It is, granted, possible that these are awaiting changes, but I've done a bit of testing with Frost and Blood Death Knights and Havoc Demon Hunters and I can say that they feel mostly unchanged.
Starting with Havoc:
One welcome change is that Eye Beam will now deal double damage against a primary target, which should allow one of the most iconic Demon Hunter abilities to be used in single-target encounters. There are some new talents and some that have been shifted around. You can still opt for Fel Blade and then make Demon Bite into the passive Demon Blades talent, which is how I currently run my DH.
Demon Hunters also now place a debuff with their attacks on the target that increases magic damage taken by 5%. This ought to apply to all your Chaos Damage abilities, and is essentially the raid buff you bring.
Now Frost:
Frost is almost entirely unchanged. The one thing that makes it feel a bit different is that, now that most cooldowns are on the GCD, if you're running Obliteration, you'll need to take two solid global cooldowns to get Pillar of Frost and Obliteration running.
Blood:
Similarly, Blood's changes are very subtle - the main thing is that Bone Shield now increases armor proportionately to your strength rather than simply reducing damage taken. Beyond that, though, it's mostly familiar.
If anything, the main oddity in all of this is going from epic Argus/Antorus gear and artifact weapons to a bunch of green gear. I suspect that when we take our characters into the new zones, even without artifacts, they should feel a lot more powerful than the premade characters available on the Alpha.
We also have yet to see how the Heart of Azeroth - essentially the universal "artifact necklace" of the expansion - is going to work. Currently, certain quests reward Azerite, which levels up the necklace, though for now it's just a boost to item level.
It's pretty early alpha though, so we'll have to see how things develop.
Saturday, March 24, 2018
Demonology in BFA
After Demon Hunters took Metamorphosis, Demonology needed a big redesign from its Mists/Warlords incarnation. The focus thus shifted to, rather than transforming into a demon, instead summoning large swarms of demons (to be fair, Wild Imps were already a thing as of Mists if I recall correctly, though they were gained in a different way.)
In BFA, that theme is still central, but with some shifts. Probably the biggest thing is that you won't have Demonic Empowerment anymore - with the exception of your big 1.5 minute cooldown, once a demon is out, it's out. No handing out tickets anymore!
But there are other changes, so let's break it down:
Your two big rotational summoning abilities are still Hand of Gul'dan and Call Dreadstalkers, but the former now consumes a maximum of three soul shards, down from four, with the corresponding number of imps summoned.
Shadow Bolt is still your big filler ability, but you also now have Demonbolt. This functions a bit more like the old Soulfire spell. It has a very long cast time, but there is a proc that will make it instant-cast. The spell does a burst of damage and grants you two soul shards.
That proc, called Demonic Core, can occur when your temporary demons expire. Your dreadstalkers will always give you procs, and each Wild Imp has a 10% chance to give you a proc.
What this means is that, if you're lucky, your Imps will give you a positive feedback loop, allowing you to cast more Hands of Gul'dan.
You also get Implosion baseline, and I'll confess I'm not entirely sure how to use it best. This spell has all your Imps charge the target and explode, each dealing damage. However, since this kills them, I don't know if it also prevents them from proccing Demonic Core.
So what is cut?
Well, Doom is now a talent, so it's opt-in. Demonic Empowerment is totally gone, as is Demonwrath. This means that I believe Hand of Gul'dan and Implosion are your only AoE spells. If Imploded imps can proc Demonic Core, I imagine Implosion will be a good use for them in comparison to the single-target firebolts they shoot off when in AoE situations.
The big demon summons - Doomguards and Infernals - are now restricted to a single spec each, with Doomguards going to Affliction and Infernals to Destruction. This means Demonology actually gets its own big summon: Demonic Tyrant. This guy will buff your existing demons to allow them to last longer and also increases new demons' damage while simultaneously shooting shadow damage at your target. The Tyrant looks like one of the souped-up Eredar like Khaza'duum on Argus.
