Warlock Patrons of Azeroth

 The WoW D&D book is going to give a lot of guidance for player to re-create WoW classes and specializations within D&D rules. In some cases, this will be trivial: a Guardian or Feral Druid can just go Circle of the Moon (though I'd freaking love it if they create a scaling template for Bear and Cat forms we could use at any level). But in some cases, namely the Death Knight and Demon Hunter, they'll be doing some unprecedented re-works of existing classes and creating subclasses that are sort of more than subclasses and really extensive re-works of the base classes they're being grafted onto (we've only seen level 1 and 2 features for Ebon Blade Paladins, which replace Lay on Hands and Paladin's Smite - though Rune Strike, which replaced Divine Smite, is basically the same spell except it does Necrotic damage and only gets a bonus die against Celestials).

But while it could be fun to play with restrictions to require players to build characters to fit with WoW's existing classes and specs, I think think it would be more fun to take adventures in Azeroth to places you can't replicate in the MMO.

Let's consider the Warlock.

In D&D, of course, a Warlock is a character who has forged a pact with a powerful magical entity (though 5.5 broadens this a bit to allow you to draw from multiple sources, as long as they're sort of in the same category.

By contrast, Warlocks in World of Warcraft are scholars just like Mages (the Wizard equivalent,) but while Mages study in very socially-acceptable learning institutions (though for a long time, their practices were forbidden among the Night Elves,) Warlocks are scholars of forbidden knowledge, specifically the knowledge of Fel magic, which is the inherently destructive power that suffuses demons.

Warlocks in WoW have three different specializations, like most classes, but all three are still Fel/demonic magic. Affliction is the one that might be easiest to reflavor as instead some kind of necromancy, but the other two, Destruction and Demonology, are both firmly in that Fel/Demon category (Destruction focuses more on blasting foes with demonic fire and raw chaos while Demonologists summon tons of demons to attack their foes).

D&D's Warlocks, thus, have a broader array of options in where they get their magic, and so I figured what I'd do is go through each Warlock subclass and talk about what kinds of patrons you might choose.

    Archfey:

While WoW doesn't have a Fey creature type, they do have some entities that would probably fit with the Fae, most notably the explicitly named Night Fae, who are the caretakers of the realm of Ardenweald, one of the afterlives in the Shadowlands. Here, natural creatures and people dedicated to nature go to take part in the cycle of life, eventually being reborn in a cycle of reincarnation. The Winter Queen is the leader of the Night Fae. But more broadly, the Wild Gods might fit this category - Wild Gods cover a lot of animal spirits worshipped or revered by various cultures across Azeroth. The Night Elves have their Ancients (not to be confused with the giant walking trees also called Ancients, who are... also nature spirits of course, but in a less divine way,) the Trolls have their Loa (which also include some beings that aren't quite as animalistic or even associated with nature) and the Pandaren have their August Celestials. Even the Orcs have animal gods like Lo'gosh (who might actually be the same as the Night Elves' Goldrinn...?) While not necessarily as fickle and tricksy as Fey tend to be, these are probably your best equivalents.

    Celestial:

It's really up in the air which of WoW's creatures would count as Celestials, but the ones that I don't think you could argue against are the Naaru. These are crystalline beings of pure holy light that are particularly important to Draenei culture. While it's supposed to be very rare, in game we often see Naaru go through a horrible cyclical transformation, turning to the Void as Dark Naaru (who are probably more on the Aberration/Great Old One side of things). Other options potentially include, actually, the Titans or their Titanforged creations. While the Titanforged act very much like constructs, beings like Tyr, Odyn, Thorim, Freya, Mimiron, or Ra-Den (the latter of which is dead by the end of Battle for Azeroth, but then, Tyr was dead for a very long time before we brought him back during Dragonflight) I think they'd fit pretty well in this category as well.

    Fiend:

I mean, there's plenty of demons in WoW. Warlocks in World of Warcraft tend to invert the patron relationship, with demonic minions bound to serve Warlocks through contracts that make any Warlock worth their salt the more powerful person in the relationship, but bargaining with power from a powerful demon certainly feels plausible on Azeroth. I think you could play a Fiend Warlock easily enough as a standard WoW warlock (just remember that Fel fire is typically green!) Another possibility is actually Illidan Stormrage. While sort of a half-demon (though he sure looks more demonic than even the Demon Hunters who he's trained) Illidan is WoW's ultimate edgelord antihero, a firm and hard Chaotic Neutral. (Also, Critical Role fans, if you didn't know already for some reason, will be excited to know that he's voiced by Liam O'Brien!) But also a somewhat more benign source of Fel power.

    Great Old One:

Two really great categories here: The most obvious is the Old Gods. While all four of Azeroth's Old Gods are (in theory) dead in the current state of the game, we did have to kill three of them as the final bosses of their respective raids (well, there was an optional extra-hard boss in Ulduar after Yogg-Saron). But these ancient flesh-mountain monstrosities certainly fit the bill. Alternatively, you could go for something less fleshy and more cosmic with the Void Lords. The only one of these we've ever actually seen or had named is Dimensius the All-Devouring (who was the final boss of the last expansion) but I think you could lean into the mystery of what your patron is if you went with an unnamed Void Lord. (The game's current antagonist, Xal'atath, and likely the final boss of the current expansion, is a former mortal turned void-entity that was probably not a true Void Lord, but might fit this, though she'd be an absolute perfect Hexblade patron).

    Undying:

This subclass... is weird because it could just be an undead patron, but it's also explicitly not just undead beings. If you for some reason really wanted to play this not-very-good and conceptually thin subclass, though, there are tons of extremely old beings on Azeroth. Maybe you go with Nozdormu, the Bronze Aspect, leader of the dragons who manage and safeguard the timeline (or his alternate-timeline-self nemesis, Murozond).

    Hexblade:

There are a few sentient weapons, most notable of which was Xal'atath, Blade of the Black Empire, which was the artifact weapon granted to Shadow Priests during the Legion expansion, but whose resident conscious being transferred into the body of a dead elf (that we provided for her) and has now been leading a deadly assault on Azeroth with her void-creature army called the Devouring Host. Two other weapons for Legion had personalities, with Aluneth, a staff that contained a powerful arcane consciousness, and the Skull of the Man'ari, the remains of an Eredar summoner who got into demonology before it was cool on Argus and ironically was arrested by future demon lord Archimonde for dabbling in such magic. Other weapons like Ashbringer, Doomhammer, or Frostmourne might fit here, though it's dubious whether they're actually sentient (technically I guess Frostmourne might be a conduit for the Jailer).

    Genie:

WoW does have genies, but they're a pretty rare category specifically of air elementals. If you wanted to take the idea of a powerful elemental, you could possibly instead go with the Elemental Lords, of which there are conveniently one for each element. The OGs are Ragnaros the Firelord, Al-Akir the Windlord, Neptulon the Tide-Hunter, and Therazane the Stonemother. However, there's been some turnover over the course of WoW. Ragnaros is dead, and was replaced by Smolderon, though we also had to take him down as well (though this was outside of the Firelands, so I actually think he's probably still alive and still the Lord of Fire). We killed Al-Akir as well, though his son Thunderaan I believe remains the Windlord. Basically, depending on when in WoW's timeline you want to set your campaign, you might need to pick alternatives. Note that the elemental lord of Draenor, the Orcish homeland (and sort of adopted Draenei homeland, though they were only there for about a thousand years, which isn't much for a people who seem to naturally live to be tens of thousands of years old) you could pick them.

    Fathomless:

Ok, there are probably some other options here, but I think the best one is Queen Azshara. Once the radiant and beautiful queen of the Night Elves in ancient times, when her capital sank beneath the waves, she struck a deal with the Old God N'zoth to save her people by transforming them into the serpentine Naga. Azshara is one of Azeroth's most dangerous villains, but she's a pragmatic and patient one (while her royal palace in her capital, now called Nazjatar, was a raid with her as the final boss, she survived this attack and we actually wound up rescuing her from N'zoth, a decision that will probably bite us in the ass somewhere down the line).

    Undead:

Boy howdy. So, the obvious options here would be members of the Scourge. The most powerful of which is certainly the Lich King. But if you're playing in a post-Wrath timeframe, the Lich King could be Bolvar Fordragon, a heroic paladin who sacrificed his freedom to try to hold the Scourge on a tight leash, and while Bolvar certainly did some questionable things as Lich King, he was certainly more benevolent than Arthas had been. WoW does have its fair share of Liches and Death Knights. I actually think making the entire Knights of the Ebon Blade a patron could be fun, or perhaps specifically having the Four Horsemen, the Ebon Blade's most elite knights (aside from the Deathlord, the player character, of course) as your patron would allow a DM to play the varying personalities between them (this latter option doesn't totally work if you're doing the Scarlet Monastery dungeon, as I'm confident its final boss will be High Inquisitor Whitemane, who is later raised as a death knight and becomes one of the Four Horsemen, ironically "redeeming" herself by becoming an undead killing machine. Better than a religious fundamentalist!)

    Vestige:

This new subclass from Arcana Unleashed ironically might actually make you play a little more like a WoW Warlock, who generally have a minion fighting alongside them in battle. (I play a Demonology one, who would always have a minion out, but I can't remember if the other two specs even have the option to not play with one). But mechanics aside, I do think there are some options here, even if they're a bit non-obvious. We have a few dead god-like beings, such as the nascent Titan Argus, or the lost (and very much beloved - the fans got up in arms) bear ancient Ursoc. Rezan, the Zandalari Troll Loa of Kings (he's a T-rex!) died to the treachery of the Prophet Zul. It also turns out that the Titans were, actually, for most of WoW's history, already in a state of more or less death - Sargeras slew them right around the time that he founded the Burning Legion, and it wasn't until we liberated their tortured souls at the end of the Legion expansion that they were able to return to their full power.

I think that's all of them? I'm actually quite pleased that there seems to be at least one pretty good option for every subclass, and there are probably more if you go digging.

