Here we are well into season 2 of the WoW Midnight expansion. Loads of new content, new mechanics and gameplay. But are we enjoying those changes and the  Midnight expansion over all?

Back in March when the new Midnight edition dropped, there was a lot of gripe over the changes that were being implemented into the core of WoW. Namely, the brutal ability pruning and loss of nearly all add-ons. These two changes sent players into fits of rage and panic.

But the move towards a very much more solo playing experience with the likes of expanded Delve content, Ritual sites, and the Prey system really smoothed things over for a huge, maybe even a majority of the player base.

For me though? I absolutely love how both of those changes affected me and the way I play Warcraft. And I think that these changes may even have made (some/most) players… better. Or at the very least gave (some/most) players a chance to see sides of the game they probably wouldn’t have before the changes.

I barely used any add-ons before. I played mostly stock UI with just limited QoL add-ons. So the new Blizzard style UI components were basically an upgrade for me. Sure it took some time to get used to it and get things set up, but thats pretty much how it is every expansion or update.

I now have everything set up and working so well, that I probably wouldn’t go back to what I had before.

Sure the ability prune was and still sort of is an issue. Some classes benefited and some classes really changed the core of their being because of losing or combining skills and spells. But for the most part I think it helped streamline the gameplay. I don’t need to make room for and memorize the 20 extra buttons that were rarely ever used.

The solo content. Yes! Those Delves, Prey and Rituals. This has got to be the best thing to have happened to “retail” WoW in sometime, for quite a few reasons.

Warcraft has had a steadily growing dispersion between casual players and the higher enders. The “next level” content always quickly got out of reach for players that were not 100% playtime dedicated. If you ain’t highly geared you ain’t getting accepted to groups. If you don’t get into groups you ain’t getting the higher gear. Once you fell behind even just a little in doing content, you were basically left for dead, never to catch back up.

But now the Midnight solo options give champion and hero gear, plus in a couple days the bigger Delves or the Labyrinth will be dropping Mythic gear. 

So now even us weekenders have the ability to gear high enough to start Mythic+. Once you start getting even a few under your belt, you start getting the gear for even higher levels of mythics or even normal or heroic raids.

It isn’t like you were just handed the gear, you need to work for it, and working for it means you are learning how to play your toon and how to deal with mechanics in order to progress. But you can now do this at your own pace by yourself. 

I never did Mythics before this, but running those Delves and Preys I got my foot in that gear level door and was able to get into groups. Now I am now a regular mythic runner wearing hero track equipment. 

So yea, these changes were all in my favor. The higher enders still got all of their content so they are happy, and guys like me now can push things further than we ever could. And it is pretty great