There are also talents that add more demons to summon. Bilescourge Bombers gives you a ground-targeted AoE (a kind of rain of fire, except it's felbats instead.) There's also a talent that causes you to occasionally summon an additional random demon, which is pretty fun as they seem to use just about any demon model - I've seen Shivarrah, Wrathguards, those weird Fel-bird-bug things you sometimes see in the central road in Mac'aree, those two-headed eye demons from Netherstorm, the demonic fel dogs from Tirisfal Glades... I suspect it's a long list, even if they're probably mechanically the same.
My basic sense of the spec is that it's a bit faster-paced, but perhaps any given demon doesn't deal quite as much damage (though I'm also experiencing the loss of the artifact weapon and the lack of awesome gear from Argus, so maybe I'm being unfair.)
Again, I really need to figure out Implosion, but I think that once I'm used to it, this will turn out to be a big improvement to the spec (really, does anyone like Demonic Empowerment?)
In BFA, that theme is still central, but with some shifts. Probably the biggest thing is that you won't have Demonic Empowerment anymore - with the exception of your big 1.5 minute cooldown, once a demon is out, it's out. No handing out tickets anymore!
But there are other changes, so let's break it down:
Your two big rotational summoning abilities are still Hand of Gul'dan and Call Dreadstalkers, but the former now consumes a maximum of three soul shards, down from four, with the corresponding number of imps summoned.
Shadow Bolt is still your big filler ability, but you also now have Demonbolt. This functions a bit more like the old Soulfire spell. It has a very long cast time, but there is a proc that will make it instant-cast. The spell does a burst of damage and grants you two soul shards.
That proc, called Demonic Core, can occur when your temporary demons expire. Your dreadstalkers will always give you procs, and each Wild Imp has a 10% chance to give you a proc.
What this means is that, if you're lucky, your Imps will give you a positive feedback loop, allowing you to cast more Hands of Gul'dan.
You also get Implosion baseline, and I'll confess I'm not entirely sure how to use it best. This spell has all your Imps charge the target and explode, each dealing damage. However, since this kills them, I don't know if it also prevents them from proccing Demonic Core.
So what is cut?
Well, Doom is now a talent, so it's opt-in. Demonic Empowerment is totally gone, as is Demonwrath. This means that I believe Hand of Gul'dan and Implosion are your only AoE spells. If Imploded imps can proc Demonic Core, I imagine Implosion will be a good use for them in comparison to the single-target firebolts they shoot off when in AoE situations.
The big demon summons - Doomguards and Infernals - are now restricted to a single spec each, with Doomguards going to Affliction and Infernals to Destruction. This means Demonology actually gets its own big summon: Demonic Tyrant. This guy will buff your existing demons to allow them to last longer and also increases new demons' damage while simultaneously shooting shadow damage at your target. The Tyrant looks like one of the souped-up Eredar like Khaza'duum on Argus.
There are also talents that add more demons to summon. Bilescourge Bombers gives you a ground-targeted AoE (a kind of rain of fire, except it's felbats instead.) There's also a talent that causes you to occasionally summon an additional random demon, which is pretty fun as they seem to use just about any demon model - I've seen Shivarrah, Wrathguards, those weird Fel-bird-bug things you sometimes see in the central road in Mac'aree, those two-headed eye demons from Netherstorm, the demonic fel dogs from Tirisfal Glades... I suspect it's a long list, even if they're probably mechanically the same.
My basic sense of the spec is that it's a bit faster-paced, but perhaps any given demon doesn't deal quite as much damage (though I'm also experiencing the loss of the artifact weapon and the lack of awesome gear from Argus, so maybe I'm being unfair.)
Again, I really need to figure out Implosion, but I think that once I'm used to it, this will turn out to be a big improvement to the spec (really, does anyone like Demonic Empowerment?)
Friday, March 23, 2018
Drustvar First Impressions
One of the first zones to open up for Alliance characters in the BFA alpha, Drustvar is something I've been wanting for a very long time - a high level version of the spooky woods. We've gotten zones of a similar sort before - think Duskwood, Tirisfal Glades (and actually quite a bit of the Forsaken-themed zones.) But this is one that will benefit from modern quest design and looks to be quite the large zone (this seems true of all the BFA zones, as there are only three per continent.)