Ironically, though, I think you could argue that these subclasses almost see representation in other classes in WoW. Shadow Priests, for example, have some abilities based around the Old Gods. And actually, the lore of the Shaman class is that they act essentially a mediators and negotiators between elemental spirits, which I actually think is pretty Warlock-coded (though it seems they'll be represented more by Barbarians - which is surprising on a mechanical level but sort of makes sense as two classes really deeply rooted in ancient/primal powers).

Into the Unknown

 I realize that the title of this post sounds very much like the kind of title for a post about the end of my current gaming fixation, Control Resonant, but I'm not there yet. No, instead I've made it to what I'm pretty certain is the last major area of the game, which is the most disorientingly Escher-esque region so far.

We're in the endgame, but given that we've also just unlocked a new zone, that means that we've got tons of side quests and other optional objectives to sort through, meaning that it's not exactly a race to the finale.

We did get what feels like it might be Control Resonant's big musical moment, though I can't say that it's necessarily the match of, say, the Ashtray Maze or the Dark Ocean Summoning. For one thing, the song isn't by the Old Gods of Asgard, but it's also more or less Dylan's entrance into this final area and while we arrive in the middle of a giant insane battle, it doesn't really conclude with any serious punctuation.

To be fair, the "Take Control" segment in the first game, as beloved and memorable as it is, was also kind of transitionary, acting more as the lead-in to final revelations about Hedron and the false game over. And hell, Dark Ocean Summoning kind of only works in the worst possible way, as triumphant as it feels.

I will say that after Alan Wake II, which had Sam Lake's fingerprints all over it, the relatively small role he played in this game (I'm actually not sure the degree to which he actively worked on it at all, other than being the Creative Lead for Remedy) has left Resonant with... I don't want to say less of a signature style, but I guess one that I'm not quite as attuned to picking up on.

Once again, I want to reiterate that the game's great - it's just that Remedy leapt to among my favorite game studios when I got into them three years ago, and so I'm holding this game to the tightest standards.

Anyway, I'm going to go into a spoiler cut - not that I've advanced the plot much since my last post, or I think two posts ago - but just because I want to get into things that have been revealed so far.

Control Resonant Opens Up Too Soon

 I very swiftly became a Remedy fan upon my entry into Control, on the recommendation of a friend in early 2023. The timing, as it turned out, was fantastic, as I had plenty of time to first play through Control and its DLCs, then pick up Alan Wake Remastered, and then have Alan Wake II ready to go that October.

Control was a sort of mish-mash of genres. I don't know that I'd truly call it a Metroidvania, as while your progression through various clearance-level keycards does slowly open up the game for you, the only real ability you get that actually unlocks new areas (at least in the base game) is Hover (I guess maybe Launch as well). But it did borrow things from Souls-likes (using the Control Points as your bonfire and losing some of your Source if you died - not quite the same) and naturally built on Remedy's tried-and-true 3rd person shooter bona fides they've been using since Max Payne.

It did also flirt with the idea of being an open-world game, with plenty of side quests and even randomized time-limited events that would pop up - there Bureau Alerts that, frankly, I got tired of pretty quickly and started ignoring. Ironic, of course, that being confined to the Oldest House meant the world was anything but open.

Control Resonant is an open world game by I think any reasonable measure. And I think that it might be somewhat to its detriment.

Let me just back up here and put my comments in context: I am really enjoying the game. I'll have to finish it to decide where it ranks among Remedy's games for me, but I do think that many of its systems are actually big improvements on what we got in Control. And as satisfying as it was to use Launch in combat in the first game, Resonant has really balanced things much better so that you feel like each attack, each weapon, each power, has its own particular uses, and there are far fewer "this thing increases some minor stat by 3%, and there's a higher quality thing that increases it by 5% instead," or what Monty Zander termed "Goot," meaning "garbage loot."

My critiques here are kind of grading on a very unforgiving curve - Remedy has made some of the most amazing gaming experiences I've ever played, and so I hold their games to a very high standard.

And here, I think the issue more about the game getting in its own way.

After the initial prologue in which we exit the Oldest House, partner up with Zoe, and get Pope to agree to let us help out once outfitted with the MCD, we are sent to the Watchtower, where we get to see various points of interest marking most of the zones (or at least the first few) out ahead of us. We then get to go to the Central Zone.

But we don't really have to say there: in fact, we're practically encouraged to go to both the Western Incursion Zone and Evacuation Zone. It's not even really clear that we're meant to even spend much time in Central (though I did) before going off to these other ones.

In other words, about half of the map (I think. I've gotten at least to the intro of what I assume is the game's final zone) unfurls for us right after the game's beginning.

I know that open world games, with the freedom that they afford, have grown a lot more popular over time. Perhaps I'm just turning into the old man yelling at clouds, but I prefer a more curated experience that guides me through an area. When Breath of the Wild came and transformed the Legend of Zelda series, I was one of the very few who seemed to not really like it that much. I did like Tears of the Kingdom better, but I still prefer the model established by Ocarina of Time (or arguably Link to the Past,) where the world was vast, but we only unlocked it by bits and pieces, creating a path that would ultimately guide us through it.

Now, I'd say that Control Resonant is arguably more of a Metroidvania than its predecessor. Levitate, Shift, and even whichever power you get off The Deserter boss, are all necessary powers to reach certain areas (I can't remember if you actually need to get some kind of fire power to reach The Park, but it's sure as hell useful once you get there!)

But I think specifically this moment after you take down The Artist where about three million things become available to you is a place where a firmer hand guiding us down a narrower path could have really helped with the game's pacing.

Indeed, I think a lot of reviewers have talked about how the game gets lost in its Open World conventions, and I think a lot of responses to that have said that the game picks up a lot once you get further into the main story. I agree - I think that our dealings with Arish and our sojourn back into the Oldest House give the game emotional stakes and character development that made me feel far more invested in what I was doing.

The real side-quests have been good for world-building, reminding us and fleshing out the world of the weird that Control is all about (indeed, some of the decisions to bring back familiar foes are a little frustrating to me - I had kind of wanted the Hiss to be over and done with and for the main threat here to be something totally separate) but the way that the game frames things - like counting finding the Faults to commune with Jesse, as well as finding each zone's Resonant boss - as being "main quests" that are... only sort of main quests, confuses things a little.

I don't know. Maybe that part is fine, but I do think it would have been good to have a main story thread that would directly take us from one zone to another, and then let all the side quests and side objectives branch off of that thread.

Cosmic Battles and Revelations As Dylan Walks Down Memory Lane

 If you kind of liked Casper Darling... Control Resonant might change that.

Obviously, Darling's role in Dylan's "training" in the Prime Candidate Program always carried with it his complicity in the ethical abyss that was taking a 10-year-old orphan and locking him up in a government facility and robbing him of any semblance of a normal life. But in the first game, Darling feels in a lot of ways like the good cop to Trench's bad cop, and his efforts to prepare for the Hiss invasion give him something of a heroic characterization.

But good cop or bad, we must remember that all cops are bastards.

Let's get into spoiler territory:

Mysterious "Project Lamordia" Announced, and Thoughts on Modding 5E

 WotC released a teaser for... something called "Project Lamordia." Details are scarce as to what this will actually be, whether it's some book or other product or, as I, frankly, suspect it will be, an actual play show (and look, I watch plenty of actual play, but it's not necessarily as transformative as something we can take home and read and use in our own games).

What's interesting about it is that the setting here is altered, imagining a modern techno-thriller version of Lamordia as, rather than a vaguely steampunk-meets-Bloodborne/Frankenstein riff the setting is presented as in Van Richten's and Horrors Within, instead a company called Mordenheim Kinetics, with something about a "longevity program" seeming to be some kind of experimental medical treatment.

Horror, of course, is a genre that can exist alongside many different other genres and settings, and the trope of ethically abysmal, corporate biotech companies committing unspeakable crimes against nature is well-established (the Umbrella Corporation from the Resident Evil games probably being the most iconic example).

This got me thinking:

I think D&D has historically been very hesitant to really mess with its own rules. We saw this with the rollout of 5.5, which prioritized backwards compatibility over rebalancing. While I'm happy that my 10 years of 5.0 book acquisitions aren't washed away with a full new edition, it has also left certain classes really struggling, like Rogues, who still need to wait until level 9 for their second subclass feature for the foreseeable future.

But I also think this is one of the reasons (though not the entirety) for the disappointment I and many other felt regarding the release of 5E's Spelljammer supplement. Anticipating a way to play D&D adventures in a science-fantasy space opera setting, we instead got a version of space adventures in which you'd fight out on open decks with swords rather than shooting laser cannons or piloting starfighters. As a note, this isn't really 5E's fault - Spelljammer has always been this "fantasy in space" setting rather than a true science-fantasy setting. But... I think most players would prefer the latter.

The thing is, doing so would require actually tweaking the rules of the game, at least somewhat.

Now, I know that Starfinder 2E is built less as an independent game from Pathfinder than its first edition was, but in that case, they really reimagined the whole game from the ground up to build around sci-fi tropes. It's still science-fantasy, because there are magic/supernatural things in it, but it's more in line with Star Wars, where the bulk of the world is built on technology and aliens, and there's this mystical underpinning that is exceptional and wondrous.

Again, my prediction is that Project Lamordia is an actual play show, where if there are tweaks to the system, it's likely not audience-facing. I could be wrong, though, and maybe this will be something like an adventure or other player/DM-facing thing that gives us guidance on doing a modern-set Ravenloft adventure. We truly don't know.

However, here's a reason for optimism:

Previews of the World of Warcraft D&D book have shown that they're doing some pretty extensive work to reframe things to fit the setting. And these aren't just side-systems that might fall by the wayside in a campaign, but pretty core reworks of class features, like how the Oath of the Ebon Blade subclass for Paladins replaces features like Lay on Hands and Divine Smite to work as a WoW-style Death Knight (whether the resultant class winds up being good is another question that I don't have enough information to answer, as we really only have these 1st and 2nd level feature adjustments so far).

WoW, of course, is pretty damn close to D&D in genre, or arguably simply the same genre but with just a few different proper nouns here and there (demons don't reform in the Abyss, but the Twisting Nether, for example).

