The Timeless Isle - First Impression

The Timeless Isle - First Impression

I think the Timeless Isle is a little over promoted. Maybe a lot over promoted. I'm not sure what Wild was expecting, but what he saw wasn't what he thought he was getting. First off, the island is very small. Second, the island is crawling with hostile mobs, a great many of them level 90+ elites. Wild wandered around for awhile, not sure what to do. There were a lot of players about, too, although most looked as confused as Wild.

Wild did find a familiar event. Wild was offered a pet battle from an npc. Cool, Wild knows all about pet battles. Well, he thought he did. Wild sent three of his best level 25 pets to fight a single opponent, a legendary pet with a very long name. Wild's pet's are rated "Rare quality." A "Legendary" pet is ... well, even better. Wild was happy his pets got in a little damage, but the legendary pet single handedly killed all three of Wild's pets quite easily. Since Wild is unlikely ever to have a legendary pet, that event is not going to be back on Wild's dance card any time soon.

One of the things Wild wanted to do was to make the rounds of the island to collect treasure chests. Wild tried to follow a pattern that wound around to all the spawning points. After more than an hour of that, Wild still couldn't say what a treasure chest looked like, since he'd yet to find one. Wild did his best to avoid the elite mobs. I'm not sure Boomkin Wild could kill one, but he could probably bore it to death. The non-elites were quicker in their dying, and they did drop some of the coins that Wild is after, but overall Wild did not have much to show for his first visit.

Now for the second impression, which is WoW! For Wild's second trip to the island, I decided to pick up the few quests that are available. Doing the quests got Wild started in the right direction. Wild's luck with drops for the various tasks Wild performed were so stunning Happy may have to take the game to court to get back all that gold he spent to upgrade Wild's gear. Wild spent something like 20,000 gold on gear upgrades for his level 90 coming out party. On his first night on the Isle Wild replaced four pieces of that gear with far better (all of it i496). Wild's gear score went from i455 to i464. Philly will get a pair of i496 cloth pants as well. Wild did find a couple of treasure chests this time, and killed a lot of hostiles for coins. Dying is a pretty routine occurrence, and other than having to pay for gear repair (about 80 gold, no worse than from raiding) Wild was quickly back into action. Wild's better gear helped with the kills, but boomkin DPS pretty much sucks.

Not sure I understand how the elite kills work. I keep reading that grouping and tagging aren't required for looting, but Wild can't loot mobs that someone else has tagged. If Wild tags an elite first, Wild usually dies. I just don't have the stamina to stay upright long enough to kill it, even with help. Wild is getting better at kiting and jumping into travel form to avoid those sure death situations, but it's also easy to run straight into another pocket of elites while fleeing from another. Pretty exciting in a "damn, I'm dead again" way. I didn't see a single battle with the elite bosses, but then I don't understand how that works. I suppose it becomes an instanced battle that bystanders can't see? Have to be invited? Lots of questions . . . but the place is growing on Wild.