I don't know if this is indicative of the general design philosophy of the expansion, but my sense is that Drustvar is very much about having small, branching quest chains off the main path.
Tonally, I love the zone, though I'm sort of regretting that I went with the very-changed Demonology Warlock to first experience it, as I have to sort of split my attention between the quests and learning all the changes to the spec's rhythm and priorities (Implosion is baseline now, and I really haven't figured out how to use it yet.) I'd love to be able to copy over my actual characters.
Anyway, Drustvar really dials up the spooky fairy tale vibe to 11. The main villains seem to be a coven of witches who have drawn in many of the area's residents. The introduction to the zone is really cool - you find a town entirely frozen by some kind of curse, and all the animals have become hostile. This seems to be all about gradually uncovering the mystery of the witches - who they are, why they are doing what they are doing, and where they're getting their power. It's not quite the Castlevania-gothic look of Black Rook Hold, but instead goes for the fairy-tale creepiness factor. As an example, there's a side quest where you find a village that has been entirely massacred except for a creepily cheerful child, and you have to play along with her plans to have a tea party while you find the corpses of various villagers.
I'm only about a third through the zone, and I'm contemplating doing it on a Death Knight instead.
I don't know if this is indicative of the general design philosophy of the expansion, but my sense is that Drustvar is very much about having small, branching quest chains off the main path.
Tonally, I love the zone, though I'm sort of regretting that I went with the very-changed Demonology Warlock to first experience it, as I have to sort of split my attention between the quests and learning all the changes to the spec's rhythm and priorities (Implosion is baseline now, and I really haven't figured out how to use it yet.) I'd love to be able to copy over my actual characters.
Anyway, Drustvar really dials up the spooky fairy tale vibe to 11. The main villains seem to be a coven of witches who have drawn in many of the area's residents. The introduction to the zone is really cool - you find a town entirely frozen by some kind of curse, and all the animals have become hostile. This seems to be all about gradually uncovering the mystery of the witches - who they are, why they are doing what they are doing, and where they're getting their power. It's not quite the Castlevania-gothic look of Black Rook Hold, but instead goes for the fairy-tale creepiness factor. As an example, there's a side quest where you find a village that has been entirely massacred except for a creepily cheerful child, and you have to play along with her plans to have a tea party while you find the corpses of various villagers.
I'm only about a third through the zone, and I'm contemplating doing it on a Death Knight instead.
Battle for Azeroth Alpha
I've just received an invite to the Alpha for Battle for Azeroth! More details to follow.
It seems clear that the line between alpha and beta is blurring significantly, as I doubt that this humble blog is enough to really make me a gaming news source.
The plan, I think, is that I will take at least one Alliance and one Horde character through the new zones, though I will probably also roll additional characters to ensure that I get a good look at mechanics.
I don't know if I'll do copied-over characters or just 110 premades, in which case I think I'll probably use the allied races to give them a time to shine.
Pretty excited, as I was in the Mists and Warlords betas, but never got into the Legion one.
It seems clear that the line between alpha and beta is blurring significantly, as I doubt that this humble blog is enough to really make me a gaming news source.
The plan, I think, is that I will take at least one Alliance and one Horde character through the new zones, though I will probably also roll additional characters to ensure that I get a good look at mechanics.
I don't know if I'll do copied-over characters or just 110 premades, in which case I think I'll probably use the allied races to give them a time to shine.
Pretty excited, as I was in the Mists and Warlords betas, but never got into the Legion one.
Thursday, March 22, 2018
Paladin Rams and... Single-Headed Core Hounds!?
There were originally only two races who could be Paladins: Humans and Dwarves. In the early days of WoW, getting a mount was a pretty huge gold investment. Paladins and Warlocks were at a huge advantage: first off, their class mounts wouldn't take up inventory space, and second off, there was a far smaller gold cost to getting your mounts.
When Blood Elves were introduced, giving the Horde their first Paladins, they decided to give them something to distinguish their class features a bit. At the time, all Shamans used the model that Tauren currently use for totems, but Draenei got their distinctive crystal/stone totems. Similarly, Blood Elves got a recolor of the Warhorse and Charger, swapping out the gold/blue colors for bronze/red. At the time, though, Draenei, Dwarves, and Humans all used the standard, vanilla Warhorse/Charger.
