Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Shadochi]

My thinking of the first ones is that they are not as much actual being as they might be a concept, like giving personality to a cosmic force and what they represent.

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I still want further development of titans visiting Draenor and the old god trying to be summoned in Shadowmoon Valley on Outland. And then there is also one of the Invasion points in Legion where we se tentacles and other old god stuff.

Just because we have mostly dealt with the 4 on Azeroth doesn't mean we will never deal with them again.

If we're going to have a cosmic force expansion my #1 wish is to have it be located on K'aresh, since lore seems to be pointing to it being a titan soul that was devoured by the void and for all we know the manifestation of Dimensius that was killable might not mean he is actually dead.
And K'aresh expansion would allow us to have a modern graphics Outland style continent

[micwini]

So, with WotLK Classic launch today, I expect the release date announcement towards the end of the week or next week. They basically can't wait any longer as the pre patch has to hit within the next 4 weeks. It's already long overdue to tell us the launch date.

Tomorrow would be nice timing; exactly 2 months beforehand

[Shadochi]

Tomorrow would be nice timing; exactly 2 months beforehand

Feels weird that we haven't gotten the release date yet (usually we get it like half a year before), but I'm guessing since they didn't announce a delay to 2023 yet its going as planned. In reality if prepatch is 4 weeks long then they can also just announce it 5-6 weeks before hand with prepatch announcement, and those are usually only 1-2 weeks in advance.

My guess is that they probably did https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/ne...re-mostly-dead 2 months before they plan on releasing prepatch.

I know of the supposed leak that got WotLK timing right, but things might've changed since that doc was created

[Berkilak]

I think the Shadowlands delay wounded someone's pride and they don't want to expose themselves again.

[micwini]

Feels weird that we haven't gotten the release date yet (usually we get it like half a year before), but I'm guessing since they didn't announce a delay to 2023 yet its going as planned. In reality if prepatch is 4 weeks long then they can also just announce it 5-6 weeks before hand with prepatch announcement, and those are usually only 1-2 weeks in advance.

My guess is that they probably did https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/ne...re-mostly-dead 2 months before they plan on releasing prepatch.

I know of the supposed leak that got WotLK timing right, but things might've changed since that doc was created

Wotlk was definintely more finalized at the point of the leak, but I can't see them delaying DF. 1 week delay wouldnt do much and one month delay (like SL), puts the date at 28-12 and I just dont see that happening with holidays and stuff. Then they would have to delay it to 2023, which breaks the on or before 31-12-2022 and I don't really know how that would work.

I mostly prefer the expansion to be ready tho and so far it seems far from it.

[Shadochi]

Wotlk was definintely more finalized at the point of the leak, but I can't see them delaying DF. 1 week delay wouldnt do much and one month delay (like SL), puts the date at 28-12 and I just dont see that happening with holidays and stuff. Then they would have to delay it to 2023, which breaks the on or before 31-12-2022 and I don't really know how that would work.

I mostly prefer the expansion to be ready tho and so far it seems far from it.

Isn't the on or before thingy basically that if it doesn't realease by then you can get a refund and cancel your prepurchase?

Also in which way does the expac seem far from ready that cant be done in the next 2 months?

[huth]

Yeah I think if we were going to mention boss encounters with dynamic use of the room, we would not go with G'huun, we'd go with BRF as a whole (Hans and Franz, Thogar, Blackhand) or for something recent maybe Painsmith.

Don't forget Zovaal. Without the arena, the fight would be over rather quickly.

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Isn't the on or before thingy basically that if it doesn't realease by then you can get a refund and cancel your prepurchase?

Also in which way does the expac seem far from ready that cant be done in the next 2 months?

People tend to way overestimate how long most bugfixes take. The hard part is figuring out what causes them, not how to get it to stop usually.

[Shadochi]

People tend to way overestimate how long most bugfixes take. The hard part is figuring out what causes them, not how to get it to stop usually.

Oh the bane of my life as a developer.

