Why did they invent Talonclaw?

[Sigrah]

Yeah I'm kinda down with the spear. As other have said hunting with a spear comes across rather well thematically for me. I know there could have been other things (Like a funky moon glaive, or twin Rexxar axes **Rwar! ) but I think the spear works well enough. The one I have the most trouble with (though I may be missing some of it as I've not used it much) is the MM bow.

Oh here's a bow from the windrunner family... yeah.. here it is... oh it's an artifact too? Is there much else to it? (No really I'd love to know if anyone could fill me in) I foud at least the spear has a history to it, even if they only just made it up. While questing in highmountain there was that hero/vehicle quest when you got to see/use the eagle spear.

It really made it more of a "Thing" for me compared to the MM bow.

What I would have liked to have seen, is some other skins for the eagle spear that were more wow Hunter Themed. Maybe a Sen'Jin Darkspear... spear. I would go great with troll/headhunter/tribal styled hunters.

The 2 other awesome things about running around with Talonclaw is that 1) You become an eagle when you die in the broken shores and 2) The Highmountain Tauren actually salute you as the bearer of Talonclaw randomly when you walk by them. It's probably one of the most enriched artifact weapons in the game lore wise atm.

[Chaix]

Oh here's a bow from the windrunner family... yeah.. here it is... oh it's an artifact too? Is there much else to it? (No really I'd love to know if anyone could fill me in) I foud at least the spear has a history to it, even if they only just made it up. While questing in highmountain there was that hero/vehicle quest when you got to see/use the eagle spear.

in-game justification: the bow was specially crafted for a previous windrunner who was a hero in the troll wars, crafted from a tree that absorbed power from the sunwell. the tree also served as the focal point for the runestones the elves used for defense. the bow is also empowered by the magic of the land around it, in silvermoon it was empowered by the sunwell, it apparently took some energy from Niskara as well to make it an anti-demon weapon.
-summary of the artifact history on wowhead.

they probably really wanted to have at least one artifact connected to sylvanas since she's the new warchief. technically the scythe is connected to wolfboy (the alliance's apparent poster boy this time), but they kinda shot themselves in the foot on that one. the scythe was involved in an unresolved quest line and the group pursuing was used for a bunch of other artifacts as well resulting in a kinda boring merged acquisition quest.

[Wain]

professions feeling like a massive grind thanks to Blizzard's "need" to make gathering professions feel important by making recipes require more mats

Understandable, though I admit I do love what they've done with adding quests to gathering professions. The mining quests take some cool and (later on) really macabre turns. Whoever created them did a great job.

True story: I drove a big, blunted wooden stake into Nomi's heart the other day when all the bacon I gave him for research ended up coming back very burnt, and out of nowhere it just burst into flames. The only conclusion I could arrive at is that Nomi can burn a stake as well as he burns, well, a steak.

[Wain]

The 2 other awesome things about running around with Talonclaw is that 1) You become an eagle when you die in the broken shores and 2) The Highmountain Tauren actually salute you as the bearer of Talonclaw randomly when you walk by them. It's probably one of the most enriched artifact weapons in the game lore wise atm.

Both are pretty awesome! The latter is an especially nice touch because it's just cosmetic and they didn't have to do it

[Aweena]

The tauren do it even when you run around in bm spec and have it in your bag haven't checked if they do it when i leave it in my bank yet

[Gimlion]

Having done all 3 hunter artifact quests, I find that the only one of the three that fit the theme at all was SV. I actually felt like a rugged tracker, laying traps and hunting. Even doing it in BM, i FELT like I was SURVIVING. It was fun. Meanwhile, there's very little in line of spec representation, thematically or technically in MM/BM quests. Marksman's quest should have involved a shooting competition or something, maybe BEATING the Windrunner sister in an archery show. And I still have 0 understanding as to why BM had to go techno punk titan-ware on us. Something like working with a herd of exotic beasts or going into the spirit realm to commune with the Spirit beasts would have been 10000000% better.

From what I hear about other artifacts quest's and some other evidence I've seen (like the fact that there's an archaeology spear from a quest, even though it's legitimately useless) makes me feel like they implemented artifact weapons very very late into their development of the expansion, and had to rush to get quests out in order for them to be playable by alpha/beta. That theory would also make sense when you look at how oddly unsatisfying some specs/balancing was at the end of beta.

[Wain]

From what I hear about other artifacts quest's and some other evidence I've seen (like the fact that there's an archaeology spear from a quest, even though it's legitimately useless) makes me feel like they implemented artifact weapons very very late into their development of the expansion, and had to rush to get quests out in order for them to be playable by alpha/beta.