What will be interesting is when we see the Star Wars Universes Beyond book. Indeed, the Spelljammer example here is particularly salient, as I think that basically anyone 50 (maybe 60?) or younger probably thinks of Star Wars first when thinking about any example of space adventures. While I'd probably prefer to shave off the serial numbers here and have the tools to produce my own science fantasy space opera setting that isn't beholden to the lore choices of George Lucas or Dave Filoni, I'm 100% into the idea of running a D&D game in a world with rust-bucket used future spaceships rather than 17th century sailing ships (or a bunch of weird bug-shaped ships for some reason).

The Star Wars book is still a ways out, and I think probably the overall balance of the game is likely to remain more or less the same. But here are some other thoughts that this brought up:

Ravenloft is, of course, a storied and beloved campaign setting for D&D, but one of the issues you run into with it is that D&D, particularly later editions like 5E, are kind of fantasy superhero games, where player characters tend to emerge victorious against the kind of monsters they're expected to face.

5E has had two Ravenloft setting books and one of its earliest and most beloved adventures was set there. Van Richten's in particular suggests a few special rules systems, like Stress, to up the scares. But I wonder if a more comprehensive rework of the game's rules might instead serve the setting better.

I'm going to try avoid getting fully in the weed here, but this could be something as simple as adjusting encounter balance math, maybe upping the challenges of combat, or giving guidance on running encounters with monsters too difficult to defeat and where the challenge is escape instead.

But wouldn't it also be cool to make a whole separate game from D&D that works on the same principles (classes, levels, species, ability checks, attack rolls, saving throws, etc.,) but is built to function in a horror setting and adhere to its genre conventions?

Sure, this might fly in the face of the modularity that D&D prefers. But it would be an interesting experiment.

One consideration for such a "mod" would be to take D&D's general medieval/renaissance assumptions about technology and armaments and rework them for a different genre. As firearms grew more reliable, accurate, and easy to shoot quickly, people basically stopped wearing big heavy plates of metal to protect themselves. Armor is still a think for modern soldiers, of course, but I think there's actually something of a gap there, between the obsolescence of metal armor like plate or chain mail and the development of stuff like kevlar, such that a soldier from maybe the 18th century through most of the 20th was just wearing, like, a thick jacket. (I'm sure that there's nuance and complexity to this that I, who am not anything like a military historian, am ignorant of.)

While Project Lamordia is obviously reimagining that Domain of Dread as a modern, high-tech setting, I think that broadly, Ravenloft in general tends toward classic Gothic Horror aesthetics, which tend toward a kind of 18th/19th century look and feel. If I were to build out Ravenloft as its own independent game, I'd probably focus on that era to look for my genre inspirations: for example, I'd likely make firearms the default ranged weapon, and thus make A: a greater variety of them and B: them seriously cheaper than they are in 5.5, and C: easier to use for martial classes without needing a special feat (I determined early in 5.5 that ironically, the people best able to use Pistols and Muskets are Druids and Clerics who take the Warden/Protector orders, though Gunner from Tasha's at least solves the biggest problem for actual martial characters).

Likewise, I'd find a way to represent armor in a way that doesn't fall into the D&D categories of Light/Medium/Heavy, because heavy armor isn't really a thing in that era, and maybe medium isn't really either.

A few months ago (not a year ago yet, right?) I did some thought experiments on a possible game called Deathblow, that would be about sort of Gothic Horror monster hunters. Some of the ideas in that, I think, would be really good for a game like this, such as capping the max level at 5. Horror needs the characters to be underdogs for the monsters to be threatening, but I also think that TTRPGs get some of their satisfaction from character progression.

That game was meant to have a tighter and more regimented adventure structure, where you'd spend a good while investigating the aftermath of monster attacks and then determining what methods you'll need to defeat said monster, really focusing on singular climactic fights against individual epic boss monsters. But I think there's room for a less dramatic modification to D&D that would allow for a more diverse set of scenarios and stories and retain more of D&D's base rules (even being able to potentially use a lot of the same monster stat blocks) but still limit and kind of alter things enough to fit better into the distinct genre's conventions.

We'll find out about mid-October what this thing actually is, but I'm tempted to start working on this Ravenloft mod (modification rather than module).

An Underpass Resonant and Feels Like We're Getting to Plot Point Two

 The Underpass is a real change of aesthetic for Control Resonant, a void-like space that brings back the brutalist concrete of the Oldest House but with a somehow more alien and hostile structure (our ability to Shift makes it profoundly disorienting, as we need that ability to navigate it).

Once again, the Resonants - the major bosses that grant you paranatural powers - aren't really directly tied into the main story in an obvious way besides being examples of the Pattern resonance that underlies the main threat of the story. While they haven't emerged as a true enemy faction the way the Hiss and Mold are, it seems that while the Pattern is less widespread, it's far more dangerous.

Given the alienness of the Underpass, it's an area I could imagine overstaying its welcome if they put as many sidequests and objectives there as they do in the other zones, but as far as I can tell, the game seems to understand that this place shouldn't overstay its welcome. There's a Fault there and a main quest story that is more of a series of confusing puzzles involving alternate timelines and of course all that variable gravity than any difficult combat encounters, but with that handled, you're basically done other than the optional assault objectives and a few other per-zone features.

The result is that I'm leaving the place (with a few things left to do post-Resonant boss) with fond memories.

As far as I can tell, the Western Incursion Zone is mandatory if only to get you the Shift ability, and the Park appears to be entirely optional. I do wonder how much of Downtown I might have completed prior to fighting The Artist, but my recollection was that you were on a pretty linear path to get there.

Let's get into a bit more detail past the spoiler cut: Oh, also, spoilers for Alan Wake II here as well.

WoW D&D Bestiary Monster List (Not Including Dungeon Bosses)

 All right!

The WoW D&D book looks like it will have some really interesting and innovative designs in an effort to replicate the feeling of WoW within D&D. I'm going purely on the information from Insight Check's video about the monster design, which only gave us a couple of (fairly generic) stat blocks, but the details about the blocks he couldn't actually show suggests that the book is going to have some really interesting fights, including the use of Mythic phases to replicate the feeling of a multi-phase WoW boss fight.

Speaking of bosses: the 30 "dungeon boss" stat blocks are not on this list. Presumably, we'll have figures like High Inquisitor Whitemane or Onyxia detailed in that earlier chapter. While I'd love to have an array of memorable bosses from outside of the seven included dungeons, I'm going to avoid getting my hopes up and just assume that we'll be getting the ones that go specifically with Dire Maul, Deamines, etc. The dungeons they picked are generally quite good (I don't really care much about Blackfathom Deeps, but I'll be curious to see how they handle it). Still feels like we should have gotten Hogger as a CR 1 legendary monster.

    (Brief aside: Hogger was the objective of an infamous quest in Elwynn Forest, the human starting zone. He's the leader of a group of gnoll bandits. But he's also the first "elite" creature many players came across when first playing the game, which are designed to be fought in a group and not alone. Players who didn't realize that they were meant to take him on with friends died in droves, giving this fairly nondescript gnoll creature a legendary status as a peerless and savage killer. In Cataclysm, they largely reworked group quests at low levels to be something you could complete on your own, but while players would face Hogger in more or less the same circumstances in Elwynn, the quest ended not with you killing him, but having him arrested. Then, in the Stormwind Stockades dungeon, he became the dungeon's final boss, leading a prison riot. While he was intended to be a challenge for players just about ready to move on from Elwynn around level 10, players have also formed 40-player raid groups of level 1 characters to fight him as well.)

Anyway, let's not beat around the bush and look at the list:

CR 1: Fel Imp, Murloc Forager, Voidwalker

CR 2: Shadowstalker Satyr

CR 3: Murloc Oracle, Voidcaller

CR 4: Felguard, Felsworn Satyr, Furbolg Totemic

CR 5: Felhound, Furbolg Ursa, Naga Myrmidon

CR 6: Green Dragonflight Whelp

CR 7: Blue Dragonflight Whelp, Naga Sea Witch, Quillboar Thornweaver

CR 8: Red Dragonflight Whelp

CR 9: Black Dragonflight Whelp, Naga Siren

CR 10: Bronze Dragonflight Whelp

CR 11: Doomguard, Moonkin, Nerubian Warrior

CR 12: Abomination, Green Dragonflight Drake, Infernal

CR 13: Blue Dragonflight Drake, Nerubian Crypt Fiend

CR 14: Ancient of War, Nerubian Venomancer

CR 15: N'raqi Faceless One, Red Dragonflight Drake

CR 16: Black Dragonflight Drake, Shivarra

CR 17: Bronze Dragonflight Drake

CR 19: Green Dragonflight Dragon

CR 20: Anduin Wrynn, Blue Dragonflight Dragon, Pit Lord

CR 21: Alleria Windrunner, N'raqi Faceless General, Red Dragonflight Dragon

CR 22: Black Dragonflgiht Dragon, Jaina Proudmoore, Thrall

CR 23: Bronze Dragonflight Dragon, Ragnaros, Sylvanas Windrunner

CR 24: Illidan Stormrage

CR 25: Lich King Arthas

    That's actually an impressive spread of CRs. Particularly, it's interesting to see certain monster categories like N'raqi only showing up at quite high levels. I do find it interesting that the Bronze dragons are the most powerful, given that in theory, the Red dragons are the "leaders" of the dragonflights (though the Dragon Aspects are pretty egalitarian, even if there's deference toward Alexstrasza, the Red aspect, who is basically the most benevolent living creature on Azeroth, sometimes to a fault.

Rather than spread out across all the expansions with all their different monster types, it looks like they've focused on a few iconic categories, which is probably wise even if it would have been cool to get, say, Titanforged constructs or something.

There are also a few individual people, and it's pretty impressive that they start at CR 20, though given how superheroic characters in WoW tend to be, that's not terribly shocking.

But let's go category by category here for those who are unfamiliar with WoW terms.