When Cataclysm gave Tauren Paladins, they got a new pair of Paladin Kodo mounts, and at the same time, Draenei got their Paladin Elekk mounts. These were new models. But while Humans could rather naturally hold onto their Horse models (that being the standard human mount anyway,) Dwarves had to share.
There is some logic to this: Paladins of different races belong to different orders, with Blood Elves being Blood Knights, Draenei being Vindicators, and Tauren being Sunwalkers. Humans and Dwarves are both Knights of the Silver Hand, so you could imagine the standard charger is a Silver Hand mount.
But that's kind of broken down, especially given that all those orders unified into a new iteration of the Silver Hand in Legion. Now, with Dark Iron Dwarves being added, we're getting a special Paladin Ram mount - or rather, we're getting two.
It looks like standard Dwarves will get a gold/blue-barded ram while Dark Irons will get a black/red one.
What's interesting here is that Lightforged Draenei use the standard Exarch's Elekk and Grand Exarch's Elekk models, shared by the standard Draenei. But I suppose that as long as they were coming up with a new model for Dwarf Paladins, it wasn't that difficult to recolor them for Dark Irons.
But wait, there's more!
With the exception of the Highmountain Tauren, the allied races have had variants of their "base race" mounts - Void Elves get a Hawkstrider, Nightborne get a cat, Lightforged Draenei get an Elekk. Zandalari get a raptor, and Mag'har Orcs get a wolf. It appears, however, that Dark Irons Dwarves will instead get a Core Hound. However, unlike every other core hound we've seen, these look like they will be one-headed, which simultaneously looks weird for anyone who's played WoW in the last 14 years and maybe less weird for someone who wouldn't automatically assume that some kind of elemental beast ought to have two heads.
In terms of mounts, this leaves only Kul Tiran humans' racial mount unknown. There's of course a good chance it will just be a kind of horse, though there's a part of me that hopes it's some kind of weird sea creature. Granted, I'm probably going to make a KT Druid, in which case I'm more curious about its travel form (if it's anything like the bear form I'm pretty stoked.)
When Blood Elves were introduced, giving the Horde their first Paladins, they decided to give them something to distinguish their class features a bit. At the time, all Shamans used the model that Tauren currently use for totems, but Draenei got their distinctive crystal/stone totems. Similarly, Blood Elves got a recolor of the Warhorse and Charger, swapping out the gold/blue colors for bronze/red. At the time, though, Draenei, Dwarves, and Humans all used the standard, vanilla Warhorse/Charger.
When Cataclysm gave Tauren Paladins, they got a new pair of Paladin Kodo mounts, and at the same time, Draenei got their Paladin Elekk mounts. These were new models. But while Humans could rather naturally hold onto their Horse models (that being the standard human mount anyway,) Dwarves had to share.
There is some logic to this: Paladins of different races belong to different orders, with Blood Elves being Blood Knights, Draenei being Vindicators, and Tauren being Sunwalkers. Humans and Dwarves are both Knights of the Silver Hand, so you could imagine the standard charger is a Silver Hand mount.
But that's kind of broken down, especially given that all those orders unified into a new iteration of the Silver Hand in Legion. Now, with Dark Iron Dwarves being added, we're getting a special Paladin Ram mount - or rather, we're getting two.
It looks like standard Dwarves will get a gold/blue-barded ram while Dark Irons will get a black/red one.
What's interesting here is that Lightforged Draenei use the standard Exarch's Elekk and Grand Exarch's Elekk models, shared by the standard Draenei. But I suppose that as long as they were coming up with a new model for Dwarf Paladins, it wasn't that difficult to recolor them for Dark Irons.
But wait, there's more!
With the exception of the Highmountain Tauren, the allied races have had variants of their "base race" mounts - Void Elves get a Hawkstrider, Nightborne get a cat, Lightforged Draenei get an Elekk. Zandalari get a raptor, and Mag'har Orcs get a wolf. It appears, however, that Dark Irons Dwarves will instead get a Core Hound. However, unlike every other core hound we've seen, these look like they will be one-headed, which simultaneously looks weird for anyone who's played WoW in the last 14 years and maybe less weird for someone who wouldn't automatically assume that some kind of elemental beast ought to have two heads.
