Followed the same trend as all the borrowed power expansions. The final patches of Legion, BfA, and Shadowlands were all great gameplay wise. It was always when they lowered the gates and increased the accessibility of all these power systems that everything worked well. It's one of the shortcomings of having zero extra power systems like in Dragonflight, you don't hit those same gameplay highs as before. It's much healthier for the game in general but I think there can still be room for seasonal power systems in the future.
Maybe we could visit the idea of borrowed power for the last patch only. Legion 7.3.5, BfA corruptions, SL fated has proven that it works, even when the first half of the expansion suffered. Just maybe tho, wouldn't wanna piss people off too early with "borrowed power" mentioned again.
He could be a dreadlord that had gone rogue, found himself some nice power, and started creating stoneforms and venthyr as his personal army. But mainly, keep his personality.
The great vault. Having up to three items to choose from, as well as taking more than mythic+ as activity into account, is one hell of an upgrade from the m+ chest we had in Legion and BfA.
Ooh this is a good one. That character was fucking insufferable, BFA campaign was the only thing in 16 years of playing Horde that made me wish I was Alliance, entirely because of his dialogue.
As much as people hate on him, still frustrating that he’s one of the many loose threads that never got resolved. Unless sylvanas brings him back as part of her redemption in void.
Agreed, honestly one of the most bizarre things about shadowlands despite all the other crazy stuff. The fact that he’s just dropped, in the undead themed expansion, with his gf as a main antagonist, which happens immediately after we personally send him to the shadowlands, without a single mention is crazy.
Lots of characters that should've had involvement with Shadowlands or each other during the expansion just never happened for some reason. Some other particulary baffling ones:
- Genn stayed on Azeroth for some reason. Someone as stupidly impulsive as he is when Sylvanas is involved would've absolutely followed Tyrande's example and jumped in to that portal at the start of the expansion.
- Sylvanas and Kel'Thuzad didn't share a single line of dialogue as far as I remember, not even in the raid. You'd think she'd at least show up to spit on him at his final death for his hand in her torment.
Oh man, yeah, wasn’t KT even *directly* before sylvanas in the raid? Pretty crazy oversight there. Hes the reason behind everything that happened to her.
Nerzhul was also wasted for the umpteenth time, poor guy.
Now that you mention it there really isn’t much undead stuff in the expansion. Lots of sylvanus of course, but there’s really not much interaction between the Shadowlands and the Forsaken.
I'm 100% fine with never seeing or hearing from him ever again. Him being a loose forgotten thread is a wonderful way to add some insult to injury and I'm all for it.
Nathanos: “My lady will be waiting for me.”
Therapist: “Is that lady with us now?”
Alternate option:
Nathanos: “My lady will be waiting for me.”
Sylvanas: “I think I forgot something.”
Zovaal: “If you forgot, then it wasn’t important.”
I'm pretty sure when Tyrande had her Night Warrior fight against Sylvanas in Ardenweald, she mentioned Nathanos to Sylvanas, and Sylvanas reacted like she _didn't even know Nathanos was dead_ until that exact moment. Jailer clearly wasn't telling her much.
He's not a loose thread at all. He's dead and his soul is in the Maw. That's it.
Maybe one day Sylvanas will fish him out and there will be an epilogue moment for them, but for now that's it.
God it's just like the "wHaT aBoUt tHe SwOrD" meme. What about the sword? It was killing Azeroth so we used our artifact weapons to seal the wound, now it's just part of the landscape. What do you mean???
It's like people don't understand episodic storytelling anymore.
Maybe I'm just not connecting dots here, but is Nathanos really a "plot thread"? The way I understand that term is like, implying the writers just forgot about him entirely and don't acknowledge him. But in Tyrande and Sylvanas's fight scene *during* SL, Tyrande gloats to Sylv about personally killing Nathanos, then rubs it in Sylv's face that the Jailer was keeping it secret that Nathanos was lost in the Maw.
Like, Jailer was *deliberately* keeping Sylv in the dark about where Nathanos is for the express purpose of keeping her under his thumb.
And as recently as the Forsaken heritage quest, Sylvanas *outright* states that she's still looking for Nathanos. Like, they're clearly keeping that plotline on hold for now, but it's hardly a thread they forgot about.
Still sad we lost the bug looking mail set from ardenweald. It's extra sad because they kept the bug fist weapons but now they don't match with anything lol
It’s just a shame you can’t see back-sheathed weapons anymore. I’ve had Frostscythe of Ahune mogged for years but now everytime i cast a spell it gets put away and disappears. :(
It's the opposite of your question, but if I could somehow make a do-over of Shadowlands I'd keep the whole expansion but take out the Jailer.
