Battle for Azeroth Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[GoodUsername55]

No it isn't. They considered taking stealth away from Outlaw but didn't because of this exact reason; and considered taking pets away from MM but also didn't because of this exact reason.

Lone wolf should be baseline, most MM hunters don't want pets, if they want pets they have 2 other specs.

[ATZenith]

I just finished the Argus quest line. I don't know how to put the black to signal spoilers, so below are spoilers. You have been warned.



I was hearing talk about the end of it and a potential class (from the ending of the quest line). While I don't believe it will be another class, it honestly feels like it could be a forth spec for hunter. It feels like a very 'Destiny' way to introduce a new spec. While I know they don't work on each others games, they have shared ideas. As much as I'd love forth specs for everyone, I think the undertaking would be too large. Though there is definitely potential for each class to have another spec. There is enough lore/content to fill it.

[GoodUsername55]

I just finished the Argus quest line. I don't know how to put the black to signal spoilers, so below are spoilers. You have been warned.



I was hearing talk about the end of it and a potential class (from the ending of the quest line). While I don't believe it will be another class, it honestly feels like it could be a forth spec for hunter. It feels like a very 'Destiny' way to introduce a new spec. While I know they don't work on each others games, they have shared ideas. As much as I'd love forth specs for everyone, I think the undertaking would be too large. Though there is definitely potential for each class to have another spec. There is enough lore/content to fill it.

They wouldn't be a hunter spec, they would be a new class like demon hunter, people said dh should have been a lock spec.

The void hunter concept or shadow hunter has nothing to do with a hunter.

[Jokubas]

It all depends on how the lore pans out. No hero in Warcraft III had that many abilities and so some abilities got placed in slightly skewed places in World of Warcraft. A class like Demon Hunter, though, thematically didn't match anything playable, even if classes had borrowed abilities. People also said Demon Hunter could be a Hunter spec or was made redundant because of them, but they had nothing in common but a word.

Warlocks are a launch class that have always been in a weird place. Before World of Warcraft, warlocks tended to be just shamans who turned to the Burning Legion. Not only were there no good warlocks in lore (and there still barely is), they didn't have much of an identity. They were almost just evil mages with a demon pet and extra damage over times. The green fire thing didn't really become a thing until Burning Crusade, which is part of the reason warlocks didn't get the option until Mists of Pandaria. They ended up with Death Coil because Death Knights didn't exist yet (As a side note, I think warlocks should get a complete revamp using the lore from Warlords of Draenor and Legion which actually gives them unique abilities and a distinct look and feel).

Dark Ranger is a popular idea thanks to Sylvanas, and another thing Alleria's fate has led people to speculate on. Dark Ranger is one I feel like could work pretty well as a Hunter spec. They already have some of the abilities, and Dark Ranger is hard to make even two specs out of if it was its own class. It's largely an archer who uses shadow magic and can summon undead. That's distinct from the rest of hunter, but not necessarily more than the difference between a Holy priest and a Shadow one.

Shadow Hunters are more ambiguous. Their abilities have mostly been covered by shamans, but I think there's an important thematic distinction. Unfortunately, even when Vol'jin had a brief spotlight, I'm not really sure where he'd really fit in if it became directly playable.

I think Necromancers still have a potential place. It was once said they were taken apart to create Death Knight, but it was also said Runemaster was mixed in there, but the only thing Death Knights and Runemasters share is using the word rune in places. I think necromancers could fit in a minion-master caster niche where they sort of fill an analogous role to the Death Knight that warlocks do to Demon Hunters. Dark Ranger could possibly even fit as a necromancer specialization, since it can also be interpreted as a necromancer who wears slightly heavier armor and fights using a bow.

But anyway, my ultimate point is that, whatever Alleria has become could potentially fit in several places. It could end up just being represented through some sort of Dark Ranger, which might be able to be a Hunter spec. If we get access to it, it might end up as its own thing altogether. It could end up up as a necromancer thing, too. Keep in mind, in Warlords of Draenor the Shadowmoon Clan's necromancy was blatantly a Void thing and the death knights even saw a connection between it and the Frozen Throne. Maybe we'd get some general Void class with each of these shadow-wielding concepts as specializations.

[Hugnomo]

I just finished the Argus quest line. I don't know how to put the black to signal spoilers, so below are spoilers. You have been warned.



I was hearing talk about the end of it and a potential class (from the ending of the quest line). While I don't believe it will be another class, it honestly feels like it could be a forth spec for hunter. It feels like a very 'Destiny' way to introduce a new spec. While I know they don't work on each others games, they have shared ideas. As much as I'd love forth specs for everyone, I think the undertaking would be too large. Though there is definitely potential for each class to have another spec. There is enough lore/content to fill it.

Well I don't know what will happen, but this does remind me that marksmanship was very different in the alpha and beta of legion. It had a lot of "dark ranger" thematic spells and traits. But they ultimately moved away from them. Maybe to create space for something else? Who knows

[Aprex]

I can honestly see a healer spec with a void hunter class maybe kind of like disc when they do a little damage and we did see that the shadow removed poison in the audio book.They can make it a full shield healer or a healer that does a lot of healing but suffers damage and a healer and ranged dps are both overdue. they could put any kind of healer in since we have no idea how void can heal.

[Marlamin]

How much % do you believe in this leak?

