As Shadowlands has officially released, my blog posts from here on out will contain details from the expansion. So if you haven’t played Shadowlands and want to avoid spoilers, I suggest you look away now. Okay, now that I’ve got that detail out of the way…
I am really enjoying Shadowlands so far! I’ve completed Bastion and Maldraxxus and am halfway through Ardenweald. I’m taking my blood elf hunter Sriset through first because she’s my original toon and my main and plus, I saw that there are lots of cool new pets to tame!
I’m happy with my choice of my hunter, but I’m definitely taking a toon with some heals through next because the one heal of exhilaration hasn’t been quite enough more often than not in Shadowlands. Sriset isn’t my best geared toon but she had decent gear and getting squished is just never fun.
From what I read and saw about Bastion, I was certain I was going to enjoy the zone, and for the most part I did. Unfortunately, the brightness of the area gives me a headache and my efforts to moderate that with monitor and in-game display settings just made things look weirder to me. So while I’d like to eventually align some toon with Bastion, I’m in no rush.
Bastion was definitely a pretty zone and the story was interesting with the blue people who want to erase memories and the other less blue people who want to keep memories. Definitely an interesting conflict there. What I found slightly annoying about Bastion though was that the big winged people insist on carrying heroes around like pieces of baggage. I know my blood elf is small but she’s not really a fashion accessory. Plus, all that being flown about was rather nauseating.
After Bastion and being baggage and dealing with their baggage, came Maldraxxus, a zone I didn’t think I was going to like. But after all the brightness and blueness of Bastion, I found Maldraxxus quite marvelous! I loved the unique pets there and immediately tamed a tauralus I named him, fittingly enough, Mawvelous.
I later tamed a hellhound I named Ruffhowlsing to keep up with the pun theme. I’m not great with puns and it takes me a while to come up with good ones, but I’m proud of my two Maldraxxus pets and their names.
While Maldraxxus may seem creepy with all the skellies and undead and mushrooms and such, I really rather liked it. The characters were cool and unique and the quests were all basically kill this, this, and this bad guy, and I’m all good with that. It’s definitely a great zone for fighters and I’ll be aligning my death knight Ripsris with the Necrolords because it seems like a perfect match! Best of all, nobody was trying to carry me around like a purse!
While I’d read that Ardenweald is the zone that’s making people cry, as I finished up Maldraxxus, one particular event got me right in the feels. It was the reunion of Darion Mograine and his father Alexandros Mograine. I had no idea that was going to happen and I was so happily surprised and emotional because being able to reunite with a father who has passed on pulls at my heart strings.
That definitely sealed the deal for me taking Ripsris there so I can immerse myself further in a zone that now holds a special place in my heart and is quite fierce and cool to boot!
Questing solo in Shadowlands is something I knew was coming and as I’ve said before, I totally understand fellow Strawberries wanting to go at their own pace and experience it on their own. But I still miss them and look forward to spending more time with them all again. Fortunately, there’s some dungeon runs planned this afternoon and that will get me my “Strawberry fix” for a while. The Shadowlands won’t know what hit them once the Strawberries are at full power once again!
Srinity 