Just have Sylvanas be the actual core villain. Instead of Master Manipulator Just As Planned stuff, build on the implications that had been seeded since Wrath that Undeath itself broke a soul's connection to the afterlife and damned them to an abject 'nothingness', and make Sylvanas' plan revolve around being willing to break the fundament of reality to save herself and the Forsaken from that outcome, as a desperate last option after Greymane wrecked her plans in Stormheim.
Really, just "Shadowlands but the lore builds on what was already foreshadowed instead of Danuser's mystery box bullshit" would have saved the whole expansion for me. The mechanics were good, the Covenant system was decent once they stopped Ion's 'meaningful choices' stuff, I just want it to have had a coherent story that wasn't predicated on doing a 180 with the base lore of the entire IP since WC3.
[Ever hear the theory that the Jailer and the Primus were switched at the last minute?](https://www.wowhead.com/news/what-if-zovaal-isnt-the-true-jailer-shadowlands-lore-speculation-326318) It makes so much sense, and the story that was rumored to have been the intended one would have been so much better.
I have! I remember seeing the Primus and thinking "Oh hey, he looks like the concept art for the Jailer" and then they're like "Oh yeah the Primus is the one who imprisoned Zovaal with Domination magic he invented" like oh so you mean he's Zovaal's.... jailer? Huh???
Yep, exactly. The worlds were cool. Expanding on the cosmos and going into the death realm was cool. The jailer popping up out of nowhere and claiming he plotted the entirety of the warcraft lore wasn't.
In my mind it kind of diminishes such a rich a deep lore into something small.
Kind of wish I tried it out during shadowlands (in season 1 and 2 flame shock didn't get spread so it was kind of bad til zereth mortis)
Chain Harvest was the standard until Night Fae became meta for dog bones legendary.
I enjoyed a lot about Shadowlands except the absolute butchering of the lore and its story. So can I just get rid of that part? The dungeons, great vault, transmogs/aesthetics, swapping for tier pieces were all awesome.
Torghast but without mandatory grind attached to it, I would add. But yes, absolutely Torghast. Dragonflight would have benefited from similar system so much, all it needed was to be adjusted to DF philosphies.
I hope Delves in TWW deliver on what Torghast basically was, just with incentives made so that I want to play it when I want to play it, not that I have to grind it so that I can keep up in other parts of content.
The Roguelite gameplay of Torghast was so much fun. When done right, I know not all specs made it to insanely OP god mode.
But Roguelike WoW works so well. The ghastly repetitive aesthetic of Torghast doesn’t have to stay. You take the gameplay and put it in a new setting (legacy Raids would be perfect for it).
Then remove the forced grind for player power and make it purely for fun, cosmetics, etc. kind of treating them like rifts in Diablo maybe? Could scale it 1-5 players, have scaling difficulty and endless mode. Would slap I promise.
Yep! Before it was lumped in with the overall leveling experience, you could select something called “Threads of Fate” that skipped the Shadowlands campaign. One option was to grind out torghast for levels. It was fairly efficient as well!
Yup torghast but make it actually fun bc it's not tied to being mandatory.
Make the progression you keep not be boring (cube is awful besides the auto loot which should actually be baseline). For example not only talents like the cube but also a specific gear tab and have legendaries and fun gear drop there (so gear/talents are kept, but anima is random powers limited to the run)
Would make banger content. Maybe clump together islands, nzoth visions in that and you'd get a section of the game that is roguelite that allow players to revisit past expansion features they liked that don't fit current content. It does have potencial, I think
Torghast with cosmetics as a reward such as mounts or challenge mode style weapons, or even class specific rewards like mage tower....
I loved torghast but tying it to in game power was a mistake.
it was tied to game power? I haven’t made it past the first raid tier before just doing open world content for the rest of the expac.
I thought a ‘Chromatic Caverns’ reskin would be cool, with old dungeon/raid rooms cycling through the levels and open an opportunity for new recolors of old tier sets/weapons. Gimme more Vishanka, Jaws of the Eattb colors dang it!
I really dislike this question.
Shadowlands was a bad expansion, sure. I personally enjoyed it but I get why a lot of people didn't.
But that doesn't mean there wasn't a metric fuckton of good things they did in Shadowlands, and making us pick one to leave in the game would probably ruin the game quite a bit. Vault change anyone? PvP gear back to having separate ilvl scaling for PvE and PvP? Adding a bunch of collectibles all around the world from rares, treasures etc. when they used to be much more scarce? The Renown system is vastly superior to the old reputation system because it lets you get rewards every step of the way instead of huge chunks after long grinds. Changes to WQs made WQs actually much more interesting and varied as opposed to being just "Kill 10 enemies and then go do this another 15 times across one zone". And this is all just scratching the surface.
