It's that time of year with another silly season, and I don't mean the international football transfer window. So how much fun has the prepatch been this time?
Prepatch content
We got some more quests, which consisted of clicking on some consoles in Silithius like it was BFA, and get Bronzebeard's grandson to come look after his unconscious granddad. That was it. Err?
The other thing we got was a remix of how world quests and world bosses work, with "modern" event timers. With some rewards to buy for a new currency, and a heirloom ring to craft from some drops.
I farmed the ring, and was going to get some gear. But buying the "Bind to Warband" items from the vendor was costly, so I just dropped it and did m+ and raid instead.
Prepatch class experience in endgame
So pretty much every class got some adjustments to their kits, talents and numbers. However, without the Hero Talents there's no good way to tell what will be fun to play in tWW or what works well. As of right now, a lot of melee specs are busted (except Havoc DH?) while most ranged specs looks bad (except Elemental Shaman and BM Hunter?). I attended a raid, and did better than a bunch of ranged that had 10-20 ilevels on me and me not having played retribution paladin before the prepatch.
Half the raid was made up of people from a mythic raiding guild some of the officers know people in (I think) so the melee from that guild made us all look bad.
Also did a bunch of m+ as protection paladin, mostly pugs but some guild runs also. It feels like either Blizzard nerfed the numbers or all base output was increased. Because every dungeon run so far has felt like it's been 2-4 key levels lower than they were before the prepatch. Melee has generally been boss here too, except Havoc that does tank damage most of the time.
In tWW, all tanks are going to lose self sustain and some survivability baseline. The fact we will also lose the trinket effects, here accounting for 50% of my healing on paladin, will be a bit rough going from this season.
Protection wasn't changed THAT much from before the prepatch when it comes to base kit, but it feels like it does more damage? Have enjoyed it in the prepatch, at least. Holy had a bunch of changes but I didn't know the spec that well beforehand, and Retribution is downright broken when it comes to damage numbers.
Threat has started to become an issue again, and after prepatch can feel dps rip threat much more often than before.
Wutteät kept the chain going
Before setting up the paladin, did a bunch of keys with Trollblomst and some with Caco, resulting in KSM number 8 in a row on the character. Felt a bit old school playing like that again :)
Vengeance after the nerf felt better to play for me, as I could take the damage and survival talents instead of doing all the stops and playing Brand ping pong. But much less beneficial to the group. I feel doing the actual tank job is much easier on this character than the Paladin, but not having CR/dispels/group heals makes it feel less useful for the group.
Overal Prepatch Impressions
This is the dullest prepatch I've played. Some kind of cinematic questline, or some event not on a timer would be a start. They scrambled to make adjustments before the free weekend so at least people wouldn't show up to just timers and nothing to do, but still a lackluster experience.
I got a bit hyped from the expansion cinematic trailers, but there's hasn't been a single thing they have put out about what we are going to do that makes me excited. Everyone is shitting on delves. Half the m+ dungeon pool is garbage. Class balance is a disaster. Hero Talents are mostly meh unless you play some dps specs. The raid and zones seems decent, but I am currently not keen on commiting to raid or m+ pushing or even buying the expansion after the prepatch and design notes from the beta.
Still 3 weeks left, but I might pull a Legion and just opt out of the grind and just pop in to do the story bits when I have a bunch of spare time. Taking bets!
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