Ehh, I'd give it a 90% of being partially correct (especially regarding subraces, more on that when I get behind a computer) and 60% of being mostly correct, keeping in mind stuff can still change.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I can honestly see a healer spec with a void hunter class maybe kind of like disc when they do a little damage and we did see that the shadow removed poison in the audio book.They can make it a full shield healer or a healer that does a lot of healing but suffers damage and a healer and ranged dps are both overdue. they could put any kind of healer in since we have no idea how void can heal.

We have 6 heal specs in the game already and one was added 4 yeas ago. Not sure how a healer is overdue. I will agree though that a ranged spec is direly needed, we are actually short one compared to the frickin launch of the game. All that being said, I still don't see why we would need a new class. DH only exist because the devs thought it would cool to have some super mobile class. That is pretty much the only thing that sets demon hunters apart from other classes, and knowing blizzard they will start nerfing that mobility hard in the coming expansions. What new things would a shadow hunter bring to the table? Another dot ranged? Another marksman class?

[CosmicGuitars]

That riddle leak is far too lucid to be the chinese leaker.

Ehh, I'd give it a 90% of being partially correct (especially regarding subraces, more on that when I get behind a computer) and 60% of being mostly correct, keeping in mind stuff can still change.

I'd be very keen to hear your reasonings behind subraces having legitimacy once you're back at a computer!

[Deleted]

People are complaining so much about the pvp now and a ton of top players have quit because it was too unbalanced.

people have always complained about pvp dating back to vanilla.

[Musta]

Ehh, I'd give it a 90% of being partially correct (especially regarding subraces, more on that when I get behind a computer) and 60% of being mostly correct, keeping in mind stuff can still change.

Which leak are you talking about my dear parrot?

- - - Updated - - -

people have always complained about pvp dating back to vanilla.

PvP was never and will not ever be balanced. You will have to accept this at some point.

[Musta]

Press the lil' blue button and follow the chain of quotes! It's this one apparently!

The only thing I can assume is shadow-void-old gods being 100% sure.... The rest... meh

[Echoherb]

Press the lil' blue button and follow the chain of quotes! It's this one apparently!

What kind of leak is this? Just looks like a bunch of cryptic nonsense

[Lahis]

Honestly, seeing how each expansion takes away more and more abilities, this wouldn't really surprise me.
If they limit the shifts to their respective specs, then that's just something the druids would have to live with, no more stealth for non-feral specs for example.

So I'd have to spend 10 seconds casting spec change when I wanna sneak around?


Fucking brilliant game design right there.

[Dragon ANX]

What kind of leak is this? Just looks like a bunch of cryptic nonsense

See, i would never believe if someone had tell me that we would jump in a space-ship go through interspacial gigantic portal in the sky to Argus and have 3 playable new zones and here we are.

[Marlamin]

I'd be very keen to hear your reasonings behind subraces having legitimacy once you're back at a computer!

Right, so a few hundred pages back we discussed the new ".skel" files. We initially guessed they were physics related and stuff, but it turns out they're something else (now finally in use in 7.3.2).

Reverse engineered by mastermind schlumpf, .skel files contain bones and animation sequence references. The Lightforged Draenei models share a lot of stuff with the normal Draenei models, but have some slight customization differences that we've talked about before. This means most of their model data would be shared with the normal Draenei model.

To quote schlumpf's technical description:

The parent skeleton file data id is used for de-duplication. E.g. lightforgeddraeneimale references draeneimale_hd. lightforgeddraeneimale does not have any M2/.anim files, but uses those of draeneimale_hd via parent-link (does not even have an AFID chunk).

As he explains, the file "lightforgeddraeneimale.skel" (648 KB) has a reference to the file "draeneimale_hd.skel" (13.9 MB). This means that the lightforgeddraeneimale model uses the exact same animations and bones as the draeneimale, saving 13 MB of usually taken up disk space by duplicate data.

Now, I highly doubt that they would go through the trouble of implementing this system that drastically changes character model loading to save about 25 MB (male and female duplicated data added together, Draenei are currently the only race that have .skel files). Hence, I think the Lightforged Draenei are the first (possibly playable in the future?) sub race, with more to come in 8.0 that share bones and animations with their parent race models but have different customization options.

Let me know if I'm jumping to conclusions, but I think this is becoming a pretty safe bet.

EDIT: Actually, it saves even more space I didn't count the size saved by the duplicate anim files they removed in 7.3.2.
EDIT2: Schlumpf pointed me to the fact this isn't specific to races, and could be applied to creatures (mounts etc) in the future as well.

[Chickat]

If the supposed leak above is indeed real, I am most interested in:

"We create new covenant, the better than Horde or Alliance." --- new gameplay thing where you can switch faction / choose faction / something similar?

...and this:

"Her wrath is comparable to his, and they have common goals now. Only he does not know about it yet." --- Sylvanas and Arthas?

Or Azeroth compared to Sargeras?

[Lahis]

EDIT2: Schlumpf pointed me to the fact this isn't specific to races, and could be applied to creatures (mounts etc) in the future as well.

Aaaand that I think is the intended use. Creature models commonly share animations. You'd need only one animation file for hundred cat models, instead of all of the hundred cat models having a duplicate of the same animation file.

[Marlamin]

Aaaand that I think is the intended use. Creature models commonly share animations. You'd need only one animation file for hundred cat models, instead of all of the hundred cat models having a duplicate of the same animation file.

That would probably still not save as much space as it would for character models (less and less complex anims), and them implementing it for characters first makes me think they're focusing on those first. But yeah, that lessens the strength my theory a bit.

[Marlamin]

How dare you pull the breaks on the hype train!

Worst case scenario it'll almost grind to a halt but the inertia of Silithus fucking dying will keep it going until BlizzCon.