Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Hellspawn]

Teldrassil is still there, just burned. It isn't impossible that some of the Temple of the Moon survived inside the ruins of Darnassus.

How?

[shoc]

In what way are you qualifying "nearly"? The Archon wasn't even severely injured.

Sylvanas never fought the Winter Queen, she only fought a decoy.

I think we're supposed to feel like our characters ARE now stronger than they were in Legion. And none of the artifact weapons destroyed planets so much as in some cases 'survived the destruction of a planet'
Why would we accept the interpretation of a "senior concept artist"? One of the directors need to say it or its uncircumstantial.

IMO unless it happens in-game it doesn't happen at all. Strength is proven in feats.

[huth]

[IMG]

How?

By hanging in the remains of the branches that are clearly visible in this image?

[Santandame]

Because she was imbued with the Jailers power.

So by that logic, us players are stronger than Titans because we beat Devos.

In fact, using that logic, any old forsworn is stronger than the Titans, because that's what Devos is, a forsworn.

Come on now. Eternal Ones are not on the same power level as Titans.

[Zankai27]

It’s hard to give any fucks about the power levels of any WoW deity; it changes to suit the needs of the story all the time.

[manypillars]

It’s hard to give any fucks about the power levels of any WoW deity; it changes to suit the needs of the story all the time.

This is one of the reasons I ignore the story/lore/whatever. It's going to be retconned by next expansion, if not next patch. None of it matters. Just give me a handful of coins and a piece of gear and I'll murder a god in cold blood for you.

[Three Faced Goddess]

-The leak mentions dark rangers long before T&E came out with that video laying out all the evidence for them (though this could have been surmised by any clever person paying attention)

Not saying I'm clever, but I have been paying attention to the Dark Ranger "hints" for quite a while. All the "evidence" for Dark Rangers T&E laid out in their video was nothing really new to me and I mentioned all of the "evidence" when I was still subscribed to the game in general discussion. However, I try not to be too certain because that's just setting myself up for disappointment.

I got thinking about the Dragonflight text leak today while suffering the full molten wrath of the gas station BLT I stupidly ate. I remembered the new classification the Sylvanas book gave Dark Rangers, Banshees and San'layn, having them all fall under the same race, Darkfallen. Of course, this is in addition to the distinction the Blood Elf questline made between San'layn and the Darkfallen race, as a Scourge sect of Darkfallen. The questline info was datamined first before the excerpt from the Sylvanas novel was posted on twitter, but alone it didn't stand out much. Together, in addition to how popular both San'layn and Dark Rangers are, might imply the potential for an Allied Race. Why make these minor changes at all if there's no purpose to them? If they mean nothing then there was no reason to waste time making them. So Darkfallen would be the race and Dark Ranger would just be what they call their specialized hunters. The excerpt, mentions other classes for the race as well.

I think I'd rather have a Darkfallen race because it allows me to play more than just hunter. A class skin on top of that would be the cherry on the cake!

I was also thinking about how frustrating class skins would be for developers. Every adjustment made for the class the skin is attached to would also have to be made to the class skin and in order to really sell the necro/DR/DS fantasies a lot of spells would have to be visually and textually reskinned. By the time things are said and done, Blizz isn't really saving much time or resources with class skins vs Micro-classes. Four mini-classes is essentially equal to the effort Blizz would have to have made to create a single new class which means it doesn't reduce the balancing workload at all. I'm not opposed to mini-classes, it just doesn't seem like something Blizzard would do.

If the text leak is true, I don't believe it is, I wouldn't really be that bothered by it. It does have interesting ideas.

[Polybius]

Microclasses and all zones being end-game content with no levelling are the most amazing things they could do to save the game to be honest, I feel anyone complaining about them likely complained about Demon Hunter having only 2 specs or the Level Squish...

The same ones who complained about transmogrification and cross-faction. These are quality of life changes that serve as dev shortcuts while ticking every box in the player wishlist.

[Local Ardenweald Faerie]

I wouldn't mind microclasses if they came with class customizations a la DK and DH.

... Look, I'm just desperate for dragon customizations.

