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Legion - Artifact Trait Calculator
We finally have an early version of an Artifact Trait calculator ready! It is nowhere near complete, nor are the actual traits, so please keep that in mind!

  • Each artifact trait tree starts at the thick gold border trait, not the gold dragons.
  • After selecting that trait, you can select any of the ones directly connected to it.
  • For most classes, there are 3 Major Traits that are 4-5 deep in the trait tree. These are capped at Rank 1.
  • The Minor Traits in the rest of the tree are capped to 3 by default.
  • The cap on traits can be increased by up to 2 using relics. This leads to some fun traits:
  • The current trait calculator doesn't restrict what traits you can select or support relics. This is coming in a future update.


Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Blood
Frost
Unholy
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Havoc
Vengeance
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Balance
Feral
Guardian
  • Initial Trait
    • Blood Claws (Rank 1) - Your melee abilities cause Blood Claws, dealing 0 damage over 15 sec. Blood Claws reduces damage dealt by 0% and stacks to 5.
  • Major Traits
    • Embrace of the Nightmare (Rank 1) - While Rage of the Sleeper is active, you are immune to crowd control and deal 33% increased damage, generate 33% more Rage, and Leech 33% of damage dealt.
    • Heart of the Woods (Rank 1) - While Barkskin is active you are embraced by the forest. The first three strikes that would deal more than 20% of your life are absorbed by the trees.
    • Adaptive Fur (Rank 1) - Elemental Damage has a chance to trigger Adaptive Fur, reducing damage from that element by 20% for 15 sec.
  • Minor Traits

Restoration
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Beast Mastery
Marksmanship
Survival
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Arcane
Fire
Frost
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Brewmaster
Mistweaver
Windwalker
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Holy
Protection
Retribution
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Discipline
Holy
Shadow
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Assassination
Outlaw
  • Initial Trait
    • Curse of the Dreadblades (Rank 1) - Invoke the Curse of the Dreadblades, causing each Saber Slash to fill your combo points, however the Dreadblades will consume 0% of your remaining health when using a finishing move for the next 12 sec.
  • Major Traits
    • Blunderbuss (Rank 1) - When you perform a second strike with Saber Slash, your next Pistol Shot will shoot a ball of shrapnel at the target, dealing greatly increased damage.
    • Greed (Rank 1) - When you use Run Through on a target, the greed of the Dreadblades will sometimes cause you to perform an additional attack to all enemies within 0 yards around you causing [ 2.000 * 0% of weapon damage ] damage that heals for 0% of your maximum health per target hit.
    • Blurred Time (Rank 1) - While Adrenaline Rush is active, all of your abilities recharge 0% faster.
  • Minor Traits

Subtlety
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Elemental
Enhancement
  • Initial Trait
    • Doom Winds (Rank 1) - Unleash the inner power of the Doomhammer, causing all attacks to trigger Windfury, and increases the damage of Windfury by 0%.
  • Major Traits
    • Unleash Doom (Rank 1) - Stormstrike has a chance to cause Doomhammer to unleash the power of the elements, causing your special attacks to also cause arcs of lightning or streaks of lava at your target.
    • Doom Wolves (Rank 1) - The Doomhammer will imbue your Feral Spirits with either Fire, Frost, or Lightning properties, granting them an extra unique ability.
    • Doom Vortex (Rank 1) - When you use Lava Lash, Doomhammer releases a fiery tornado at your target lasts for 3 sec and deals 0 damage to enemies within 0 yards.
  • Minor Traits

Restoration
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Affliction
Demonology
Destruction
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Arms
Fury
  • Initial Trait
    • Rage of the Valarjar (Rank 1) - Raging Blow has a chance to activate Berserking for 12 sec, causing all special attacks to increase your attack speed and critical strike chance by 5%. This effect stacks.
  • Major Traits
    • Juggernaut (Rank 1) - Execute increases the damage of Execute by 0% and increases your Haste by 0% for 15 sec sec. This effect stacks.
    • Fires of Odyn (Rank 1) - Whirlwind causes Raging Blow to lash out two streaks of fire for the next 6 sec, damaging all enemies in front of you for 0 Fire damage.
    • Odyn's Champion (Rank 1) - When you use Rampage, Odyn has a chance to declare you the Champion of the Valarjar for 10 sec, causing you to generate 0 Rage per second and causes all special attacks to reduce the cooldown of all abilities by 0 sec.
    • Odyn's Fury (Rank 1) - Hurl both of the Corrupted Warswords at your target, dealing 10 fire damage each, then leap at the target, dealing 10 fire damage to all enemies within 5 yards of the impact.