    Demons:

Demons in WoW are pretty much all associated with the Burning Legion, an apocalyptic army under the command of the rogue Titan Sargeras who seek to burn the universe to cinders rather than let it fall to corruption by the Void. (Demonic Fel magic is also corrupting, but think of this as, like, nuking the world to try to save it from horrible mutations.) While the Fel is inherently chaotic, the Legion itself is actually a bit more Lawful Evil, given Sargeras' leadership over it, and sees the madness of the deeply chaotic Void to be the ultimate enemy. Demons include the Fel Imp, Felguard, Felhound, Doomguard, Infernal, Shivarra and Pit Lord. While the Felsworn Satyr and Shadowstalker Satyr are also demons (satyrs are former Night Elves turned demons in WoW,) they sort of may or may not be affiliated with the Legion, as they're more likely to be associated with the Emerald Nightmare, which is actually a phenomenon created by the Void-affiliated Old Gods. Xavius, the first satyr, fought on behalf of the Legion during the War of the Ancients ten thousand years ago, but after the Legion's defeat, he got in good with the Old Gods. Another little asterisk here is that Voidwalkers were long considered demons (they're one of the minions that player Warlocks can summon, and are great for soloing as they basically tank for you) but over time, and as Blizzard has honestly just locked down their lore a bit tighter, Voidwalkers are now generally considered aberrations affiliated with, weirdly enough, the Void.

    Murlocs:

Among the most iconic and beloved (/hated) WoW creatures, Murlocs are silly little fish people. Honestly, not too far off from Kuo-toa, though less weird god-creating powers and more just being silly little guys who tend to be tightly-packed so that it's hard to pull just a single one at a time (this was a bigger problem when soloing out in the world was harder). Unofficially the mascots of World of Warcraft, they had to show up here.

    Void/Old God Creatures:

So, there's a bit of a divide here. The Void is one of the great cosmic forces in  WoW, and while there are benign aspects to it as a source of mystery and cosmic possibility, we usually interact with it as an antagonistic force - the "mystery" often leading to "horrifying abominations" and the yawning darkness of the void being more ravenous and consuming than an invitation to explore. Notably, beings called the Void Lords (only one of which we've actually had named, Dimensius, who honestly just looks like a massive Voidwalker, and was the final boss of 2024's The War Within expansion) send globs of void energy to Azeroth, which took on a physical form to become the Old Gods, eldritch, Lovecraftian flesh-mountains who spawned countless servitors. The Old Gods ultimately settled on Azeroth and created their dystopian Black Empire. Thus, Void-associated monsters come in two pretty distinct categories: ethereal blue/purple energy beings, which I'd say include Voidwalkers and Voidcallers, and then the more fleshy tentacle monsters like the N'raqi, which we see with the Faceless One and the Faceless General. (As a note, the Faceless General is likely technically a C'thraxxi, which are often associated with the N'raqi, but I think might be their own species. When both monsters were introduced in Wrath of the Lich King, they were both simply referred to as "faceless ones," and only later did we get these proper noun terms).

    Furbolgs:

Yes, that's not a typo, and Furbolgs are actually distinct from Firbolgs. Furbolgs are Bear people. That's about it. Just essentially sapient bears. They can be friendly or hostile, and are often affected a lot by whatever is happening to the natural world around them. Generally found in forested lands.

    Naga:

When the War of the Ancients ended and the destruction of the Well of Eternity led to the Sundering of the ancient Pangea-like continent of Kalimdor (the western regions of which retain that name,) the Night Elf Queen Azshara, the greatest mage to ever live on Azeroth, watched as her capital city was about to be consumed by the rushing ocean (Azshara had allied with the invading Burning Legion, so it was partially her fault). Desperate to survive along with her loyal Highborne followers, she accepted a deal from the Old God N'zoth, who transformed her and her people into aquatic, serpentine monsters called Naga. For the next ten thousand years, Azshara rebuilt her empire under the waves. Naga forces periodically raid the surface, and might seem to be just a threat to sailors and fishers, but they're basically the de facto superpower of the ocean depths.

    Dragons:

Dragons in WoW are a bit different from those in D&D. For one thing, broadly speaking, dragons were originally all pretty much good guys, though the Dragonflight expansion complicates that narrative a bit. Originally elemental beings who evolved into living creatures of flesh, the Titanforged Keeper Tyr allied with a group of proto-drakes to fight a dire threat, and upon recognizing their power, "uplifted" them to become the five Dragon Aspects, created modern dragons and having each become demigod-like beings who would sire broad draconic clans known as Dragonflights. The five flights are the Red, Blue, Bronze, Black, and Green. Each was given a domain over which they were supposed to serve as protectors: Red Dragons over life itself, Blue over magic, Black over the deep places under the world's surface, Green over the natural world, and Bronze over time itself. Among the Aspects, Alexstrasza was the most beloved and served as their leader, the Dragon Queen. Infamously, though, during the War of the Ancients (but sort of unrelated to the Legion's invasion,) Neltharion, the Black Aspect, was driven mad by the Old Gods and consumed with a desire to wreak utter chaos upon the surface of Azeroth. This madness spread to nearly all the Black Dragons as a sort of infectious corruption. Other flights have periodically played antagonistic roles: the Blues at one point turning on mortal spellcasters, Green dragons affected deeply by the Emerald Nightmare, and weird alternate-timeline Infinite Dragon versions of the Bronzes fighting to split the timeline into countless branches.

    Quillboar:

Strange that we just get a single Quillboar statblock. These are weird sort of boar-people that also have porcupine-like spines on their backs. Never really front-and-center, they're basically always hostile, though don't seem to be inherently evil on a fundamental level.

    Nerubians:

The Nerubians are spider-folk who were once vassals to the Old Gods' Black Empire. While a humanoid people in and of themselves, our first exposure to them (and where we're likely to see them the most) is after the Nerubian kingdom of Azjol-Nerub was conquered by the Scourge. Thus, the undead armies of the Scourge often have undead Nerubians among their ranks.

    Moonkin:

Weirdly sort of WoW's take on Owlbears, but only very loosely, Moonkin are considered favored creations of the Night Elves' Moon Goddess, Elune, and walk upright with bear-like bodies and owl-like beaks (though no wings other than their feathered arms). Possessing very rudimentary intelligence, they also have the power to call upon astral and lunar magic, and are the preferred form for Druids who wish to focus on offensive spellcasting (there's guidance that if you want to play a Balance Druid, you can take Circle of Stars and just flavor your constellation forms as a Moonkin instead).

    Abomination:

One of the most fearsome and gross weapons of the Undead Scourge, Abominations are massive flesh-golems with several arms and tend to wield hooked chains.

    Ancients:

Ancients are basically Treants, sapient trees that are often allied with Night Elves and help protect their settlements or fight in their wars.

    Individuals:

There are several named characters here. I won't go into a whole biography, but here's the basic rundown:

Anduin Wrynn: The young king of Stormwind after the death of his father Varian during the final Legion invasion. Anduin is a priest/cleric and deeply kind but also has experienced a lot of trauma.

Alleria Windrunner: Former Ranger-General of the High Elves, she left with the Alliance expedition to Outland and, thanks to weird time-warping, spent a thousand years fighting against the Burning Legion. During this time, she cultivated a connection with the Void, using its dark cosmic power in the fight against evil, which makes things... complicated with her husband Turalyon, one of the most devout paladins wielding the Holy Light.

Jaina Proudmoore: Now Grand Admiral of Kul Tiras (effectively the head of state of this deeply nautical nation,) Jaina is also one of the most powerful living mages. Allying with the Horde during the Third War, and ultimately allowing her father to be killed to save the nascent Orcish nation of Durotar survive, this act was thanked with the destruction of the city-state of Theramore that she had founded by an aggressive Horde, which has put her at both extremes of Alliance-Horde relations. Also, she was close friends with Arthas Menethil before he fell to evil (the characters in these games have lived through a lot of trauma).

Thrall: Former Warchief of the Horde, and one of the greatest living Shamans, Thrall was actually the first Orc ever born on Azeroth. Liberating his people from their internment camps they were put in following the Second War, he became a beacon of hope for Orcs who wished to see a Horde free of demonic corruption, but when he stepped down as Warchief and named the hot-headed and, well, honestly, fascistic asshole Garrosh Hellscream as his successor, he found himself weighed down by the erroneous decisions he had made as a leader. Now, basically a private citizen of the Horde but with a lot of power and influence, Thrall mostly tries to live as a family man with his two kids and wife.

Ragnaros: The Elemental Lord of Fire, Ragnaros is staggeringly ancient, having existed pretty much as long as Azeroth. Embodying fire's drive to spread and consume, Ragnaros is a force of pure destruction, and was the boss of WoW's very first raid, The Molten Core. (He would also be the boss of The Firelands later on, when he was killed permanently within the plane of fire).

Sylvanas Windrunner: Sister of Alleria, Sylvanas took over for her older sister as Ranger-General of Quel'thalas right in time for the Undead Scourge, led by Arthas, to carve a path of death and terror through her homeland, killing off 90% of the High Elf population, including her. Arthas personally tore her soul from her body to turn her into a banshee, though she later found her own corpse and possessed it. When the Frozen Throne weakened, Sylvanas was among the first to regain her free will, and led an attempted assassination against Arthas, driving the future Lich King from the Plaguelands. She then rallied the free-willed Undead to become the Forsaken, serving as their "Banshee Queen." However, while she had regained her free will, any semblance of morality had more or less drained out of her, and her rule as Banshee Queen was marked by atrocities. Sylvanas is one of those characters who see-saws between antihero and full-on villain.

Illidan Stormrage: The first Demon Hunter, Illidan was a lowborn Night Elf and twin to Malfurion, who would go on to become the first Druid. Illidan was ambitious, and worked his way up through the ranks of Queen Azshara's mages despite his lack of aristocratic status. When the Legion invaded and Azshara's elite partook of their fel powers, Illidan feigned collaboration but instead used his position to learn all he could about the power that the Legion held and found a way to use it against them. While he played a crucial role in defeating the Legion, many still thought of him as a collaborator, earning him the epithet of The Betrayer. For his crimes, he was imprisoned for ten thousand years, only freed during the Third War so that his expertise could be used again. Truly WoW's most classic antihero, Illidan is ruthlessly pragmatic and makes bold moves that many will... not agree with, though his goals are ultimately for the greater good.

