Tuesday, 8 September 2015

World of Warcraft: Legion - Dragoncon News


To everyone's surprise, there was a World of Warcraft panel at Dragoncon. Additional information was revealed about the new expansion, Legion. There are a number of highlights, ranging from Demon Hunters to the transmogrification system, listed below:

  • Demon Hunters currently planned to start at 98.
  • Demon Hunters can use 1H Swords, in addition to Glaives.
  • Demon Hunter Metamorphosis is a short transformation with inner demon visuals, not continuous form.
  • Multistrike is gone, other secondary/tertiary stats are changed.
  • Profession updates - very little or no cooldown gated profession materials for crafting.
  • Stage Upgrades work differently - destroy old item, get Obliterium material to create better item.
  • Transmog system in Legion is similar to Diablo and possibly account-wide.
  • No extra Void Storage tab planned--transmog system should help with bag space.
  • Classes in Legion emphasize fantasy of specs and some are even getting renamed.
  • Survival Hunters, who are melee in Legion, get Harpoon ability to draw mobs towards them.
  • Adventure Mode may be coming to Legion - no details, but something that may be discussed at BlizzCon.
  • A previous tweet stated no major glyphs, but was clarified to say there were simply no new major glyphs.

Interesting to see that Demon Hunters will be starting at level 98. Perhaps after doing the starting area, the Demon Hunter will be level 100, after progressing through two levels. Or, it may mean that it's similar to Death Knights in which you level rapidly and gain abilities at an odd rate during the process, to help ease players into the class. Demon Hunters may have to visit Draenor to reach 100, but even if they do, they will be doing very little Warlords of Draenor content.

It's quite likely that Demonology Warlocks will be losing their Metamorphosis, as it will be iconic to Demon Hunters. Demon Hunter Metamorphosis will be a short transformation, instead of a continuous transformation like current Warlock's. Blizzard stated that they would like to refocus the Warlock Demonology specialization more on actual Demons, rather than imbuing themselves with demonic power; more of a pet spec is in mind. Infact, a load of classes will be getting a revamp and some specializations will be having their names changed. I'll cover this in a later blog post when more information has been revealed.

I'm really glad that Multistrike is gone, because although it's a fun idea it ultimately has a negative impact on the game. Percent based chances add too much RNG to the game, and in this case far to high of a reward for doing nothing. In PvP, multistrike is ok for the majority of abilities except when it activates on hard hitting spells like Chaos Bolt. For example, Chaos Bolt crits for 173k, then multistrikes for an additional 51k. Where's the skill in that?

Legion has the largest profession team to date, so far they have revealed that their will be little to no cooldown gating on professions. This means that you are only limited by how much effort you are willing to put into the profession.

Transmog will also be changed, to a system similar to Diablo 3. In Diablo 3, you only need to have had the item once to then use it as transmog. This new system will save a lot of storage space, and will also eliminate the need for additional Void Storage slots. Legion might also see Adventure Mode, again from Diablo 3.

No new glyphs have been announced, save for that there will be no new major glyphs in Legion. Hopefully minor glyphs will be used to focus on class cosmetic effects. For example, I'd love a glyph for Death Knights so that when they use Soul Reaper and gain the haste buff, the swirling soul effect lasts for a couple of minutes, instead of a few seconds.

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