The War Within 11.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Jastall]

What ever happened with the whole "Scourge will run rampant without a LK"? Was that a lie or are scourge actually running rampant now lol?

Seems we killed most of them during the pre-patch and the Ebon Blade are busy keeping the rest in check.

Which yes, does make the whole "there must always be a Lich King" thing kinda pointless but it was always a silly bit of lore invented either to justify bringing back said Lich King, or because Metzen saw Pirates 3 and stole the idea. Not sure which.

[Vakir]

Seems we killed most of them during the pre-patch and the Ebon Blade are busy keeping the rest in check.

Which yes, does make the whole "there must always be a Lich King" thing kinda pointless but it was always a silly bit of lore invented either to justify bringing back said Lich King, or because Metzen saw Pirates 3 and stole the idea. Not sure which.

Yeah. It was terrible when it was revealed in 2009 and it's still terrible. Everyone on this forum insisted otherwise at that time, jerking off how "perfect" Arthas' terrible story where he became Dr. Claw was, alongside justifying the idiot ball of Saurfang and Muradin, as well as the Alliance/Horde always being the aggressor when you're playing the opposite. And the removal of Ner'zhul. And even more.

Wrath was not nearly as amazing as it is remembered. It continued the decay of the story from Illidan et al. getting villain batted and just lining up WC2 Horde heroes to kill unceremoniously.

[Nize]

I think it could be fun to look at all the specs to theorize what specs would have access to each hero talent spec. Each hero talent (with DH/druid exclusion) is only accessed by 2 specs. Mage is pretty easy to decipher since one spec is called Frostfire thus Frost and Fire spec can access. Sunfury would be the other Fire one and you can deduce that the other spec that can access Sunfury is Arcane. Lastly, Spellslinger by process of elimination would be Frost and Arcane. Any thoughts on the other classes?

[Jastall]

Yeah. It was terrible when it was revealed in 2009 and it's still terrible. Everyone on this forum insisted otherwise at that time, jerking off how "perfect" Arthas' terrible story where he became Dr. Claw was, alongside justifying the idiot ball of Saurfang and Muradin, as well as the Alliance/Horde always being the aggressor when you're playing the opposite. And the removal of Ner'zhul. And even more.

Wrath was not nearly as amazing as it is remembered. It continued the decay of the story from Illidan et al. getting villain batted and just lining up WC2 Horde heroes to kill unceremoniously.

Yeah, the ICC raid was really cool and all but all the story surrounding Arthas in the expansion just wasn't good, due to the things you've mentioned and also all that jazz about some ghost kid being a fragment of his morality or something stupid like that. The sassy asshole that was WC3 Arthas was replaced by a cartoon villain who bumbled all expansion long sending forth one incompetent minion after the next, and their justification for why that was didn't held up to any scrutiny whatsoever. We literally have a huge picnic right in his personal Mordor and his first answer was to send a Monty Python meme at us, like c'mon.

But hey, people like Arthas and the Lich King and he said the things like Frostmourne Hungers so Wrath had the best story ever it seems. At least it wasn't as bad as TBC since that one had little story but a continuous villain batting of cool WC3 NPCs that they had to walk away from later on.

[Well Done Steak]

Wonder if WW and Midnight will be smaller and quicker exp's, while TLT will be you're typical 2 year exp given it being the grand finale.

That would make TLT maybe end in 2028

[Vakir]

I think it could be fun to look at all the specs to theorize what specs would have access to each hero talent spec. Each hero talent (with DH/druid exclusion) is only accessed by 2 specs. Mage is pretty easy to decipher since one spec is called Frostfire thus Frost and Fire spec can access. Sunfury would be the other Fire one and you can deduce that the other spec that can access Sunfury is Arcane. Lastly, Spellslinger by process of elimination would be Frost and Arcane. Any thoughts on the other classes?

My guesses:

DK -
Rider of the Apocalypse - Frost/Unholy
San'layn - Blood/Frost
Deathbringer - Blood/Unholy

Demon Hunter -
Well, uh...

