Oh, You Meant Gameplay? Demon Hunter First Impressions Part Two

Well, I got so caught up in recapping the Demon Hunter Starting Experience (which is really good - lots of fun, not too hard, lots of secrets to discover if you're using Spectral Sight or just observant) that I forgot to actually talk about gameplay.

While there's a good chance that Veranos, my Demon Hunter who is currently chilling in Stormwind after having fended off an invasion of Dun Morogh, is going to eventually go Vengeance as his main spec, I haven't really done much with that other than simply arrange action bars and assign talents.

So instead, we've got Havoc to talk about.

Actually, before we do that, let's talk mobility. You obviously have double-jumping and glide, which Mardum is basically designed to work well with - lots of long sloping paths that you can glide over. Both specs get these two features, which can also be used in combat to get over nasty things on the ground (which any WoW veteran will recognize as a pretty popular boss mechanic.)

All Demon Hunters will start out in the Havoc spec. It think that you unlock Vengeance at level 99 (a little over halfway into the Mardum section of the starting experience) though there's also a later quest that explicitly tells you to choose a spec, though obviously with the new system you can switch specs any time you're out of combat.

Havoc uses Fury as its main resource. You'll build up this purple bar using Demon's Bite, which gives 20-30 Fury.

Your "filler" spender, that you start off with, is Chaos Strike, which does a bunch of Chaos damage and then refunds the Fury spent on it if it crits, making crit a pretty attractive stat.

You'll eventually unlock Eye Beam and Blade Dance, which are also rotational abilities you'll want to use, though these have cool downs (Blade Dance is only something like 8 seconds reduced by haste, so you'll use it pretty often, while Eye Beam has I think a 45-second cool down, meaning it should be used whenever possible, but maybe save it if you've got some outdoor enemy on the ropes already.)

Both Eye Beam and Blade Dance hit multiple targets, giving you some AoE options. Blade Dance hits enemies in an area (I think around the Demon Hunter) while Eye Beam is a... beam attack that hits enemies in front of you - it's channeled and always crits.

You also have Fel Rush, which has two charges and sends you shooting forward, dealing damage to enemies in your path. This is a pretty good ability for both mobility and AoE damage, though like a Monk's Roll, you can easily overshoot enemies, so be sure to be quick on turning with the mouse (something that I could not do on my laptop. Oh well.)

Metamorphosis is your big cooldown. It's actually a combination attack and short-term buff. Hitting it will give you a target reticle. You'll jump into the area, dealing damage to anyone nearby and also transforming into a demon, which increases damage and transforms some of your attacks into other, more powerful attacks. This is on a standard three-minute cool down, so certainly useable on every boss in a dungeon and multiple times per raid fight.

In terms of rhythm, you will be spending a fair amount of time just alternating Demon's Bite and Chaos Strike, though the variable gain on the former and the variable cost on the latter mean you'll actually be paying more attention to your resource bar than most classes.

Blade Dance is on a quick enough cool down that you won't feel like you're missing it, though Eye Beam is on a long enough cool down that you'll sometimes find you really need that burst of damage and don't really have it available.

Chaos Nova is on a one-minute cool down, damaging and stunning nearby enemies. I'm not yet really sure whether this is meant as a rotational ability or a utility cool down. Likewise, Vengeful Retreat does damage, slows enemies, and sends you backwards, and I believe that some talent setups will get a lot of damage out of that and Fel Rush, but will require you to constantly worry about your positioning.

Much as the Brewmaster Monk really embraced the new paradigm of active mitigation, Havoc at least is really embracing the simpler rotation with more dynamic abilities. You won't need forty keybinds to play this spec, but I suspect that that doesn't mean there won't be a noticeable difference between good players and bad ones.

Cosmetically, you'll pick out the normal stuff and then tattoo style and color (separately,) horns, and your blindfold type. Thankfully all of this stuff is changeable in the Barber Shop, so if you pick out a silly looking blindfold, for example, you aren't stuck with it forever. The one thing you can't change is skin color.

You do get alternate skin colors and facial options. Some of the skins have cracks where fel energy shows through, while others give you a sort of scaly appearance. Faces include some with scars or demonic spikes just poking out of the forehead a bit.

And of course all the voice acting is different than standard Night Elves or Blood Elves - not just a modulator like for Death Knights but full on different statements (including Demon Hunter-themed jokes and flirts.)

Demon Hunters do look really cool, though I hope that after we ditch our artifact weapons post-Legion, we get more Warglaive models, because using swords or axes on this class would just seem so... wrong. (I'd love to see some unconventional Warglaives, like the druidy wooden ones from the Shando Illidan skin in Heroes of the Storm.)

Demon Hunter First Impressions

Well, despite only having my laptop right now (though with a new SSHD that helps a lot,) I just had to start my Demon Hunter character. I played through the starting experience - I'm sure I'll take my time a bit more the second time around when I do my Horde one - and now I'm in Stormwind (well, until the World Server went down.)

One thing that's interesting is that the starting cinematic is, for the first time, not that guy (actually I think they switched voice actors after the original one died, but the new guy does a good impression) explaining your race/class to you. Instead, you begin with a first person POV shot of Illidan telling you about your mission to Mardum and then sending you through a portal while he deals with these Azerothian heroes.

I'd say about two thirds of your starting experience is on Mardum. You kill demons and get your new abilities that way (not sure if this works for Vengeance - I just went Havoc the whole way.) Eventually, you battle the Spider Queen Tyrannia on her ship, the Fel Hammer, which flies above Mardum, and head back to the Black Temple...

Only to find Maiev there with several other Wardens. She encases you in a crystal and ships you off to the Vault of the Wardens. You "several years" (nine, real-time) in stasis, until Maiev breaks you out, throws you a new set of Glaives (you actually don't get to keep the original ones. I'll have to check that for transmog) and sets you off on the path to help break out your fellow Illidari.

You're then introduced to the conflict between Altruis the Sufferer (who was actually a quest-giver in BC that sent you after the Illidari) and Kayn Sunfury. The former broke off with Illidan because he felt the Betrayer had gone a little nuts and was acting too much like an actual demon, while the latter is fiercely loyal to the master. And one's a Night Elf and the other a Blood Elf, if that makes a difference to you.

Gul'dan and Cordana manage to steal Illidan's body, which cannot be good.