[Local Ardenweald Faerie]

imagine class skins, we get a dragon class, you customize your mortal form+dragon form, the class skins let you choose your dragonflight

That would be awesome. That would actually be really cool.

IF such a class skin was universal. People would riot if they locked a dragon class behind melee only.

[Chickat]

I'm humoring it because Dragonflight on its own, unfortunately, doesn't really give us anything new to talk about. Expecting a dragon expansion was already the primary assumption for the past few months. ;P

Although, it would be awkward if it turns out this Dragonflight website data was intended to be an April Fool's Joke because everyone was assuming a dragon expansion, but they backed out of the joke without removing the reference, only to now reinforce that assumption.

That would be hilarious and disappointing at the same time.

[Local Ardenweald Faerie]

That would be hilarious and disappointing at the same time.

Imagine if the new expansion was just a direct continuation of Shadowlands with all the disappointing First One stuff. Everything is robots and building blocks. What little original lore remains about the Titans is wiped away. Zereth This, Zereth That. No new race or class.

If we get a dragon class it has to have 3-4 specs, ranged dps, tank, healer, and maybe a melee dps, depending on your class skin, your spells match your flight.

Oh, I completely misread your original post!

That would be really cool actually!

[Three Faced Goddess]

That's wholly possible, though even then I'd be surprised if they went as subtle as calling it something like "Dragonflight" and trying to seriously portray it as an expansion until the punchline hits. I'd expect something more comical right on the spot, unless perhaps the content was more on-the-nose.



Indeed. Every expansion we don't get Ethereals or Nerubians is another period of disappointment for me. Still, I think I have enough interest in the setting to find something interesting in every expansion—the only thing that would really disappoint me, I think, about the expansion would be if the class is only Dragonsworn and not something like an actual Dragon.

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I could see a Prestige Class system work—a questline and reputation to unlock a total reskin of a class. It seems like they'd not want to add all those class skins as perfectly-accessible right off the bat unless they've really learned from BfA. I was thinking a fourth specialization could be interesting, but I don't know if adding several new specializations to balance would be a good idea, so I think it would make the most sense if it were just a total reskin of a class or at least a single specialization.

For instance, think of the Green Fire questline, but on a larger scale and more like Allied Races. Once you reach the end, you do a final quest leading to the unlocking of your new skin and changing your character until you reverse it if you so choose. For instance, let's take a Warlock who wants to follow the Necromancer class quest. They start their questline following around some evil Necromancer and ultimately stealing all of his belongings after they murder him because power-hungry Warlock brain wants power. Afterwards, their specializations all get reskinned and renamed and their plate now says they're a Necromancer. They can replace all their pets with Undead of various types and their spells are reflavored. If it's only one specialization, then they'd just stay as slightly-reflavored Affliction Warlocks changed only where necessary, whereas the more high-effort and probably better option is that all of their specializations are changed to some extent. Destruction's spells are all reflavored as Frost Spells (i.e. Rain of Fire becomes frozen meteorites or shards or even becomes physically-identical to Frost Mages' Blizzard spell, though I think that would be a bit lazy), Affliction's spells are all reflavored as green, plague-y spells, and Demonology's summons are all various kinds of Undead and Demonbolt is replaced with something frost-themed instead.

Similarly, a Hunter does a questline with Velanora and when they complete it, they get a final quest to turn their main character into a Dark Ranger unless reversed. Marksmanship is reflavored and all of the attacks now cause Shadow damage, Beast Mastery has all their abilities turn more explicitly undead-themed and they may even be able to tame non-animal (i.e. Humanoid) undead, and Survival gets more shadow-themed attacks and some of their traps might be slightly changed around.

Your Mage gets a distress call from the Bronze Dragonflight—the Infinites are doing something vague but unequivocally evil! It falls only to you, a mentally-unstable looter, to go commit murder on the Infinites. Eventually, the Bronze Dragonflight is so simultaneously impressed with you, grateful to you for saving them, and horrified by your depravity that they agree to grant you the powers of time-travel. You remain functionally the same, but all of your Fire spells are reskinned as Sand-based, all of your Arcane spells now have a bronze color scheme and runes, and your Frost spells are themed after the Infinites and your Water Elemental is now a Sand Elemental. You have become a Chronomancer, and your plate reflects this.