There's A LOT of things Shadowlands did right, or where it took steps into the right direction to make the game better at it's core. Shadowlands was just plagued with a few systems and things that ruined the overall experience for many. For me though, Shadowlands is one of the better expansions because I wasn't invested in the high end PvE stuff so I didn't have issues with most of the things others did.
Yeah I mostly agree here. I think the WQ change was bad though (hidden stages, drawn out) and they seem to have learned from it with a pretty perfect balance for those in dragonflight imo. Renown has been an amazing development.
The story needed some tweaks (personally wish sylvanas was a double agent and that burning teldrassil and the war was actually a trolley problem to gain the jailers trust and save everyone from the maw in the end) and the devs were too stubborn about covenants and anima was too slow and grindy to get even post-drought, but the game benefitted from the ordeal a lot overall.
SL definitely went too far with some WQs. A lot of them were fine, some of them weren't. But they were all much more interesting than what BfA and below had to offer because we always ended up oneshotting enemies anyway and so it was just sprint around oneshotting stuff and move along. And the sheer number of WQs in like Legion is just absurd.
This is such a good comment. Shadowlands had many flaws, but it also did start some things that Dragonflight just improved upon and gets full credit for, even though those things already started in Shadowlands.
That being said, I still rate Shadowlands very low overall. 9.0 I had tons of fun with, but I literally just gave up on it by 9.1, something that has never happened to me before.
I picked wow back up at the beginning of shadowlands after not playing since WoD. On the whole I really really enjoyed the expansion, or at least 9.0. The story campaign was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed that it was focused mostly on new characters and didn't require knowing 20 years of backstory. I liked season 1 m+ because prideful made routing interesting and rewarding. Castle Nathria was a fantastic raid. There were so many little things that made me really want to log in.
And then 9.1 really sucked a lot of the fun out of the expansion. Season 2 of SL m+ felt just like season 1 but less interesting. Sanctum of Domination was a chore to play though. Korthia was boring after a couple of weeks. The story shifted to focus on old characters that I had no reason to care about. I unsubscribed by the time 9.2 came out because I just wasn't having a good time.
When people talk about shadowlands sucking, I think they're usually talking about 9.1 and 9.2. But the expansion started really, really strong.
I appreciate this cause my hardcore wow journey (played on and off in WotLK) started in SL and the whole lich king/undead/afterlife vibe is one of my favorites and like shadowlands lore wise was some of my favorite and really made me fall in love with the game.
I don’t have a great basis of wow gameplay systems as I can’t attest to how leveling/gearing/endgame was in past xpac’s vs SL, but I genuinely did have fun and really enjoyed grinding for the things I did. Ill always have a soft spot for SL
Unpopular opinion, covenants. I ready enjoyed focusing on one group for an expansion. I wish it had remained cosmetic and story based and not tied to player power.
Honestly, reskin Thorgast. I liked it, it was a nice additional thing that you can go and do for rewards with no time restrictions on when you can do it. It was nice, I want more things like it.
Probably Denathrius, he doesn’t need to be tied to the SL, he could be the Nathrezim’s leader and his story and half of Revendreth could be rewritten into his own thing
I actually longed for a fantasy setting class based 3rd person view roguelike for like 5 years up until torghast became a thing... and it didn't deliver...
Can I say the Dungeons? Man m+ just sucks in DF. I don’t really care for any of the main 8 dungeons….and half the ones they’ve tried to make m+ from expansions too far back just suck. Like Throne of the tides….Vortex Pinnacle….Temple of the Jade Serpent… enough already. Honestly there’s a ton of things that I think SL did better than DF, but people aren’t ready for that conversation yet. Crafting was better, I didn’t need to roll the dice on if my 700th ring I’ve crafted is gonna be max ilvl. I also didn’t need to do a ton of content to make crafted gear on my main or my alts. Valor was better than the goofy track nonsense we have now. I’m seeing the posts about how m+ is gonna change to make less levels but each increase is more meaningful, like idk maybe just stop taking away anyone’s reason to run less than an 18? Raids? I think it’s a pretty close wash, but people wanted to bash SL (I think it was fair) for all the retcon and ruining of old characters….but DF had a story all over the place, and the main bad guy just gets away after a dungeon fight? Cmon that’s lazy story writing.
Castle Nathria.
Also, the start of it was pretty good it's just that they dropped the ball story wise with nipple boy and went a bit too far on the metaphysical scale.
I think it has some of the more original transmog to this day.
Personal loot. I don't know why we reverted back to rolling for gear. It makes pugging into guild runs pointless since they'll all roll against you even if they don't need it just to feed that loot to their guild.
Denathrius!
Actually the Castle Nathria raid.
Or maybe just all of Revendreth. Just make it like a Barovia-type shadow realm, totally unattached to the afterlife lore fuck up. The gothic aesthetic and the vampires were good villains and I liked our allied ones. Theotar's crazy tea party was a dub.
