Dragonriding

 Today, sorting through the vast number of things to do when you hit max level (or, in fact, just finishing the main quest campaign, which I did at level 68) I decided to try getting all the Dragonriding Glyphs. It turns out it's not all that difficult. There are a couple in Azure Span whose locations are not super obvious (Riverfork Crossing is not, as you might imagine, at a place where a river forks).

But I think I've now gotten the hang of dragonflying - especially once you've got the glyphs to invest heavily in it. The key is to maintain momentum - you want the buff that you get when you go very fast, with blue energy around your mount's wings. There are skills that cause you to regenerate Vigor (the resource that you spend on movement abilities) when you have this buff, meaning you don't have to land to regenerate it. What I've realized is that ultimately, you want to build up to this buff early on, and then you'll have enough speed to keep boosting yourself up (and thus get more momentum on your way down) or giving yourself a speed boost.

Now, I can actually climb more or less indefinitely if I'm careful - the bottom tier of the dragonriding skills causes the Thrill of Flight buff (or whatever it's called) to regenerate a vigor every 5 seconds - fast enough that you will be able to stay aloft pretty easily.

Blizzard has thoughtfully made this skill acquisition account-wide. You only have to find these glyphs once, and you get all the skills from the campaign quests (that reward the four mounts, which are also account-wide) on all your characters, so you should be able to take to the skies with aplomb the moment you come ashore.

It's a ton of fun, and I hope we'll see more mount customization over the course of the expansion.

God of War Ragnarok

 So, my Christmas present arrived about a month early - my family collaborated to get me a PS5, bundled with a code for God of War Ragnarok. As it stands, I'm thus inundated with games to play, but I've been trying out the new game (and also checking out how Elden Ring looks on the PS5 - my biggest takeaway is that the lighting is way more impressive, which is more important than you'd think until you see the difference.)

Anyway, I played the original God of War back in 2005/2006, having heard how amazing it was, and was, frankly, a little underwhelmed. However, the Norse revamp of the series, after the original trilogy saw Kratos destroy basically the entire Greek Pantheon, was a fascinating exercise in both changing the look and feel of the game (taking the action to an over-the-shoulder 3rd person rather than a carefully-choreographed camera) and also evolving thematically.

God of War Ragnarok is certainly not once again reinventing the series - it plays very similarly to the un-numbered fourth game (meaning that the two other games in the series I own are both simply named "God of War.") However, at least so far, the game feels more assured. There was a bit of sameiness in the previous entry in terms of creature design and environments, and here, things feel a little more varied.

There are muscle-memory issues to deal with after playing Elden Ring so much (I also got the Demon's Souls remake on sale, but haven't yet played that,) and I think the tighter camera, while great for the look of the game, does sometimes make it easy to get overwhelmed by foes (Kratos turns a tad too slowly).

Once again, menacing gods are showing up at Kratos and Atreus' house, though this time the introductory fight is with Thor - who is mythologically accurate with his giant gut and red hair, and really puts you through your paces (your "victory" against him is just survival - it's not fun getting hit with Mjolnir, even if your Leviathan Axe was made by the same dwarves).

So far I've had an extended journey through Svartalfheim/Nidavelir, and I'm now doing stuff in Alfheim, which of course we saw in the previous game. In fact, I think Alfheim looks a lot better this go around - somehow the design of the dark elves we fought in the previous game felt kind of PS2-era in design, while so far, the experience in Alfheim has felt a lot more modern.

Thematically, we once again return to Kratos' efforts to be a good father to his son, who is growing more rebellious and independent. The Father/Son dynamic is naturally a rich well from which to draw thematic relevance, and how appropriate, then, that the main villain is Odin, the All-Father - played recognizably (the model is based on the actor) by Richard Schiff. Kratos wants his son to be strong, courageous, and better than he was, but he recognizes in Atreus a lot of the careless anger and inability to see the longterm consequences of his actions. Kratos is unable to play a truly sensitive nurturer, but strives toward something that can put his son on the right track.

