Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[FatCheeseMan]

I wonder if the cloaks will be something to do with the amazon/twitch promotion. They break the mold for usual deluxe edition bonus.

[Teriz]

Ugh, here we go. You can’t use lore to explain a class that doesn’t exist, that can be represented any way they’d like.

I'm pretty sure that WoW expansion classes come from lore, and tend to have a very large lore basis before they are brought into the game. Hence why they're based on major WoW characters and heroes. Alexstraza HotS is no different than Arthas and Chen from WC3, and Illidan from HotS.

I know you don’t actually think the devs are real people who change their ideas constantly, and are in fact robots who only adhere to what’s represented in Warcraft 3 or HotS, but there’s no dragon class period in lore, and if you want lore for mortals assuming the avatar of a dragon, that’s literally how Taregosa works. It’s a small leap to think they could make a hero class with the special ability to do that.

Saying something is a "class" is just semantics. There are characters in WoW that have unique abilities, are all over the game world, are of the playable races, and contain popular hero characters. Blizzard even gave us versions of these characters in playable form. What's more, they gave us versions of these characters that fits neatly into Tank/Heal/DPS.

In short, all the ingredients are in place to build a class around it.

All we're missing is a name.

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Except the other characters had their powersets established before HOTS.

That's not really relevant.

They may be the icons for the class, but Alex doesn’t do anything except breath fire in WoW or HOTS: her turning into a dragon is the gimmick of her character in HOTS, not anything defining about her.

There’s no way a dragon class is going to be based on ONE dragon.

That's a rather unfair characterization. Alex does far more than just breath fire and turn into a dragon. She also heals utilizing fire spells, which is something currently not in the class lineup.

Also you don't base it on one dragon, you base it on three;

https://heroesofthestorm.fandom.com/wiki/Chromie
https://heroesofthestorm.fandom.com/wiki/Alexstrasza
https://heroesofthestorm.fandom.com/wiki/Deathwing

With Alexstraza forming the base.

[Makabreska]

If Alexstraza is on the cover and we're getting a new class, it's going to be a class based on Alexstraza from HotS. No different than if Alexstraza had been a WC3 character. No different than Illidan, Chen Stormstout, or Lich King.

That's simply how Blizzard rolls.

Holy crap. So many posts to bookmark for the spicy 10.0 reveal.

[Raetary]

That design problem is also why the probably won’t be covenants. Because everyone would be getting the same looking rewards, just with different colors and some different spell effects.

What? No.

Each flight is far more distinguished than just their scale color.
The rewards would be themed around their magic and individual aesthetic.

Lava and fire/earth elementals, as well as themes of subterfuge and deception for blacks.

Ice, runes and arcane magic for the blues.

Sand, hour glasses and clocks as well as potential infinite inspired rewards for bronzes.

Dream stuff for greens.

Sun and spring themes along the lines of Eversong for reds.

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This obsession with HotS is getting out of hand.

[m4Zzo928]

I don’t think there’s going to be a dragon race, but a heavy emphasis on dragon armor and cosmetics in whatever “dragon covenant” is chosen.

[Blayze]

Maybe we're getting Tinkers and the five different colours are because it's all a Voltron reference.

[Hypester]

What? No.

Each flight is far more distinguished than just their scale color.
The rewards would be themed around their magic and individual aesthetic.

Lava and fire/earth elementals, as well as themes of subterfuge and deception for blacks.

Ice, runes and arcane magic for the blues.

Sand, hour glasses and clocks as well as potential infinite inspired rewards for bronzes.

Dream stuff for greens.

Sun and spring themes along the lines of Eversong for reds.

And those aren’t nearly as different as the covenants, which not only have different magics but also different aesthetics, purposes in their world, cultures, etc.

Each dragonflight besides MAYBE the Blacks and Bronze now are the exact same thing: protector of Azeroth that uses a different color magic fart.

The building blocks are there if they want to give each flight a radically different aesthetic and culture that makes them as different as the SL covenants, but currently that’s not how it is. Especially when things like the Dream and Arcane have already farted out plenty of rewards that would make those covenants less rewarding to be in/more of the same.

[ercarp]

Kinda weird that they'd give us 5 different wings to represent each of the dragonflights while the CE mount is still just a Green dragon (from the looks of it, anyway).

[Izalla]

Holy crap. So many posts to bookmark for the spicy 10.0 reveal.

Yeah, I just completely disagree that the character on the box has anything to do with the fact a class is being added. Each character represents the focus of the expansion. Except poor Bolvar, whose only relevance was involved in getting to the expansion and then squandered afterward. Like, who else would they have put on the Wrath box except the Lich King? Chen was the only Pandaren that was even established to exist before MoP and Garrosh as the villain certainly didn't belong on the box. No central character fit Legion better than Illidan except maybe Sargeras and people would likely have thrown a fit if he was on the box and never appeared except in one short glimpse during the end cinematic. Even Kil'jaeden was only a mid tier threat for the expac, and Illidan's big come back was discussed and hinted at as far back as Mists. Whether demon hunters were added or not, Illidan was the poster child for Legion.

[Harbour]

Why would the wings look different? The main dragonflights don’t look different from each other outside of the Infinite, they are just scale colors, and unless the expansion heavily redesigns each flight their wings would look the same.

That design problem is also why the probably won’t be covenants. Because everyone would be getting the same looking rewards, just with different colors and some different spell effects.