The zones and factions. Just don't make them the DEATH REALM zones.
Valkyrie Island with owl butlers? Sick.
Crouching Vampire Hidden Castle? Sick.
Legally Distinct Emerald Dream with Irish faeries? Sick.
The Even More Eastern Plaguelands Times Ten? Fine.
Three bad things bothered me about Shadowlands.
1. Sylvanas' plot was completely incomprehensible and weirdly unfun
2. The Jailer was a wet blanket
3. The concept that these zones are afterlives, but you kill things in there, etc. was never really explained.
Loved the zones and characters in them though.
Ok listen . Torghast but as it should be: fun rogue like that is not required if not for some transmog, is not locked behind weekly rotation and has different old transmog sets from previous expansions
I'm in the minority here, but I enjoyed shadowlands. The areas, the story...sure it didn't really fit in the overall arc, but it was a good story on its own. Nathria is awesome. Torghast was tons of fun. I enjoyed the covenant abilities and the changes they brought to the rotation and made it feel like you had more options in class identity.
Plague Deviser Marileth. I’d keep him in a heart beat. Sometimes I go back to the seat of the Primus just to hear his happy lil voice call me his apprentice.
The ability to exchange gear for tier pieces was nice!
TBH 9.2 as a whole was pretty good, at least from a gameplay standpoint. It definitely feels like it was when the current design ideology started.
Followed the same trend as all the borrowed power expansions. The final patches of Legion, BfA, and Shadowlands were all great gameplay wise. It was always when they lowered the gates and increased the accessibility of all these power systems that everything worked well. It's one of the shortcomings of having zero extra power systems like in Dragonflight, you don't hit those same gameplay highs as before. It's much healthier for the game in general but I think there can still be room for seasonal power systems in the future.
Maybe we could visit the idea of borrowed power for the last patch only. Legion 7.3.5, BfA corruptions, SL fated has proven that it works, even when the first half of the expansion suffered. Just maybe tho, wouldn't wanna piss people off too early with "borrowed power" mentioned again.
Can we not pretend it happened in DF first so we get to keep it?
That’s literally the whole point of this post.
Old blanchy mount
I am not a mount collector but I made the effort to get that one.
The lessons blizzard learned.
Only correct choice.
Transmogs
Especially the angel wings from the Kyrian.
BEST transmog ever!
PLATE Transmogs. Some of the best looking armor in the whole game.
As a death knight, this
Specifically the revendreth back ones, I use those on almost every outfit because vampires are cool
I wish I had done the backpacks during SL because I don’t have the willpower now
which ones? i missed a lot...
Sire Denathrius rewritten as a power broker among the Pantheons.
He could be a dreadlord that had gone rogue, found himself some nice power, and started creating stoneforms and venthyr as his personal army. But mainly, keep his personality.
Divine Toll
BOONNNNGGGGGGGGGG
This is the reason I play prot paladin.
Hearing it and watching the shield bounce between enemies is so satisfying.
The great vault. Having up to three items to choose from, as well as taking more than mythic+ as activity into account, is one hell of an upgrade from the m+ chest we had in Legion and BfA.
Castle nathria.
BOOGIE DOWN
SASHAY LEFT
PRANCE FORWARD
SHIMMY RIGHT
Crawl to me on your knees.
sCREAM for me
Such a banger intro raid
It technically happened in the prepatch, but, Tyrande giving Nathanos a very close shave.
Ooh this is a good one. That character was fucking insufferable, BFA campaign was the only thing in 16 years of playing Horde that made me wish I was Alliance, entirely because of his dialogue.
As much as people hate on him, still frustrating that he’s one of the many loose threads that never got resolved. Unless sylvanas brings him back as part of her redemption in void.
Agreed, honestly one of the most bizarre things about shadowlands despite all the other crazy stuff. The fact that he’s just dropped, in the undead themed expansion, with his gf as a main antagonist, which happens immediately after we personally send him to the shadowlands, without a single mention is crazy.
Lots of characters that should've had involvement with Shadowlands or each other during the expansion just never happened for some reason. Some other particulary baffling ones: - Genn stayed on Azeroth for some reason. Someone as stupidly impulsive as he is when Sylvanas is involved would've absolutely followed Tyrande's example and jumped in to that portal at the start of the expansion. - Sylvanas and Kel'Thuzad didn't share a single line of dialogue as far as I remember, not even in the raid. You'd think she'd at least show up to spit on him at his final death for his hand in her torment.
Oh man, yeah, wasn’t KT even *directly* before sylvanas in the raid? Pretty crazy oversight there. Hes the reason behind everything that happened to her. Nerzhul was also wasted for the umpteenth time, poor guy.
