Dracthyr visage form in combat, surely a must now right?

[Khaza-R]

I feel like visage form is completely unnecessary after seeing the depth they put into the Dracthyr models. It would be better off just giving them a racial where they could change their mortal appearance at will since they are supposed to be elite soldiers and all.

[Holdodlig]

Visage mode will be the "ripcord" of dracthyr in my opinion. The kind of thing they already know it will be an issue but they're keeping in store to "fix" later so they can have some good feedback for free. Just like they did with covenant, corruption and other BS.

I already know what they'll say to make it match : "Right now, they have no reason to stay in a humanoid form but once they'll bond with mortals some of them will want to always look like them."

[Phob]

Yes I can't wait to have my human female, and blood elf male fly around the battle field breathing fire on the mobs and lifting my raid/party to safety.

[Cheezits]

Visage mode will be the "ripcord" of dracthyr in my opinion. The kind of thing they already know it will be an issue but they're keeping in store to "fix" later so they can have some good feedback for free. Just like they did with covenant, corruption and other BS.

I already know what they'll say to make it match : "Right now, they have no reason to stay in a humanoid form but once they'll bond with mortals some of them will want to always look like them."

No, I think there is a little more to it, like "how do we make a belf/human fly around and swipe their tail". Summon a phantom dracthyr to do it? If so, is it worth spending that dev time creating this? How many people will benefit from this change? Do the artists have anything else to work on?

[Mace]

From what I saw, looks like once an ability kicks you into dragon form, you're in dragon form until combat ends, the button greys out.

Ah. Not interested then. This means you are in dragon form most of the time even when you aren’t using its abilities.

What they need is a toggle that will stick to the selected form automatically only auto switching for actions that require the opposite form.

Toggle visage form, then you will shift to dragon form for abilities that require it and auto switch back once they are done. Toggle off and it will work as now. Toggle dragon form and Ofc you stay there all the time unless there is an ability or action that auto shifts to visage

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I feel like visage form is completely unnecessary after seeing the depth they put into the Dracthyr models. It would be better off just giving them a racial where they could change their mortal appearance at will since they are supposed to be elite soldiers and all.

The depth is great, but definitely doesn’t negate the visage form for two major reasons.

1. That is part of the Warcraft dragon fantasy, they can shift to humanoid forms
2. It’s almost a must for people who don’t dig monster races. Especially if this is your biggest attraction, no matter how cool one person may think their fave monster is, overall monster races are far less popular. So a race that has both actually is great.

Where this beats Worgen is that the humanoid form is not an existing race, but itself an allied race heavily modified with great detail.

And it seems a waste to lock you permanently in dragon form after all that effort , only to still exclude people who don’t dig monster models.

[Phob]

Ah. Not interested then. This means you are in dragon form most of the time even when you aren’t using its abilities.

What they need is a toggle that will stick to the selected form automatically only auto switching for actions that require the opposite form.

Toggle visage form, then you will shift to dragon form for abilities that require it and auto switch back once they are done. Toggle off and it will work as now. Toggle dragon form and Ofc you stay there all the time unless there is an ability or action that auto shifts to visage

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The depth is great, but definitely doesn’t negate the visage form for two major reasons.

1. That is part of the Warcraft dragon fantasy, they can shift to humanoid forms
2. It’s almost a must for people who don’t dig monster races. Especially if this is your biggest attraction, no matter how cool one person may think their fave monster is, overall monster races are far less popular. So a race that has both actually is great.

Where this beats Worgen is that the humanoid form is not an existing race, but itself an allied race heavily modified with great detail.

And it seems a waste to lock you permanently in dragon form after all that effort , only to still exclude people who don’t dig monster models.

Easy solution. If you don't dig monster races, don't play them. Its a dragon we don't want to be playing a dragon themed spec with breathing fire and flying around as a human or a blood elf. There is plenty to go with your style of play you can play your human mage or blood elf rogue if you want. Don't try to dumb down another race to being a boring human.

[Mace]

Visage mode will be the "ripcord" of dracthyr in my opinion. The kind of thing they already know it will be an issue but they're keeping in store to "fix" later so they can have some good feedback for free. Just like they did with covenant, corruption and other BS.

I already know what they'll say to make it match : "Right now, they have no reason to stay in a humanoid form but once they'll bond with mortals some of them will want to always look like them."

Haha. That’s a fair point.

I also feel that locking Evoker to Dracthyr only puts an added demand to buy the expansion to play, where previously at least you could access the new race or class without it. So once it ends it will open up more and the reason will be they have picked up more ways from other races and learnt from the dragonflights too. Likely at the end of the expansion.

Not saying the current restriction doesn’t make thematic and lore sense, it does, but it could have also had a financial motivation to restrict.

However with such restrictions it makes no sense to force dragon form always in combat which will put off players who don’t like monster forms, esp if they find the humanoid form really cool. You want your biggest feature to appeal to many.

So I hope they fix this before release.

[Lionwoman]

I hope it's not really required. If we had more races to choose sure but stuck with horny elf/human? nah.

[shade3891]

So how does it currently work ? Visage

A) When visage-form is active and you use an ability in combat that requires the drake-form you switch into Dractyr?