Arthas Menethil: WoW's most iconic villain, Arthas Menethil was the Crown Prince of Lordaeron and protege to the first Paladin (well, the first human paladin,) Uther the Lightbringer. However, his actions when the Scourge began to ravage his kingdom led him to acts of reckless violence and callousness that many would argue showed he had already fallen to evil before he gave his soul to the runeblade Frostmourne. However, with the evil sword in hand, Arthas fully lost his humanity and became a Death Knight, acting as the Scourge's mightiest champion. Ascending the Frozne Throne following his victory over Illidan Stormrage (why Illidan was there is... too complicated for here,) Arthas merged with the Lich King, absorbing Ner'zhul's mind into his own to become the sovereign of the undead and one of the greatest threats Azeroth has ever faced.

Control Resonant Goes Full House of Leaves

 I've made it to (and probably done a fair chunk of) the first zone that isn't presented in your initial vista from the Watchtower, a region called The Underpass. But if you were expecting it to be something like the Lincoln Tunnel, it's... very much not that.

What it is is a departure from the "messed up Manhattan" zones we've had previously, and is instead a descent into a realm that recalls far more the Labyrinth from acknowledged major influence on Control, House of Leaves.

I guess that's the big spoiler, but I'll do a cut to talk about what is going on there:

Park Resonant Down and Probably Really Time to Push the Story Forward

I think (think) that the only things that reset when you clear a zone's Resonant are the assaults and all the monsters, while it looks like things like resource crates and such are just there whenever you want to grab them. Thus, having done a good circuit around the Park and feeling like I had more or less done everything that would be reset, I followed through on taking on my next boss.

While I got the first Resonant (the one in Downtown that is still kind of part of the tutorial) in a single go, the ones in Central and Western Incursion Zone took me four attempts each. The Park one took me three, so I guess consider that progress.

At this point, though, while I know there are other zones to discover, I've done all the Resonants in each of the zones I've had access to, meaning I think I really do need to progress the story in order to get access to more of the world.

Let's talk about that boss:

Going to Moldtown in the Park

 Whatever misgivings I might have about Control Resonant's embrace of somewhat rote open-world gameplay tropes, the world of Control remains one of my favorites in all of gaming. I mean, possessed vending machines as our crystal lizard/treasure goblin equivalent? Fighting evil busses?

There's also the atmosphere you get as you progress into new zones - while Downtown, Western Incursion, and Central are all bright and sunny, there's the noir-ish rainy night of the Evacuation Zone and a sort of false snowy winter of the Park (rather than giant piles of snow, it's Mold growing on everything). While I tend to not focus too much on graphics, Remedy is known for making really gorgeous games, and though I have hit a few hitches with the framerate (I might need to quit out of the game and re-start it in case there's a memory leak) it looks predictably fantastic (though I will say, and this was the case in the first game, for some reason the facial animations are a bit off, which is so strange because Alan Wake II's faces were essentially perfect, and all three use Remedy's in-house Northlight engine).

After some dramatic story-focused missions in the Evacuation Zone, and then some lower-stakes but still weird trips into the subway to align various leylines, I decided to deviate from the path a bit and head into The Park, a zone that at least as far as I can tell is pretty much optional.

There's very little Hiss here, because this is Mold Territory. The enemies are thus a bit more bulky (many Mold enemies have a shield that grows over them that must be broken before you can damage them. Actually, some Hiss have something equivalent, but I think the mechanics work slightly differently). My normal secondary Aberrant form, the massive hammer, is less well-suited to these foes because of their resistance to blunt damage, so I've invested in building up my Drill secondary form, which deals Sharp damage that I believe they are vulnerable to. Likewise, the fiery power I got off the Central Resonant makes building up Falter on them very quick.

Still, maybe they're just tougher enemies or maybe my tactics have become too focused on Hiss-fighting, but I do find I'm ending combat with more missing health (still not dying). Theoretically, if the enemies in the game are finite in number (at least the Heavies) then I suppose that there also might actually be finite health to pick up. Still, there are enough free health pickups that I don't imagine you'll ever be truly on the edge of things without any way to recover (this ain't a survival horror game).

Seeking out a hidden resource box I think I had missed in the Patterned Factory in Central (I still didn't find it) I went back to the boss' room to see if you could re-fight them. It does not appear that you can, though I wonder if we'll get a SHUM arcade cabinet that allows it at some point (perhaps even added in a patch or DLC). Again, I think that the bosses in Resonant are truly the best that Remedy's ever done (well, of the three prior games of theirs I have played). Monty Zander would be very pleased to know (I'm sure he's playing it) that the bosses do not rely on having a bunch of swarming smaller enemies to inflate the pressure (ironically, this would make the fights easier because it would give you a chance to recover health outside getting the bosses to certain health percentages).

I've found what looks like the entrance to the Park's "boss dungeon" area, though I'm hesitant to go in there until I've fully explored the Park and fought everything there, to take best advantage of the resources I can gain.

I do think I'd prefer a version of this where things were just kind of farmable - that they're respawn either simply over time or, in the style of Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom (which I have to imagine was an inspiration for this) have periodic events where everything comes back (actually when you beat a Resonant, there's a similar animation to the Blood Moon one where you see Hiss and Mold enemies pop back into existence).

Still finding more hidden Secret Organization cells around the city, including at least two that have been in Atlantis Cafes (which seem to be kind of the equivalent of Starbucks - I get that for a game world this big, having them as a chain rather than unique coffee shops helps as you only have to make a single set of assets. You find yourself in a lot of laundromats, gyms, and cafes). Still no direct confirmation that it's the Blessed Organization, but I'm leaning that way.

I realize that by slow-playing the main story quests I really shouldn't complain about the slow drip of the story. I think I want to just do a few more things in the Park and then continue on. (There's one infuriating elevator near a fast-travel door where Underhill's lab is set up in the Park - naturally she's studying the Mold and as unpleasant as she was before - that has a power block, but I cannot for the life of me find the energized block to transfer the energy to it. So while I can get back to that part of the Park via fast travel, it's not the usual convenient "you've opened this door as a shortcut" that it ought to be.)

I did do one side quest that was weirdly anticlimactic - it seems to be completed, but I must have picked dialogue choices that gave it the more mundane conclusion - I found a woman out in the Park who said that her twin sister was still stuck in their old apartment. The sister seemed weird, but I basically just told her to hang tight and the FBC would evacuate her, then went and told the first sister. Given that the quest was called "Carbon Copy," I expected something weird like the twins actually being two Mold-based pod people who split from one another or something, but as far as I can tell, it was just the most basic of "go here and talk to this person" quests, which... it can't have just been that, right?

I also continue to find Taxis in each zone - I don't love this style of "there's one of these in every zone" style of quests, but I do find the Taxi Dimension really atmospheric and cool. It also gives us the kind of simple puzzles that Jesse had in the Oceanview Motel, which are not very hard but just feel kind of satisfying to scratch that itch.

I'm trying to do my best to avoid any kind of guides or suggestions on builds here and take the game in on its own terms. (I did momentarily fear I was screwing up the last of the subway puzzles for the main quest, but the IGN guide was so confusingly worded that I found it easier to just trust my own instincts and ignore it. Perhaps there's a lesson in this?)

I have stockpiled seven Reset items that let you reassign your talent points, as well as I think resources spent on Aberrant upgrades, as well as swapping the powers you get from the Resonants. So far, though, I have felt mostly happy with what I've got. I have a ton of Talents on my tree that have a big "this doesn't interact with any abilities you currently have" sign, which probably means I need to get fighting more Resonants.

I'm given to understand that Control Resonant has sold very well - there was a pretty concerted marketing effort, and I wonder if the switch to melee action appealed to more people. Frankly, my relationship with Remedy today is basically "whatever gameplay you like is fine (except online multiplayer, apparently,) as long as I get that signature weird style and story." I do hope that this means that rumors of the studio struggling to stay open will fade in the wake of a big success.

Truly, it's one of the most unique creative forces in the industry, and I think the medium is far richer for it being around.

A Trip to the Evacuation Zone Gives Control Resonant an Infusion of Stakes

 In my last post, I talked about how the need to broaden out the options for players to do countless tasks across Control Resonant's open-world warped Manhattan can wind up messing with the game's pacing and stakes. Yeah, I'm never going to complain about a very good dog appearing in a video game, but I don't know that it needs to appear in every zone with more or less the same task each time.

The Resonants are, so far, all banger boss fights, with unique designs and exciting challenges. But I sort of wish that their role was felt more across their respective zones as an embodiment of what in particular is going on there. Instead, these bosses feel more like just another category of objective on the map, which is a shame.

However, a mission sending me into the Evacuation Zone was a real highlight. Simon Arish, just a plucky mid-ranked security agent in the first game who got very suddenly promoted to Head of Security after everyone above him turned either Hiss or dead, is now also acting co-director of the FBC along with Emily Pope.

I guess we gotta start doing spoiler cuts.

Control Resonant and the Open World

 I love the world of Control - the corner of the larger Remedy Connected Universe that puts mundane government bureaucracy against the bizarre and unusual.

Indeed, I think the crux of the appeal is to make the familiar strange: one of the, not exactly common, but not rare either, Hiss-associated enemies you fight is a city bus that is turned on its nose, the back of the bus warped and deteriorated, with poor passengers hanging out the windows, their Hiss infection lending the bus its animation. Altered Items, a key part of the world's lore, are objects that look utterly normal but behave in unusual and often dangerous ways.

A few more hours into the game, I've defeated another Resonant, this one "The Dancer," who also appeared in various trailers for the game (as far as I know, I think at this point I've beaten all the bosses that showed up in the previews).

While Remedy downplayed the open-world-ness of Resonant in its marketing, I can't really think of a different way to describe the game. Manhattan is divided into various zones that each tend to have their own iteration of many of the features found in others - you have your Resonant, a mapping station, a vendor ice cream truck (usually hidden out of the way - I haven't found the one in the Western Incursion Zone,) etc.

The game takes a Breath of the Wild approach to its open world - there's no set order in which you're meant to complete the zones (at least as far as I know - I imagine some might unlock later on) and even going to a zone's Resonant boss isn't really treated as something the entire zone is driving you toward, but more of an additional objective.