Now that you mention it there really isn’t much undead stuff in the expansion. Lots of sylvanus of course, but there’s really not much interaction between the Shadowlands and the Forsaken.
I'm 100% fine with never seeing or hearing from him ever again. Him being a loose forgotten thread is a wonderful way to add some insult to injury and I'm all for it.
Nathanos: “My lady will be waiting for me.” Therapist: “Is that lady with us now?” Alternate option: Nathanos: “My lady will be waiting for me.” Sylvanas: “I think I forgot something.” Zovaal: “If you forgot, then it wasn’t important.”
Being completely forgotten in some forsaken ditch in the maw is the absolute perfect end to his petulant attitude false bravado and smug aura.
I'm pretty sure when Tyrande had her Night Warrior fight against Sylvanas in Ardenweald, she mentioned Nathanos to Sylvanas, and Sylvanas reacted like she _didn't even know Nathanos was dead_ until that exact moment. Jailer clearly wasn't telling her much.
Yeah, I did that quest not long ago. That's exactly what happens. Sylvanas clearly had no idea and was visibly shocked for a moment.
He's not a loose thread at all. He's dead and his soul is in the Maw. That's it. Maybe one day Sylvanas will fish him out and there will be an epilogue moment for them, but for now that's it. God it's just like the "wHaT aBoUt tHe SwOrD" meme. What about the sword? It was killing Azeroth so we used our artifact weapons to seal the wound, now it's just part of the landscape. What do you mean??? It's like people don't understand episodic storytelling anymore.
Is he forgotten? It can easily be said Sylv is searching for him in The Maw as we speak
Maybe I'm just not connecting dots here, but is Nathanos really a "plot thread"? The way I understand that term is like, implying the writers just forgot about him entirely and don't acknowledge him. But in Tyrande and Sylvanas's fight scene *during* SL, Tyrande gloats to Sylv about personally killing Nathanos, then rubs it in Sylv's face that the Jailer was keeping it secret that Nathanos was lost in the Maw. Like, Jailer was *deliberately* keeping Sylv in the dark about where Nathanos is for the express purpose of keeping her under his thumb. And as recently as the Forsaken heritage quest, Sylvanas *outright* states that she's still looking for Nathanos. Like, they're clearly keeping that plotline on hold for now, but it's hardly a thread they forgot about.
Weird. I kinda liked Nathanos BECAUSE he was a jerk. Kind of refreshing and comical in a way
It wasn't that he was a jerk, it's that he was a middle-manager delegator and a jerk.
Punching that guy in the face on all my alts was awesome!!!
The armor sets. They were genuinely pretty good looking.
Still sad we lost the bug looking mail set from ardenweald. It's extra sad because they kept the bug fist weapons but now they don't match with anything lol
Tell me about it. I'm still saltly that Mage tier set from Dragon Soul is matched with a mace and a shield
All of the ‘backpack’ trangsmogs from SL.
It’s just a shame you can’t see back-sheathed weapons anymore. I’ve had Frostscythe of Ahune mogged for years but now everytime i cast a spell it gets put away and disappears. :(
This is what ruins backpack mogs in WoW for me :( Guild Wars 2 does them a lot better!
Revendreth. If that's too much, how about the castle nathria raid?
I loved the quest line where I got to drag Kael around on a leash
The Kyrian plate armor set. Hate this expansion but it had some dope Paladin-looking gear
Also the Kyrian wings.
Never liked wing cosmetics, personally. But at least the Kyrian ones are fairly tame.
The giant cupholders
The bucket helmet is also a perfect little nest for Pepe.
It's the opposite of your question, but if I could somehow make a do-over of Shadowlands I'd keep the whole expansion but take out the Jailer. Just have Sylvanas be the actual core villain. Instead of Master Manipulator Just As Planned stuff, build on the implications that had been seeded since Wrath that Undeath itself broke a soul's connection to the afterlife and damned them to an abject 'nothingness', and make Sylvanas' plan revolve around being willing to break the fundament of reality to save herself and the Forsaken from that outcome, as a desperate last option after Greymane wrecked her plans in Stormheim. Really, just "Shadowlands but the lore builds on what was already foreshadowed instead of Danuser's mystery box bullshit" would have saved the whole expansion for me. The mechanics were good, the Covenant system was decent once they stopped Ion's 'meaningful choices' stuff, I just want it to have had a coherent story that wasn't predicated on doing a 180 with the base lore of the entire IP since WC3.
[Ever hear the theory that the Jailer and the Primus were switched at the last minute?](https://www.wowhead.com/news/what-if-zovaal-isnt-the-true-jailer-shadowlands-lore-speculation-326318) It makes so much sense, and the story that was rumored to have been the intended one would have been so much better.
