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Today was the Demon Hunters Q&A with Senior Game Designer Jonathan LeCraft. The next Q&A will be after Legion launch. Also keep an eye on Gamescom!
Demon Hunters will release August 9th, along with Demon Invasions.
The broadcast got split into two parts: Part 1 and Part 2
Talent Unlocks
- Demon Hunters unlock talents as they level to give you something to look forward to as you level.
- It isn't convenient for the players that are playing during the pre-expansion patch, but it makes sense to do.
Balance
- Demon Hunters will be missing some power in the pre-expansion patch due to not having their talents.
- Demon Hunters get a bigger chunk of the stats that players will gain from 100 to 110 earlier on, so that will help to offset the talents.
- Demon Hunters should be balanced well enough for the short time they are available before Legion.
- Balance efforts were focused on Level 110.
Pre-Expansion Patch Content
- You can do the full starting experience and then play the game once Demon Hunters are unlocked.
- You can do the Broken Shore intro with another character, but not on the Demon Hunter.
Garrison
- You will be able to start a Garrison with your Demon Hunter.
Professions
- Demon Hunters will not get any kind of profession boost.
- You will have time to use your existing materials to level professions during the pre-expansion patch.
Demon Blades
- Demon Blades gives players access to another playstyle, but you are pressing less buttons.
- The goal is for it to be the second or third best talent in that tier. The team will do another tuning pass to make sure that this is the case.
Warglaive
- The Warglaive rewarded in the events leading up to Legion launch will be Bind on Account.
Havoc Survivability
- The team is going to make sure Havoc is reasonably balanced and is looking at the Level 104 talent tier and PvP talents.
- Most of the tuning will probably be numbers now, as they are added to the game. Bigger changes are possible in a future patch.
Vengeance Survivability
- The team will take a look at Vengeance survivability and see if anything needs to be changed.
Lore
- There is some distrust between the Demon Hunters and the Night Elves.
- The story between Demon Hunters and Elves will be explored throughout Legion.
Mobility
- Mobility is probably on par with Monks or a little less right now.
- There may be some mobility issues in PvP, but most players haven't had a chance to learn to play Demon Hunter yet.
Spectral Sight
- Spectral Sight lets you see stealth, invisible, and enemies through walls.
- It lasts 10 seconds, has a 30 sec cooldown, slows you down, and is cancelled upon attacking or being attacked.
- Some kind of team coordination will be required to make use of it.
Showing Tattoos
- There is no option to hide your chest for Demon Hunters, but they often have armor that is fairly revealing, so you can show off your tattoos.
Artifact Models
- Illidan's Warglaives will not be modified.
- The team has talked about allowing Demon Hunters to use that model somehow in the future. Maybe allowing them to unlock that appearance for transmog.
Communication
- Demon Hunters can communicate cross-faction with Demonic.
Races
- There are no immediate plans for other races to become Demon Hunters.
- Only allowing elves to be Demon Hunters allowed for additional time to be spent on customization and art for Demon Hunters.
Weapons
- You will be using glaives throughout the expansion, but you can equip other weapon types (Daggers, Fist Weapons, One-Handed Axes, One-Handed Swords).
Animation Cancelling
- Animation Cancelling being the optimal way to play is not intended.
- The team is attempting to prevent animation cancelling from giving a DPS increase.
Flying
- The team talked about allowing Demon Hunters to fly with their wings once flying is enabled, but decided against it.
- It just doesn't feel right for their kit.
- Even Illidan doesn't do much flying, just a little hovering.
Glyphs
- There won't be a glyph to always show Demon Hunter wings. It doesn't look great to have them out all of the time and they don't work with all of the animations.
- The wings aren't part of your person, they just sprout out in a time of need.
Double Jump
- Double Jump made the team worry about breaking everything.
- It isn't such a big deal for bosses, mostly players getting into places they shouldn't be.
Level 70 Character Requirement
- You will need to have a Level 70 character on the server that you want to make a Demon Hunter on.
Specs
- There wasn't a good way to give Demon Hunters a third spec.
- The two specs they have fit with the lore and allowed the team to focus on those two specs a little bit more.
Class Design
- Sometimes you start by creating the abilities that build and spend resources.
- You come up with crazy ideas and see if they work with actual gameplay.
- Double Jump was on the cutting table for a little while and it ended up making it.
- Major cooldowns like Metamorphosis fit with the lore and class fantasy.
- The team had lots of Demon Hunters to look at for inspiration.
Skill Cap
- Demon Hunters are a simpler class so there won't be such a huge gap between the best and worst players.
- Sometimes there have been huge skill gaps between the best and worst players, such as Feral Druids in WotLK.
Soul Barrier
- Soul Barrier is like a better version of Soul Cleave
- Taking Soul Barrier off of the GCD is an easy solution but not one to be used lightly.
- The team will continue to look at it and see what changes are needed. There are lots of ways to tweak it.
Demon Hunter Weapon Size
- It's not the size of the weapon, it's how you use it.
- We are taking the blood elf glaives question seriously
Release
- Demon Hunters will release August 9th, along with Demon Invasions.
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