I've tried both. This post contains spoilers regarding the Demon Hunter quest chain!
Of course, all plans for the new toon were always in ruins. I scrolled through the barbie faces of the blood elves, their array of elaborate, elegant, standard hairstyles... And that's not what I associate with the wild, crazy Demon Hunter. At all.
Kek. Meet Melaris!
The initial quest chain was awesome. The path through Mardum's demon world was smooth. I didn't lose my way, the objectives were clear and easy, and the whole journey was an excellent tutorial - allowing me to learn and use new skills. Still, I didn't have much time to look around - I'll probably go through one more DH to see how the action progresses at a slower pace.
The other Demon Hunters - the players - felt like we were all Illidari invaders, and that's great quest design. You're not a super-duper commander, you're one of many. Well done!
What positively surprised me was that most of the fellow Demon Hunters around me had really awesome nicknames, totally elvish and in keeping with the character. There was no "Shitfaceblade", "Cooldemonhunteralex", "Poops" and the like. Well, not yet.
The whole quest to Mardum was useless, though. We got some Legion key to worlds and promptly forgot about it because we were captured by Maiev (we go back to the Black Temple and witness Illidan defeated, so we're soured too). What happened to the "key" we captured? No one knows.
Then after many years - it's "now" and Cordana opens our and Illidan's prison to Gul'dan. Maiev gives us freedom, and we fight our way through the prison to the surface. Illidan is captured and kidnapped by Gul'dana, Maiev follows him, but we stay to kill some demons and escape to Stormwind/Orgrimmar with Khadgar.
Upon arriving at the gates of Stormwind, Khadgar immediately informs us - via quest - that Varian is dead and we must greet Anduin. We make one last demon kill at Stormwind Keep and get our demon hunter hermitage in the mage district.
The introduction is great, and serves as a harbinger of questing in Legion. I'm happy to confirm that questing in Legion would be great.
At 100 we already have a couple of talents to choose from and probably enough skill set. A couple cooldowns, 3-4 offense, some defense, some useless situational crap like "capture demon until it's hit once again".
Gameplay is very enjoyable. It feels pretty fast paced, and the rotations are very logical and understandable. Build - efficiency, simple as that.
Invasions
I didn't have enough time to do the Broken Shore scenario, but I did try Invasions - conveniently played in nearby Westfall.
Seems very, very easy to complete - until step 4. The final boss; the design is terrible. The Dreadlord almost constantly AoEs everything, and well, if you can't self-heal, you're dead. You're dead between 4 and 7 times during an encounter. What you do is wait to be resurrected, and then you die again. Melee fighters have it the worst, but if you're within shooting range, AoE will get you too.
WTF, Blizz? If you don't have healers around to heal everyone, you will die whatever you do. Death is unavoidable, no please. I fear that soon players will figure out to die once and then wait for the boss to be killed just to get loot. Who needs those repair bills anyway?
Something needs to be done about this.
I'll be trying out the Horde and Alliance scenarios for Broken Shore tonight (I know there are spoilers about the faction leaders, but it won't spoil the actual experience for me). Well, and then there are the town events to explore.
Woot! So many things to do in the coming days :)