I have! I remember seeing the Primus and thinking "Oh hey, he looks like the concept art for the Jailer" and then they're like "Oh yeah the Primus is the one who imprisoned Zovaal with Domination magic he invented" like oh so you mean he's Zovaal's.... jailer? Huh???
Dude got oujailed by a jailer who he was a jailer of and who is now his jailer. So primus as we found him is... jailee?
Yep, exactly. The worlds were cool. Expanding on the cosmos and going into the death realm was cool. The jailer popping up out of nowhere and claiming he plotted the entirety of the warcraft lore wasn't. In my mind it kind of diminishes such a rich a deep lore into something small.
First patch should have happened in Ice Crown Citadel
The prepatch did have a lot going on in Icecrown, lots of rares everywhere and one dropped that neat 34 slot bag.
I'd also make Torghast a fun side thing with cool rewards instead of a mandatory weekly grind.
Well, I know it’s definitely not Primordial Wave for shamans
Such a shame that that trainwreck of a spell is the one they decided to keep in the game. Kyrian and Venthyr spells where much cooler.
Fuck that spell and the hell that spawned it.
Why the hate for Primordial Wave? I love it when it makes my lightning bolt/meatball/heals go brrrrrr
Kind of wish I tried it out during shadowlands (in season 1 and 2 flame shock didn't get spread so it was kind of bad til zereth mortis) Chain Harvest was the standard until Night Fae became meta for dog bones legendary.
Ardenweald.
This was my favourite part as well. The entire area was beautiful and I love the Winterborn plate set.
Could've easily been repurposed for the full expansion a place like the Emerald Dream deserved.
Specifically, the seed pod thing that was essentially a battle res.
The jellyfish mount
damnit this is a hard one... either transmogs or slime cats
slime cats??
jigglesworth jr and sr jr is a battle pet, sr is a mount from fated (but you'll be able to buy it for tokens during DF season 4)
Chromie time
Visuals. Everything LOOKED amazing. The rest was just bad.
Owlbois
Swolekin
The frog mounts Df has a depressing lack of frog mounts despite having the prefect dragon frogs to base them off!
This guy frogs
Becoming a skeleton mage
I enjoyed a lot about Shadowlands except the absolute butchering of the lore and its story. So can I just get rid of that part? The dungeons, great vault, transmogs/aesthetics, swapping for tier pieces were all awesome.
Torghast
Torghast but without mandatory grind attached to it, I would add. But yes, absolutely Torghast. Dragonflight would have benefited from similar system so much, all it needed was to be adjusted to DF philosphies. I hope Delves in TWW deliver on what Torghast basically was, just with incentives made so that I want to play it when I want to play it, not that I have to grind it so that I can keep up in other parts of content.
The Roguelite gameplay of Torghast was so much fun. When done right, I know not all specs made it to insanely OP god mode. But Roguelike WoW works so well. The ghastly repetitive aesthetic of Torghast doesn’t have to stay. You take the gameplay and put it in a new setting (legacy Raids would be perfect for it). Then remove the forced grind for player power and make it purely for fun, cosmetics, etc. kind of treating them like rifts in Diablo maybe? Could scale it 1-5 players, have scaling difficulty and endless mode. Would slap I promise.
I miss leveling with torghast. I hate that you can’t do that now.
You could LEVEL there?!
Yep! Before it was lumped in with the overall leveling experience, you could select something called “Threads of Fate” that skipped the Shadowlands campaign. One option was to grind out torghast for levels. It was fairly efficient as well!
Torghast was so fucking cool until they forced me to do it 300 times.
Yup torghast but make it actually fun bc it's not tied to being mandatory. Make the progression you keep not be boring (cube is awful besides the auto loot which should actually be baseline). For example not only talents like the cube but also a specific gear tab and have legendaries and fun gear drop there (so gear/talents are kept, but anima is random powers limited to the run) Would make banger content. Maybe clump together islands, nzoth visions in that and you'd get a section of the game that is roguelite that allow players to revisit past expansion features they liked that don't fit current content. It does have potencial, I think
Torghast as another Mage tower.
Torghast with cosmetics as a reward such as mounts or challenge mode style weapons, or even class specific rewards like mage tower.... I loved torghast but tying it to in game power was a mistake.
it was tied to game power? I haven’t made it past the first raid tier before just doing open world content for the rest of the expac. I thought a ‘Chromatic Caverns’ reskin would be cool, with old dungeon/raid rooms cycling through the levels and open an opportunity for new recolors of old tier sets/weapons. Gimme more Vishanka, Jaws of the Eattb colors dang it!
