Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Master Factician]

I'm actually hoping their new experimental gameplay team was founded based on some sort of idea they'll hopefully start exploring in 10.0 that isn't borrowed power for a single expansion. It's obviously a big "dose of hopium" but I hope that Blizzard has finally figured out that borrowed power (and by extension garrison systems) is something they've gotten away with a few too many times now.

Every person on Twitter I've seen mentioning being on that team is, or was on the Classic WoW team. Could be a coincidence? Maybe they had less work to do on WoTLK so were offered a place on this team? Idk.

[SniperCT]

I am crossing my fingers so hard that they let it stay destroyed.

I'm really curious as to what the thought process behind Teldrassil/Darnassus was from a development point of view, because it's always been super weird lore-wise. Before World of Warcraft, the night elves were implied to live around Hyjal and I think one source even cited Moonglade as their capital? Growing another World Tree overnight is already a little weird when Nordrassil was supposed to be healing and shouldn't take any less time to return to normal than a whole new tree, but uprooting their entire civilization and moving it off the mainland to this new place is just really, really strange, and that's not even getting into the ambiguity of the night elf language being called Darnassian (sure, realistically a shared root is more than possible, but in a meta sense it feels like it was designed by someone who just assumed their massive capital tree was ancient and not no more than four years old).

I would much prefer the night elves have a proper mainland capital, and then maybe the ashes of Teldrassil can be visited in a new Kalidar zone. If they can ever match the concept art of Teldrassil in game, just do it on Nordrassil.

Honestly the two best options for a new nelf capital is hyjal, or growing a new tree on or near gilneas.

If they ARE revamping Lordaeron, the latter would be a good place for it and solidify the friendship between the two.

[Hitei]

What if you are chromatic though and you can switch colors but with a cooldown? It would create a two-tier tactic choice throughout the fight where you'd have to choose WHEN to switch so you could utilize an ability of a different flight, knowing you'd be locked in that flight for some of the encounter.

The CD ability in the other flight would have to be completely broken to warrant you switching off your highest DPS/HPS/survivability flight. And then you'd just be stuck doing lower output until you could switch back in. Sounds very frustrating.

If you're going that route you might as well just make the flights old style stances rather than a locking CD, and then force stance dancing to switch to say, black to apply/reapply shadowflame dot, then bronze to use some ability that hastens you, then to red for main DPS abilities.

But that sounds pretty exhausting. Stance dancing is already rather taxing just when working with ~2 stances, let alone five.

-

Your best hypothetical from a chromatic spec would probably be something where your resource bar is instead five chromatic bars that fill from abilities and naturally at different rates. And then when full you can activate some "draconic ascension" ability to temporarily shift into a drake/dragon/whelp of that flight and use some hard hitting/healing/defensey abilities for a brief bit. With the filler between that being a mix of attacks and spells from all the flights.

But this seems rather silly imho. You're pursuing "uniqueness" at the cost of watering down each flight into a tiny minor aspect and in doing so fail to actually capture the identity of any of them, because you're ending up with a handful of bronze abilities, no different than a mage, instead of a whole bronze kit. You're better off just doing the five specs. You're not going to run into problems with other classes unless you deliberately do so.

•Black melee DPS with shadowflame and magma, maybe a touch of void. Maybe take this chance to make a sword and board DPS spec gladiator.
•Blue tanking spec, your gish spellbreaker/spellblade, using a spear or staff and a bunch of arcane and arcane-frost infused attacks.
•Green ranged DPS using poisons and nature damage, no need for "druidic" aesthetics, lean into the Vanilla era green flight of swamps and marshlands.
•Red healer spec, using revitalizing/cauterizing flames, built to feel like "attacking" your friendly targets rather than the typical heals.
•Bronze ranged DPS using damaging temporal and sand spells, hastening and duplicating yourself, infinite effects in its cooldowns, etc.

[therumblings]

A dragon class has so many spec possibilities which is why I am excited and hoping they do it. You could easily have 5 specs or more, and maybe even the first class with two different tanking specs.

[Zankai27]

A dragon class has so many spec possibilities which is why I am excited and hoping they do it. You could easily have 5 specs or more, and maybe even the first class with two different tanking specs.

It’s such an amazing idea I’m glad it’s finally getting more popular. Dragons have so much to offer as a class identity that I just really hope it happens.

Part of me is hoping a dragon class is why Alexstrasza has a spear/staff in that key art, as she’s never been depicted with a weapon before. Fingers crossed!

[Jokubas]

•Blue tanking spec, your gish spellbreaker/spellblade, using a spear or staff and a bunch of arcane and arcane-frost infused attacks.

If I could finally play this:
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/wo...20050515012903
I'd be happy.

[Nibelheimy]

Just gunna throw out my personal opinion on this.

I don't mind the idea of a dragon related class, but mixing the flights in one spec is gunna make me enjoy them less.

Personally, I'd love a chi'ji styled monk, but I can't really make that. Even with glyphs and specific abilities it doesn't quite cut it for me for mist weaver. Now I'm not saying that a 5 spec class is the answer to this..

I love the idea of playing a shaman, but whenever I try I can never stick with them regardless of spec. Maybe restoration is more specific, I've never played a healer spec max level so I wouldn't know, but I would much rather a spec focused on each element.