B) Do you stay in drake-form or do you auto-switch back to visage-form when combat ends or after the used ability?

C) If you start combat without the visage-form active nothing happens after combat, right? (Keeping you a Dractyr.)

[paxen]

People mention worgen, but imo dracthyr are a druid analog. They've gone back and forth on druid caster forms (tree of life, glyph of stars), but kept feral and guardian in beast shape.

I imagine that having dracthyr be able to cast in visage but turn draconic to use breath and wings is how it will stay, like how druids can cast spells in form or out, but can only use physical abilities when they're actually in bear/cat form.

I'd much rather that people focused on asking for more visage options. Where's my gnome dracthyr!

[Berndorf]

I hope the Evoker/Dracthyr restriction remains in place for at least 10 years and visage remains more for outside of combat.

[paxen]

I hope the Evoker/Dracthyr restriction remains in place for at least 10 years and visage remains more for outside of combat.

My hope is that they expand visage options instead of "opening up" the class to other races. If you had a tauren visage option, would you need to be able to roll a tauren evoker?

[Khaza-R]

1. That is part of the Warcraft dragon fantasy, they can shift to humanoid forms

Hopefully you see the disconnect though with what I was originally talking about.

The fantasy is to shift and disguise yourself as ANY humaniod. Which Dracthyr do not fulfill. They made the very odd choice to confine you to single race. Which sort of defeats the fantasy in the first place.

2. It’s almost a must for people who don’t dig monster races. Especially if this is your biggest attraction, no matter how cool one person may think their fave monster is, overall monster races are far less popular. So a race that has both actually is great.

While I get what you're saying, this is always going to be the case with any highly specialized classes. I mean, elves are not my first preference yet DHs exist. Some people hate shadowform, but its core part of the class. You're not able to do cat dps as a humaniod for druid, etc.

I am not against what you're suggesting at all btw. I just think Blizzard went about it in the worst way possible. Either make it a fully draconic class or complete the full fantasy so people can play whatever visage form they like. Even let me them shift in and out of the dragon form fluidly as you suggest. But the weird hybrid method they chose is lackluster to me.

[cocomen2]

So how does it currently work ? Visage

A) When visage-form is active and you use an ability in combat that requires the drake-form you switch into Dractyr?

B) Do you stay in drake-form or do you auto-switch back to visage-form when combat ends or after the used ability?

C) If you start combat without the visage-form active nothing happens after combat, right? (Keeping you a Dractyr.)

Seems like B) auto in Drake form for combat duration, and trigger drake from out of combat with racial skill or skills that can be cast only by drake form.

[Mace]

Look at how creative you can be with the visage form - and you telling me it makes sense to only be able to use this at the start of combat?




I hope they allow you to return to visage form in combat after you finish the dragon ability that requires dragon form. It just seems wasteful and very underutilsised otherwise.

[Combatbutler]

Look at how creative you can be with the visage form - and you telling me it makes sense to only be able to use this at the start of combat?

All I see is wasted development time, this should have gone into the Draconic appearance, you know for the dragon theme. What is the point of the race if they are pretty much humans and elves with colored psoriasis.

[bruxx]

All I see is wasted development time, this should have gone into the Draconic appearance, you know for the dragon theme. What is the point of the race if they are pretty much humans and elves with colored psoriasis.

I love how you don't even have a choice but to go into that weird costume to ride mounts and from what I've seen on youtube, you're left in that mode once you dismount without reverting back automatically.
Really feels like an artist went wild with their ideas without considering the gameplay part of this whole thing.

[Arikara]

Absolutely not. The visage form must be destroyed, or at least rendered entirely irrelevant instead of being forced into upon mounting, or providing any mechanical benefit whatsoever, like that out of combat regen. Blech.

It's shameful on Blizzard's part that they don't have the guts to commit to the theme, and doubly so on you for encouraging them.

[Zharikov]

So how does it currently work ? Visage

A) When visage-form is active and you use an ability in combat that requires the drake-form you switch into Dractyr?

B) Do you stay in drake-form or do you auto-switch back to visage-form when combat ends or after the used ability?

C) If you start combat without the visage-form active nothing happens after combat, right? (Keeping you a Dractyr.)

A) Yes. If it doesn't require the drake form, you can just stay as the visage form. (For example, spamming living flame. But if you use fire breath, then you become a dracthyr.)

B) After combat, but only if you were in visage form at the start of combat. You stay as a drachtyr for the remainder of that combat (though could switch manually if you wanted), then when it ends switch back to visage form if you started the combat in visage form. If you were in dracthyr form, you stay in dracthyr form. If you're out of combat and use a drachtyr ability, you just stay as a drachyr until you use visage form.

C) Yeah, if you start combat in drachtyr form, you just stay drachtyr when it ends.

That said, at present it only seems to remember your form when it comes to combat. Mounting puts you in visage form, and it does NOT presently remember your state, so you'll be in visage form a decent bit out of combat just because of dragon riding (and mounting in general.)

[Aurabolt]

I kinda raised the same arguement with Worgen myself back in Cata. I mean on the one hand I get they're supposed to fight in their Worgen form but given they don't get any stat boosts while transformed, it makes no sense to not have fighting in their human form as an option.