Developer Q&A - Ryan Shwayder: Patch 7.2 Content
Senior Game Designer Ryan Shwayder will be answering your Patch 7.2 content related questions.
Lessons Learned
- The land mass of Timeless Isle was conducive to interesting boss fights.
- The Broken Shore land mass is larger, so the rare elites will be up a little longer.
Broken Shore
- A lot of the characters in Legion are characters we have encountered before.
- There is plenty of content to do, it is presented in a way that is different than Suramar, a more organic and open world experience.
Legion Assaults
- There are four zones under attack from the Legion.
- Doing four world quests to defend against an assault is just the first part of the Legion invasion quests. There is a bigger Thundertotem defense part and a three person scenario.
- You can do the world quests while you are still leveling as bonuses, but not the entire quest line.
Artifact Appearances
- You can start working towards the new Artifact appearances when the patch releases.
- You will need to unlock all of the original traits on your Artifact before you begin.
- The entire region will contribute towards creating buildings, you will want the Mage Tower for the Artifact appearances.
Class Mounts
- You will need to be exalted with the new faction and finish the new campaign before you can unlock the new class mounts.
- There is a weekly campaign quest for eleven weeks. There is a day delay for each week when it comes to catching up, so you will be able to catch up quickly.
Class Mounts
- Every class has a specific fantasy, so there is some variation in the mounts and associated rewards.
- Every class won't get a matching pet for their mount.
- The team is trying to make everyone happy with the class mounts, but there won't be exact parity in the rewards for every class.
Class Fantasy and Defeating the Legion
- All of the Class Orders have come together to defeat the Legion at this point.
- The hub area on the Broken Shore has some class specific flavor with different NPCs in the area depending on your class.
- A few weeks in to the campaign you will be able to go and recruit a new follower.
- You can unlock class specific world quests, but they won't be up every day. These quests have a class specific fantasy.
Flying
- It will probably take at least a few weeks to unlock flying.
- You will need to wait for Week 2 for Assaults to start.
- You will need to hit Revered with the new faction as well.
- It probably won't take as long as it did to get flying in Warlords.
Solo Artifact Challenges and Appearances
- Maybe a few people will be able to defeat it at Patch 7.2 launch, but not many.
- Eventually it will get easier as you get more gear and new Artifact traits.
- It will not be trivialized during Patch 7.2.
- People internally have been comparing it to the Warlock Green Fire final encounter. It was very tough when it first released.
- The new appearances are unlocked per spec.
- There are seven different challenges, with each spec being assigned to one of them.
- Once you have unlocked the new appearance you have demonstrated mastery of that spec.
- After that you have to demonstrate being great in the context of PvP or raiding, unlocking the other color variations of that appearance.
- The base appearance unlock is similar to the way the Balance of Power appearance works, which is intended to take the place of the legendary item quest lines from Mists of Pandaria and Warlords.
- It is more than a DPS check, there are mechanics you need to respond to and skill you need to demonstrate. You won't be able to brute force this.
- It isn't too expensive to attempt the encounter again while the Mage Tower is up.
Legionfall War Supplies
- The War Supplies can only be used for buildings. The team didn't want you to choose between working on the buildings or getting a new Pepe.
- You get a cache each time you contribute towards building one of the buildings.
- There is no cap on contributing towards the buildings.
Broken Shore in Future Expansions
- The team has talked about keeping this area functional in the future.
- The team can tune the buildings to be easier to build later when everyone has moved on.
- The players that want to go back and do this content should be able to.
- The team can just stop the Legion from counterattacking the buildings and destroying them in the future if needed.
- Each time you rebuild the buildings you get a different buff.
Broken Shore Buildings
- When a building goes up, it will be destroyed in three days. There is a 24 hour cooldown before you can start building it again.
- Sometimes there will be overlap between buildings being up, sometimes all three will be up at once.
- Most people should be able to experience the content while the buildings are up.
- The team is trying to keep content for every playstyle available at all times.
- You will have something to do even if a building isn't up.
Artifact Traits
- Your first new trait is damage and Stamina, you won't get weaker when you unlock the new traits.
Velen
- Velen suffered an absolute tragedy and is at the Tomb of Sargeras to progress the story.
- Velen is here to take the fight to Kil'jaeden, finally getting the opportunity for vengeance.
- The Exodar has been crashed for a while, so he isn't going home anytime soon.
Jaina
- Jaina left the Council because she refuses to work with the Horde.
- The Horde is still the bad guy to her, so the Horde and Alliance coming together to fight the Legion.
- Her story isn't continuing in Patch 7.2.
Order Hall Research
- When you unlock your final follower, you unlock the ability to do some more Order Hall research.
- The final one only doubles AP from World Quests that give you AP. It won't make all World Quests give you AP.
Pet Battle Dungeon
- If players like the new pet battle dungeon the team can make more, if not they will look elsewhere.
Follower Item Level
- The item level cap on followers will be brought forward to 900 to keep them relevant and progress the system.
Alt Improvements
- The Legion Invasion world quests are some extra experience.
- Artifact Knowledge is being increased, so you can help your alts catch up.
- The team has been making efforts to make things a little bit more alt friendly as the expansion goes on.
- You shouldn't feel like you have to keep endlessly grinding Artifact Power for that final trait. Your time may be better spent playing your alt rather than plowing AP into this soft cap.
- Upgraded heirlooms are coming later in the expansion.
Karazhan
- Nightbane is not in Mythic+, so you can't get his loot.
New Relic Traits
- You won't be able to get new relics before Tomb opens.
- Future raids will no longer drop the non-throughout relics, so alternative means to acquire them will be added.
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