In the midst of all of this, due to the events of the last game (and spoilers if you know your Norse myth,) the Fimbulwinter has begun. Midgard, where Kratos and Atreus make their home, is blanketed in perpetual snow, but we also see how other realms are affected in their own ways. The realms also give us the opportunity to get some visual variation - while Midgard is in its perpetual winter, Svartalfheim is a land of geothermic pools - and is suffering from frequent earthquakes (not great for a place where the dwarves often work in mines).

Indeed, we revisit a few locations from the previous game, though in general, the conditions have been changed enough to make them feel like very different environments - the temple of Tyr, which serves as a hub in the previous game to go between realms, is now frozen over. Kratos is also no longer hiding the Blades of Chaos under the floorboards of his house. They are now prominently on display, and you get access to them relatively early compared to the last game. There are some skills you can learn that encourage you to swap between the blades and the axe frequently in combat.

And the combat is fun, even if I feel a little spoiled by From Soft's approach. Once again, as you level up, you can gain additional moves, and it can be very satisfying when you get enough of a hit combo that your weapon glows with its given element and you start really carving through foes (also, as always, there are a number of brutal finishing moves you can do after you've stunned a foe, which Atreus can help you do much faster if you remember to use Square to pummel enemies with arrows.

But also, playing this I'm reminded that these have always been puzzle games with combat interstitials. NPCs will often comment on Kratos' seeming attention deficit, though Atreus will defend him by explaining that his father likes to find out-of-the-way loot (Kratos, naturally, would never bother to explain his actions).

Now that I've fully stepped into the PS5 era, I'm looking forward to all the new games (or even 2... or 3? year old games) coming out. I've got the Demon's Souls remake (never played the original) and I'm planning on seeing if I can just upgrade my digital Final Fantasy VII Remake with the "intergrade" DLC.

Holy Crap is Gix Good

 The early days of the Brother's War release I'd been on a bit of a losing streak. A lot of the exciting new decks people were talking about - Azorius Soldiers, an Izzet Prowess deck - were letting me down. While I really enjoy my Mono Red Powerstone deck, I've been thwarted in getting to actually ramp up (usually by hard control decks that counter absolutely everything and those very same prowess decks that never work for me).

But then, I decided to embrace my dark side.

Historically, Black has been my favorite Magic color, ever since I pulled a Royal Assassin out of my very first Revised Edition 60-card starter back in 1994. (Technically my second MTG purchase, as I had also gotten a Fallen Empires booster pack before I understood that I would not be able to do anything with it on its own).

This deck is a race-to-zero deck that is all about burning everything down, yourself included. The best card is Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor, which is a 3/3 for IBB (already pretty decent - remember how getting a creature with power and toughness for its mana value was generally something only green and white got to do? Scathe Zombies was a vanilla 2/2 for 2B). Gix has a triggered ability, which is that when you deal combat damage to a player with a creature, you can pay 1 life to draw a card. The more creatures you swing in with, the more cards you can draw.

Aggro's big challenge is usually running out of steam when you get into the main game, but I just won a game with more cards in hand than an Azorius control deck.

Gix actually has a very expensive activated ability that I don't even remember what it does because that first one is good enough. (Ok, it's 4BBB: Discard X cards and exile the top X cards from your opponent's library, which you can play (lands or spells) without paying their mana costs - really good if you can get it off (maybe using power stones) but we want to kill the opponent before we'd get 7 mana to play with).

Obviously, we use some standard aggressive black creatures - Tenacious Underdog is an obvious inclusion here. Graveyard Tresspasser is always good (and nice to use against graveyard shenanigans decks).

However, on theme with this is Defiler of Flesh. Like all the Defilers, this lets you treat one black mana symbol in any permanent spell as Phyrexian mana, which you can pay with 2 life instead of one black. Also, when you play such a card, you can give one of your creatures +1/+1 and menace until the end of turn.

Now, you combine this with all the cards we're drawing from Gix and then making our creatures better at getting to the opponent, and you get a feedback loop where you can get more things into play than your lands should allow. This thing's a 4/4 body for 4 mana, which is pretty good value. Also, multiple Defilers can convert multiple mana symbols, so, for example, your Tenacious Underdog can come in for 2 mana if you're willing to pay 4 life.