To be perfectly honest, I don't know that this is the right choice for the game. I've seen some critiques of the game that bemoan its adherence to Open World game design tropes that originated in Assassin's Creed nearly 20 years ago.

Remedy's strongest suit is its storytelling, and I think that the open-world nature of the game makes it feel like that primary plot is only dripping in on occasion. It also leads to a sort of rote recursion even in what feel like story-critical parts, like when we enter Faults to commune with the absent sister (and previous game protagonist) Jesse, which is also where we learn important traversal abilities. (Shift, for example, lets us re-orient our gravity in areas where there are streets and rooftops that are jutting out at 90 or 180 degree angles).

I think that the promise of Open World games when they first emerged (probably Grand Theft Auto III is the one that truly codified the format) was a sense of freedom. But the danger can be a lack of structure.

Remedy games that I've played at least are not interested in making a whole bunch of different endings based on player choices, and Control Resonant evidently just has one ending. As such, I wonder if Control Resonant would be better off with a somewhat more curated path through its messed-up NYC.

The first Control flirted with Open World ideas, with some ideas that worked and some that didn't. It's probably unfair to compare this with Alan Wake II, which is a totally different genre of game, but while you could swap between Alan and Saga through the middle of the game, each character's story was essentially linear, which I think worked quite well for it.

To be clear, I'm still enjoying the game quite a lot. But I think I've been getting more intriguing and enticing stories out of side quests so far, like reuniting a set of speakers that act as conduits to some other plane of existence, or a weird Taxi dimension that someone's trapped in (said Taxi dimension feels weirdly similar to the Dark Place, including similar camera angles when Dylan is talking on a payphone to the trapped civilian as the ones when Alan talks with Tom Zane in Noir York City).

As for "lore" spottings, I have finally gotten some explicit mentions of the word Blessed, which are involved in the speaker side quest. I have yet to find out if the Organization is actually central to the plot, but I imagine that that requires some more progression (with the Western Incursion Resonant dealt with, I think I'll be heading to to the Evacuation Zone, which seems to be where the true main quest plot is actually directing me).

There's no mention of anything Alan Wake related, other than that Ahti appears not to have returned to the Oldest House after the events of AW2, and we also see some posters of Ahma Beer, which I guess must be thriving given that it used to be a local microbrewery. (Hope Ilmo is doing ok). Fingers crossed for an Old Gods of Asgard song, which at this point is expected.

Again, I still feel like I haven't progressed the "main plot" forward much since being unleashed in the open world, but I also really wonder if we might see Barry Wheeler pop up - a sore absence from Alan Wake II, but also someone who for sure got involved in the Blessed Organization.

Once again, I've been finding secret hideouts across the city that I suspect are Blessed installations, though that's unconfirmed. Whatever this "Secret Organization" actually is, it uses similar memos, documentation, and jargon to the FBC, but it's all just a bit different - referring to "Extranormal Objects" in contrast with "Altered Items."

Now, I do think that the Blessed Organization could be slightly Scientology-coded, and the Church of Scientology has been known to pull off some pretty extraordinary feats, including a massive infiltration of the FBI, using its own pseudo-governmental acronyms and abbreviations.

The Secret Organization, as the documents we find about it are classified in our personal archive (oh yeah, there are a bunch of documents,) uses a symbol that appears like a keyhole or possibly a beacon of some sort. I can't remember if any of the Oceanview doors had that symbol, but it's worth bearing in mind.

(Oh yeah, so far no Oceanview Motel.)

In terms of difficulty, I'm sort of inclined to maybe push forward a bit more aggressively. It's very rare that I die to non-Resonant enemies, though both the Central and Western Incursion bosses took me four attempts each.

Enemy variety, even though I've fought almost exclusively Hiss, is step up from the first game, and there are basically no "this is just a corrupted dude with a gun" enemies to fight. You will start to get familiar with them - the ones with giant hammer-like heads are probably the most common of the "Heavy" Hiss foes - but I think we're already at a more interesting variety than we got in the first game, and I've only fought like one group of Mold enemies.

It is strange, though, that in stark contrast to the first game, where Hiss would teleport into a room without warning and endlessly respawn, here once a group is dead, they're dead, at least until you beat the area's Resonant. But I don't think you can re-fight bosses and I assume once you beat each enemy group a second time, that's it. This does mean that the resources you gather from fighting foes is presumably finite, and I don't love that. (I could be wrong, though).

One thing that's kind of interesting is that upgrading your weapon, even by unlocking other weapon forms, is going to help you even if you don't care to use said forms, because each unlocked form and trait for those forms will improve the overall damage you deal with the weapon.

Each Resonant gives you a choice between two (maybe one gave three?) Powers, which are similar to the various OoP abilities Jesse got in the first game. You can try each one out separately, but you get locked in after you leave The Gap (your little Mind Place/Writer's Room equivalent) and require a Reset item to change them after that. I assume this means there will be six Resonant bosses in total, given that we can equip six at a time (swapping between sets of three at least on a PS5 controller).

I suspect that there is a kind of Mega Man-like ideal progression path - the boss in Central gives you fire-based abilities, which are extra-effective against the Mold.

One of the things that makes Dylan an interesting contrast with Jesse is that he literally trained through his entire adolescence to work for the FBC, so he's already well aware of Bureau protocols, procedures, and terminology. Even if most of the Rangers hate him for his past with the Hiss, he knows what the job entails.

I think Dylan's generally going to be a pretty heroic character regardless of what dialogue options you pick, which does make it kind of interesting that he's sort of a new character in this game - the Dylan we encountered in Control was really the mouthpiece of the Hiss. I'm eager to see how he reckons with that contrast.

First Impressions of Control Resonant

 It's finally here!

With Control Resonant downloaded nicely last night, I booted the game up this morning and have been playing it, well, most of the day (had a doctor's appointment in the middle).

I've now beaten my second Resonant boss - the major monsters whose power dominates each of the various zones that the warped Manhattan is broken into. The first, I'll note, is basically part of the tutorial, coming before you even (if I recall correctly) get your secondary Aberrant form.

Thanks presumably to a day-one patch, the reports of intense difficulty in the early game seem to have been addressed, as I didn't really struggle much. Indeed, this second major boss, the Central Resonant (who has appeared in some of the previews and trailers) is the first time that I really had to work, dying three times before taking it down on the fourth attempt.

First and foremost, let's talk about the action gameplay:

I actually really like it, despite a lot of reviews poo-pooing it. Each button does something different, and at least with my build, it feels like each ability and weapon serves a clear purpose. My heavy secondary attack, using the titanic hammer form seen in the announcement trailer, is for building Falter on foes, which can eventually stagger them for an execution. Likewise, my launch-like ability gained from the first boss gives me a ranged option and also inflicts some Falter, while my wide-sweeping scythe main attack is a quick source of damage that hits lots of foes. I have a combo finisher that launches enemies into the air, during which I deal bonus damage to them, and I cant then bring the hammer down on them.

Falters and Executions are a really interesting mechanic: while executing a foe doesn't give you back health, you will gain a buff that increases your damage done and the health gained by defeating other enemies, so I try to get something staggered as quickly as possible and then slash at the remaining foes with my main attack as much as possible during that short "Dominance" window.

One of the issues I have with a lot of action games is that there's often little that really distinguishes attacks, and you wind up spamming the same things over and over, but here, it feels at least as if you're constantly making tactical decisions.

Now, the flow of the game is something I'm still wrapping my head around: monsters (mostly the Hiss early on, though I've seen some Mold and there's also a new enemy faction called The Pattern, which seems to actually be the central antagonist of the game) don't respawn until you beat the area's resident Resonant, and thus as far as I can tell, you get to fight each just twice, so I think maybe you want to fully clear a zone before going after the boss to maximize the resources you gain.

Completing objectives within a zone will level that zone up, increasing rewards dropped from enemies and enhancing the offerings at the spooky ice cream trucks that serve as your merchants. There are various objectives to complete across a zone, including side missions with their own little plots.

There are a few familiar faces: I did a side quest for Langston (though I don't know if he'll pop up elsewhere or if he's just a one-scene appearance). The overall plot is a bit slow to develop so far, though I've also been really pushing side quests and side objectives rather than driving forward with the main stuff.

Dylan traverses Manhattan with the weight of his role as the herald of the Hiss, and also the destruction that he wrought while he was in training as P6. We did get a Dr. Darling video, though sort of non-diagetically. His role in Dylan's abusive upbringing is something the game seems eager to explore further - as charming as Darling is, and as much as he plays a role of kind of absent guide for Jesse in the first game, Dylan naturally has very complex feelings about him.

Similarly, the FBC has very mixed (mostly negative) feelings about Dylan. Zoe, the FBC agent he meets when he first exits the Oldest House, becomes his handler, and while they're working together, she's also got a kill switch for the "Mobile Containment Device" attached to the back of Dylan's head, which will give a lethal blast of electricity if they decide he's too much of a threat. I'm curious to see how much of a Chekov's gun this is.

But despite the atrophy of being in a coma for seven years, Dylan is an absolute beast. Traversal abilities that took a long time to get in Control come much faster here, which makes it a bit easier to traverse the tall buildings of NYC (though there are buildings too tall to climb still, meaning you need to either find a way to get up shorter buildings or need to unlock Shift at some point.

Dylan is, of course, nothing like was in the first game, and it's really interesting to see someone who is clearly a good guy deep down reckon with the traumatic loss of identity that the Hiss, and his upbringing as P6, which pushed that kind, heroic personality back.

A few notes:

There are some secret hideouts hidden in various buildings around Manhattan. There's no proper nouns here to associate with any existing lore. They issue memos with verbiage similar to that of the FBC. If this is the Blessed Organization, it would imply that that organization is far more professional than we might have assumed, and I even wonder if it's a splinter cell of the FBC itself. Either that, or this other faction has nothing to do with Blessed.

Expect a lot more posts about this game.

Details for the Oath of the Ebon Blade and Forsaken Species

 Insight Check recently posted a video with a bit of content out of the upcoming D&D World of Warcraft book related to the Oath of the Ebon Blade subclass for Paladins, which allows us to create the equivalent of WoW's playable Death Knights, as well as the Forsaken species, which equates to WoW's playable Undead race.