      45 sec cooldown.

      Pillar augments:
      - leaves an aoe periodic fire damage/snare where you impact with the target for 6 sec
      - you gain 100% parry for 5 sec after landing
      - gain enraged regeneration without incurring its cooldown when landing
      - gain the winds of of the valarjar, making you windy and something.
  • Minor Traits

Protection

Fishing Artifact - Underlight Angler
While looking at the artifact data, we came across an Artifact Weapon for fishing. The traits even make a fish shape!
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion



Legion - Nightborne
The Nightborne are a new race of elves found on the Broken Isles.






Big News, Everyone! Gnome Hunters Are Coming
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
We have some big news concerning some of the smallest residents in Azeroth. Gnome players will at long last be able to play the Hunter class! That’s right—in World of Warcraft: Legion, you too will be able to rise up to become a big game hunter.

One for the Gnomies
Long at the forefront of cutting-edge technology in Azeroth, the inventive gnomes are finally ready to break out the big guns. Their propensity for things that go “bang” and knack for high-tech weapons like rocket launchers, high-powered rifles, and death rays make them perfect candidates for hunting down prey.

And with the events about to unfold on the Broken Shore, High Tinker Mekkatorque has commanded his people to get outfitted and ready for battle—any way they know how.

Mecha-Minions
Of course, gnomes wouldn’t be gnomes if they didn’t apply their own particular brand of engineering to their job—this time in the form of a new Hunter pet family: Mechanical.

Gnome and Goblin players will be able to tame this new kind of hard-to-find pet right from the start. Other races will also be able to learn how to control these artificial animals via a device Engineers will be able to make.

Most Mechanical pets will be challenging to tame, requiring you to first locate them and then use your Hunter abilities in unusual ways. (You didn’t think we’d make it easy, did you?)

For example, one rare mechanostrider requires you to create a special punch card that grants access to a closed section of Gnomeregan (we hope you remember the way). Once you locate the clockwork creature, you’ll then need to figure out how to overload its circuits. Solve the puzzle, and you’ll have this magnificent mechanized minion striding by your side.

What do you feed a high-tech pet that’s not technically alive? Mechanical Bits, of course! Hunters will be able to keep their shiny metal friends “happy” and “healthy” through the creative use of Engineering supplies such as a Handful of Copper Bolts.

And just in case you think we’re lowering ourselves by making “small” jokes, we present to you the Gnome Hunter’s starting pet—the Giant Mechanical Rabbit—as proof!


Will you rise up to the challenge and collect them all?

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Art
Awesome to see even the critters are getting some love in Legion!
It's in our best interest, they outnumber us 10 to 1. Imagine the chaos if we angered the critters! (artofcgrobinson)

Character / Items
Any update on the Orc straight posture option? Maybe for Legion? In a future Artcraft?
haven't forgotten about this (artofcgrobinson)

Hello Chris, do you know if the night elf eyelashes will return?
Did they get shaved off? I'd blame he has a problem with eyelashes. Murph, we're going to need some superglue (artofcgrobinson)

PvP
can you confirm that in rated arenas/BGs, we will have access to regular talents and pvp talents?
Correct (holinka)

Pets and Pet Battles
any plans for more things to do pet battle-wise in future patches or Legion? Another cel tourn type challenge maybe?
Yes, there will be new Pet Battle content in #Legion, but it's not ready to be unveiled quite yet. (WarcraftDevs)

Ghostcrawler Tweets
Ghostcrawler still occasionally talks about WoW. Remember that he no longer works for or speaks for Blizzard.
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
As a developer, how do you handle design "issues" that the community calls out as problems, but are still good designs? (Three-hit mechanics, every champion has a minigame etc)?‎
The best thing you can do as a developer is provide context. If even some players understand your logic, then they can explain it to other players, and maybe you won't see the same comments over and over again.
On the other hand, if players can offer good arguments for why your designs are in fact problematic, then you should really listen to them, keeping in mind that "players" are not some kind of homogenous entity that is always going to speak with some kind of unified voice. (Players themselves forget this with some frequency.)

Should the way developers communicate about their game be, in some sense, considered part of the game itself?
It is definitely part of the studio / publisher's brand. For example, Riot works hard to try to build up player trust and in return players sometimes forgive us for making a dumb mistake because they trust (hopefully) our intentions and that we'll do the right thing in the long run.
I do think players sometimes focus too much on communication (and I say that as someone who has spent 1000s of hours communicating to players). Great communication can't alone fix a game you're not enjoying and you can enjoy games despite lackluster communication.

