Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Zulggun]

Pls no bully. I'm young I didn't know any better.

[Fahrad Wagner]

you fool! now the void will come to consume this thread. perhaps alleria, the first to defy the shadows whispers, can yet save this thread from it?

Perhaps if we fuse with the Void, it will spare us?
Here, I have a formula to disappear into it without being noticed:

• I'm surprised not a single person in this thread is discussing why [insert random link between two lore notions that have nothing to do together and link them to the Void].
• Why is no one discussing the fact that Alleria [insert random gibberish about being main character in a pancake expansion]?
• It baffles me that no one in this thread is discussing why the Ren'dorei [insert random blabber about void elves being the key to any storyline in the game].

Back on topic: give me dragonzzzzzzzzz

Pls no bully. I'm young I didn't know any better.

Come my sweet Summer child, we shall protect you from the whispers.

[huth]

Pls no bully. I'm young I didn't know any better.

A young fool is still a fool, fool.

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Come my sweet Summer child, we shall protect you from the whispers.

Ia! Ia!


F'taghn.

[Zulggun]

Ren'draconis are the new race in 10.0.

[Lady Atia]

Ren'draconis are the new race in 10.0.

So .... Void Dragons?^^

[Houle]

Perhaps if we fuse with the Void, it will spare us?
Here, I have a formula to disappear into it without being noticed:

• I'm surprised not a single person in this thread is discussing why [insert random link between two lore notions that have nothing to do together and link them to the Void].
• Why is no one discussing the fact that Alleria [insert random gibberish about being main character in a pancake expansion]?
• It baffles me that no one in this thread is discussing why the Ren'dorei [insert random blabber about void elves being the key to any storyline in the game].

To quote Mannoroth: "A worthy effort, but futile!"
*proceeds to grow 4 purple tentacles and 20 ears to better hear the whispers*

in all seriousness: watch the new "dragon" race be another variation of elves, who can morph into a dragon form every now and then

[Varodoc]

Ren'draconis are the new race in 10.0.

No reason why this shouldn't happen.

People here can meme all they want but the fact remains: Countless dragons have succumbed to the whispers of the Void, if people here think the Void is no longer a threat just because N'Zoth "died", they are sorely mistaken. Even now, Nozdormu is doomed to become Murozond due to the machinations of the Old Gods.

And so it simply makes sense to feature the Ren'dorei in such a storyline, since they excel at resisting the whispers...

[Zulggun]

So .... Void Dragons?^^

It's not that easy. They are not dragons just elves pretending to be void dragons.

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No reason why this shouldn't happen.

People here can meme all they want but the fact remains: Countless dragons have succumbed to the whispers of the Void, if people here think the Void is no longer a threat just because N'Zoth "died", they are sorely mistaken. Even now, Nozdormu is doomed to become Murozond due to the machinations of the Old Gods.

And so it simply makes sense to feature the Ren'dorei in such a storyline, since they excel at resisting the whispers...

The only one who succumbed to the whispers is you my fren.

[Calfredd]

No reason why this shouldn't happen.

People here can meme all they want

They're just meme'ing with a memer Yrel I mean, Alleria, I mean Ren'dorei, I mean Varodoc.

[Nightshade711]

Ren'draconis are the new race in 10.0.

They’re actually void dragons using void elves as their mortal form and clearly are the sole focus of next xpac.

Surely blizzard isn’t going to abandon void elves like every other allied race and plot lines of past expansions.

[cone of cold]

Evoker sounds more like it would make sense as a spec for Mages. Evokers in other media are just pretty much Mages.

Blizzard even outright copied tons of spells, including spell names for their concept of the Mage.

warkanigames medium com/evoker-tactics-for-d-d-5e-9b127df2400

You could maybe include the idea of summoning elemental dragons made of fire or ice, that charge the enemy, but even that is something the Mage has, in the form of the Legion spell, where you unleash a Phoenix onto your target.

It really doesn't have much more potential than just a Mage spec.

[Varodoc]

It's not that easy. They are not dragons just elves pretending to be void dragons.

It really is that easy actually.

Since "Ren" in Thalassian means "Void" ("Ren'dorei" are "Children of the Void"), so "Ren'draconis" is Void Dragon.

So in other words you just said that Void Dragons should become playable in 10.0

Know that I agree with you, but perhaps we should ask ourselves, who should they join?

- The Alliance, a faction that already has Void elves and (one) Void Ethereal;
- Neutral;
- the horde (do they even have any Void user at all lol?)

I lean towards the first, but am willing to acknowledge contrasting views.

[Hitei]

He doesn't. People just can't wrap their brains around micro classes so they're latching on to anything but the Dragonflight leak.

People can wrap their brains around microclasses, they're just a shitty idea.

[ercarp]

People can wrap their brains around microclasses, they're just a shitty idea.

Basically how I feel about them as well. Being too lazy to create a full class and releasing half-assed versions of them under the pretense of them being "micro-classes" just sounds bad no matter how I look at it.