In terms of mounts, this leaves only Kul Tiran humans' racial mount unknown. There's of course a good chance it will just be a kind of horse, though there's a part of me that hopes it's some kind of weird sea creature. Granted, I'm probably going to make a KT Druid, in which case I'm more curious about its travel form (if it's anything like the bear form I'm pretty stoked.)
Professions Revamp in BFA
The short version:
Professions in Battle for Azeroth are going to be reworked in the following way: You'll have a separate skill level for each expansion's content, going up to 100. The great part of this is that if you've been neglecting your professions while leveling up (or just found it hard to keep up without farming or buying materials on the auction house,) you'll get a soft reset each time you go to a new continent. The perhaps less good part is that you won't be getting skill levels that are useful for old content by doing new content.
In Legion, with few exceptions for "prestige" items like mounts and such, skill level was sort of irrelevant - you had a quest chain to learn most recipes, and you could easily take, say, your Demon Hunter, and get them skilled up from 1 entirely in Broken Isles content.
Being able to effectively mine, gather herbs, or skin at a low skill level, as well as having recipes that skilled you up quickly and effectively, made professions much less of a pain in Legion. On the flip side, because none of it was skill-based, it did mean that you would need to perform quest tasks to fill out your recipe list, and some recipes were hidden behind infuriatingly rare drop rates (I still haven't gotten by Broken Isles teleporter recipe.)
I'm curious to see how BFA handles skill levels in its future content. Presumably we'll see a Wrath-era recipe that previously required a skill of 400 will now require 25, as Wrath's profession range was originally 375-450 (or maybe 350-450, as I think they started having a catch-up overlap in Wrath.)
What this means is that you might not be able to get all your BFA recipes without crafting anything, but the fact that we're effectively all starting at Kul Tiras/Zandalar skill 1 means that new alts and old mains are going to be on even footing going in.
Catching up on professions has been a huge issue with the game since they started releasing expansions. They've done some interesting experiments to try to fix this issue - personally, teleporter notwithstanding, I've liked the way it's been handled in Legion. But this is a pretty radical redesign. It makes me think of the way that Cataclsym saw a serious rework of talent points before Mists just threw out the old system and implemented the new one.
I suspect that in the long run, professions are going to feel more or less the same, but this should make it less of a pain for your Mag'har Rogue to work on her alchemy skill while leveling up through Pandaria.
Professions in Battle for Azeroth are going to be reworked in the following way: You'll have a separate skill level for each expansion's content, going up to 100. The great part of this is that if you've been neglecting your professions while leveling up (or just found it hard to keep up without farming or buying materials on the auction house,) you'll get a soft reset each time you go to a new continent. The perhaps less good part is that you won't be getting skill levels that are useful for old content by doing new content.
In Legion, with few exceptions for "prestige" items like mounts and such, skill level was sort of irrelevant - you had a quest chain to learn most recipes, and you could easily take, say, your Demon Hunter, and get them skilled up from 1 entirely in Broken Isles content.
Being able to effectively mine, gather herbs, or skin at a low skill level, as well as having recipes that skilled you up quickly and effectively, made professions much less of a pain in Legion. On the flip side, because none of it was skill-based, it did mean that you would need to perform quest tasks to fill out your recipe list, and some recipes were hidden behind infuriatingly rare drop rates (I still haven't gotten by Broken Isles teleporter recipe.)
I'm curious to see how BFA handles skill levels in its future content. Presumably we'll see a Wrath-era recipe that previously required a skill of 400 will now require 25, as Wrath's profession range was originally 375-450 (or maybe 350-450, as I think they started having a catch-up overlap in Wrath.)
What this means is that you might not be able to get all your BFA recipes without crafting anything, but the fact that we're effectively all starting at Kul Tiras/Zandalar skill 1 means that new alts and old mains are going to be on even footing going in.