Some of the artifact quests were pretty much done in early Alpha. The SV one was actually the first Hunter one released, and it's only changed a little from what I first experienced in Alpha. But back then it was full of bugs that they only fixed very late in Beta, meaning they barely had time to fix up the bugs let alone do all of them right. I think the later ones they kinda rushed to market.

[pop]

Having done all 3 hunter artifact quests, I find that the only one of the three that fit the theme at all was SV. I actually felt like a rugged tracker, laying traps and hunting. Even doing it in BM, i FELT like I was SURVIVING. It was fun. Meanwhile, there's very little in line of spec representation, thematically or technically in MM/BM quests. Marksman's quest should have involved a shooting competition or something, maybe BEATING the Windrunner sister in an archery show. And I still have 0 understanding as to why BM had to go techno punk titan-ware on us. Something like working with a herd of exotic beasts or going into the spirit realm to commune with the Spirit beasts would have been 10000000% better.

From what I hear about other artifacts quest's and some other evidence I've seen (like the fact that there's an archaeology spear from a quest, even though it's legitimately useless) makes me feel like they implemented artifact weapons very very late into their development of the expansion, and had to rush to get quests out in order for them to be playable by alpha/beta. That theory would also make sense when you look at how oddly unsatisfying some specs/balancing was at the end of beta.

I find the Surv one was ok, and MM the worst. I enjoyed BM quest the most, or as I would call it, "Happy Fun Time with Mimiron".

[Sukurachi]

the BM quest felt like an engineering quest to me.

[Melissa]

like the fact that there's an archaeology spear from a quest, even though it's legitimately useless

Just to quote on this, it has two uses from what I see;

One, it's BoA, and though not as obvious since it isn't a proper heirloom scales from lvl 1 to 100, so there's alts that can use it.

Secondly... It's a one handed polearm that can be transmogged into other polearms. That is HUGE. As a roleplayer, that means I can carry a polearm of my choice + a shield on my Paladin when I'm roleplaying, akin to the Shieldmaidens in Stormheim. I know many RPers who have begged for a one-handed polearm look for years and we finally get it now

As for Talonclaw... I can't comment much on it as I've not done the quest for it (As stated in my sig, I no longer main Hunter, just staying around here for the community ^^), but I do agree with the people who have stated a polearm / spear feels far more thematically Hunter than a Sword. I could have agreed to an Axe though.

[SpiritBinder]

like the fact that there's an archaeology spear from a quest, even though it's legitimately useless

Secondly... It's a one handed polearm that can be transmogged into other polearms. That is HUGE. As a roleplayer, that means I can carry a polearm of my choice + a shield on my Paladin when I'm roleplaying, akin to the Shieldmaidens in Stormheim. I know many RPers who have begged for a one-handed polearm look for years and we finally get it now .

Holy shiz, this is incredible!?! You can equip it AND another one hander as a hunter too.... Mind = Blown

[Xella]

Yeah I think we were just lucky that the BM quest was particularly involved.

I've done a DK one and found it seemed to use the same area / quest line a druid one that a friend had done previously. I think they must have been double-dipping. The BM one, and the SV one (though slightly less involved) were pretty unique.

I am reasonably sure the DK one you're talking about is also the one that the balance druid AND affliction warlock quests make use of (and possibly others as well)—I did the affliction and balance quests in the same day and the quest text and voiceover work is nearly word for word through the entire thing. That's the one where you go to duskwood and meet up with Revil Kost and track the Dark Riders to Karazhan via the camp in Deadwind Pass and so forth, yeah?

I've done... 19/36 artifact lines now and that was honestly the most of a "what the hey?" kind of moment, running the Deadwind Pass/Karazhan Undercroft essentially twice in a row. Kind of glad my DK went frost first tbh because if I'd done it three times in the asme day I may have imploded, haha. So far my opinion of the BM questline is holding pretty strong: "would have been fantastic as a profession (engineering) or general quest, was incredibly disappointing as a BM quest" but it's not the worst or flimsiest by a long shot.