You fight your way through the literal dungeon, actually putting some of the bosses back in stasis while the demons pour out of their prisons, and eventually have to choose between either Kayn or Altruis to be your second-in-command, with the other going off on their own (I went with Altruis. I like to think that my guy wants to keep himself honest, and having a lieutenant who is willing to stand up to him is good for that. We'll have to see what the long-term effects of this choice are.)

Finally, you face the Eredar leader of the assault, after which you meet up with Khadgar, who brings you to your capital and then the quests begin to sync up with what the other players experience with demons attacking the leadership of your faction.

My computer is so ancient that it's hard to get a real feel for the flow of the class, but so far I really like the aesthetic (except the helmet I currently have - you get a second set of quest rewards in the vault that have a different look, but my older one upgraded to epic, so I'll have to take a trip to the transmogrifier.)

Anyway, DEMON HUNTERS ARE LIVE!

I can't wait to start doing all the other launch event stuff, but I think a lot of that will wait until I'm back home and can use my main computer.

Breaking Down Havoc

Demon Hunters are the new hero class coming in Legion. Fun fact: their class color is a kind of magenta-purple - lighter than Warlocks, but not a pink like Paladins. Actually, you might just call it straight purple, with Warlocks having indigo, but anyway.

Obviously, as a new class, Demon Hunters are still very much in development. So while there are the usual caveats from other spec break-downs, it goes quadruple here - this is a new class and a new spec and it's still in beta, so expect lots of changes down the line.

As this is all new, we'll start with some class basics.

Demon Hunters use a resource called Fury. I'd say it's something akin to Runic Power - you generate it via abilities and then spend it with other abilities. It looks like Fury is going to be much more easy-come, easy-go than a lot of other resources, as there are quick ways to get up to 100 and abilities that cost large amounts. You're going to see that purple bar bounce back and forth a lot, is what I'm saying.

All Demon Hunters are going to have a fantastic amount of mobility, with double-jumps and glides as additional features for the Jump button, and also a quick dash called Fel Rush that has a quick recharge.

But let's talk Havoc, the Demon Hunter DPS spec. At the moment in the Alpha, it's the only Demon Hunter spec, as they're still clearly doing a lot of internal iteration on Vengeance (the tank spec.)

Demon's Bite is your main Fury generator. It has no cooldown, does a physical melee strike, and generates 20-30% Fury. That range of fury generation is kind of the cool hook, as you'll have to react to how much Fury you actually have, without being able to do the rotation blind. This will probably be the ability you use when you can't do anything else.

Chaos Strike spends 40 Fury to do a Chaos-damage melee strike. The interesting wrinkle here is that if this ability crits, in doesn't consume any Fury. So a high-crit build might allow you to chain a bunch of these together for massive damage.

Eye Beam costs 50 Fury and is a channeled spell that does Chaos damage in front of you. It has a 45 second cooldown, so I suspect you'll want to use it whenever it's up. This should work nicely for cleave damage, but you'll need to make sure you're positioned so that it hits everything.

Fel Rush has two charges on a ten-second recharge that shoots you forward and does Fire damage to enemies in your path. This could be used as part of your damage rotation, though I think that will depend on how quickly you can spin back into position to hit the target again.

Throw Glaive has you... throw your glaive at the target, and it'll bounce between two additional targets, damaging all of them. This seems to be outside the Fury system, but should be nice for pulling and getting some nice cleave damage in there. It's basically Avenger's Shield without the silence.

Vengeful Retreat seems more of a utility ability, damaging and snaring targets in front of you while you jump away, though you'll be able to Fel Rush back to them if you want it just for the damage.

Metamorphosis is a whopping six-minute cooldown (though I suspect they might tweak this to lower the CD) that lets you jump toward a targeted location, dealing Chaos damage, stunning the targets within for 3 seconds, and transforming you into a demon for 30 seconds, which I believe will increase damage and enhance Demon's Bite and Chaos Strike.

Mastery: Demonic Presence increases both your Chaos damage and your movement speed, just in case you were worried the class wouldn't be mobile enough.

So at least for now, the rotation seems pretty simple.

1. Eye Beam on cooldown.
2. Chaos Strike if you're about to cap Fury
3. Throw Glaive
4. Chaos Strike
5. Demon's Bite

And possibly mixing Fel Rush in there if it won't screw you up.

The random nature of two of the core abilities may be where the complexity of the rotation is hiding. I think you'll need to watch your Fury a lot more closely than you do with a lot of other resources of that sort. And obviously, with talents and artifact traits, there will be a lot more buttons on your bars than these.

Vengeance Demon Hunters - First Beta Abilities

First off, a big old grain of salt: When Mists of Pandaria was in beta, the way that Brewmasters worked was very different. Shuffle was not a buff generated by Blackout Kick, but a channeled ability you were expected to use, eschewing all damage abilities in favor of survival. So these things can change.

But for now, here's what we've got:

Vengeance's Mastery seems to be based on what could be one of the spec's major themes - namely Parrying. This makes a lot of flavor sense - Demon Hunters generally being characterized as a flurry of Fel-powered blades. The Mastery, Glaive Master, increases Parry chance. For now, it looks like it will be pretty much flat-out Parry Rating (though I'd assume it will also have the standard attack power buff that comes with all tank masteries these days.)

There are other passive relating to your parry chance, including a flat damage reduction  in Blade Turning and what looks like a primary Active Mitigation ability, Blade Barrier, which increases your parry chance by 30%.

Vengeance has some good mobility - in addition to the existing Demon Hunter abilities like Fel Rush, there's also Infernal Strike, which looks like a kind of Heroic Leap-style ability that might be on a shorter cooldown and has multiple charges.

Additionally, they have a number of "Sigil" abilities, that allow them to put ground-targeted sigils which go off after three seconds, doing things like silencing, taunting, or pulling the targets to the center.

Shattered Souls is an ability both specs get, and while for Havoc it's probably more of a soloing ability - much like Monks' Afterlife, it creates a little object on the ground that will heal you when you run over it, generating it after you kill a target. Vegeance, however, seems to be able to generate these Soul Fragments more often, giving them some self-healing - a bit like Gift of the Ox, though it looks like DHs will have a way to pop those fragments without running over them in Soul Cleave, which is a melee strike that also consumes these fragments. While in Metamorphosis, which baseline increases max health and reduces incoming damage both by 30%, your Hateful Strike (which looks like a primary Fury-generator) is guaranteed to spawn one.

One of the fun little flavor things for Shattered Souls is that if the Soul Fragment came from a demon, you get a little damage buff on top of it.