Druid -
Keeper of the Grove - Balance/Resto, confirmed
Elune's Chosen - Balance/Guardian, confirmed
Wildstalker - Feral/Resto
Druid of the Claw - Feral/Guardian

Evoker -
Chronowarden - Aug/Preservation
Ruby Adept - Devastation/Preservation
Scalecommander - Devastation/Aug

Hunter -
Sentinel - Marksman/BM
Pack Leader - BM/Survival
Dark Ranger - Marks/Survival

Mage -
Sunfury - Arcane/Fire
Frostfire - duh
Spellslinger - Frost/Arcane

Monk -
Master of Harmony - Brew/Mist
Shado-Pan - Brew/Wind
Conduit of Celestials - Mist/Wind

Paladin -
Lightsmith - Holy/Prot
Herald of the Sun - Holy/Ret
Templar - Prot/Ret

Priest -
Voidweaver - Shadow/Disc
Oracle - Holy/Shadow
Archon - Holy/Disc

Those last two feel interchangeable, tbh.

Rogue -
Deathstalker - Assassination/Sub
Trickster - Sub/Outlaw
Fatebound - Assassination/Outlaw

Shaman -
Stormbringer - Enh/Ele
Farseer - Enh/Resto
Totemic - Ele/Resto

Warlock -
Soul Harvester - Affliction/Destro
Hellcaller - Demo/Destro
Diabolist - Demo/Affliction

Warrior -
Confirmed all of these

[Merryck]

Is Lightsmith supposed to be Draenei themed? I think it needs a rename to better reflect that.

[Murlocos]

From the Wowhead interview:

Tina Wang: I did want to share that on the art side, we are planning that most if not all of the mounts that currently fly should be able to have dynamic flying by launch. That's our intent.

I'm curious where the cutoff will be. The panels didn't want to commit to more than "hundreds of existing mounts", now it's "most if not all". I'm hoping that if not at all at launch, they add it to the remaining mounts by the end and don't just leave them for dead. I'd hate to leave the TBC gyrocopter behind after using it since 2007.

[Cheezits]

Is Lightsmith supposed to be Draenei themed? I think it needs a rename to better reflect that.

I feel like a LOT of the names are meant to be certain race things, but they gave them shitty names to not make them feel too racially specific. Which is stupid as that is what fans want.

Like Lightsmith is probably a Draenei crystal healing thing. Just call it a Draenei name. They probably will pivot to fanservice names in the end... does anyone remember how shitty the first round of the Legion Class Hall titles were?

[Merryck]

From the Wowhead interview:



I'm curious where the cutoff will be. The panels didn't want to commit to more than "hundreds of existing mounts", now it's "most if not all". I'm hoping that if not at all at launch, they add it to the remaining mounts by the end and don't just leave them for dead. I'd hate to leave the TBC gyrocopter behind after using it since 2007.

I image the mech suits would be difficult to make dynamic flight ready.

[Cheezits]

From the Wowhead interview:

I'm curious where the cutoff will be. The panels didn't want to commit to more than "hundreds of existing mounts", now it's "most if not all". I'm hoping that if not at all at launch, they add it to the remaining mounts by the end and don't just leave them for dead. I'd hate to leave the TBC gyrocopter behind after using it since 2007.

I think the flying machines are actually safe, because that is what the Delve mount is.

I started to wonder if we are getting full dynamic flying when I saw Ashes in the trailer. Isn't Ashes the ONLY mount that uses its rig?

[Ersula]

Is Lightsmith supposed to be Draenei themed? I think it needs a rename to better reflect that.

But these aren't race-specific, so they shouldn't be.

[Cheezits]

Regarding Arathi:

These guys are a splintered tribe of the original Arathi Empire from back in the day, before they split into the seven kingdoms that we know of. It was a massive - all of humanity came together in this Empire. And there was a group of them who left and they spawned their own kingdom across the sea. These guys are a splintered group from that kingdom that received a vision about a falling star, and it took them to Harrowfall. And when they found it - you guys saw the key art for it, it's huge, gigantic - these guys are super devoted to the Light. They're like uber Paladins, and it just made sense that if we were going to bring in a group devoted to the Light, to that degree, why not bring in those ancient tribes of humanity that maybe we haven't seen in a hot minute, or heard of in forever? The Arathi have a very interesting history because, like I said, they're kinda like the first Empire of humanity, and it splintered itself in different directions. This is a direction that we're not familiar with.