Fire for elemental, wind for enhancement, water for resto and an earth tank spec. I understand that may never happen, but thats just why I can't stick with shamans. I make my characters with specs in mind, not classes as a whole.

If I wanted to play a dps dragon related class and It was a mixture of black, blue and bronze flight themed abilities, or a healer mixed red, green and bronze, it would really throw off my fantasy with the spec. Maybe that's just a me issue however.

[therumblings]

Just gunna throw out my personal opinion on this.

I don't mind the idea of a dragon related class, but mixing the flights in one spec is gunna make me enjoy them less.

Personally, I'd love a chi'ji styled monk, but I can't really make that. Even with glyphs and specific abilities it doesn't quite cut it for me for mist weaver. Now I'm not saying that a 5 spec class is the answer to this..

I love the idea of playing a shaman, but whenever I try I can never stick with them regardless of spec. Maybe restoration is more specific, I've never played a healer spec max level so I wouldn't know, but I would much rather a spec focused on each element.

Fire for elemental, wind for enhancement, water for resto and an earth tank spec. I understand that may never happen, but thats just why I can't stick with shamans. I make my characters with specs in mind, not classes as a whole.

If I wanted to play a dps dragon related class and It was a mixture of black, blue and bronze flight themed abilities, or a healer mixed red, green and bronze, it would really throw off my fantasy with the spec. Maybe that's just a me issue however.

I agree, anything less than a 5 spec class would surely be disappointing, but at the bare minimum I'd expect a 3 spec class and two dragonflights are just left out or merged.

[Zankai27]

Making a Chromatic dragon class that uses them all is a perfectly fine way to represent them and mixing them in specs while focusing on a particular thing is the most authentic way to do it with today’s class design.

5 specs is just too much to ask for and the point of a class is to mix elements while specializing in others.

Ex: Black Dragonflight inspired tank spec heavily leans into fire, big weapons, armor plates, but can still use various base abilities from other specs, and talents allow them to use them better, etc.

I like to think I created a good basis for this idea

[Khaza-R]

This sounds like a balancing nightmare, and I have to imagine that even if you could get all.. 125? combinations reasonably close, you'd run into the same issue as release DKs and covenants, where even though theoretically the specs can do the different roles, community discourse basically just comes down to: "Black > Green > Bronze will provide you with the most comprehensive defensive toolkit, so that is ideal for tanking".

Good points. I don't think every combination needs to be balanced. That's sort of the point of a radial class. There's always a best solutions for a given scenario, the skill cap is knowing when to employ that specific combination.

Alternatively, I think the idea you posts a few comments down also a good solution. A sort of chromatic weaving could be very different and interesting. The issue there is that its innately a build up spec and those tend to terribly outside of long boss fights. As others have said, there's a lot of iterations of how a hypothetical dragon class could go. Its exciting to speculate at least, even if we don't get one come April 19th.

[Revamp Man]

I'm not sure they will dilute the class so much. It will probably be that the Dragonsworn class will be the product of a newly formed and possibly uniform Dragonflight.

We also need to think. Why now? Every class that has been added has an answer to that.

Gameplay wise the answer is 4 years of no new class

Storywise it’s fighting fire with fire like always

[therumblings]

Assuming Dragonflight releases in 2023, it will mean WoW has gone 7 years without a new class.

[delphiskye]

longer with out a new main profession last one was inscription in wrath

[therumblings]

It's also been roughly 10 years since a new core race was added.

[delphiskye]

It's also been roughly 10 years since a new core race was added.

we need a core race and a new main profession to spice things up maybe dragon core race with multi classes they could teach us a new class at the same time like the pandas

[Dracullus]

It's also been roughly 10 years since a new core race was added.

Some allied races would easily pass as customization. But Nightborne, Zandalari, Kul Tiran, Vulpera are definitely new races.

we need a core race and a new main profession to spice things up maybe dragon core race with multi classes they could teach us a new class at the same time like the pandas

New class bring some hype and then devs are left with one more burden. It's not even about balance, but spreading different utilities, every class should have different pros&cons and unique gameplay. What (mechanically) new class would bring? Would it require to take something from existing class like Metamorphosis in Legion?

I would definitely prefer class skins that wouldn't be restricted by lore.

[Catastrophy349]

The HYPE waiting for the announcement has been amazing. I'm excited for the next adventure (post announcement) when we all speculate what the future will bring based on what we know (is announced). Can't wait to watch and re-watch the announcement video(s) over and over again for several weeks.

I still re-watch Blizzcon 2019 when they announced Shadowlands and just say to myself "Hmmmm...?"

[deviantcultist]

Gameplay wise the answer is 4 years of no new class

Storywise it’s fighting fire with fire like always

I hope it's fighting fire with fire. Otherwise, it's going to be about using the pre-established powers of the goodie Dragonflights.

[pacotaco]

I hate the thought of Shadowlands ARs but the part of me that love making troll characters wishes we got them. I would spend all my time in WM on a rogue named Sparkleshank just ruining people's day.

https://wow.zamimg.com/sound-ids/live/enus/238/3459822

[Therougetitan]

Races doesn't matter that much with allied races. There are plenty of race options.

New class would be a good selling point since the last one was released in 2016. They should also enable more race/class combinations since aside from Gnome Hunter during Legion the last set was for Cataclysm in 2010.