So the image we're getting is of an avoidance (but not dodge!) heavy tank that also has some health buffs and self-healing. (Actually, with Monks and Druids both moving away from avoidance as their main source of damage reduction, there's an opening for Demon Hunters there.)

Big caveat though: nowhere in these datamined abilities is there any mention of the Pain resource. It's possible that Pain is on the cutting-room floor, but it's possible that these abilities are from an earlier build, or that we simply don't have the full picture. Given that Demon Hunters' voice emotes make mention of Pain (there are error messages for "Not enough Pain," etc.) it would seem that at least at some point, Blizzard was very confident about using the resource for the class (though to be fair, there are also error messages for mana, energy, rage, and even focus, I believe.)

Still, as someone who will probably try to go tank-spec on my Demon Hunter, I'm eager to get the details on how they'll work.

First, Tantalysing Details about Demon Hunter Gameplay

While I expect we might hear more about them at the game systems panel tomorrow (or not - we might just have to wait for the beta patch notes,) part of the Demon Hunter Starting Experience was available to play at Blizzcon. Over at WoWHead, they have a rundown of what they could try out.

Fury will be the primary resource for Demon Hunters. It appears that this will work a bit like Rage mixed with Demonic Fury - you'll generate it from abilities and spend it on other abilities, but probably without the randomness of auto-attacks.

Havoc was the spec available for play, but there were some hints at Vengeance thanks to the "Specialization" panel on the Talents/Specializations window.

DHs will get talents at 99, 100, 102, 104, 106, 108 and 110, presumably so that you won't be overwhelmed with a ton of talents right at the start.

Demon's Bite looks like a primary Fury generator, doing physical damage and generating 20-30 Fury (this might be where the randomness comes from.)

Spectral Sight slows you down but allows you to see invisible/stealthed targets near you. I assume this is toggled.

Glide allows you to reduce your falling speed by jumping midair.

Double Jump occurs if you hit jump again at the apex of your first jump - I guess you'll need to time it so you don't just glide.

Shattered Souls looks like a passive that helps keep you up when soloing. If you kill a target that yields experience or honor, they'll leave a soul fragment behind that will heal you if you run into it. If it's a demon soul fragment, you'll also get a damage boost for a few seconds!

Throw Glaive looks to work a lot like Avenger's Shield, hitting a target and bouncing between up to two additional enemies. Looks very much like a good tank pulling ability.

There were four abilities listed for each specialization on their spec pages:

Havoc:

Fel Rush has you charge forward, doing fire damage to anything in your path. 2 charges (on a 10 sec recharge) but no cost, apparently.

Chaos Strike is a Fury-spender that does Chaos damage to the target and is free if it crits, but otherwise costs 40 Fury.

Chaos Nova is a one-minute cooldown aoe damage burst with stun. 30 Fury.

Metamorphosis (Havoc) has you leap up and land, dealing damage and stunning enemies around you for three seconds, then transforming into a demon for 30 seconds, gaining 100% Leech and empowering Demon's Bite and Chaos Strike (not sure how.) This has a whopping ten-minute cooldown, which I hope can be reduced by various attacks or something, because it'd be sad to only be able to use this once per fight.

Vengeance:

First off, it appears that Vengenace will have a resource called Pain - whether this replaces Fury or supplements it, I'm not sure.

Hateful Strike deals physical damage, but does more as the target's health gets lower.

Fel Blood "redirects 40% of damage taken to Fury" which suggests that you'll retain Fury as a resource. This has a 15 minute cooldown, which I don't even know what to do with.

Voidblade costs 65 Fury and deals shadow damage and then heals you for 100% of the damage done.

Metamorphosis (Vengeance) transforms you into demon form, gives you max health and Fury, and reduces damage by up to 60% - reducing more damage the lower on health you are. This has a far more reasonable 2 minute cooldown and lasts 15 seconds, which I think means it's going to be one of your major tanking cooldowns.

Talents:

So far there's only one talent row. We don't know that this is also what Vengeance gets - it may very well only be for Havoc, as Vengeance was not yet playable.

Fel Fury increases damage done by Fel Rush and generates 25 Fury when Fel Rush hits at least one target (so yeah, that's got to be Havoc only)

Blade Dance is a 50 fury, 10-second cooldown ability that is a burst of aoe damage and then increases your dodge by 100% for one second.

Vengeful Retreat is an AoE attack that slows targets and has you leap away backward from them.

Also:

DHs will get a Felsaber mount, which looks like a kind of cross between a Nightsaber and a Felhound - a kind of skeletal head glowing with fel energy, but still with, you know, like, eyes.

This is still not really the full picture we need to figure out the class, but it's a nice start. I really wonder how Pain will work as a resource. I kind of get the impression that Vengeance will see a pretty bouncy health bar, a bit like Blood Death Knights, as they seem to get better at defending themselves the lower health they have.

Demon Hunters Might Be Available Before Legion's Launch

There's a pretty believable-looking image going around on Reddit, brought to my attention by Blizzard Watch, which gives us a couple bits of interesting information.

The image is a set of enticements to pre-order Legion. In the fine print, it mentions that the game is expected to release "On or Before September 21st 2016," which implies that the game will be releasing some time in the summer.

Granted, I really hope that means early in the summer, because we don't want a full year of 6.2 (which would mean it would have to release in June, I think.)

The biggest part of this potential news - and I'd rate this far more "Leak" than "Rumor" - is that Demon Hunters will be playable for those who pre-order the expansion. It's likely that this means that DHs will be playable in the 7.0 patch.

At Gamescom, Blizzard talked about a pretty big opening event that would actually take us to the Broken Shore before the launch of the expansion itself (probably a pretty devastating battle where we'll lose some important people.)

Given that Demon Hunters will finish their starting experience at level 100 (starting at 98, most likely,) it's not really as if players decide to make their DHs their mains will have a ton of catching up to do - it'll be less than DKs had in Wrath, when they had to play through Outland while everyone else was heading to Northrend, or Monks who had to start from the bottom at level 1.

But I imagine this will be an interesting opportunity for raiding guilds to figure out how to integrate Demon Hunters into their groups and give some people time to try the DH out before they commit to leveling them up from 100-110.

This also makes me wonder if this means we'll be getting our Artifact Weapons early, but it remains to be seen.

Lots of news coming tomorrow, but this could be a little spoiler for that.

