Following in Dragonflight's model, the team behind World of Warcraft is working on focusing on "evergreen" features that will continue to be part of the game moving forward. This is why, rather than another "borrowed power" mechanic as we saw in Legion, BFA, and Shadowlands, we instead got the overhauled talent system with Dragonflight - something I think has met with near-universal approval.
So, in War Within (WW? Or is that going to be confused with Windwalkers?) the new systems being added are going to, ideally, be stuff we continue to play with moving forward in Midnight, The Last Titan, and beyond (it's insane to me that I know the names of the next two expansions after the next).
So, what are they?
Hero Talents:
Starting at level 71, we'll get a third talent tree. This third tree is going to represent some of the legendary archetypes that fit into the various class archetypes. We were given a few examples: Dark Rangers for Hunters, Farseers for Shaman, Keepers of the Grove and Chosen of Elune for Druids, and Mountain Thanes, Champions, and Slayers for Warriors.
In the latter case, we were given a clearer look at how these will go:
For most classes, which have three specs, there will be three "Hero Talent Trees," corresponding to these roles. Each spec will have two choices - so if you're a Protection Warrior, you can choose between Mountain Thane or Champion. If you're an Arms Warrior, you'll choose between Champion or Slayer, and if you're a Fury Warrior, you'll be able to choose between Mountain Thane or Slayer.
These talents will have mechanical effects, but also aesthetic ones. But they'll also have cosmetic effects.
Swapping between them is meant to be just as easy as swapping specs and talents is now - basically any time you're not in combat or something like a Mythic + dungeon you'll be ok to swap them.
Likewise, while they're "trees," the idea is that from 71 to 80, you're going to unlock every talent in these trees, similar to the original set of Artifact features.
Essentially, to me, this seems like it will be almost like a second spec-like choice, giving you another set of subclass abilities. We have yet to see how big of an impact these abilities will have. My hope is that they'll be balanced to really let you choose the aesthetic that you like, but naturally that will be a challenge.
I'm very curious to see what archetypes we see introduced. Warriors have a lot of options to pull from given all the Warrior-like characters we've seen in the past, from Blademaster Grom Hellscream to Mountain King Muradin to Tauren Chieftain Cairne Bloodhoof. But, for example, what different flavors/vibes of Death Knight might we get?
Still, if it lets me play my Paladin as a somewhat more arcane-themed battlemage, I'd be really freaking excited. And even if it's just a choice between something like "guardian" or "templar," I can easily have my very Neutral Good paladin go for the less edgy, more omnibenevolent archetype.
Warbands:
This is a sort of umbrella term that they're using to apply to a general attitude going forward toward alts: All reputations and renown will now be account-wide in War Within (at least for new factions). Additionally, there will be direct ways to share bank space - which honestly could be a huge game-changer, as it'll be a lot easier to not have to remember which alt I sent all of my "whatever" ore to.
Another change here will be that you will now be able to collect transmog appearances regardless of your class' armor type - so if I take my Demon Hunter through some old raid, I'll be able to collect the appearances of all the plate, mail, and cloth armor. Not sure if this also applies to class-specific armor, but a hugely welcome change - I cleared Molten Core so many times to get the Tier 2 Paladin pants that I'm sure I would have completed at least one other class' tier 1 appearance set in the course of it (I did finally get it, incidentally, finishing the set (which admittedly looks like it was made in 2004, but is still a classic).
I really think this will be a huge boon to altoholics. I guess the pitfall would be that, if renown awards or reputation rewards are too good, people might feel pressured to play alts to get that reputation up as quickly as possible, but then again, given Dragonflight's approach, I don't think that'll be necessary unless you really want to push those reputations to full, and shouldn't be a big impact on player power.
These seem to be the two biggest mechanical changes coming in the new expansion, but I think they're continuing with the strategy in Dragonflight of "less is more." We saw how the gigantic number of systems in, for example, Battle for Azeroth, got kind of overwhelming. Dragonflight has shown that focusing on core systems creates opportunities to work on core stuff.
Delves:
We haven't really gotten a super-deep look at these, but there seems to be an effort to let people who prefer world-exploration and less structured group play. Delves will be 1-5 player content that is role-agnostic. Naturally, this makes me think or Torghast, which was honestly a pretty fun bit of content that only suffered, I think, when people felt like they needed to grind it.
Most interesting to me is that it looks like Outdoor content and Delves will generate rewards in the Great Vault. While the Great Vault of course only rewards gear based on the content you do, this will at least give more casual or solo-focused players ways to get that fun Tuesday reward.
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