My lovely friend Zeirah and I are challenging each other with a weekly blog post. We choose a topic and both write about. This week’s topic is our favourite Legion dungeon. You can read Z’s post about her favourite right here.

I’m going to preface this by saying that this is actually a really hard decision to make, because I think that all of the dungeons so far in Legion have been amazing. And with the next one including Karazahan, well it looks like they’re just going to keep on getting better.

I do have a bit of a ranking for my favourite dungeons, but it does seem to change a fair bit depending on the group. Eye of Azshara for example is right near the bottom. Too many of the fights can go completely south if you have a bad group, and as a healer it’s so frustrating having to “fix” everything all the time. However, when I do that dungeon as a dps or with a great group who know what they’re doing, then I have a much better time of things. (I will admit, I think I hate it a little bit only because I haven’t managed to get my hidden artifact appearance from there yet!)

Vault of the Wardens is another that’s not too high on my favourites list, but that’s only because I’m so terrible at Cordon’s fight! Those darn walls of ghosts in Mythic… I’m just terrible at them! I was very grateful when I was running this yesterday to have a guildie who was a demon hunter. Demon Hunters can use their spectral sight to see where the ghosts are after they’ve disappeared, so I just followed him around to stay alive. The story for the Vault is pretty cool, too.

I have a good time in all of the dungeons, though. I really like falling down the water holes in Neltharion’s Lair. It was particularly fun on Pirate’s day – looked like I was surfing my way down!! As for the dungeon itself, it’s the only dungeon I feel a bit disconnected from. I put this down to the fact that I *still* haven’t finished Highmountain yet. (that’s a story for another time).

I wasn’t around during Wrath so I had no frustrations going in to Assault on Violet Hold. I quite like it! I like that it’s different every time. My only frustration is the spider boss not giving me a titanforged version of the healer trinket! Halls of Valor seems to be a dungeon that a lot of people dislike, but I really enjoy it. I liked Stormheim as a zone and I enjoyed the story going in to it. And that golden/rainbow bridge is so beautiful to go across!

Maw of Souls also ranks quite high on my list. The whole concept is just really interesting to me. It’s also short, and I love a good dungeon that can be quick to run through but still be challenging. Helya is an awesome boss – she looks amazing. The fight itself drives me up the wall, but in a good way. It’s only frustrating because I’m a clumsy pandaren who keeps falling in the holes 🙂

Favourite dungeon/s

But my top two favourite dungeon/s are the two mythic only dungeons – The Arcway and Court of Stars. And of course I have no screenshots of these dungeons, so I’m going to have to direct you over to the Wowhead guides for these dungeons for you to see some pics.

Arcway first. 

It’s basically a power station for Suramar city, helping to send around ancient mana to the city’s population. But it’s also full of creepy shit, and of course demons are hovering about the place to take advantage of some of its power, too.

I like the randomness of this dungeon (although to be fair I’ve only been in here once!) Each week the other the bosses appear in is different, making it a little more interesting to run repeatedly. I like the Ivanyr encounter best of all in here. The fight itself is quite straight forward – get off interrupts, don’t stand in crap, make a pretty shape with the Nether Link etc. But I like fights like that. I like fights that are relatively simple to execute, but deadly if you make the smallest mistake. Miss an interrupt on this fight and it can hurt a LOT. Run away with Nether Link instead of working as a group to make a small shape – you gonna lose. I just like it.

I also just really like the spell effects that are in this dungeon. It’s refreshing having all this purple/white/blue everywhere (except for the demon part, of course). When I went in this dungeon we also managed to get a couple of the achievements done which was nice. Overall, I really enjoyed this dungeon.

My top favourite is Court of Stars. 

For this dungeon, we get to go to a party! I really love this dungeon. It’s only 3 bosses (short and sweet!) but has some really interesting mechanics to not only the bosses, but to the trash and buffs you can get.

The premise of the dungeon is that there’s a party (but of course!) and Grand Magistrix Elisande is rumoured to appear. Which is great, because she needs to go down. When we first get to the dungeon we’re escorted to the party in our own private gondolas (when will these be a mount, btw?!) Throughout this dungeon is one of the most interesting aspects of it – scattered around the place are buffs or items to help players defeat the dungeon, however these buffs are specific to your race, class or professions. For example Druids and herbalists can pick a flower (Umbral Bloom) that will give everyone in the party 10% Haste.  Death Knights and Monks can consume a drink that will give the whole party improved health and mana regen. Stuff like that. The buffs are randomised, so it’s different each time. (The Wowhead guide for this fight has a map and detailed list of what each buff/item is and where to find them.)

I found the trash leading to the first boss harder than the boss himself. Which is fine. There are beacons that need to be turned off as we get closer to him, to help disguise our entry (though I personally found turning out the lights a pretty obvious indication that something suspicious was going on!) The boss is pretty straight forward, so we head off on to the next one, which is where the profession specific items come in handy. The boss itself is straight forward, however it’s her companions that cause trouble. They all empower each other, so fighting them all together is pretty much impossible at this stage. You need to use items around the area to distract one emissary at a time, so that the boss is eventually left on her own. And I like her fight because of the fire 😀

The next “trash pack” is the best idea for a dungeon in ages. The premise of this is that a party is happening in one of the nearby buildings and Elisande is probably going to show up at it. We want to kill her, so we head in that direction. However there is a Burning Legion spy in the room who is bound to stop us, so we need to take out the spy first. To do this, we all get the Masquerade illusion from Ly’leth Lunastre. We then walk around the party and speak to 5 Chatty Rumourmongers who give us clues as to who this spy might be. All 5 clues will help identify who the spy is. We confront them, and then kill them out on a the balcony when they turn into their demon form. I just really like this idea. It helps slow down the pace of the dungeon in a nice way that doesn’t just rely on brute force. It really fits with the theme of sneaking around Suramar, too. Looking at the guide again now to write this post, I see that there are also other ways of identifying the spy if you’re a Protection Paladin or a Demon Hunter with the Spectral Sight ability. Either way, it’s a very cool idea, and is the main reason I chose this dungeon as my favourite.

Elisande, of course, pisses off by the time we get to the balcony. Apparently she has more important things to do. Good for her. So we kill her Advisor, Melandrus. The fight is straight forward really. Just lots of moving around!

All in all, I find this dungeon to be really, really interesting. I love the theme of it, I love how it looks, and I love that there are unique elements to it (the buffs and the “spy trash”). I am also extremely glad that this dungeon is mythic only. This really does need to have an organised group to do. Or at least a group that will communicate with one another. I can just imagine being in a random pug with people who don’t know the dungeon or don’t listen or wait to follow the dungeon correctly, just pulling everything in the world… *shudder*.

So that’s my thoughts on the Legion dungeons. I am really impressed with them all so far (and that’s a big deal coming from me – I’m not usually a dungeon fan at all!) I’m really looking forward to seeing how Karazhan will turn out!