Demon Hunters, Level Boosts, and Timewalking

We've been waiting a long time for Death Knights to be joined by another hero class, and Demon Hunters were always the obvious choice for another one. Arthas and Illidan were both fan-favorites from Warcraft III, and while we got Arthas' class seven years ago, it's only with the upcoming Legion (which I really hope comes out in the first quarter of 2016) that we'll be seeing Illidan's methods playable in-game.

While there are a lot of cosmetic differences, the real definitive meaning of a hero class is that they start at a higher level with their own story justification.

When Wrath of the Lich King launched, the Old World was still largely unchanged from vanilla (they had revamped Dustwallow Marsh in 2.3 - I still think of Bogpaddle as that "new goblin town" there.) Death Knights began at level 55 with the intention of finishing their questing experience at 58 - the level that one needed to go to Outland.

So while they got a big leg-up, they were still one expansion behind.

These days, as a simple consequence of the age of the game, most players have taken multiple characters through Draenor. It's actually a bit odd - I did not feel any frustration with having to go through Outland on my Death Knight - the new class was enough to excite me about doing the content again.

But I also think that the game was a bit more of a sandbox back then. Zones had stories, sure, but they felt more kind of based on geography than story. These days, when you go somewhere, it's usually to deal with a specific threat than to just see that part of the world. It's a double-edged sword - on one hand, our actions feel far better-motivated these days. On the other hand, a zone's purpose and story feels much more locked into its own time period, and there's less of a sense of your being a wandering hero doing quests for the people you meet than being part of a massive military organization that is methodically taking care of crucial objectives.

The level boost that came with Warlords is getting a level 100 equivalent for Legion - Blizzard is wary of making people level up their main through a bunch of old content. And to be fair, there's a ton of content to get through.

But unfortunately, starting at a high level means that you miss out on some of the fun lower-level stuff. Until the Mists revamp, I couldn't really seriously take my Death Knight into Scarlet Monastery, as it wouldn't be a run so much as a slaughter (which admittedly, would totally be in keeping with the Death Knight theme.)

There are plenty of dungeons I'd like to do and zones I'd like to quest through on my Demon Hunter that I'll be way too high-level for.

It's an oddity of the MMO genre that there's this enormous amount of content - seriously, just consider how much content WoW has - but only the most recent stuff is really relevant. And with level boosts and hero classes starting at very high levels indeed, most of that stuff gathers dust.

Timewalking has provided a lot of hope, though. It's a lot of fun to be able to run through those old BC and Wrath dungeons, and Blizzard has indicated that they intend to expand the idea, opening up more dungeons from those eras and also opening up stuff from other expansions.

But while I love running 5-player dungeons, it would also be nice to get some of the old zones the same treatment. This is a little trickier - there's not really a built-in UI for changing the nature of a zone you saunter into. Quests are not inherently designed to reset the way that dungeons do.

Still, I'd love to be able to take my Demon Hunter through Felwood - even if Feronas Sindweller's admonitions for not treating Illidan fairly would be pretty silly (though already if you take a Worgen through Grizzly HIlls, when you rescue the Alliance officer from Silverbrook he yells "Were you bloody bitten?!" at you, which prompts a "What the f**k do you think?" from me on my wolfed-out Worgen characters.)

I recognize that they can't ensure that every bit of old content remains relevant - it's really funny in retrospect (and even at the time) that they made a special call-out for the original Nefarian fight for Death Knights - but it's a shame that more and more, the game has kind of isolated the "current content" as the whole scope of the game.

There have been whispers of an "Adventure Mode" for WoW - which, assuming it's similar to Diablo III's, could solve these problems. But we haven't heard anything concrete yet.

Glaives as a Weapon Type

It's very early in Legion's development - while there's an internal Alpha going on, we're probably months (though hopefully not too many months) away from a Beta, and the expansion won't launch until next year (though hopefully early next year,) so a lot of the perceived issues that exist might be totally moot points by then. Still, it bears talking about - the earlier these issues get out in the open, the more likely they are to address them (and although I'm pretty resigned to the death of two-handed Frost, the only way that change could be averted is if it's brought up at this stage.)

Weapons in Legion are going to be very different than they have been for the eleven or twelve preceding years of WoW. There will be a remarkable consistency for players, and if we can assume that Relics will be more generally usable, we can pretty much expect that waiting for a weapon to drop is not going to be harder for certain classes and specs than others.

It also allows them to do something unprecedented - adding a new weapon type to the game.

Glaives are the iconic Demon Hunter weapon. Illidan got his set of Glaives by killing a Pit Lord named Azzinoth - and those weapons are currently collectable in-game as Legendary drops off of Illidan himself in the Black Temple. Right now they're classified as one-handed swords, which actually means that if Blizzard wanted to make it easy for themselves in future expansions, they could just make all Glaives count as swords and be done with it (of course, in the real world, a glaive is more of a polearm, but whatever.)

As it stands, Demon Hunters will only be able to use Glaives, but given the way that weapons in Legion work, that's not really saying much. Presumably Demon Hunters will start with some green or blue-quality glaives and then fairly quickly acquire their artifact glaives - all of this will be tailored specifically to them as a class, so it's not really something Blizzard has to worry about all that much.

But moving past Legion, assuming that artifacts don't become a permanent feature of the game (and I expect they won't,) Blizzard needs to figure out if Glaives are something that will keep coming.

There are a couple things to deal with here:

If glaives really become another weapon type, it seems that the Warglaives of Azzinoth must be updated - it would be absurd to call them anything else. But this would mean that at the very least, Rogues, Warriors, Death Knights, and Monks would also be able to wield Glaives - as those classes can currently use the old warglaives (hey, maybe if they're not swords anymore, Enhancement Shamans could get in on the action?) It would be supremely crappy for some veteran Rogue who got the warglaives off Illidan way back in the day was suddenly unable to use them in Timewalkers or strut around town with them (I actually have a set on my rogue, though he's Assassination/Subtlety, so he won't actually be using them.)

If Demon Hunters are solely able to use glaives, this means that Blizzard has to commit to creating glaives for all future expansions, and it also puts DHs in a position where they have a much smaller selection of weapons (something that non-Combat Rogues are familiar with.) On the other hand, if glaives were opened up to more classes, they could simply make fewer agility swords or something like that.

Of course, the other issue arrives if they go for the common-sense solution, which is to simply make glaives a type of sword - much as the Warglaives are now. The issue that arises, however, is that Demon Hunters won't really be able to transmog their weapons to look like glaives. The Legendary Warglaives, at least currently, can't be transmogged over more recent weapons, and it looks like the same rule will apply for artifacts. Now, perhaps there will be some lower-quality glaives that DHs start out with (similar to the starter gear in the Death Knight starting experience,) but it's a pretty severe limitation on the DHs' iconic weapons.

