A typical World of Warcraft expansion has maybe a little over ten dungeons and three raid tiers - often with several non-tier (though with the removal of tier sets, that distinction is becomes way less clear) instances coming in early on.
While the aforementioned removal of tier sets makes the distinction of "full tier" raids like Nighthold less distinct from "non tier" raids like Emerald Nightmare or Trial of Valor, let's make the assumption that we'll get a similar number of dungeon and raid instances in Battle for Azeroth as we've gotten in Legion.
We already have the full list of launch dungeons, so that's a known quantity. But let's look at Legion:
Launch Dungeons: 10
Total Dungeons: 12
Total Raids: 5
Raid Bosses (not counting World Bosses): 40
I include the number of raid bosses to account for the fact that not all raids are the same - Trial of Valor is no Antorus. For example, not counting world bosses or Tol Barad, Cataclysm had 27 (28 counting heroic-only Sinestra) raid bosses among 5 raid instances, while Warlords of Draenor had 30 within only 3 instances.
While tier sets are not happening in Battle (I'm going back and forth between Battle and BFA as the shortened version, though I tend to prefer the "first word" nomenclature except with Burning Crusade,) I still imagine we're going to get periodic raid releases along a similar schedule.
That means we're likely to get two or three raids in 8.0, with perhaps a small one popping up in 8.1 if 8.0 only had two, and then we'd get a big new raid roughly after six months and then another along a similar timeframe.
The only announced raid so far is Uldir, which will delve into Titan and Old God themes and lore, apparently detailing what a Blood God is - an unholy amalgamation of Titan experimentation and eldritch Old God physiology. (Supposedly the thing is called G'huun, though I'm wondering if it is actually, or is perhaps related to, Hakkar.)
Uldir is going to be an 8-boss instance, which kind of puts it on the border between "full tier" and "non tier" raid - Emerald Nightmare was 7 bosses, but Dragon Soul was 8, so... I don't know.
Of course, without raid tier sets, the distinction is only important as far as it relates to whether Uldir is truly the headline raid of 8.0 or if it's more of an introductory raid like Mogu'shan Vaults or Highmaul rather than the expansion's first central climax.
We know that Azshara is going to be a raid boss at some point in Battle (I guess I'm sticking with that one.) As someone who could probably headline an expansion, she's almost certain to be the final boss of her raid.
I'd be pretty surprised if we didn't fight Azshara in Nazjatar, which has not been announced as a zone yet, which to me suggests that she'd have to come in later in the expansion so they could bring in the zone that would hold the instance. But given that she has already been announced, I could also imagine her playing the Gul'dan role of the expansion - the first really central villain we defeat in the headlining raid of the first patch (first-ish, I know Nighthold didn't open until after 7.1 launched.)
Beyond these known instances (and looking at an interview about armor art, they've described gear in Uldir as having a mix of Troll, Titan, and Old God looks while the Azshara raid will have a long-underwater High Elf look,) what else might we see?
A big part of that is how important the various known threats in the new continents are.
We have six zones to look at in 8.0, three per continent. Each seems to have its own theme and villains. Obviously we're likely to get new zones added over the course of the expansion - I'm expecting Nazjatar once we're going up against Azshara.
So let's look at the zones and consider what we might see there:
Zandalar:
Zulduzar: We know that this is an ancient temple-city, and there is some mention in the dungeon journal of the Prophet Zul as being behind the final boss of the Atal'dazar dungeon. To me, that suggests Zul is probably going to be a raid boss, though whether he's a final boss or pulls a Tichondrius/Mannoroth (namely, being a recognizable name that is not the final boss of the given raid) remains to be seen. Given that this is the capital of the Zandalari Empire and Zul is probably the biggest internal threat to said empire, I'd expect us to face him here, and a raid would make a lot of sense.
Nazmir: This is where Uldir will be found, and this swampy region does seem to focus on the Blood Trolls, who are presumably tied to this Blood God. I suspect Uldir will be where the plot of Nazmir wraps up.
Vol'dun: We know that there is a race of snake-people who seem to be a threat in this desert zone, and I suspect that the announced Temple of Seth'raliss dungeon will probably involve them. These guys seem very much in the Drogbar/Arrakoa/Botani vein of being a threat that can probably be handled in a dungeon (even if I would have loved to have a Skyreach raid in Warlords.) Unless there's something much bigger going on in Vol'dun, I think this zone might be raid-free.
Kul Tiras:
Tiragarde Sound: It seems that the main plot of Tiragarde Sound is going to be about the political intrigue between the major families of Kul Tiras. We know that Boralus is the capital city there, and thus Siege of Boralus will probably be an instanced version of the city like Court of Stars. This zone is home to Freehold, the pirate dungeon (man, that's a fun phrase,) and we don't know who it is besieging Boralus, but I think we might just have a raid-free zone here as well. One thing to wonder about is, if this zone's story is all about internal intrigue, what do the Horde get out of coming here and running dungeons?
Drustvar: This depends entirely on how major the witches of Drustvar are as villains. As I've mentioned in earlier posts, I'd be so, so, on board to find that these monsters are tied to a seriously big, multi-expansion threat born out of the Shadowlands, but we really don't know if their style of evil is a focus for this expansion or if this area will be just some extra flavor, perhaps only hinting at future threats in later expansions.
Stormsong Valley: There is almost no way that the Stormsongs' Sea Priests aren't in some way connected to N'zoth. They love kraken imagery and have creepy eyes on their priestly attire. If there's going to be some kind of Old God cultist-themed raid (as opposed to Old God creatures,) the idyllic fields of Stormsong Valley seem like the perfect place to do it. With one raid announced on Zandalar, there's got to be at least one raid on Kul Tiras, and I think this is the most obvious place.
Elsewhere:
Clearly, Battle for Azeroth is going to take us to other locations. We know Kezan will be a dungeon, perhaps taking us back to Bilgewater Port from Cataclysm or, what I bet is more likely, through the subterranean metropolis of Undermine. But Kezan is very clearly a distinct island from either of the major continents, which suggests we'll be going beyond the announced zones for our instancing.
An Azshara raid, as I've mentioned here, would probably be in the sunken capital of Nazjatar. And if N'zoth winds up being the expansion's big bad, we could perhaps journey (like Ilgynoth) to Ny'alotha, wherever that is.
Of course, the big theme of the expansion is Alliance versus Horde, and so I could also imagine raids that take us to older, familiar territory. I don't know if they'd go so far as to make separate raids for the different factions - like having one side battle through the ruins of Undercity while the other fights through Darkshore while Teldrassil burns in the background. But setting a new raid in the old world, a bit like Siege of Orgrimmar, could also work. (Consider that the first and last raids in Burning Crusade actually took place in the Eastern Kingdoms.)
As of yet, we still really only know how the expansion will start, and the overall progression of the plot remains very much to be seen. Aside from knowing that Azshara is going to make an appearance (and presumably we'll kill her,) we don't really know exactly how this faction conflict will resolve, and to what extent the shared threats between the factions will be center-stage.
No comments:
Post a Comment