Notably, both of these are doing some unprecedented things.

Let's actually hit up the Forsaken first, as I think it's less dramatic:

Forsaken are free-willed, sentient undead. Mostly former humans, the collective identity is linked less to their original species than their shared experience of having come back from the dead and reconciling their free will and memories of life with the grim reality of being a walking corpse.

For the first time in all of 5E, the Forsaken are a species with the undead creature type (something even Reborn don't have). This, thankfully, is much more viable now that healing spells like Cure Wounds work on Undead and Clerics' Turn Undead allows you to pick which targets are affected. Note, though, that Raise Dead and Resurrection won't actually work on them. Crazily enough, True Resurrection will actually turn them back into humanoids, so you might want to talk to a DM if that means you become a Human (or High Elf, potentially, depending on your backstory). Revivify and Reincarnate will both still work, though. Given the special nature of your undeath, I would talk with DMs to see if you could get special dispensation to allow you to be brought back with these spells.

(As a note, in WoW, despite the race being called, literally, just Undead, your creature type is actually humanoid, for game balance reasons.)

From there, the features are a little more standard. You are Medium or Small, have a 30 foot movement speed, and 60 feet of darkvision. You get resistance to Necrotic damage as well, and like Reborn, you don't have to eat, drink, or breathe, and you only need to stay inert for 4 hours to get a long rest.

Touch of the Grave lets you, once per long rest, add a number of d4s equal to your PB of necrotic damage when you deal damage to a creature, and then you regain HP equal to the amount rolled.

Finally, Will of the Forsaken gives you advantage on saving throws to avoid or end the Charmed or Frightened conditions.

    So, overall, I think this reflects the WoW race pretty effectively. I do think the issues with resurrection magic might potentially pose a challenge, though I think at the very least, building some alternate means of bringing a fallen Forsaken PC back ought to be in the cards. Frankly, I think it would be reasonable to allow Animate Dead to work in place of Raise Dead, for example, or maybe you need to conduct some kind of necromantic ritual that works similarly to Raise Dead.

Now, let's talk Ebon Blade Paladins, aka Death Knights.

Here, the video doesn't get the whole subclass, but we get a number of interesting features that are, interestingly enough, for levels 1 and 2, which you'll note is not a pair of levels that any established subclasses get anything for.

That's because while Ebon Blade Paladins use the Paladin class as a framework, they aren't actually meant to be Paladins. Even if a lot of canonical Warcraft Death Knights were Paladins in life, not all of them were. Essentially, this isn't going so far as to make a whole new class, but it's retrofitting the 5.5 Paladin to make it fit the Death Knight better.

First off, more of a flavor thing, you can carve a rune into your weapon, giving you the flavor of Blood, Frost, or Unholy - the three Death Knight specs in WoW. According to the video, this doesn't have extensive mechanical implications, but we'll just have to see.

Next, the first big change: like Forsaken, Death Knights are undead. Similarly to all the issues we discussed before, this will give you immunity to certain spells that affect humanoids, but it also means you have to worry about resurrection magic not working. Once again, the funny thing is that in WoW, even if Death Knights were raised in undeath, they're mechanically still humanoids for game balance (though they do have a class ability called Lichborne that temporarily turns you undead for various reasons, including something we're going to touch on right now:)

Death Coil fully replaces Lay on Hands. Yeah, that's right: you don't get Lay on Hands as an Ebon Blade Paladin. Instead, Death Coil lets you use a bonus action to send out necrotic damage or bursts of healing that affect only undead targets. You have a pool of d8s equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1). As a bonus action, you can spend up to your Charisma modifier of those d8s (makes me wonder if our pool gets bigger at higher levels, otherwise this limitation seems redundant) to force a creature you can see within 60 feet to make a Con save. On a failure, they take damage equal to the number rolled, or half as much on a success. You can also target an undead creature (and you are an undead creature) and heal them for the amount rolled.

You regain these d8s on a long rest.

    So, to break this down: this is obviously more aggressive than Lay on Hands, which is purely defensive. Makes sense given the priorities of a Death Knight. The damage will be great at early levels, but I think unless that pool expands to, like, twice your Charimsa modifier or somehow also gets expanded, I'm not sure that this is quite the compensation for the loss of Lay on Hands. Again, unless we get a larger pool later on, we're talking like 5d8 at most extra damage once per day by level 17.

    As self-healing, or potentially healing for minions or allies (maybe you have a non-Death Knight Forsaken party member in the group?) it's a bit better, though again, I think it starts to fall behind Lay on Hands pretty quickly.

Runic Smite replaces Divine Smite.

Here, there's a much more direct parallel to the Paladin feature. Runic Smite has the Rune Strike spell always prepared, and lets you cast it once per day for free.

Rune Strike works identically to Divine Smite except for the following changes:

Its damage is Necrotic, and rather than dealing an extra d8 of damage to Fiends and Undead, it instead deals an extra d8 to Celestials.

    This makes perfect sense as a flavor change. But we do run into a couple problems: First off, more monsters can resist or be immune to necrotic damage than radiant damage. Second, there are far more Fiends and Undead monsters that we tend to fight in D&D than Celestials. Even in an Azeroth-based campaign, we're far more likely to be fighting Fiends like the demons of the Burning Legion or Undead monsters in the Scourge. In fact, the only creatures I can think of off the top of my head that would inevitably be Celestials are the Naaru, who are both rare and usually friendly (in fact, when they go "dark," they probably become aberrations). Maybe Val'kyr?

Obviously, we need to get the full picture before we can really get a sense of how the subclass transforms the Paladin into the Death Knight. These changes certainly don't make the class unplayable or anything, and I really applaud the boldness to tinker with the inner workings of the base class beyond simply plugging in subclass features at the appropriate levels.

Indeed, if this proves effective with the Death Knight and Demon Hunter, this could be some exciting "tech" for WotC to bring to other supplemental products outside of the Universes Beyond line.

The Minor Agony of Not Playing In Early Access for Control Resonant

 I only became a Remedy fan three years ago, and as a relative newcomer, I've only played three of their games, but those three games, Alan Wake, Control, and Alan Wake II, left a huge impression on me, so I've been getting hyped up for Control Resonant, nervous about whether I'll actually enjoy the switch to fast-paced melee action gameplay.

I mean, I was nervous about Alan Wake II's switch to full-on survival horror, and even though I don't actually think that I loved the combat in it, the atmosphere and experience of the game and its story was superlative, almost instantly becoming probably my favorite narrative in all of gaming.

I had considered getting the super-duper deluxe edition, but I think the main reason to go for such deals is if they include free access to the DLC(s), which all three of the Remedy games I've played have had. But that means I have to wait a little bit longer.

And, stupidly, I scheduled a doctor's appointment for the middle of Thursday, the day it comes out. Stupid physical body requiring maintenance!

Anyway, I'm eager to get lost in the game. Remedy does game narrative like no one else, and their particular blend of horror, modern fantasy, and sci fi ideas (or rather, the blurring of the lines between said genres) speaks very directly to my own taste in genre fiction.

I know that there's only one ending to the game, but I'm slightly nervous about reports that certain quests/missions can go poorly if certain decisions are made or challenges failed, as I'm a real perfectionist with my games. I prefer a game to just let me keep trying if I didn't get the result I wanted.

I'm also a little nervous that reviews seem to suggest the game is on the difficult side. That might seem absurd coming from someone who plays FromSoft's games and loves them, but I think there's something about their style of difficulty that clicks with me - being generally slower-paced, it's often not hard to figure out what you did wrong, while fast-paced action games can sometimes be hard to parse.

But yeah, I mean, I died plenty of times in Alan Wake II (though I maintain that my struggles with the Cynthia fight were more due to glitches that probably got fixed in patches) and it didn't make me adore that game any less. So maybe I've got nothing to worry about.

It's notable that Sam Lake has been almost totally absent from the marketing of the game. I believe that he was not as directly involved in it as he was with the first Control or, of course, Alan Wake II. Given, well, the entire story of Alan Wake II, I imagine that he's somewhat uncomfortable being the "face" of Remedy (almost literally, given that he's the likeness for Max Payne) even if his creative vision has been the guiding one for the studio's games for the last quarter-century or so.

I'm sort of skeptical of the "auteur" theory, which arose in the 1960s as a somewhat subversive response/contrast with the institutional studio system of early Hollywood. It's interesting that this framing and philosophy around art (cinema in this case, but it applies to other media) began as a rebellion against stuffy, corporate institutions, but at some point, it started to justify a lot of egoism and erasure of the auteur's collaborators. I truly think that the central crux of Alan Wake II's themes was the need to release that drive to own the enire creative process and make your work all about you, specifically. Alan only succeeds by allowing others to put themselves into the art he began, and I for sure think that Sam Lake was thinking about how he needed co-writers and other people to contribute for Remedy to finally crack the Alan Wake sequel after thirteen years.

I'm very curious to see how Control Resonant carries on and elaborates on the themes of Control. Seven years is less time than thirteen, but it's still actually a pretty big gap between an original game and its sequel (though Alan Wake II lands nearly smack dab in the middle of that gap,) and obviously they're changing quite a bit with the second game.

But I don't think I'll have the chance to read into the subtext, or perhaps meta-text is a more precise term, of how the game relates to its own creation until I get to play through it.

I've heard that there are fewer findable lore documents than there were in the first game, which is a shame. It might sound insane to someone who hasn't experienced the original game, but truly one of the most fun things about Control was finding some office memo to read. Still, it might simply be that they wish to explore alternate vehicles for conveying that background lore.

Speaking of vehicles, apparently there are shops that you can find that are ice cream trucks with a discordant melody playing from them. I'm so profoundly into that Control aesthetic.

What New Specs Would Make Sense?

 The Devourer Demon Hunter filled a gap.

When Demon Hunters were introduced in Legion, they were quite unusual in that they had only two specs - one tank, one melee dps. Blizzard had said that they avoided giving the class a ranged dps spec for fear that they would be forced to water down Havoc, such as removing Eye Beam to give it to them.