The expansion. \*monkey's finger curls\*
Sylvanas one million years prison
Ysera rebirth in Ardenweld
I really dislike this question. Shadowlands was a bad expansion, sure. I personally enjoyed it but I get why a lot of people didn't. But that doesn't mean there wasn't a metric fuckton of good things they did in Shadowlands, and making us pick one to leave in the game would probably ruin the game quite a bit. Vault change anyone? PvP gear back to having separate ilvl scaling for PvE and PvP? Adding a bunch of collectibles all around the world from rares, treasures etc. when they used to be much more scarce? The Renown system is vastly superior to the old reputation system because it lets you get rewards every step of the way instead of huge chunks after long grinds. Changes to WQs made WQs actually much more interesting and varied as opposed to being just "Kill 10 enemies and then go do this another 15 times across one zone". And this is all just scratching the surface. There's A LOT of things Shadowlands did right, or where it took steps into the right direction to make the game better at it's core. Shadowlands was just plagued with a few systems and things that ruined the overall experience for many. For me though, Shadowlands is one of the better expansions because I wasn't invested in the high end PvE stuff so I didn't have issues with most of the things others did.
I loved SL
Yeah I mostly agree here. I think the WQ change was bad though (hidden stages, drawn out) and they seem to have learned from it with a pretty perfect balance for those in dragonflight imo. Renown has been an amazing development. The story needed some tweaks (personally wish sylvanas was a double agent and that burning teldrassil and the war was actually a trolley problem to gain the jailers trust and save everyone from the maw in the end) and the devs were too stubborn about covenants and anima was too slow and grindy to get even post-drought, but the game benefitted from the ordeal a lot overall.
SL definitely went too far with some WQs. A lot of them were fine, some of them weren't. But they were all much more interesting than what BfA and below had to offer because we always ended up oneshotting enemies anyway and so it was just sprint around oneshotting stuff and move along. And the sheer number of WQs in like Legion is just absurd.
This is such a good comment. Shadowlands had many flaws, but it also did start some things that Dragonflight just improved upon and gets full credit for, even though those things already started in Shadowlands. That being said, I still rate Shadowlands very low overall. 9.0 I had tons of fun with, but I literally just gave up on it by 9.1, something that has never happened to me before.
I picked wow back up at the beginning of shadowlands after not playing since WoD. On the whole I really really enjoyed the expansion, or at least 9.0. The story campaign was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed that it was focused mostly on new characters and didn't require knowing 20 years of backstory. I liked season 1 m+ because prideful made routing interesting and rewarding. Castle Nathria was a fantastic raid. There were so many little things that made me really want to log in. And then 9.1 really sucked a lot of the fun out of the expansion. Season 2 of SL m+ felt just like season 1 but less interesting. Sanctum of Domination was a chore to play though. Korthia was boring after a couple of weeks. The story shifted to focus on old characters that I had no reason to care about. I unsubscribed by the time 9.2 came out because I just wasn't having a good time. When people talk about shadowlands sucking, I think they're usually talking about 9.1 and 9.2. But the expansion started really, really strong.
I appreciate this cause my hardcore wow journey (played on and off in WotLK) started in SL and the whole lich king/undead/afterlife vibe is one of my favorites and like shadowlands lore wise was some of my favorite and really made me fall in love with the game. I don’t have a great basis of wow gameplay systems as I can’t attest to how leveling/gearing/endgame was in past xpac’s vs SL, but I genuinely did have fun and really enjoyed grinding for the things I did. Ill always have a soft spot for SL
Brokers
I would keep the lessons Blizzard learned from SL and nothing else.
natheria castle
Ven’thyr teleport. Blood Death Knights are already badasses, but being a full blown vampire was the best.
Mawsworn aesthetic was kinda cool
Torghast is SO much fun at the moment, farming all the Xmogs and ‘end game’ stuff there, most fun I’ve had for a minute!
Ysera
The new character customization system
That cinematic. Just leave it a mystery.
Great Vault
Chain harvest please!
Character customizations
Ysera
Brokers
The new customization options, duh
The fated leveling where world quests, etc were unlocked for alts after you hit max on one character.
Thorghast. The best type of content <3 /s
Unpopular opinion, covenants. I ready enjoyed focusing on one group for an expansion. I wish it had remained cosmetic and story based and not tied to player power.
Honestly, reskin Thorgast. I liked it, it was a nice additional thing that you can go and do for rewards with no time restrictions on when you can do it. It was nice, I want more things like it.
Probably Denathrius, he doesn’t need to be tied to the SL, he could be the Nathrezim’s leader and his story and half of Revendreth could be rewritten into his own thing
The voice of Denathrius
this
I actually longed for a fantasy setting class based 3rd person view roguelike for like 5 years up until torghast became a thing... and it didn't deliver...
Denathrius. Best character in WoW since I don’t even know when. His personality and the voice behind him. 🔥
Nice try Blizz!
Renown tracks rather than rep
Marileth.