Re: forms, druids in WoW are a classic example for newer players (for whom WoW is a classic). It seemed cat form was too squishy vs melee, but knowing, or showing, that you have to stun the druid now, while she is in caster form, so you can apply burst damage without mitigation. Denying the shift
I agree that denying the shift was interesting, but we struggled a ton with balancing druids overall. It felt awesome to the druid to shift to caster form to heal and then bear form to mitigate damage, but the other side wondered what exactly they were supposed to do against an opponent who for all purposes was a tank caster. When we moved away from shifting to just "okay, you can always be a cat or moonkin" thrn thr class didn't feel like a shifter at all.

I'm blaming myself here, but WoW druids were one of the examples I had in mind when I said that shifters were hard to get right.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Artifact Trait Calculator, Fishing Artifact, Nightborne, Gnome Hunters, Tweets started by chaud View original post
Comments 98 Comments
  1. Super Kami Dende's Avatar
    Nightborne look so freaking awesome. Would love for those Models to become playable at some point.

    They remind me of something SCi-fi Egyptian.

    JAFFA KREE
  1. Zoaric's Avatar
    Nightborne are what I always imagined the elves of old were like. Especially their
    city. Damn it's pretty- puts Silvermoon to shame.
  1. Zannypants's Avatar
    Get the fuck out of here GC. Contain your cancer elsewhere.
  1. Ryuushima's Avatar
    oh wow, those artifact perks are insane. Really liking WW monk a lot more with the artifect perks even though they are subject to change.
  1. mmoca219ce69e0's Avatar
    Good lord.... Those pieces of equipment the Nightborne have is among the best I've seen from WoW in a long time. I really hope that they implement some of them as transmogs one day!
  1. bison91's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Zoaric View Post
    Nightborne are what I always imagined the elves of old were like. Especially their
    city. Damn it's pretty- puts Silvermoon to shame.
    you speak about highborne...and these are nightborne

    - - - Updated - - -

    I love these talents
  1. cuafpr's Avatar
    Nightborne armor is /drool worth...
  1. mmoceb1073a651's Avatar
    *envys the Nightborne because of the armour*
  1. Spirthealer's Avatar
    So the shadow priests is mostly old passives just little bit upgraded, and the rest the old removed Major Glyphs or Talents. We get like 3 interesting things with the weapon rest of boring as hell.
  1. theostrichsays's Avatar
    I will likely give the expansion a shot, but I won't lie, the more changes I read the less excited I am. I won't knock or crap on anyone for being excited it just doesn't seem to be doing much for me.
  1. Rayaleith's Avatar
    In b4 Surv hunter artifact talent "From Behind" jokes.
  1. MrTharne's Avatar
    I think there is a problem with BM 's artifact image and the layout of the talents.
  1. Super Kami Dende's Avatar
    Hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng. Those Ret pally Artifact Talents! So keen.
  1. Schmilblick's Avatar
    I like those artifact talents, so far so good.
  1. CheeseSandwich's Avatar
    The lack of any info on the demo artifact is a little concerning. Ages to go, I know, but haven't seen any sort of detailed art on them, and now to not have any sort of spells planned, yeah a little concerning.
  1. Zulkanja's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by CheeseSandwich View Post
    The lack of any info on the demo artifact is a little concerning. Ages to go, I know, but haven't seen any sort of detailed art on them, and now to not have any sort of spells planned, yeah a little concerning.
    A lot of art/models on Wowhead. http://www.wowhead.com/news=250059/l...kull-of-eredar
  1. Ferbian's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by CheeseSandwich View Post
    The lack of any info on the demo artifact is a little concerning. Ages to go, I know, but haven't seen any sort of detailed art on them, and now to not have any sort of spells planned, yeah a little concerning.
    We've had a lot of the arts revealed already? It was released last weekend with a lot of the other models variations too. There's other classes that don't have all specs with their artifact pathing revealed either. It's still on Alpha, relax.
  1. mmoc37be4d93d6's Avatar
    gain the winds of of the valarjar, making you windy and something.
    Warriors fart power confirmed.
  1. mmocfd328e0b6e's Avatar
    Is this Legion an advertisement for Diablo 3? Because it seems so... they don't even care to rename things or attach a story to those.
    I feel sorry for those who hyped up and after 1 or 2 months will cry for their money (and I am not writing about the "West" we know this is nothing for you. Here I have to spend one month of my income to buy this expansion).
  1. mmoccefed1f20e's Avatar
    My Gnome heart started squealing out loud when I read that there'd be new Mechanical pets.

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