Frankly, I think it might be time to allow us to transmog legendary looks. Sure, lots of people will want to use those, but I think plenty of people will look for something different - I'm much more likely to stick with Vagaries of Time than getting Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker for my preferred transmog option.

Demon Hunter Flavor and Lore

Demon Hunters are WoW's second hero class and the third class to be added to the game after vanilla. The "hero" aspect of hero classes caused some controversy back in the early days of Wrath of the Lich King, when pretty much all three specs were overpowered (I loved leveling up as Blood DPS back then - though the self-healing and ability to sustain combat without stopping to heal or eat is something that most classes have these days anyway,) But in reality, the Hero Class label really just distinguishes the class in terms of lore and starting area.

Demon Hunters will start at a very high level - probably in the mid to late 90s so that by the time they finish the starting experience, they can jump right into the high-level Legion content. This is a departure from Death Knights, who did get to skip the vanilla zones, but had to go through Outland before joining veteran characters in Northrend.

What this means is that, during the Legion expansion's time as current content, Demon Hunters will essentially only do that current content. There's a risk here that they could thus feel somewhat disconnected from the rest of the world, but I think Blizzard is more concerned about scaring off people who don't want to have to go through old zones that they've been through eleven times before.

Timewalker dungeons - something that they're extremely likely to expand - should help with this. While I'm obviously going to focus a lot on Legion's stuff, it'll be cool to take my Demon Hunter into BC-era dungeons - though it'll be somewhat paradoxical for him to go back and run Black Temple (I would be overjoyed if they added a new line of dialogue just for those DHs who do that where Illidan calls you out for turning on him in the old level 70 raid.)

Playable DHs will obviously have a deep connection to Illidan. Unlike Death Knights, who very definitely turned against Arthas, it looks like Demon Hunters aren't really going to feel all that guilty about what they've done, and might remain loyal to Illidan.

As we understand it (and this is obviously subject to change,) the Demon Hunter starting experience will begin at the Black Temple, literally right as the raid full of, well, us from 2007 or 2008, is making their way up through the building. We'll then be sent to the planet Mar'duun, which is where Sargeras had originally imprisoned all the demons he had defeated back when he was a good guy, and which he destroyed to free them when he went evil.

I expect that Mar'duun will be where most of this experience takes place. By the end of it, however, it looks like we'll be captured by the Night Elf Wardens (Maiev Shadowsong being their leader) and imprisoned just like Illidan was, only to be freed eight-ish years later to fight against the Legion's invasion.

Presumably we'll be sent to our respective factions to offer our services (it'd be cool if we went to Darnassus and Silvermoon rather than Stormwind/Orgrimmar,) and then get funneled into the main expansion experience.

We really don't have a great idea of where Demon Hunters' class hall will be. Warlocks will be on a fel-blasted Portal World, so I think it might make more sense for Demon Hunters to have a place on the Broken Isles themselves - possibly some ancient site used by Illidan way back in the day.

As it stands, only the two elf races will be able to play Demon Hunters. This is a bit frustrating, but I expect it has more to do with how tricky it will be to do the Metamorphosis forms. Unlike the current Demonology ability, which uses an identical demon-form model regardless of the player's race or gender, the ones in the Legion trailer are clearly based on the player model - possibly even incorporating things like hair style and facial features. Doing this will be a big challenge, and I can see why they want to stick to just two races instead of thirteen.

They have said that after Legion, they might consider opening the class up to other races, but I'm not holding my breath (for one thing, the expansion after Legion could be as long as three years away.) I suspect that we might, possibly, some time in the future have one additional race per faction, sort of like the way that Cataclysm finally gave us options for non Night-Elf/Tauren druids. But if you thought animal forms were tricky, these Demon Forms are going to be much more complicated.

However, they are setting up a pretty big hurdle to adding any new races to the mix. One could imagine (indeed, I had done just that) that you could make Demon Hunters part of a new order, rather than using the actual Illidari from Burning Crusade. Rather than having the beginning of the class experience start in the past, you could have people like Feronas Sindweller (the Demon Hunter currently in Felwood) spreading the word about how Illidan was actually a hero, and that they could teach people those techniques.

As it stands, however, you're pretty limited. The only Demon Hunters we've seen in-game have been Night Elves and Blood Elves. The Illidari forces did contain some other races, though. It might not be too hard to justify Orc demon hunters - Illidan had the Fel Horde under his thumb, after all. Perhaps more of a stretch, but still possible, would be Draenei demon hunters. Illidan had the Ashtongue Broken working for him (until they were emphatically not working for him,) and you could maybe come up with some bit of lore where Illidan has managed to purge the Sethe-based toxins that mutated them in the first place, giving us healthy Draenei who would understandably be very loyal to Illidan for curing them and also probably still bitter and cut off from the Light thanks to all the Fel energy coursing through them.

But I really don't expect that we'll see other playable Demon Hunter races, at least for a very long time. We went three expansions (well, one core game and two expansions) before there were alternatives for Druids, and the lore of Demon Hunters is quite restrictive.

So get comfortable with your elves.

Speculating on Vengeance Demon Hunters

Being a melee class, it made sense for Blizzard to give Demon Hunters a tanking option - frankly, I think that if they could do it all again, they'd give Rogues one as well. Demon Hunters will be the third Leather-wearing tank class - which is kind of crazy when you reflect on it. Tanks are really the only people who actually care about armor, and so it always made sense that Warriors and Paladins, and later Death Knights, would tank. Druids were the kind of funny exception, but got around the weirdness of it by turning into freaking bears. But now, with Monks and Demon Hunters, there will actually be just as many Leather-based tanks as Plate ones, and still not a single Mail-wearing tank specialization, despite the fact that Mail is a step up in armor from Leather.

I'm not complaining - it's just kind of weird when you think about it.

With the Havoc DPS spec, they'll have a lot more flexibility on style - DPS is a role that can be performed in many very different ways, and while there are subtleties like making sure that single-target and AoE are balanced and that you can have some burst but not be built entirely around burst damage, essentially as long as you're putting out the same average damage per second as other classes, you're golden.

Tanking is a narrower role to fill - one's damage style can vary basically as much as DPS (though all tanks need solid AoE skills) but the way that one increases one's survival requires some clever invention, and it's here that I think distinguishing Vengeance as a spec will be the most challenging.