Because dragon aspects DO look differently, even though the difference isnt that extremal. Thats why i found it a bit lazy to use the one model for all five dragonflight wings.
Covenant rewards only solidify my doubts - Blizzard tried hard enough even with budget cuts to make covenant cosmetics look different enough. 10.0 seems to be the big one, would be weird to go cheap with pre-order rewards if its the dragon wings.

[Ersula]

And those aren’t nearly as different as the covenants, which not only have different magics but also different aesthetics, purposes in their world, cultures, etc.

Each dragonflight besides MAYBE the Blacks and Bronze now are the exact same thing: protector of Azeroth that uses a different color magic fart.

You say that as if the expansion itself wouldn't revolving around fleshing out their own cultural motifs. People were saying this about the covenants: "Zombies *and* vampires? Aren't those too similar?" And they do have a strong basis to build off of, magic, life, nature, time & power are pretty strong elements: Not unlike the 5 colors in MTG.

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Kinda weird that they'd give us 5 different wings to represent each of the dragonflights while the CE mount is still just a Green dragon (from the looks of it, anyway).

Surely the expansion itself will be full of dragon mount rewards.

[Local Ardenweald Faerie]

Kinda weird that they'd give us 5 different wings to represent each of the dragonflights while the CE mount is still just a Green dragon (from the looks of it, anyway).

The cloaks could be a way of making up the difference? At least, that's how I'd think if I were in charge of the collector's edition rewards.

"Hey, the dragon mount is green, but we know people love the other flights, so have back cosmetics for the rest of them!"

[Revamp Man]

I dunno if you've heard much about Chris Chan lately, but I hope to all possible gods no one "goes Chris Chan".

Lmao!!!!!
That’s fair

[Nymrohd]

Any chance the mount is not green but chromatic? Could be shifting through colors.

[Izalla]

Because dragon aspects DO look differently, even though the difference isnt that extremal. Thats why i found it a bit lazy to use the one model for all five dragonflight wings.
Covenant rewards only solidify my doubts - Blizzard tried hard enough even with budget cuts to make covenant cosmetics look different enough. 10.0 seems to be the big one, would be weird to go cheap with pre-order rewards if its the dragon wings.

If it is just recoloured dragon wings it doesn't seem like that big of a deal. It's just a bonus for buying a fancier tier of the game and not even the only thing. The wings themselves aren't really the iconic or interest parts of the different looking dragons. Now if it was dragon horns and they are all the same, well that would be silly since the dragons each have their own horn style.

@Marlamin was there already a transmog set in that encrypted stuff? I can't remember what all was associated with it before this was added last night.

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Any chance the mount is not green but chromatic? Could be shifting through colors.

I think the answer to this was "no evidence but not impossible" as long as you ignore that the mount itself is called "emerald"

[Nightshade711]

Why would we need to be mortals?

Death Knights and Demon Hunters aren't mortal.

DKs and DHs are mortals who either died and were risen from the dead or went to Illidan to become Demon Hunters.
The same wouldn’t apply for actual dragons, as they’ve always been immortal/higher beings.

Plus the actual starting zone quests for the races wouldn’t make sense for dragons.
Example: Why would a dragon be trying to beat Gallywix and try to become the trade prince of the bilgewater?

Goblins were straight up slaves in some cases to dragons, yet some dragons still took up Goblin appearances because they simply liked it. Nothing stops a dragon from getting their kicks looking like a Drakonoid. It wouldn't defeat any purpose. The only purpose is what the dragon wants, and the dragon (via their lore-based magic) can look like any mortal they want, including the Drakonoid. It doesn't need to make sense to anyone except to the dragon.

Pretty sure it could be said that almost every race were/are slaves to dragons in some cases.

Compare that to Dragonkin-based races that are always seen serving or working with dragons in some fashion.

The aspects took mortal forms “to allow them to see the world as the young races do.”
We’ve also seen them do so to blend in with mortal societies and other utility reasons. Not just “because they feel like.”

That doesn’t make sense for a race that’s just a humanoid dragon.

[Berkilak]

The aspects took mortal forms “to allow them to see the world as the young races do.”
We’ve also seen them do so to blend in with mortal societies and other utility reasons. Not just “because they feel like.”

That doesn’t make sense for a race that’s just a humanoid dragon.

Who knows? They could be a supremacist dragon that is only taking a smaller form for some practical reason, but would never deign to imitate mortals directly. There's all sorts of ways that this would make sense, if that's the direction they choose.

[Izalla]

I am a fan of both ideas that the green dragon was chosen because they didn't base any part of a class on it and still wanted to include it, and that the green dragons are specifically relevant because the nelves used to ride them and that whole story is connected to the existence of the Dragon Isles.

I really don't want a class with a green dragon based spec because then I have to give up my dreams of my damn non-elf druids ever having a nature themed balance spec again. RIP hurricane, insects, and anything leafy or thorny not moon and stars.

[Nightshade711]

Who knows? They could be a supremacist dragon that is only taking a smaller form for some practical reason, but would never deign to imitate mortals directly. There's all sorts of ways that this would make sense, if that's the direction they choose.

“Hm yes this is my mortal form whose purpose is to blend in with mortals to an extent.”



At that point just make their “mortal form” just an actual smaller dragon like the time lost drake pet from chrome scenario.

[Valysar]

Dragon wings as cloak's xmog ... It feels too much for Blizzard.

inb4 just regular cloak in 5 colors.