But yeah from what I've seen on beta and their responses its pretty much tuning and bug fixing that has to happen, From the bugs I've seen at least while leveling (and there were a decent amount of random ones like mining/herb nodes in trees, getting achievements randomly from lvlup and such) it shouldn't take too long to do those.

As for tuning, well that is why they have the level 70 realm and will probably collect auto data from the raid test (and m+ in future) and tune based on that since they are scaling everyone to same ilvl, so really that is going together with instance testing. And based on previous expansions tuning will still continue throughout the expac start which is ok imo

[micwini]

Isn't the on or before thingy basically that if it doesn't realease by then you can get a refund and cancel your prepurchase?

Also in which way does the expac seem far from ready that cant be done in the next 2 months?

Aren't you able to cancel and refund it right now anyway? There has to be more severe consequences, otherwise I don't see why its a thing they would ever have to disclose.

Some classes are far from ready. Some classes are great, but a few: Priest, druids and especially paladins for example have lots of work still to be done. Paladin for example has received 0 massive blog posts like the other classes. Only holy got a small post and a few 2 liners about why long arm should be removed and something about holy shield. Evoker, the flagship feature new class, is very unfinished , especially the healing spec. The design still has lots to be desired.

There is currently so many bugs that some classes haven't even been able to be tested for all of beta. Prot pala for example has around 40 major bugs that still are not fixed.

Raid testing will only be starting this week and the last bosses are scheduled for late october.

M+ testing still not out, which makes it real hard to test classes in a real environment.

The new UI is a fucking mess. 0 feedback or iteration has been done. Now everyone, including base UI users, are going to be forced to use addons. It is that shit. They have a grid, but not even a snapping function! You can't even resize the minimap that covers half your screen. Ugly simplified design. I could go on.

Oh yeah, professions. I almost forgot. Apart from the reveal there has been 0 iteration and not a single reply post to feedback.


While the content seems good in theory and it is nice to not have borrowed power anymore, expect to be beta testing on live during the first months. Expect several classes to be in the dumpster until at least 10.1. Expect dungeon imbalance (tuning wise) to be even more off the charts than Season 4 with the Karazhans. Etc.
This expansion is far from ready.

[Nyel]

Also in which way does the expac seem far from ready that cant be done in the next 2 months?

Evoker is an utter mess, the class is terrible in everything and it's not something they can fix with tuning. Some other specs have the same issues (Guardian Druid has basically been untouched for months).

[Nymrohd]

People tend to way overestimate how long most bugfixes take. The hard part is figuring out what causes them, not how to get it to stop usually.

I am going to bring back up the issue with crafting work orders which have not been tested at all, are a central part of how professions are supposed to work and are a fairly complex feature. Not even the UI is ready let alone having the system operational. Almost every time they've tried to change things at the auction house it takes them a while to get things going smoothly and this effectively an auction house like system WITH buy orders, with further restrictions, with a much more complex UI since you need to be able to provide materials for orders. I am not worried about any other feature (classes will be improved in patches as needed, dragonriding mostly works, everything else is not really new) but I would like to see work orders operational soon in the beta.

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Evoker is an utter mess, the class is terrible in everything and it's not something they can fix with tuning. Some other specs have the same issues (Guardian Druid has basically been untouched for months).

I just don't get what they were thinking with the midrange style. While it's not my main role I've healed raids many times and unless you have really great players (and sometimes even then) having someone be out of range when they need to be healed is a constant concern with 40+yds range, let alone with 30. And I've tried the class as dps and it's really not anything special? Again the midrange thing is not really made up by the mobility, especially given they are pretty squishy.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I wouldn't take someone's word who's been constantly cynical about each expansion and yet still lingers here.

[Nymrohd]

I wouldn't take someone's word who's been constantly cynical about each expansion and yet still lingers here.

Well I've played the evoker on beta and I'm underwhelmed as well. And the range issue for raid healing is just a basic observation.