Avaloren confirmed for Arathi?

[Nize]

From the Wowhead interview:



I'm curious where the cutoff will be. The panels didn't want to commit to more than "hundreds of existing mounts", now it's "most if not all". I'm hoping that if not at all at launch, they add it to the remaining mounts by the end and don't just leave them for dead. I'd hate to leave the TBC gyrocopter behind after using it since 2007.

Most of it will come from skeleton rigging, which would handle mounts in batches. Blizz was definitely thinking ahead by making all the mounts from Dragonflight utilize different skeletons to cover a vast amount of flying mounts in the game on its own.

I assume, as I didn't see it in the trailer (or might've missed, please correct me) stuff like the Deathwalkers/Shaman order hall mounts to not have it quite yet. Also probably some of the flying ground mount looking ones, minus horses like Invincible.

[Vakir]

From the Wowhead interview:



I'm curious where the cutoff will be. The panels didn't want to commit to more than "hundreds of existing mounts", now it's "most if not all". I'm hoping that if not at all at launch, they add it to the remaining mounts by the end and don't just leave them for dead. I'd hate to leave the TBC gyrocopter behind after using it since 2007.

Yeah, they're just kinda scared of saying anything definitively. Understandably.

As much as WoD had tons of problems, they said race model updates would be done in waves, then it turned into basically all of them. (And then everyone got mad at what they DID say they'd have, which was two capital cities cut among other things)

Regarding Arathi:

Yup, we're gonna get an Ashbringer 2.0 Macguffin and its origin.

[Telogrus]

Thrall and Anduin are probably gonna regain their Elemental/Light powers at the same time

[Cheezits]

Thrall and Anduin are probably gonna regain their Elemental/Light powers at the same time

Thrall got them back in Shadowlands. It was a Moment.

[Kiivar86]

Regarding Arathi:

These guys are a splintered tribe of the original Arathi Empire from back in the day, before they split into the seven kingdoms that we know of. It was a massive - all of humanity came together in this Empire. And there was a group of them who left and they spawned their own kingdom across the sea. These guys are a splintered group from that kingdom that received a vision about a falling star, and it took them to Harrowfall. And when they found it - you guys saw the key art for it, it's huge, gigantic - these guys are super devoted to the Light. They're like uber Paladins, and it just made sense that if we were going to bring in a group devoted to the Light, to that degree, why not bring in those ancient tribes of humanity that maybe we haven't seen in a hot minute, or heard of in forever? The Arathi have a very interesting history because, like I said, they're kinda like the first Empire of humanity, and it splintered itself in different directions. This is a direction that we're not familiar with.

Avaloren confirmed for Arathi?

Eh, I don't think so, it doesn't feel like it lines up right to me. These guys went on a voyage because of a vision of a falling star, whereas the heretics that formed Avaloren did some crime(s) against Titanic watchers. That isn't mutually exclusive, but just doesn't feel like it matches right to me.

[Cheezits]

Eh, I don't think so, it doesn't feel like it lines up right to me. These guys went on a voyage because of a vision of a falling star, whereas the heretics that formed Avaloren did some crime(s) against Titanic watchers. That isn't mutually exclusive, but just doesn't feel like it matches right to me.

But what kingdom across the sea could they be referring to? Have we known about an Arathi kingdom in Kalimdor before?

Avaloren fits for the medieval vibe and the "heretic" angle (maybe the descendants were Vrykuls who picked Light over Order/Titans)

[Kiivar86]

But what kingdom across the sea could they be referring to? Have we known about an Arathi kingdom in Kalimdor before?

Oh I see I'm misunderstanding your post slightly, my apologies. I thought you meant the Harrowfell area is Avaloren.

You mean where those guys came from, right?

Ok yeah you may be on to something there.