Blizzard did give themselves a new outlet for distinguishing specs in Mists by introducing the idea of Active Mitigation - something that I was very worried about at first but quickly grew to like, even if I still haven't been able to feel comfortable with Rage-based tanks since then. But even active mitigation abilities kind of fall into the same categories:

Flat Percentage Mitigation

Avoidance

Absorbs

Self-Heals

Now, there are some ambiguities here - the block mechanic is somewhere between Flat Percentage Mitigation and Avoidance, and Brewmasters' Shuffle is a pretty novel mechanic that maybe defies categorization - but it's a good place to start when thinking about how tanks work.

Generally, you'll need more than one of these to make a solid tank. While FPM (yep, it's already abbreviated) works basically in any situation, it's also kind of boring - it's basically Armor, which is a stat that all tanks like.

Focusing on the others too much can lead to big problems. A tank who is entirely based on avoidance runs the risk of getting an unlucky string of hits and going down like a lead balloon. Self-heals are potent, but you need a lot of health to guard against dry spells. Absorbs are great until they're gone.

To go through the existing tanks:

Death Knights use Self-Heals and Absorbs (the absorb mainly being from Blood Shield, the mastery.) Death Knights, I believe, actually do wind up taking more damage than other tanks, but they heal themselves significantly and also boost their HP, giving them more margin for error. DKs were kind of the first real active mitigation tanks (sort of - Shield Block and the old version of Holy Shield were around before them.)

Paladins have significant FPM (both Shield tanks do) but Paladins supplement this with self-healing, and depending on talents, absorbs as well (Sacred Shield is my default talent - an Eternal Flame build would be more focused on self-healing.)

Warriors, as I alluded to earlier, get a lot of FPM and quasi-Avoidance out of their shields, but while Paladins focus more on self-heals, Warriors really focus on boosting the power of their blocks, kind of doubling down on the FPM/Avoidance mechanics, plus some Absorption through Shield Barrier.

Druids historically relied almost entirely on strong FPM with super-high armor rating thanks to the multiplier for Bear Form. These days it actually looks like they get a decent amount from all categories. They can choose between Savage Defense for avoidance and FPM or get self-heals out of Frenzied Regeneration, and their mastery as well as Tooth and Claw procs give them some absorption.

Monks are, I think, built the most as an avoidance tank - they have very high parry and dodge, and that dodge can pretty easily be pushed over 50% with Elusive Brew. They also have a strong absorb in Guard and decent self-heals through Expel Harm and Gift of the Ox. Oddly, the one thing they don't really have is very strong FPM. They manage to achieve this thanks to the Stagger, mechanic, which functions as a quasi-FPM, smoothing out damage that would otherwise be incredibly spiky.

So what about Demon Hunters?

Well, it looks like most tanks pretty much get to use all of these survival techniques. I do think that Monks (who are both the newest tanks and the only ones build from the ground up to use Active Mitigation) have the strongest identity as the "avoidance" focused tank.

Much like the Monk, Demon Hunters are not just mechanically, but flavorfully based on agility. Demon Hunters are going to be leaping around and dashing all over the place, which could suggest more of an avoidance-based tank.

Clearly, actually forcing a tank to jump around everywhere would be freaking terrible (especially for your melee DPS, but also any boss where positioning was important.) You also run the risk of stepping on Monks' toes - not that there aren't big overlaps between, say, Paladins and Warriors, but with a new class, you want it to feel pretty new.

We still really don't know what role Metamorphosis is going to play for either Demon Hunter spec, but while I expect it will be somewhat similar to current Demonology for Havoc, it's a really big question how it will work for Vengeance.

The Vengeance Demon form, at least in these pre-Alpha days, looks very bulky, which could actually imply that Demon Hunters do wind up getting some strong armor boost (which to be fair, every tank other than Monks gets, either through a passive or a shield on the off-hand.)

Drawing from the flavor of the class, it would make sense for Demon Hunters to draw upon their enemies for survival (though perhaps it's more that DHs draw upon their inner demon instead.) One could imagine building their kit around absorption shields - perhaps they use demonic energy to create Fel Bulwarks around them, or slashing away with their glaives in such a dizzying display that they create some kind of Blade Barrier around themselves.

Starting with this idea of strong absorbs (and I vaguely recall some talk about that being a focus for DH tanks - though I really can't remember if that was speculation on some website or something an actual Blizzard person said,) you could supplement this with high avoidance - essentially, the few hits that do land get absorbed.

Self-healing doesn't really seem like the DH kit (if anything, they're more likely to harm themselves, the poor guys,) but I think a combination of absorbs and avoidance might be the direction to go.

The key, though, is to emphasize the former over the latter, as Monks already kind of do the opposite. So what this means is that they wouldn't have the insane avoidance of a Monk chugging Elusive Brew, but in return, they'd be tossing up absorption shields almost as often as Monks refresh Shuffle with their Blackout Kicks.

The point is that there are a lot of dials to turn here, and some might just be left off. I wouldn't be surprised, and in fact I kind of expect that Blizzard will come up with some new, inventive mechanic like Stagger to further distinguish the tank style - just off the top of my head, you could have some kind of evolving scale of partial absorbs - build it up big to absorb a greater percentage of the damage you take, but at the cost of resources so that you can't always maintain that level.

I'm excited for the Legion beta to begin for many reasons, but maybe the biggest is getting my hands (assuming I'm invited) on the Demon Hunters to see how they play. Given my typical predilections (and my hatred of long dungeon queues,) I fully expect that my Demon Hunter will be Vengeance main-spec, but I'll need to see how they play and whether I'll find it fun before I can be sure.

A Few Details about Demon Hunters in Recent Interviews

While we still don't have a really solid idea of how all their mechanics will play out, we got a couple of quick little details on Demon Hunters and how they'll play or be worked into the game.

First off, apparently they actually wanted Demon Hunters as early as Vanilla, but they also tried to work them into Burning Crusade. If you remember how class balance was during either of those time periods, you'll understand why Blizzard was hesitant to add another class to the pile. They would have obviously fit quite well in Burning Crusade's theme, but they were not yet ready (and I'm actually happy about this, as I think it could have delayed the introduction of the Death Knight. As excited as I am for Demon Hunters, the Death Knight is probably my favorite class in terms of concept and backstory - and clearly I like the mechanics, as my DK is my primary alt.)

