By Landon Stokes

Fall is upon us, and with it marks the beginning of the gaming season, a time in which I, and many others, spend too much money and neglect my schoolwork the most.

Among the first game-related articles to release this season is Legion: the sixth expansion for the ever-popular Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG), World of Warcraft, which released on Aug. 30.

Legion tells the story of the Burning Legion, a massive army of demons led by the Warlock and founder of the Orcish Horde Gul’dan, and its return to the world of Azeroth (home of the humans and central focus of the Warcraft universe), with the intent of destroying the realm and enslaving its inhabitants. It also introduces a new playable class, the Demon Hunter: Elves from the Broken Isles who have indulged themselves in the demon blood and, under the leadership of Lord Illidan, use both elven and demonic power to fight the Burning Legion, save their homeworld, and wipe out the demonic threat once all. While raising the level cap from 100 to 110, Legion introduces ten new five-player dungeons and two new raids. In addition, tons of new quests, gear, and playable areas have been added, and all playable classes have been rebalanced and updated to give the game a fresh feel.

If you’ve played World of Warcraft after a new expansion releases before, you know that two weeks is likely not enough time to experience the game and write a fully fleshed-out and fair review of the content. For instance, both raids introduced are on a time release schedule (the first of which becomes available on Sept. 21) to give players enough time to gear up before taking on the Legion’s most powerful bosses, so I haven’t even been able to try them yet. I have, however, had enough time to level a Demon Hunter (which begin at 98) to level 105, run through five of the ten dungeons at least once, and fully experience the changes brought to Assassination and Outlaw Rogues (my personal main), as well as Beast Master and Marksmanship Hunters.

As far as the Demon Hunter goes, it’s an incredibly fun class to play, not to mention powerful and mobile. Twelve levels may not seem like much, but level 98 seems appropriate for the starting power of the class, and late-game leveling is rather time consuming. It took me at least 6-7 hours to get to level 105 through quests and dungeons alone. Speaking of which, many of the new quests introduced in Legion are things players have experienced before, but the altered Broken Isles and new Dalaran are incredibly fun to adventure across, and the new scenery is a welcome sight after the previous expansion, (Warlords of Draenor) had been out for around two years.

Continuing on, a host of new dungeons were added, and all classes received big changes. Of the dungeons I have played through, I’ve loved them. Yes, they feel exactly like dungeons in WoW have felt forever, but there are slight variations in structure, like the arena-style prison Violet Hold, and all sorts of new enemies and bosses to kill, and loot to acquire, not to mention very efficient character leveling.

Speaking of leveling, many of the classes and specializations saw big overhauls and balance changes this patch, notably the Rogue and Hunter classes. Prior to Legion, my main character was an Assassination Rogue. I’ve since changed my specialization to Outlaw, after the stealth-related abilities and damage saw changes and de-buffs, as well as an adjustment to the poisons available to Rogues. Assassination felt much weaker than it had before, and the Outlaw Rogue’s raw damage per second (DPS) feels much higher, not to mention the parry abilities, lesser heal, and Night Elf racial passive come together to form a near unkillable Rogue, if you’re skilled enough. Hunters also saw a large change to their effectiveness, with Beast Masters having a more limited pool of pets to choose from and reduced pet potency and Marksmanship Hunters receiving a couple movement abilities and a boost to their raw DPS capabilities. It’s important to note that it’s likely nearly all classes and specs received large changes, so returning players may find their playstyle vastly different than it was before or even not as viable in terms of endgame content or player vs. player (PvP).

To conclude, the first two weeks of Legion have proved to be incredibly fun and the new content is sure to keep players busy questing, leveling, and farming for a very long time. Including myself, who will likely be playing the new expansion very heavily in the coming months and even the next year.