Would You Welcome Another Legendary Quest Line?

Having completed the legendary quest line as it came out and now that it has been streamlined so it is faster and having done it on multiple characters encompassing all roles be it melee, ranged, healer and soon tank as well as, of course, multiple hunters, it makes me wonder how others feel about the quest line.

I can see how some people hate it and some people love it.  I even feel a little of both myself about it.  Some of my hate comes from the time when I went 6 straight weeks without getting a runestone before they changed it to guarantee at least one a week and some of that love is because I was able to get it on alts I have not really raided with in this expansion so they are ready to raid if and when the time comes.

I am sure all people will think of it differently but in my mind I believe if you want to raid, at least raid as part of a regular raid team, the legendary is mandatory.  Even more so for a damage dealer.  Is it needed?  That would depend on who you ask.  I could easily kill garrosh without it, at least on normal, but I would do so while preforming much better with it.  That is not up for debate.  Putting out more numbers as a damage dealer is always good.

The issue is with the word mandatory.  It has been thrown around a lot this expansion and while the fact might hold true that nothing in actually mandatory it is the person playing and how they feel that makes it so.  So even if something is not really mandatory if someone feels it is, for them, then it is mandatory.

When I get a new character leveled that I intend to play often and get into raids I make an effort to at least start work on the cloak.  Even if it is only in a part time sort of way.

I like the model, I like that they made a nice catch up mechanic.  Lets face it, if the quest items still only dropped from the bosses they were intended to drop from and it still took 6 weeks to collect 6000 valor instead of 3 weeks to collect 3000 valor I most likely would have never gotten it on any character other than my main.  That long trip is fine when you are doing it as it comes out, but when you have to go back for it, that is another story all together.

Even if some like to call it a welfare legendary, the ignorant ones at least, getting it takes a lot of time and effort as well as enduring what is probably the worst part of the game.  Random raid content.  It could make a nun curse like a truck driver, that is how bad it is.  If ever there was something that took a lot of work to get, it is the legendary and therefore it is not welfare, not in the slightest.

However, even if I do believe it was a lot of work I can understand what the people that call it a welfare legendary mean even if I do not agree with the terminology used.

Having just completed the quest line again, with its faster catch up mechanics on a new 90 makes me feel as if it was a lack luster experience.  Just like anything else in game, it always feels better to do it when it is new, when it is current, when it requires more time, more work and some might even say more skill.  Lets face it, doing the solo scenarios was surely harder with a 510 item level than it was with a 540 item level right?

I liked the quest line but I am not exactly sure if I liked the catch up mechanics.  Just like when the expansion began.  I did not mind doing all those dailies because I was going to do them anyway on my main because I like getting everyone to exalted.  When it came to alts however, it felt mandatory.  Yes, there is that word again.  Any thing you do that you want to do feels fine, any thing you do because you feel you have to do it does not feel fine.

That is my one issue with the legendary quest line.  For me at least, a character does not feel complete without it.  As I always say, if there is something within my reach that I can get alone I should get it to be raid ready and that is why I feel that I should have the legendary on my alts that I intend to use in a raid setting, sooner or later.

But I am torn.  Like I said, the quest line was exciting and felt good but when doing it on alts it lost a little bit of its punch because killing the solo scenarios with a much higher item level loses something.

Would I welcome another legendary quest line?  Yes, I believe I would.

Do I think that there is a lot blizzard could learn from this one?  Absolutely.

They can learn that the community will make something like this mandatory.  Like all the guilds recruiting on my server.  They ask that anyone that wants to join their raid team have the legendary cloak.  Many guilds, talking ones that are not even half way through normal yet, will not even entertain someone joining without the cloak.

And lets not forget pugs.  When pugs for flex runs require a legendary you know it is mandatory for many even if people try to shy away from the word and blizzard and their defenders will be glad to tell you over and over that nothing in mandatory.  If you are a player and you want to play, guess what, for many things it is.

Blizzard can really learn something from that.  The legendary for all is nice, it gives every one that is willing to put in the time, work and effort the ability to get it.  But when it is as powerful as it is, more so for damage dealers, it becomes mandatory.  I went from doing 200-220 on my newest alt to doing 260-280 just by getting the cape.  With a boost that huge I do not care what anyone says, it is mandatory.  Blizzard can learn from that.  If you make something too good it becomes mandatory.

Then there is the whole process of getting the cloak and the changes made as time went on.  I am sure there is something to be learned for there as well.  But honestly, I don't know what it is.  I lean both ways on this one.  Sorry for not being able to take a side but I believe both sides hold merit.  So what can blizzard learn from it?  Maybe you know.

There are two schools of thought here.  Keep the legendary quest line as it should be, do not add catch up mechanics.  Do not increase drop rates.  Do not make it faster.  Do not let quest items drop from additional places.  Let everyone have the same experience with the quest line even if that includes going 6 weeks without getting a runestone and waiting 6 weeks while you collect valor.

And then there is the other school of thought, the alt school of thought.  I've already done this and I should not need to do this all again.  If you have the legendary on one character you should be allowed to buy it on all of them.

One way might over value the legendary as it would increase the time investment needed to get it and make people that are late comers or people that switched mains have a much harder time playing catch up and the other way would almost completely devalue the effort of getting it if you only needed to go through the motions on one character to get it on all.

So maybe blizzard did find the right mix, with just a speed up system.  Perhaps when I make my post about my recent journey from 90 to legendary where I recorded every boss, every drop, from the moment I hit 90 until I collected my legendary cloak it will bring it into a little more perspective how fast it is to get the cloak now.  In the end however, it took me less time from 90 to legendary on my newest character than it took me to collect runestones on my main.  Perhaps that is where people get their welfare mentality, even if that is the wrong word to use.  It does suck to see someone (even if it is myself) getting everything done faster than it took you to do one small part of a huge and life suckingly long  quest line.

Being I play a hunter main and the idea of hunters getting a legendary again in the old style is all but impossible because the game likes to add legendary weapons that can be used by multiple classes and only hunters use ranged weapons so we will never see a legendary again if it were not for the legendary for all design.  It is why I welcome the legendary for all mentality.  I would not have a new legendary without a legendary for all design.  Of course as a hunter I like it.  It's hunter loot.

But would you welcome another legendary quest line?  And do you think there should be a system like now with a faster catch up or keep it the same throughout the expansion, or make it faster for alts?