(Back on topic-ish, I'm hopeful that they'll add additional "skins" for the artifacts that let you change their weapon type, although I'm not sure how that would actually play out with the artifacts themselves so maybe that's sort of a pipe dream. I don't see it as being likely for specs like assassination and it's not really an issue for warriors and hunters since they/we can already mog between weapon types, but shadowpriest-dagger and elemental-fist weapon and the like. Being able to "split" the spear in two would also be fantastic, but because they put that pesky "requires two-handed weapon" thing on flanking strike it'd have to be purely visual, so probably not :(

Not being able to sheathe the Claws of Ursoc feels really weird also, but mostly because there aren't fist weapons that match my preferred guardian mog on my primary druid, haha

[zedxrgal]

like the fact that there's an archaeology spear from a quest, even though it's legitimately useless

Secondly... It's a one handed polearm that can be transmogged into other polearms. That is HUGE. As a roleplayer, that means I can carry a polearm of my choice + a shield on my Paladin when I'm roleplaying, akin to the Shieldmaidens in Stormheim. I know many RPers who have begged for a one-handed polearm look for years and we finally get it now .

Holy shiz, this is incredible!?! You can equip it AND another one hander as a hunter too.... Mind = Blown

Say what now? For real? Talonclaw is one handed?

[SpiritBinder]

Say what now? For real? Talonclaw is one handed?

Unfortunately not talonclaw (Now that WOULD be seriously fricken epic), but the archeology spear is. It somehow satisfies the 2 handed component for SV, yet allows an additional 1 handed weapon to be equipped. It's flagged as a one and two handed.

The saddest part is it only scales to 100 (unsurprisingly with artifacts and all) which means after that it becomes all bit meh

[Teigan]

I like the spear. In theory. It, especially with it's history, has a sort of fierce, wild feel to it that would go well with some of my hunters. I can't say it would work well for everyone, for that reason. Not everyone wants to run around as a tree-hugging druid-hunter or a half-feral anti-social raised by wolves type.
It would fit well with my main hunter. Except that she needs to be BM because pets. Sooo....she gets a gun...or a bow that looks like a prop from a bad Frankenstein movie. She may be a dwarf, but she thinks she's as elf and prefers bows. So that's not good. And my gnome, who is most definitely not "one with nature" and wouldn't know the Earth Mother if she walked up and bit her has Talonclaw. Yeah, her and her mech-only pets are totally digging that...
So the artifacts didn't work out so well for me in practice. In theory they're good, but, yeah At least my blood elf is happy, as is my worgen. But, since this is a very alt-unfriendly expansion, they won't be getting much attention. Bleh.

At least there is mogging. Avalanche is the bow Titan's Reach should have been.

[zedxrgal]

Say what now? For real? Talonclaw is one handed?

Unfortunately not talonclaw (Now that WOULD be seriously fricken epic), but the archeology spear is. It somehow satisfies the 2 handed component for SV, yet allows an additional 1 handed weapon to be equipped. It's flagged as a one and two handed.

The saddest part is it only scales to 100 (unsurprisingly with artifacts and all) which means after that it becomes all bit meh

*sigh*
Well that bubble has burst. Oh well. I was about to love SV even more!

[PrimalTazza]

Several of the artifact quests seem to run through the same areas, which I don't necessarily see as a bad thing. At least some specs have more diversity so far as the background goes... on my Forsaken warrior who is by NO means one of the barbaric, die with honor types of warriors, every single weapon has some sort of vrykul-y background.

Prot has Deathwing scale forged into a shield and sword and used by a vrykul, arms has the first human king's sword which was supposedly forged by vrykul; even if it wasn't, he's still a jerky barbarian king, and fury's swords were made by Odyn. Arms and fury (and prot to a lesser extent, depending on how you look at it) also has some sort of dark corruption going on, with arms getting weird void energy from being embedded in a C'thraxxi's head and fury's swords being "corrupted by Helya." Seriously, not a single weapon that isn't the barbaric warrior archetype? None of the chivalrous, noble knight type? I dig the vrykul aesthetic, sure, but I'm also a huge fan of medieval or crusades-era knights and soldiers.

Thank goodness for transmog at least.



My Forsaken.

[Quiv]

Seriously, not a single weapon that isn't the barbaric warrior archetype? None of the chivalrous, noble knight type? I dig the vrykul aesthetic, sure, but I'm also a huge fan of medieval or crusades-era knights and soldiers.

Yeah I thought this a shame myself. I guess they felt they had to tie everything to something Broken Isle relevant, and i guess "chivalrous, noble knight" doesn't fit that. They could have come up with something though, surely.

[Rhyela]

I wasn't crazy about the Warrior stuff, myself. Can't win 'em all, I guess.

[Rawr]

What I really want to know is why did they invent the Titanstrike? Nothing screams one with all beasts like lightning, loud noises, and mecha-gnomes.