I was also thinking that in some cases, a transmog could substitute a whole new class skin—Wardens, I think, are similar enough to Rogues that a Warden-themed armor set and one of those cool circular glaives (transmogrified as one weapon even though you'd apply it naturally to two) could be enough to make a Rogue feel like a Warden.

Fuck, I really really like this. I was thinking of class skins just altering a single spec, but if they altered all three specs as you described, I'd jump on the class skin wholeheartedly!

[Dragons Are Bad Mkay]

Thoughts:

Dragon Knights are unlocked in the Dragon Isles (duh).
Minstrels are unlocked in Balor (halflings).
Tinkers are unlocked in the Undermine.
Chronomancers are unlocked in Uldaz?

[Chickat]

Omg staaaaahp, she might hear you! <_<

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I think it could be interesting if done right

Im confused.

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Oh more definitely will leak. But I don't think Blizzard is worrying about that. People are talking about WoW and not in the context of fuckups and criminal offences. That's good for them. Leaks are essentially good PR.

Yeah small leaks like this are probably fine if not intentional. They just hate it when the whole expansion is leaked. /looks at boub.

[Le Conceptuel]

Fuck, I really really like this. I was thinking of class skins just altering a single spec, but if they altered all three specs as you described, I'd jump on the class skin wholeheartedly!

Even though I'm far from willing to call Blizzard generally "high-effort", I do believe that we've seen that they're more inclined to do something more mechanical and different from the source based on how they came up with Allied Races in place of a simple subrace dropdown option. It's for that reason why I'm particularly inclined to suggest something as vast as this—it's also why I thought replacing the damage type or other very minor gameplay changes would be a good idea, as well as the reason for the quests behind them. With all three specializations covered, it also practically gives you all of the utility of a new class with none of the actual gameplay repercussions or resource load.

[Therougetitan]

Thoughts:

Dragon Knights are unlocked in the Dragon Isles (duh).
Minstrels are unlocked in Balor (halflings).
Tinkers are unlocked in the Undermine.
Chronomancers are unlocked in Uldaz?

I think they wouldn't lock classes behind content. Races yeah but classes they will let you play even in the pre-patch.

[Villager720]

Didn’t the Primus square off against Helya, and take a hot minute to wrap it up?

I’m sorry but Sargeras wouldn’t need a moment to subdue Helya.

Also, Argus, fledgling Titan, took some of the most powerful weapons in history + Titan Pantheon aid to defeat.
The Jailer just lost to the murder hobos.

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Yeah small leaks like this are probably fine if not intentional. They just hate it when the whole expansion is leaked. /looks at boub.

I don’t think @Boubouille ever leaked something that wasn’t already floating around.

[Three Faced Goddess]

Even though I'm far from willing to call Blizzard generally "high-effort", I do believe that we've seen that they're more inclined to do something more mechanical and different from the source based on how they came up with Allied Races in place of a simple subrace dropdown option. It's for that reason why I'm particularly inclined to suggest something as vast as this—it's also why I thought replacing the damage type or other very minor gameplay changes would be a good idea, as well as the reason for the quests behind them. With all three specializations covered, it also practically gives you all of the utility of a new class with none of the actual gameplay repercussions or resource load.

If class skins were implemented as you suggest, I would be completely okay with Dark Ranger being a hunter class skin. It would feel like a new class, wouldn't limit me to the the marksman spec, wouldn't reduce the Dark Ranger fantasy, and the theme would make sense. Alone, hunters don't feel like Dark Rangers because of the obvious lack of certain elements. If we got the Darkfallen race in addition to the class skin (yes, I know I'm expecting too much) and the class skin permitted Forsaken/Humans as well then I'd be over the moon. All of this without the nightmare of balancing a new class.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

imagine class skins, we get a dragon class, you customize your mortal form+dragon form, the class skins let you choose your dragonflight

I'd rather they do optional class skins over "microclasses" any day of the week.