A Walk back in Time

I finally got to enjoy some good old fashioned Wrath timewalker dungeons this weekend (after missing the first weekend of timewalking).  And while my only memories of these dungeons are from leveling, I still found the experience quite enjoyable!

The first (and arguable the most exciting aspect for myself) thing that I noticed about timewalking was that it scaled down your gear to level.  Not only did this help the level the playing field, but this also meant that gear from earlier expansions suddenly became relevant.  I was taking Yogapants out for the timewalking spin, the character that I had done Herald of the Titans on.  This meant I had a set of gemmed, enchanted, and totally awesome tanking gear saved in my bank from Ulduar.
Even though I completed Heralds a few months ago, it felt pretty awesome to get back into my old gear.  My transmog was saved as well, so I looked pretty amazingly stylish.  I also pulled out my singular Warglaive of Azzinoth.  If you’re going to do it, go whole hog!

Now onto the actual dungeons.  I had not actually completed these dungeons in heroic mode, so there were new mechanics (and in some cases, bosses) for me to learn.  But they were the same dungeons that I had spent so many leveling trips through.  The familiarity was welcoming.

My gear and level was scaled down which also meant my health and damage were.  As a tank, I found myself having to bust out more cooldowns than usual.  I had to be on my toes for interrupts, CCs, and bursts of damage. While that took some getting used to, on the whole I enjoyed the increased difficulty.  If these dungeons had been facerolls I doubt I would have done as many as I did.

The gear dropped was admittedly rather boring.  Sure, it brought back the iconic Wrath look (fur, spikes, and brown!) but the stats were meh.  And everything I got was either critical strike (boring) or versatility (gross).   While some of the gear was an upgrade for me, the stats were poorly itemized for my spec.  I could just have been unlucky, but I would like to see some mastery, multistrike, or haste gear if at all possible.

But I didn’t run the dungeons for the gear, I ran them for the experience.  And on that front, they did not disappoint.  I will admit it felt a little weird to be running in places like the Nexus and not watching an experience bar for a ding.  On the whole though, I had a very enjoyable time.  Would I want to see Timewalkers be an all-time thing? Not particularly, but as a holiday weekend activity they were quite fun!