It's like selling you a car that's missing half its features and claiming that "it's okay because it's a Micro Car™! It's intended to be shit!"

EDIT: Seriously, which one would you choose:

- 1 fully functioning car that has ALL the features it needs.

OR

- 4 micro-cars: 1 has a steering wheel, 1 has brakes, 1 has a radio, and 1 has an extra seat at the back.

[Shadochi]

Basically how I feel about them as well. Being too lazy to create a full class and releasing half-assed versions of them under the pretense of them being "micro-classes" just sounds bad no matter how I look at it.

It's like selling you a car that's missing half its features and claiming that "it's okay because it's a Micro Car™! It's intended to be shit!"

EDIT: Seriously, which one would you choose:

- 1 fully functioning car that has ALL the features it needs.

OR

- 4 micro-cars: 1 has a steering wheel, 1 has brakes, 1 has a radio, and 1 has an extra seat at the back.

This is definitely stepping into Voltron territory, where the sum is greater than the individual pieces

[Nymrohd]

Honestly on specs I still think they took the very wrong path in Cata and even more so in Legion. I think the game would have been better off strengthening the core of the class and making specs modifiers. So all specs of a class would have the same core abilities and gameplay loop and specs would augment that base (adding 5-6 additional spells and multiple passives). Talents could even go by base class instead of by spec. For tanks the core gameplay is very much identical with dps; you just focus on spreading your abilities a round a bit more than dps does so you keep aggro everywhere and then have the parallel gameplay of defense. Healers are the outliers I guess but you could make more healer abilities baseline.

If they had taken such a path, adding more specs and even more classes would be easier. People talk about homogeneity, well we have 36 different specs in this game. In many cases, different specs of the same class feel like entire classes of their own. I think they overdid it with complexity. I understand far fewer people have experiencing the game world as their focus like I do but actually getting everything in any meaningful way in game is impossible because of the level of complexity we expect from each class and spec to the point so many of us are settling with the idea of class skins. In a world where specs were important but did not subsume the importance of the class, things like racial specs (Especially in a cross-faction instanced content paradigm like we will soon have) would be entirely possible.

[Ersula]

No they're not. They're basically just finalizing what specs already are for WoW. Sub-classes within a theme. It just gives a wider breadth for theme and aesthetic than one single thing.

You're describing the elective specs I proposed, but that's not what the leak detailed. A generic spec you can choose to add to any of your characters is a great idea; what the leak described was a character with only one spec period, which would be great for altaholics, but would alienate people who don't like to make alts, which is a strategy the devs consciously avoid.

[Pantupino]

Hi, you guys ready for the reveal? I am getting the hype right now, not gonna lie. I really hope Dragonflight is gonna be a good xpac!

[Hitei]

No they're not. They're basically just finalizing what specs already are for WoW. Sub-classes within a theme. It just gives a wider breadth for theme and aesthetic than one single thing.

Yes, they are. The fact that they're "like specs" is irrelevant, because specs are attached to an entire class and microclasses aren't.

They introduce several classes to the game that are abhorrently difficult to balance, because unlike every other class in the game, their viability is solely dependent on a single spec's performance, so if that one spec is at any point less than average, they have no fallback they are just awful and get blacklisted.
They introduce, for the first time in the game's history, the potential to be locked out of doing content with friends simply because you happened to choose the wrong combination of classes, and now can't even queue for dungeon together because you're the same role--and unlike every other class, who can just respec, you only have one option.
They add significantly more work anytime even basic class content (e.g. tier sets) gets added to the game, because now you have four more classes that need armor sets designed and set bonuses figured out. Introducing them isn't just a matter of the time investment to produce them for 10.0, it also means signing up to have four additional things to deal with if you ever want something like class halls again, or class quests.
They are awkward to balance for solo content, because while it's acceptable for a regular class to feel slow or a bit clunky when questing as a healer/tank spec (because they are choosing to do so but have DPS specs available) a micro just is slow or clunky when doing so, because they are a thing which can only ever off-spec that content.
They are a shit ton more work than just adding a traditional class, because they are not specs. They are single-spec classes. So while adding a normal class is adding a "class kit" and then three sets of rotational spec abilities and shared/specific talents, each individual microclass requires an entire functioning class kit in addition to its rotational setup. i.e. a regular class adds 1 general tab and 3 spec tabs; micro classes add four general tabs and four spec tabs. You'd have less work from introducing a five spec dragon class than four microclasses. The same applies to core mechanics and features, a class generally uses a base mechanic for all of its specs (holy power for paladins, CP for rogues, all shamans using totems as a class gimmick, etc), but microclasses involve coming up with an individual unique mechanic for each spec, instead of making a class with three spec iterations you're making four unique classes.

They are a shitty idea. Adding them would significantly increase the shit almost every team has to deal with for relatively little gain over just adding a regular class.

[Fahrad Wagner]

Hi, you guys ready for the reveal? I am getting the hype right now, not gonna lie. I really hope Dragonflight is gonna be a good xpac!

Pantuuuu! So ready! And hyped!!!