Catching up on professions has been a huge issue with the game since they started releasing expansions. They've done some interesting experiments to try to fix this issue - personally, teleporter notwithstanding, I've liked the way it's been handled in Legion. But this is a pretty radical redesign. It makes me think of the way that Cataclsym saw a serious rework of talent points before Mists just threw out the old system and implemented the new one.
I suspect that in the long run, professions are going to feel more or less the same, but this should make it less of a pain for your Mag'har Rogue to work on her alchemy skill while leveling up through Pandaria.
Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Is Battle for Azeroth The Azshara Expansion?
In WoW's earlier expansions, the focus tended to revolve around a particular figure as its main antagonist. Burning Crusade focused largely on Illidan, having us face off against his allies before plunging into the Black Temple. Legion did give us a different perspective on all of this, of course, and Illidan's ultimate role is heroic, albeit very far on the anti-hero side of the scale. Wrath was all about Arthas, and Cataclysm built toward the confrontation with Deathwing.
Every expansion has a final boss, of course, but the more recent expansions have tended to be less about individuals than movements - Garrosh was the ultimate warmongering conqueror in an expansion about how imperialism could disturb the balance in existing societies. Archimonde was indicative of the ultimate fate of the Horde should it continue its aggressive ways (I'll grant this one was less obvious - I think Gul'dan would have made a better final boss for Warlords,) and Argus the Unmaker was an expression of Sargeras' plans for the universe - all the power of the Titans, but dedicated to destruction and death (though in this one as well I'd argue he was kind of a stand-in so that Blizzard can still keep a full-fledged Sargeras fight in their back pocket.)
Around the time of Wrath, prior to the announcement of Cataclysm, a few names were bandied around as possible villains for future expansions. Deathwing was, actually, one of the top characters on that list, so when the expansion was announced people weren't terribly surprised. But another figure in that tier was always Azshara.
In BFA, we know that we will fight, and presumably kill, Azshara, as she has been announced as a raid boss in the expansion. The question, however, is at what point we'll be doing so.
Take Xavius for example: Blizzard always warned players that they didn't think an Emerald Nightmare expansion would work, given how it's just a reflection of the physical world. But I think many figured they would eventually change their minds. Xavius was an established character and with the fleshing-out that characters always get when they're focused on, he might have carried an expansion. Instead, he got a rather memorable turn as the first final raid boss in Legion.
The question that I have is whether Azshara is going to go the way of Xavius or Cho'gall - established characters killed off early in an expansion - or if she will remain a major threat throughout.
Some spoilers from the Alpha to follow:
Every expansion has a final boss, of course, but the more recent expansions have tended to be less about individuals than movements - Garrosh was the ultimate warmongering conqueror in an expansion about how imperialism could disturb the balance in existing societies. Archimonde was indicative of the ultimate fate of the Horde should it continue its aggressive ways (I'll grant this one was less obvious - I think Gul'dan would have made a better final boss for Warlords,) and Argus the Unmaker was an expression of Sargeras' plans for the universe - all the power of the Titans, but dedicated to destruction and death (though in this one as well I'd argue he was kind of a stand-in so that Blizzard can still keep a full-fledged Sargeras fight in their back pocket.)
Around the time of Wrath, prior to the announcement of Cataclysm, a few names were bandied around as possible villains for future expansions. Deathwing was, actually, one of the top characters on that list, so when the expansion was announced people weren't terribly surprised. But another figure in that tier was always Azshara.
In BFA, we know that we will fight, and presumably kill, Azshara, as she has been announced as a raid boss in the expansion. The question, however, is at what point we'll be doing so.
Take Xavius for example: Blizzard always warned players that they didn't think an Emerald Nightmare expansion would work, given how it's just a reflection of the physical world. But I think many figured they would eventually change their minds. Xavius was an established character and with the fleshing-out that characters always get when they're focused on, he might have carried an expansion. Instead, he got a rather memorable turn as the first final raid boss in Legion.
The question that I have is whether Azshara is going to go the way of Xavius or Cho'gall - established characters killed off early in an expansion - or if she will remain a major threat throughout.
Some spoilers from the Alpha to follow:
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