20170315: The Return, Part 3. Early Legion material.

1. The biggest differences between Legion and previous WoW material.
1. Artifact Weapons.
1. Earlier WoW weapons could be leveled and improved, but this is a step beyond that.
2. Your artifact weapon will be your last weapon, in Legion, anyway, levels 101 to 110.
3. Artifact weapons allow for leveling, from the initial iLevel 750 to well over iLevel 900.  This helps your average armour level grow significantly.
4. Beyond the iLevel, the artifact weapons have an associated large tree of nodes that can be grown by the player.  The nodes have levels.
5. The levels of the nodes strengthen or alter existing skills, and sometimes create all new skills that are few but extremely powerful.
6. Buying a traditional WoW weapon that is similar or better just will not happen.
7. One evolves the artifact weapon through joining artifacts or relics to the weapon.  Such artifacts are obtained at the end of hard quest changes, from boss drops, or from raiding treasure chests.
8. Smaller quest drops or field drops allow increase of node levels through 'artifact power.'  As one spends artifact power on node level increases, the cost for the next bump goes up.
9. The first bump cost is 300; the next is 325, after that 350 and so on.  At level 13, the cost to level up goes from 1000 artifact power to 6875.  Later on there are even bigger jumps.
10. Each artifact weapon allows for the installation of 3 relics.  The relics enable level increases of the weapon itself, plus an increment in a single node.  For instance, a relic might increase the iLevel  of the weapon by +2 (early acquisitions, when the character is around level 101) to +56 (later in the game, character at 110, tougher quest chains or raids).
11. The relics come in types: Frost, Iron, Storm, Blood, Holy, Life, Fel, Shadow, Fire.
12. Relics can occasionally be purchased at the Auction House. Look under 


2. Armor improvements.
1. Each class/specialization has a primary statistic: Strength, Agility, or Intellect.
2. When a character switches specialization, say Monk/Mistweaver => Monk/Windwalker, the primary statistic might change. In this example, Intellect => Agility.
3. In Legion, the statistic (Strength, Agility, Intellect) for most armor pieces changes when the specialization changes.
4. This is true for (head, shoulders, chest, wrist, hands, belt, legs, boots), but not for the decorations (neck, shirt, cape, tabard, rings (2), trinkets (2)).
5. When making weapon sets for characters, one good piece of armor for the head will work for any specialization.  However, a trinket, for example, might have a fixed primary statistic, say Agility.  When switching to a specialization using Intellect, one needs to get a piece of armor with Intellect or just use one that has neither.


3. Specialization switching is easier and cheaper.
1. When switching specializations, the artifact weapon is switched automatically in your armor set.
2. The primary statistic (Strength, Agility, Intellect) is automatically switched on eight pieces of armor (see above).
3. This makes it unnecessary to have separate armor for the eight most expensive pieces.
4. However, take care with the choices for the decorations.  If you have a trinket, for example, that has only Agility as a perq statistic, switching to an Intellect or Strength specialization renders the trinket almost useless.
5. If you have all three artifact weapons (two for Demon Hunters), and you have chosen decorations carefully, selecting the specializations automatically accomplishes the full armor set change.


4. The game recommends pursuing more than one specialization for a given single character.
1. I took my lead monk to level 101 as a Mistweaver (healer).  I chose Windwalker (DPS) for the second artifact weapon to pursue.
2. The game suggested I look for a second artifact weapon.  The second go was easier since I started at a higher rank and was familiar with the process by then.
3. After playing with the Windwalker for a while, I noticed that the quest giver offered a quest to start looking for an artifact weapon for the third Monk specialization, Brewmaster (tank).
4. I had not played a tank for five years or so, but I thought, why not.  See what it's like.
5. I got through levels 106 to 110 as Brewmaster faster than I did levels 98 to 105.  Brewmaster is really good for quest chains in the Broken Isles, where mobs tend to gang up on you, and are fast relative to what I was used to from Mists of Pandaria.
6. Keeping separate artifact weapons of Mistweaver, Windwalker, and Brewmaster approximately equal in strength has been challenging.  Still, this seems a good idea, since I might start dungeons and quests again.  I'm not sure whether to go with DPS (probable for dungeons) or healer (most of my WoW experience) or tank.


5. As in Warlords of Draenor, Legion characters get followers that one can send on missions.
1. The followers are more configurable in Legion.
2. One of the followers will, at your choice, follow you around on the Broken Islands to assist in your questing.
3. Some of the rewards in the follower quests are armor upgrades to the followers.
4. After level 110, followers get a listed iLevel, which starts at 760.  The armor upgrades increase the iLevel of the followers.  Some quests will not start unless the followers are above a certain level.
5. Followers, as opposed to your character, continue getting experience after level 110.  Followers are first green (ordinary), then progress to blue (kinda special), then progress to purple (more special).
6. After a time, your followers have to be purple with iLevel 830 or more, then 850 or more.
7. All missions cost order resources.
8. The missions give better rewards after a while, but never great.


2. Early tasks that one must do to continue.
1. Do the Alliance or Horde quests that lead to the Broken Isles.
2. Do the return quests. By this time, you'll have some significant armor upgrades.
3. Get the quest that lets you observe the teleportation of Dalaran to the Broken Isles.
4. Do the quest sequence that allows you to get your first artifact weapon.  This quest is class-specific, and on the difficult side.  The artifact weapon is likely a big armor level boost; the weapon is usually iLevel 750, a big jump up from WoD levels.
5. Also, the artifact weapon has an entire tree within it that allows improvement through getting rewards that include 'artifact power.'
6. Your single artifact weapon grows with you for levels 99 to 110.


3. Around level 102, one might get the option of pursuing a second artifact weapon.
1. For example, I got my first artifact weapon as a Mistweaver Monk, around level 99.
2. I got some advancement through artifact power.
3. Later I got a summons to the home region of the Monks, which was updated from the Pandaria expansion to the Legion expansion.
4. Then I got a chance to do quests to get an artifact weapon suitable for Windwalker or Brewmaster Monks. I chose Windwalker.
5. After completing those tasks, I was asked whether I wanted to get a Brewmaster weapon. I passed on that.
6. After attaining the second weapon, it is a good time to configure a second armor set in the Character pane.
7. After I equipped the new fist weapons, I went through the talent tree, and chose talents for Windwalker, then ordered the skill bars.
8. Fortunately, the Intellect rating I had for Mistweaver was automatically switched over to Agility when I activated Windwalker.
9. That represented a huge savings in not purchasing new armor.
10. Also, to interchange Mistweaver to Windwalker, I only need to activate the specialty and switch armor sets.
11. The choices in the Talent pane and in the skill bars are remembered and returned.
12. In DPS only classes (say Warlock), one can still choose among different specialties, such as Affliction versus Destruction versus Demonology.  There are separate Talent choices, skill choices, and weapon choices that can be interchanged quickly.