Demon Hunters will use a resource called Fury, which they said will work a lot like Rage - meaning that you'll build it up and then spend it, but the way in which you do so will differ from the Warrior enough to make it feel different. I imagine it'll be somewhat like the difference between Energy and Focus - very similar in concept, but very different in feel. I'd look to current Demonology Warlocks' Demonic Fury as probably the inspiration for this, which suggests that you'll build up and spend Fury slower than Rage, giving you a kind of build-and-spend rhythm to the class.

They also mentioned that they might open up Demon Hunters to other races in expansions after Legion. While I'm very sad that I won't be able to do a Worgen Demon Hunter, I also can see that this is a very art-asset-heavy class - possibly even more than a Druid, because a Druid's features in humanoid form don't really make a difference in their various shapeshift forms (outside of hair/fur color.) Demon Hunters, however, look like they'll still look more like their humanoid selves while Metamorphized, which means that limiting it to two (fairly similar) races makes a lot of sense.

Of course, I wouldn't hold my breath for them to open it up to other races. This will certainly happen in 8.0 at the very earliest, and even then, they'd have to get around the whole idea that Demon Hunters begin as members of the Illidari, which was famously an Elf-only organization (I guess you might count the Fel Orcs and Ashtongue Broken Draenei, but they didn't really seem to be in the inner circle, and you never saw any of them training to be Demon Hunters.)

Given the setting of that starting experience in the past, it would be pretty hard to really work in any other races into the starting experience. Frankly, if it had been my design, I'd have had the playable Demon Hunters be part of a new organization founded in current times, much like the Knights of the Ebon Blade were during Wrath, to allow for more races. So whether they'll have to come up with a radical tweak to the quests or just kind of smash the lore should it open up to other races (Worgen, please,) they've made it pretty hard to do so should they change their minds.

Can't wait for the Beta (to which I will hopefully get an invite) to try these dudes out.

What Level Should Demon Hunters Start At?

Though there are many qualities that link WoW's sole existing Hero Class, the Death Knight, with the upcoming second one, the Demon Hunter, probably the most important in terms of gameplay is simply that they both begin at a level higher than one, starting with a class-specific quest and starting area rather than a racial one (though given the narrow racial choices for Demon Hunters, it's almost a racial starting zone.)

Death Knights begin at level 55, and at least as the XP gains were balanced in Wrath, you would finish the starting experience at level 58 - which meant you could travel to Outland immediately thereafter. Notably - not Northrend, but rather Outland.

So Death Knights were not tossed directly into the new expansion's content (other than their own starting experience.) Death Knights would have to level up through Outland first, going through the previous expansion's content before they could link up with characters that were ready from the launch to head off to Northrend already. They didn't actually need to hit 70 - for some reason, in the first two expansions the idea was that as long as you were within two levels of the previous level cap, you were allowed to move on (I wonder if there are newer players who don't know that and hit 70 in Outland.)

The thing is, while it feels the slowest of any of the expansion-areas now, Outland was a big step up from vanilla's world quest design in terms of leveling and gear rewards. Seriously, when you got past level 40 or so before the Cataclysm revamp, you'd find yourself finishing off all the quests available at your level in a place like Tanaris before you'd hit a level high enough to get more quests there, which meant you'd have to kind of bounce between zones (very far away from one another) or just grind dungeons over and over.

So I think that the positioning of Death Knights was less about how appropriate it was to do Outland and more how nice it would be to skip the Old World.

The other, more flavorful reason, was that they wanted to establish that Death Knights - simply by nature of their selection by the Lich King and the power and training he imbued you with - could not be anything less than at the "great hero" status that other characters had achieved by the time they hit level 60 back in vanilla. If a level 60 character was a big enough deal to take down Nefarian or Ragnaros or freaking C'thun, then that was the kind of baseline for the level of hero that a Death Knight should be at.

Of course, Wrath was merely the second expansion, i.e. the third iteration of the game. Legion will be the sixth expansion - 7.0. The 55-level head start that Death Knights get now is actually not all that much of a head start anymore. Going through Outland, Northrend, the Cataclysm Zones, Pandaria, and Draenor, probably takes longer than the 1-55 climb, both because XP requirements were nerfed and the Cataclysm revamp made those zones so much quicker (and I think more fun) to level through.

The other major factor is that as more players have played longer, they're more likely to have leveled up multiple characters. By the end of BC, I really only had three characters at level 70 (I did get the Hunter up there before Wrath came out, but after 3.0.) By now, I don't even want to know how many toons I've taken through Outland and beyond. And the more characters you have that hit the level cap, the more characters you're likely to be able to take to that level in the subsequent expansion.

So while my Death Knight was really only the fifth character I'd take through Outland, if my Demon Hunter were to start at 55, he'd probably be the twenty-somethingth. And even if he had to go through Draenor, he'd be the twelfth to go through it (assuming I finish leveling my Druid and Priest before Legion lands.)

And then of course there's the level boost to take into account. It looks like Legion will be granting a level 100 boost much like Warlords' 90 one (a feature I think we're probably going to be seeing with every new expansion - it's not for me, but I don't begrudge people wanting to jump into or back into the game.) Even if Demon Hunters were to start at 55, it seems pretty clear that the vast majority of players would use their boost on the Demon Hunter, making the starting level irrelevant.

Now, you could do something where the Demon Hunter is only eligible to do the boost after finishing their starting experience - making sure that people got the lore and the simple-class-training you get from such an experience before diving into the deep end. Because I'm that sort of player, I'd actually love to take a Demon Hunter through some of the older expansion content (really mostly Northrend, though the Cataclysm stuff is actually quite nice when you know there's more stuff to come later,) so I'd actually probably be happy leveling a Demon Hunter up from 55.

But I think a much more likely scenario is that Demon Hunters will either start at 100 and get no experience until they're funneled into the same expansion content as everyone else, or they'll start at level 95 or 97 and earn those last couple levels doing their starting experience quests.

Incidentally, I don't know if I mentioned what we know of those quests on the blog yet. Apparently it starts with Illidan sending you on a mission right as the heroes in Burning Crusade are fighting their way through the Black Temple. He sends you to the world of Mar'duun, which had been where Sargeras locked up the demons he defeated before he turned evil, and then later came back and destroyed the world to unleash them as his Burning Legion. I am so, so, so excited to see Mar'duun.

With Demon Hunters starting almost at the same level as existing characters, they should be able to mix into the game nice and quickly. While I did see some Monks even when I was raiding Heart of Fear as current content, they had a really huge gap to close. Death Knights had a very good head start, but with the current philosophies, I really expect Demon Hunters to get thrown into the mix very quickly.

