral ramp . On the way down the ramp, mixed in among the level 68-70 trash mobs, are several Mates of Magmothregar. These were elite level 68-69 mobs that were pretty easy to take down. Opening with trees – debuff - insect swarm – moonfire – roots and on to wrath until a few talents proc’d. They went down surprisingly fast from there.
So if there are mates where is the big boy himself – where is Magmothreger? Why down at the bottom of the dungeon of course. (tip: if you want to skip the long sprial ramp and several elite mates just jump down the whole in the middle. When you land at the bottom you’ll aggro a few level 70 mobs but thats it). Down at the bottom of the pit, off to the side in a big room all to himself, is Magmothregar. Big bastard but no other mobs in the room. This guy is an elite level 72 however he also went down really fast. Opened with the same sequence of spells as above but threw in a Starfall just for good measure. The trees and dot’s took him about half way down and a few more root – dot – wrath combos dropped him. I think I popped a few lifeblooms towards the end.
All in all pretty darn easy for a solo level 70 Balance Druid. On the way out I dropped into cat, popped a dash and didn’t have any problems getting out fast. The only drops were some coin and cloth. My time was up so I shot back to the Keep and parked it for the night.
So, initial impression of this Wrath of the Lich King expansion? So far, with only a bit over an hour in, it’s pretty much ordinary. There is a lot going on to be sure and the layout I’ve seen so far is pretty cool. It’s a new place with new looking critters however it feels like new paint on an old template. But I’ve yet to even scratch the surface so I’ve got big hopes!
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