Hall of Shadows (Rogue Class Hall) Has Been Re-done and is AMAZING! (Legion Alpha)

Hi everyone, we previously looked at the Hall of Shadows in December, near the beginning of the Legion Alpha. Despite the changes that had been made, many still complained it felt too unimpressive and too much like a sewer to be a proper class hall. I didn’t mind it too much, liking the not-so-subtle nods to the Thieves’ Guild in Skyrim, but what Blizzard has done to the rogue class hall in this latest alpha build blows the original out of the water. I may be heavily biased, as I have main’ed a rogue since I first started playing, but the Hall of Shadows is now my favorite order hall in Legion.

See what’s changed after the jump!

Previously, the Hall of Shadows’ entrance was the former Underbelly entrance on the side of the Violet Citadel. In this build, the gate has been removed and the entrance once more leads into the available for all players Underbelly sewers.

 

Now, rogue players are directed to the store “Glorious Goods” on the opposite side of the city.

 

 

After whispering a password to the store’s owner, that hopefully-just-a-glitch-that-it’s-so-conspicuous bookcase reveals the new entrance the Hall.

 

 

 

The main hallway is now decked-out in shadowy decor, filled with vendors offering ill-gotten goods, and cameos by oodles of notable NPCs. Of special note is Elling Trias, SI:7 operative and cheese vendor who famously predicted that Deathwing would return and attack Stormwind… all the way back in Vanilla WoW.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The arena area has been fleshed out as well. Now almost every rogue class trainer from the game can be found here, spectating or participating in duels between each other. Lonika Stillblade, proprietor of the ill-fated rogue academy from The Burning Crusade and hater of maces, is here too.

 

 

However, in the corner lies a far more interesting area with potentially massive lore implications. Past the arena lies an area where the Uncrowned produce and test their poisons. An area overseen by none other than Master Apothecary Faranell and his assistant Apothecary Keever. Despite claiming innocence and being spared the Kor’kron’s wrath, Faranell and Keever were noted in Arthas: Rise of the Lich King to be the ones who created the plague Grand Apothecary Putress used at the Wrathgate. While in the novel Sylvannas does warn him that said plague should not “fall into the wrong hands,” now that we know Faranell and Keever are part of the Uncrowned, which have been set up in Legion as Warcraft’s version of the Illuminati… I can’t help but see “Wrathgate was an inside job,” becoming a meme at the very least.

UPDATE: Foolishly, I didn’t check to see if Faranell had any unique on-click dialogue. According to WoWhead, he does: “When that brute Kraggosh and his overseers moved into the Undercity, we were forced to do our real work in secret. Surely you can see how such an arrangement inevitably led me here.” Very interesting…

 

 

 

The Treasure Vault has been updated as well. The heavily critized piles of low resolution gold have been supplemented with all manner of new treasures from throughout the world. The rogue artifact forge has also been given a unique model, instead of being a duplicate of the mage’s. Instead of Noggenfogger having stolen the mage forge, this new forge’s backstory is that it was built to contain magical toxins gathered from a remote island in the South Seas, and inject them into your weapon.

 

 

 

The famous sewer tunnel leading to a fall straight out of Dalaran has been updated as well. It is now its own subzone, the “Tunnel of Woe,” and traversing it to the end leads to another subzone called “The Plank,” the name being sefl-explanatory.

 

It does provide an incredible view, though!

 

Last but not least, the meeting hall where the leaders of the Uncrowned can be found has been altered. Aside from using more of the new art assets from the rest of the Hall, the Uncrowned leadership’s members have changed. Instead of Garona Halforcen, the Uncrowned are now lead by Lord Jorach Ravenholdt (a concession to the #RavenholdtOrRiot group perhaps?). The mysterious Shattered Hand orc “The Hood” is gone entirely, along with all NPCs bearing the name “Shattered Hand” from the order hall. Garona has taken his seat. Mathias Shaw, head of SI:7 is also gone from the council, but no one has replaced him, his chair to the left of Lord Ravenholdt just remains empty (a second empty chair at the far end of the table from Ravenholdt becomes the player’s after obtaining their artifact). The last new addition/change to the Uncrowned’s leadership is Princess Tess Greymane.

Update: The rogue artifact questline has been changed as well, and several details are now different. The player now takes the chair next to Jorach were Mathias Shaw was, leaving their old chair on the far end of the table still unoccupied. Vanessa VanCleef is absent entirely from the quest line, no longer becoming the rogue player’s first follower. It is possible this means Vanessa has been cut from Legion and her surviving the fight in the Deadmines is no longer canon.