Plus, this would let them delay an entire expansion before they decide how they want to handle Glaives as a weapon type and what kind of weapons Demon Hunters should be able to wield.

Yes, a Twelfth Character Slot Per Server is Coming to Allow for Demon Hunters

Originally, we could have ten characters per server, which worked out very well, considering there were only nine classes. The addition of Death Knights was easily worked in. In fact, in Wrath, there were ten classes and ten races, so if you wanted both factions on the same server, you could do one of each (which I did.)

New races weren't enough to add new slots, given that they're more of a cosmetic thing, but when the Monk was added, Blizzard wisely opened up a new slot so that you wouldn't have to start your Monk on a whole other server or delete an existing character and be without a certain class on that server.

And unsurprisingly, they'll be doing this again for Demon Hunters, giving us a twelfth character slot so that we can have one of each class per server.

There's no word on raising the 50 character total limit, though I think that even now, that's a rather reasonable limit (the most characters I've ever played at all seriously was like eighteen - "at all seriously" meaning leveled up beyond like 20.)

Demon Hunters, being a Hero Class, will also probably get their own character selection background, like the Death Knight. So no tranquil moonwell or suite in Lor'themar's swingers club.

I imagine fewer people will be motivated to create multiple Demon Hunters, given that there are only two specs (and dual-spec is a thing,) coupled with the fact that they're only available to one race per faction.

I'll definitely be making my primary one Alliance-side, but I'm sure I'll make a Blood Elf one as well eventually. Probably going to mainspec Vengeance, though we'll have to see how it is mechanically. I find essentially every spec in the game fun in its own way, but some (Paladin Protection, Mage Frost) I find more fun to play than others (Rogue Combat, Warlock Affliction.)

More Info On Demon Hunters from the Very Slow Legion Site

The official Legion website is pretty inundated with people right now, so it's quite slow, but here's what I've been able to gather about Demon Hunters

Armor: Cloth, Leather

I assume this means they'll default to leather. While this is totally appropriate to the type of class, it's also kind of shocking, as we'll have four leather classes and only two mail classes. Theoretically they could migrate Druids to Mail, or something like that, but I think it's more likely we'll just rely on personal loot and perhaps see leather drop more often in raids using other loot styles.

Weapons:

Daggers, Fist Weapons, One-handed maces/swords/axes.

This all seems about right. Daggers in particular are a good move, as currently only Rogues can use agility daggers.

Resource:

Energy - though I suspect that they'll either have a secondary "Fury" bar or that's just a placeholder.

Demon Hunters also make use of their special blindsight, which should have interesting implications in PvP (though it'll likely be negligible in PvE.)

Legion Looks Like "Everything You've Been Waiting For" : The Expansion - Reactions to the Reveal and Unanswered Questions

Let's take a look at everything here:

Demon Hunters

The big fight against the Legion (though we don't know who the final boss will be, but with Archimonde as the previous one, it almost has to be Sargeras, doesn't it?)

The Emerald Nightmare - both a dungeon and a raid.

Class quests are more or less going to be central to the expansion.

I think the only reason I'm not giddily jumping for joy is that I'm kind of in shock (well, and I'm somewhat jaded and worried that some of these ideas aren't going to be followed-through on.) This could be the biggest expansion to date. Obviously, the patch cycle of the expansion is what matters, but this is definitely a bold move by Blizzard. They are pulling out all the stops, and going all in to make an expansion that they hope will restore the glory of WoW.

Now, there will still be plots left to deal with after this, but this feels pretty damn climactic.

We got a relatively big power point presentation on some of the biggest features, but there are still a ton of questions left to answer.

For one: they never came out and said explicitly that Demon Hunters would only be available to Elves. Still, the backstory on them does seem pretty restrictive, as your character will be a member of the Illidari. You could arguably fit Draenei and Orcs into that category (though only Broken Draenei were members, and the Fel Horde wasn't really in the inner circle as it were.)

We also don't know some of the nitty gritty of how Demon Hunters will work. They'll apparently use a resource called Fury, with some abilities granting it and others spending it. We don't know what kind of weapons they'll be able to use - even if the Artifact Weapons will presumably make that a moot issue during Legion, what happens afterward and what happens if they go back to do something like a Timewalker dungeon is kind of left up in the air.

Also, what type of armor do they use? Demon Hunter-themed armor will be fairly revealing (so that you can show off your tattoos) but presumably once you're running dungeons and raids with people you'll be mixing and matching like everyone else.

We got a taste of a few of their abilities, but we still don't know the overall mechanics of their two specializations. With only one spec for dps and one for tanking, they'll both be able to be kind of purely the demon hunter way of doing that role, but we don't know precisely what that style is beyond being super-agile.

Also, we don't know exactly how Metamorphosis will play into the Demon Hunter playstyle. Also, I wonder if Demonology Warlocks will simply lose this mechanic or if they'll just retain their old version (it looks like no, which is a damn shame because I love it.)

What class color will be for Demon Hunters? Light purple? Fel-green?

On the subject of Artifact Weapons - I believe that those who dual-wield or use shields will be getting sets. Presumably we'll then just not get weapons drops from quests or instances, and instead focus on upgrading our weapons. I'm actually fine with that - it's the kind of VP-style power-earning that I want, and in the most crucial equipment slot to boot.

The big question for me then is about the few specs that use different kinds of weapons depending on style. I play a Frost Death Knight who uses a two-handed weapon. I don't really like the aesthetic of dual-wielding, at least for Death Knights. So does that mean I'll have to switch to Unholy? Will Fury Warriors have to go Titan's Grip or Single-Minded Fury based on Blizzard's call?

Also, given how it's a big quest chain that gets you your artifact weapon, how then do you deal with dual-specs? The solution might be simple - either just give you the weapon based on your spec and switch it when you switch specs or just make you do the quest for both weapons/weapon sets.

Also: The Survival Hunter weapon is a spear. Um... are they making Survival a Melee Spec? Might they make other specs change fighting position (like making Unholy DKs ranged?)

On Class Order Halls - will this be our major home, or will we be hanging out more in Dalaran? Also, will they do something to keep Dalalag from killing us?

What will future patches bring? Will we get more tiers than Warlords? Please say yes.

There are obviously a ton of things to talk about come Blizzcon, but they've certainly grabbed my attention. I really hope I'll get into the Beta and be able to try out Demon Hunters as soon as possible.