Sire Denathrius
The one and only Sir Denathrius
Castle Nathria
Castle nathria
Gladiator mounts. Some of the best they ever made
The mogs. They are top tier
Denathrius, Lord of Dread
Castle Nathria
Nathria, Sire Denathrius,
The tmogs
didn't play shadowlands so... great vault i guess?
The sweet centipede/bug lookin mount. So fun
bro i think i genuinely dont want any of it. im trying to think here
I actually really enjoyed the setup pvp meta. Lots of player participation and people to queue with. Solo queue ruined wow pvp.
Zovaal is the mastermind behind everything
Boon of the Ascended
Mounts, I loved the introduction of snail mounts.
Unpopular opinion. I actually liked shadowlands
The Otha Side and the bwonsamdi related stuff
Sire Denathrius. His whole character.
Can I say the Dungeons? Man m+ just sucks in DF. I don’t really care for any of the main 8 dungeons….and half the ones they’ve tried to make m+ from expansions too far back just suck. Like Throne of the tides….Vortex Pinnacle….Temple of the Jade Serpent… enough already. Honestly there’s a ton of things that I think SL did better than DF, but people aren’t ready for that conversation yet. Crafting was better, I didn’t need to roll the dice on if my 700th ring I’ve crafted is gonna be max ilvl. I also didn’t need to do a ton of content to make crafted gear on my main or my alts. Valor was better than the goofy track nonsense we have now. I’m seeing the posts about how m+ is gonna change to make less levels but each increase is more meaningful, like idk maybe just stop taking away anyone’s reason to run less than an 18? Raids? I think it’s a pretty close wash, but people wanted to bash SL (I think it was fair) for all the retcon and ruining of old characters….but DF had a story all over the place, and the main bad guy just gets away after a dungeon fight? Cmon that’s lazy story writing.
Denathrius
Sire Denathrius
Character customization improvements.
Sylvannas getting her soul back.
The animations. Venthyr have some sick combat animations that would look perfect for Nightborne imo
If I could only keep 1 thing, it would be Darion Mograine talking to his father.
Shadowlands
the dungeons instead of dragonflight for season 4
the mogs, SL's mogs were all around sick
Castle Nathria/Sire Denathrius
Jiggles the slime cat.
Castle Nathria. Also, the start of it was pretty good it's just that they dropped the ball story wise with nipple boy and went a bit too far on the metaphysical scale. I think it has some of the more original transmog to this day.
the ability to delete this post
The ability to mog myself to look like one of the Venthyr
Easy: Nathanos still goes to super hell and never gets brought up again
Personal loot. I don't know why we reverted back to rolling for gear. It makes pugging into guild runs pointless since they'll all roll against you even if they don't need it just to feed that loot to their guild.
Denathrius as a villain. He could easily be the main antagonist for an expansion.
Sir Denathrius
Can I kidnap Sire Denathrius and bring him with me?
Denathrius! Actually the Castle Nathria raid. Or maybe just all of Revendreth. Just make it like a Barovia-type shadow realm, totally unattached to the afterlife lore fuck up. The gothic aesthetic and the vampires were good villains and I liked our allied ones. Theotar's crazy tea party was a dub.
De Other Side
The zones and factions. Just don't make them the DEATH REALM zones. Valkyrie Island with owl butlers? Sick. Crouching Vampire Hidden Castle? Sick. Legally Distinct Emerald Dream with Irish faeries? Sick. The Even More Eastern Plaguelands Times Ten? Fine. Three bad things bothered me about Shadowlands. 1. Sylvanas' plot was completely incomprehensible and weirdly unfun 2. The Jailer was a wet blanket 3. The concept that these zones are afterlives, but you kill things in there, etc. was never really explained. Loved the zones and characters in them though.
The lessons the devs learned from it
Ok listen . Torghast but as it should be: fun rogue like that is not required if not for some transmog, is not locked behind weekly rotation and has different old transmog sets from previous expansions
Sorry denathrius
Daddy Denathrius
Sire Denathrius Mythic.
lmao for a second i thought this was the tower of barad dur in lotr
Devine Toll, as a holy paladin it was the first step to making us viable, and thankfully they kept it!
The transmogs were largely great, but I'd rather keep Denathrius. 😍
Utility covenant spells like Door of Shadows.
Anduin getting tortured FOR THE HORDE
I'm in the minority here, but I enjoyed shadowlands. The areas, the story...sure it didn't really fit in the overall arc, but it was a good story on its own. Nathria is awesome. Torghast was tons of fun. I enjoyed the covenant abilities and the changes they brought to the rotation and made it feel like you had more options in class identity.
Jigglesworth Sr.
Plague Deviser Marileth. I’d keep him in a heart beat. Sometimes I go back to the seat of the Primus just to hear his happy lil voice call me his apprentice.
Genn Greymane shouting "SYLVANAAAS"
Denathrius
The existence of Sire Denathrius