Obviously, that philosophical choice changed, and Void Ray, while similar to Eye Beam, has a somewhat different feel in Devourer's quite different rotation.

Only two prior times did we get a spec added to the game.

I would guess that Evokers were meant to ship with all three of their current specs, but the weirdness of Augmentation, a dps spec more concerned with boosting others' damage than their own (I have no idea where they currently land in the overall meta - it's hard to evaluate just how much they're adding to a group's damage) likely took them a bit longer to figure out, hence the wait for 10.1 to roll them out.

The other was a weird byproduct of the redesign of how talents worked in Mists of Pandaria. For youngsters and newer players (and you can just play Classic to get a sense of this,) the talent system in WoW initially worked by simply having three threes you could invest points into each time you leveled up starting at level 10. There was no limitation on how you spread the points, though you needed to spend 5 points in a row before the next row unlocked. The idea was that you would invest most of your points into one of the three trees, which thus established your specialization, but there "spec" was an informal thing, simply referring to how invested you were in a given tree (typically you'd hit the capstone of the tree about 20 levels before the level cap, so you would then invest later points into one or both of the other trees - like, boosting damage to Consecration was a Holy talent, so Protection and Retribution would want to pick that up).

Things changed a little in Cataclysm, where they now forced you to pick a talent tree to stick with as you leveled up until you had either gotten the capstone or at least invested the number of talent points you would need to get into that capstone before the other two trees would unlock. Also, with the rising level cap, Cataclysm also made it so that you would only get a talent point every other level, alternating with getting new abilities.

Mists of Pandaria threw the whole system out, and further formalized Specs as the main determinator of what spells and abilities you got as you leveled up (I think that you also no longer had to go to a class trainer and pay them to teach you new abilities) while Talents would be choices you made between three different options every fifteen levels, usually giving all three specs the same talent options to choose from.

That remained the system until Dragonflight, when they sort of re-constructed something reminiscent of the Classic/Cataclysm system, but retaining the formal definition of specs brought with Mists.

Ok, that history in mind, the first spec they ever added to the game outside of a new class (obviously, Blood, Frost, and Unholy were not in the game before there were Death Knights - well, not that version of Frost) was Guardian for Druids.

Prior to Mists of Pandaria, Druids who wanted to focus on either tanking in Bear form or doing dps in Cat form would both take the Feral talent tree. The talents you chose, though, strongly leaned toward one role or another, so the actually arrangement of talent points would look very different between characters who wanted to go one way or the other. (During Wrath of the Lich King, it was similar with all three Death Knight specs, which were designed to allow you to go as DPS or a Tank).

Thus, with the simplification of specializations, it was necessary to carve out a separate spec for Druid tanks, giving us their weird fourth spec.

    All that long preamble aside (sorry, sometimes I go into WoW historian mode,) one of the periodic speculations about upcoming expansions is the potential to add new specs to existing classes.

I'd argue that Devourer is really the only time that they've truly done this in the manner people imagine: Guardian was simply enabling an existing playstyle in a way that was compatible with a pretty enormous shake-up of a core game system, and Augmentation had to have been planned from the beginning of Dragonflight, with the entire class built with it in mind (there's no way that the spec was conceived of after the launch of Dragonflight, merely months before its debut).

So... what classes might get new specs?

First off, I think one of the early iterations of this form of speculation was the idea of ridding the game of pure DPS classes. WoW of course has the most room for DPS characters in group content, but the relative ease of playing this role also sees probably a disproportionate number of players gravitate toward that role. The notion of giving Rogues, Hunters, Warlocks, and Mages either a tank or healing spec was born, I think, out of a hope that by giving them that option, we'd see more people playing those roles.

I'm... skeptical that that is how that would work. I mean, plenty of people play Warriors who don't tank or Shamans who don't heal.

I started tanking very early on in my WoW career, and so I'm pretty comfortable with it as a role (I think it's basically just like melee dps but you have to be a little more careful about your positioning and can't ignore monsters when they go after the healer). But with very rare exceptions, I've basically never played as a healer (I did briefly level a Mistweaver Monk back when "Fistweaving" allowed you to pretty automatically heal the group while fighting in melee, but I don't think she ever hit the level cap).

Still, I think there's one example of this that bears exploration: the Warlock Tank. Now, I think in WoW Classic's Season of Discovery (which was basically their dry run for WoW Forever,) there was a way to unlock new abilities for Warlocks that allowed them to tank. Prior to the introduction of Demon Hunters, Demonology Warlocks were actually built around DH-like Metamorphosis (Legion saw a dramatic redesign of the spec, and I guess I was lucky that I liked both versions). This actually makes sense for Classic and Forever given that I don't believe either are expected to have playable Demon Hunters in them (I guess Legion Classic would). But for Mainline WoW, "retail," or just WoW, I don't know if this is the approach they could take.

Another perennial ask is Shaman Tanks. Here, I think you've got a lot more of the pieces that could work. Shamans are the only non-Tank class that can use Shields (which I think was primarily just so that Horde guilds had someone to give the Shields with Intellect on them back in Vanilla before there were any Horde Paladins - notably, WoW Forever is going to have Dwarf Shamans and Undead Paladins, giving each faction all the classes, because they realized that limiting the classes to a single faction in Vanilla was a mistake.) Still, I actually think there's some logic here: Shaman specs often focus on certain elements, with actually both Elemental and Enhancement tending toward air and fire (lightning and lava,) and Restoration tending to focus on Water. A Shaman Tank could very much be one that focuses on Earth, creating stony bulwarks to defend themselves.

There are currently no Mail-wearing tanks, which is funny given that half the tanks wear Leather armor, which is actually a less "heavy" armor type than Mail. But given that the only items you really need to make distinctly for tanks are Trinkets, and there are already plenty of Agility-based tanks, it would be pretty simple from an itemization point of view to just make a Shaman tank spec. You'd have to put Agility on shields, but that doesn't seem that difficulty (it would make them the one gear type that would always have all three primary stats on it, but who cares?)

Now, I'm... less convinced that we could make a Healing Mage. Maybe, maybe, possibly you could do some kind of time-magic thing where they're able to reverse time and heal wounds that way, but I don't really see it on a thematic level.

What about Hunters? Well, there's a vague notion that you could have a Hunter's pet tank, but given how imprecise it is to control your pets, this seems like a disastrous way of doing things (likewise Warlock minions).

The truth is, there's probably a way to conceive of any melee class acting as a tank - if you can fight in melee, maybe you can fight in a way that make it hard for them to kill you? And thus, a Hunter tank might be a bit more similar to Survival, with a pet that just supplements you rather than taking the hits for you.

A Rogue Tank, though, feels a bit like a contradiction in terms, simply because the whole vibe of a Rogue is that they stab you in the back while you're distracted by some seemingly bigger threat. Now, I do think Outlaw is a bit of an exception here, living less in that "sneaky backstabber" space and more in that "charming scoundrel" swashbuckler vibe. I wouldn't advocate turning Outlaw into a tank spec, but a tank Rogue would probably have to lean into that vibe a bit more, which I don't love given that Outlaw already feels like the exception rather than the rule.

One thing I never hear anyone talk about is a new Priest DPS spec. Priests are the only class that has two healing specs, and so if you want to play as DPS, you have to take a pretty dramatic shift in flavor and vibe by going Shadow.

What we don't have is a ranged Holy-damage-focused spec.

I honestly wonder, if they were building the class today, if Discipline would have been this. With Holy as the straightforward healer, you could have Shadow with its dark and insidious damage-over-time focus and Discipline focus on bursting foes down with holy fire.

But obviously, 22 years of Discipline being a healing spec would mean that changing it now would have people up in arms.

However, I do think there's very much a niche open for this archetype: a Fire and Brimstone Inquisitor, who smites foes with Holy Light, maybe mixing Holy damage spells with Fire. (Frankly, I always wanted my Blood Elf Priest to have a bit more of this vibe, but I just don't like playing a healer. And actually, both the introduction of Void Elves and everyone in Silvermoon making mean remarks to him in Midnight makes me really wish this was an option).

Devourer did sort of introduce the idea of a kind of off-brand version of the class - Demon Hunters are tied to Fel magic, but Devourer allows them to focus instead on Void magic.

Would giving Warlocks a Necromancer spec make sense, allowing them to raise undead minions? My answer is that it would, except that Unholy Death Knights exist, and especially with their Midnight re-work, Unholy DKs are the necromancer spec, and I just cannot conceive of a Necromancer class or spec that doesn't inherently have to utterly dismantle Unholy as it exists currently to appropriate its kit.

But what if, instead of a Necromancer, Warlocks got something a bit more Witchy? WoW's attitude as to what class is strictly a Witch is pretty ambiguous, but in Battle for Azeroth, we got the Heartsbane Coven, the most direct and straightforward Folk Horror Witches WoW has ever seen. (While I didn't like BFA much overall, I freaking adored almost every moment of Drustvar).

Now, maybe you could argue that Witches ought to be their own class (I wouldn't complain. Give them a healing spec). But I could also see Warlocks studying the Drusts' use of Death Magic and going that route rather than that of the Fel. Mechanically, I have no clue what this would look like (arguably, Affliction feels a little less demonic in vibe and a bit more death-magic focused) but I do think it could potentially be cool. Hell, call the spec "Witchcraft," and I think you'd have a lot of people super on-board. (Maybe tie in other woodsy spookiness, like the magic of Satyrs.)

I guess my last idea would be some kind of spec that combines arcane magic with martial prowess to give us a sort of Battlemage (or to use D&D terms, an Eldritch Knight). I had thought perhaps of a kind of arcane paladin, though it might also make sense as a Warrior spec. I think that there's less clear lore precedence here, though, so this is more pie-in-the-sky.

I'm skeptical that WoW would be likely to drop a whole lot of "fourth specs" in a single go, and it might be more exciting for players and hype around a new expansion just to launch a new class. This does have the benefit of not being tied to existing class mechanics (though given how distinct some specs play these days, I don't know if that's as much of a design constraint as it used to be).

Still, some of these ideas would be fun to see.

I think the ones that currently feel most appealing in my opinion would be the Shaman Tank, "Inquisitor" Priest, and Witchcraft Warlock.