I suppose I should be up front here, there are some spoilers for the Nagrand quest line.
It’s a moment that was sure to come in Warlords, the return of Garrosh Hellscream. The Orc who started all this mess with his Time Traveling craziness. I have to admin, I’m actually a little disappointed. I was kind of hoping he’s be a Raid boss, or at least a dungeon boss. Granted the in game single player scenario events are kind of like dungeons, it just felt like Garrosh would get more. I think I’m less disappointed in his death as I am in how he was handled in the entire expansion. There has been little mention of him or his involvement. Granted, I have not read through every single bit of quest text, who does, but I would have expected him to show up here and there at least a few times. Hell I don’t even think he showed up at all during the initial run around the Dark Portal even. Other than the preview video where Garrosh stops Grom from drinking the Blood, he’s almost a non entity in this expansion.
This kind of leads to ,my sentiments about the expansion and it’s meandering into random incoherent-ness. Much like MoP. At this point, it’s really hard to see where things are going. Garrosh was defeated in Orgrimmar, then escaped custody after his trial. Then we, the heroes, are called to battle the mysterious Dark Iron Horde emerging from the portal. Eventually we all travel through the portal with Khadgar and Thrall and crew to close the portal from other other side, which was surprisingly as simple as interrupting Gul’Dan and later blasting the thing to pieces with one of the Iron Horde’s canons.
At the end of the Nagarand Quest chain, Garrosh is killed by Thrall. That douche Varian isn’t around to get in the way of the deed this time. So what are we still hanging around for? I suppose the Iron Horde could be building a new Dark Portal, can they even get back to our Azeroth without the help of Garrosh to guide them? I suppose there are others involved, Wrathion is probably hanging around somewhere. I imagine Garrosh has some Golbin engineers somewhere. I guess there are reasons to stay now that Garrosh has fallen, his fall still feels kind of anti climactic.
It kind of feels odd that Garrosh is effectively a huge push over this round, you and Durotan go a few rounds with Garrosh before hand, he’s tough, but not hard, and he’s surrounded by cheering Iron Hordies. Even if you managed to get the upper hand, they would surely descend on you, the player, and tear you apart. It’s kind of important to keep in mind that Garrosh is no longer infused with Sha energies, this he’s not nearly as strong as he was in Mists.
The final battle cut scene is pretty impressive, the scenario invasion of Gromgar considerably less so. It feels a bit buggy and a little too confused. Enemies would randomly pull out of nowhere for one. Later you’re supposed to make your way along a rise through the battle and it’s easy to get long. Lost enough that you can walk up and prematurely enter Garrosh’s circle of enemies. Not much happens without the story trigger but it feels a bit sloppy.
It’s par for the course on the story for WoD I suppose. Maybe things will start to come together more once we get to Tanaan Jungle. I certainly hope so anyway.