[Nyel]

I just don't get what they were thinking with the midrange style. While it's not my main role I've healed raids many times and unless you have really great players (and sometimes even then) having someone be out of range when they need to be healed is a constant concern with 40+yds range, let alone with 30. And I've tried the class as dps and it's really not anything special? Again the midrange thing is not really made up by the mobility, especially given they are pretty squishy.

Basically nothing. The entire design of Evoker is contradicting itself. Trying to make it the most mobile caster while giving them empowered skills which can't be cast during movement CDs and which take 3,5 seconds to cast is just insult to injury for the reduced range (which they just changed to 30y for healers, but it's still terrible). Making them squishy af while limiting their range is another design decision that makes no sense.

Right now the entire class makes no sense and they haven't figured that out yet. Devastation has basically the most basic and boring rotation of any class / spec and just feels lame. Number tuning will help both specs, but there is zero reason to bring an Evoker to a dungeon or a raid group. They are just useless at this point, which feels weird for a brand new class.

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I wouldn't take someone's word who's been constantly cynical about each expansion and yet still lingers here.

Oh man. It's basically the consensus in the beta forum and the class discord. But thanks for being passive aggressive, as usual.

[Makorus]

While Evokers are kinda shit, the fact that they 25yard range is not an issue unless raids were not designed with that in mind.

Same with them being "non-mobile". You have three charges of Hover, and you only need to cast two Empowered Spells every 30 seconds anyway, and one of them is a Level 1 Empowerment most the time anyway.

The real issue is that they are boring. Pyre is useless. Azure Strike is useless. Deep Breath is useless. Their cooldown is boring. Their mastery is boring. They have no big ability. Their rotation is 1.) Use your Empowerments off CD 2.) Spam Disintegration 3.) Cast Flamestrike 4.) Cast Pyre at 20 Stacks.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

While Evokers are kinda shit, the fact that they 25yard range is not an issue unless raids were not designed with that in mind.

Same with them being "non-mobile". You have three charges of Hover, and you only need to cast two Empowered Spells every 30 seconds anyway, and one of them is a Level 1 Empowerment most the time anyway.

The real issue is that they are boring. Pyre is useless. Azure Strike is useless. Deep Breath is useless. Their cooldown is boring. Their mastery is boring. They have no big ability. Their rotation is 1.) Use your Empowerments off CD 2.) Spam Disintegration 3.) Cast Flamestrike 4.) Cast Pyre at 20 Stacks.

That doesn't sound boring at all.

[Makabreska]

Meanwhile, Spriest looks dope. Just learned about an AoE build that doesn't even take Mind Sear. Unreal how better spec plays if you don't have to manually multidot.

[Sondrelk]

O just find it amusing/aggravating that the empower mechanic would work so much better for so many other classes more suited to the turret niche.
Empowered Firebolt, or empowered Aimed Shot for instance.

Evoker will likely have the same issues that DH has. The DPS specs especially.
Both are created top down, rather than starting from a base of interesting playstyle, and then figuring out how to fit it into the class theme.

Havoc was created from the idea of playing a Demon Hunter, but it's clear that noone really knew what that would mean beyond eye beam, glaives, and metamorphosis. This makes the spec kinda anemic.

The Evoker class is similar. They have a great idea of playing a dragon, but not really a whole lot on how to make playing a dragon interesting in combat.

[Nymrohd]

So I'm at 70 for a few hours now. I have so many things to do. But I have to say I am seeing nothing like a task list? I haven't unlocked any world quest or anything similar, I've barely seen any dailies around. There are so many sidequests in Dragonflight that they can keep me busy forever (and then there is the instance gameplay that one can play for ever if they want to ofc) and more world events seem to open up with new renown levels. I repeat, I do not mind it at all, it just seems jarring after every expansion from MoP after giving your a very clear list of tasks to do on the daily.

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That doesn't sound boring at all.

Most of the spells seem to have no impact. But hey if you love that, sure.

[Sondrelk]

Hopefully Evoker gets some improvements over time. Tier Sets might make a small difference even, who knows.

But really the current situation with Evoker is basically the carbon copy of how DH was at the start of Legion. Interesting premise, with a subpar execution.