Again, this is a high-risk deck. You want to end things ASAP because you're going to be reducing your life total (ideally) faster than your opponent is. But it does two things that feel great as a magic player - it fills your hand with cards and lets you play those cards when you've drawn them.

Right now I don't have Sheoldred in it, because I'm trying to keep things relatively cheap, but I might swap her in for some others to give this more sustain (indeed, Gix actually winds up netting you positive life if Sheoldred is out). I think I have Henrika Domnathal, who does have her uses (the "sacrifice a creature" option is helpful to deal with a beefy defender).

I also have Ashnod, Flesh Mechanist, though I don't know if she's the right fit. Basically, she's a useful 1-drop with Deathtouch - a good combo with Gix because players will let her deal her 1 damage rather than lose a creature. But I haven't made use of her sacrifice trigger or her graveyard exiling to make minions - we usually have plenty of cards as it is to put creatures in the field, and we don't have the mana to spare for her ability.

Anyway, it's a fun deck and I've been racking up wins with it.

Primal Storms, Uldaman Redux, and Dragonflight's Launch Event

 Dragonflight launches on the 28th, but this Tuesday the pre-launch event proper has begun.

There are three major elements to this event:

Dracthyr Evokers Playable:

This is certainly the biggest one. After the longest gap we've ever gone without getting a new class, the Evoker is here. I'm still skeptical that all Dracthyr need to be Evokers - I think there's plenty of lore to justify other classes, like Warriors - but after we got no new class in BFA or Shadowlands, we're finally getting a new one, making this the fourth new class and third Hero Class. It is also, notably, the very first ranged DPS spec they have added to the game (Survival Hunters were kinda-melee, kinda-ranged early on, before becoming firmly ranged around BC or Wrath, and then firmly melee in Legion).

Evokers start at level 58, with a unique starting experience similar to the Death Knight (well, pre-Mists DK) and Demon Hunter. As the second neutral race, unlike the Pandaren, Dracthyr simply choose their side at character creation.

At least in this level 60 stage, the Evoker seems quite strong, though you need to get used to its unconventional rotation and its unique 25-yard range (as opposed to most ranged characters, who get a 40-yard range). Though this has been the case for Monks and Demon Hunters, once again there's a strong emphasis on mobility - the lower range on their spells is made up for by the excellent "Hover" ability, which gives you a boost forward and also lets you cast some of your spells while moving for a few seconds.

The starting experience is not super-long, and should familiarize you with the base abilities, though you will not get any talents (I sort of wish that it worked the way the Death Knight intro did back in the day, giving you one or two talent points with each quest you completed).

Primal Storms:

This is the big bread-and-butter element of the pre-launch. Ultimately, this is, I think, somewhat mid-tier. It's something to do, but basically you'll be sitting around in the Badlands, Northern Barrens, or Un'goro Crater fighting elementals and various cultists to collect a currency that can be traded for 252 gear or a toy and a (relatively small, but better than nothing) reagent bag, which essentially works like the old profession bags except that it has its own dedicated bag slot.

The invasions come with a random element, which means elementals that have different abilities. The only real annoying thing here is that only the elites appear to be open-tap, meaning you're best off just avoiding hitting anything other than them. There's a daily quest here that will get you more of that currency to buy gear with. Periodically, an extra-powerful elemental will show up that attacks after you kill enough of the other creatures near it. These bosses can drop a shard of their element where, once you collect all four, you can turn them into a new heirloom trinket.

I believe these scale with level, so you can also use this to level up alts.

A bit of a far cry from the excellent Legion invasions, but a good way to practice new rotations.

Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr:

Thankfully, Blizzard now seems to like to do revamp dungeons without getting rid of the old one. You'll be familiar with a lot of the rooms in this updated Uldaman, which has been rebuilt with high-resolution graphics and also streamlined so that it's harder to get lost.

The bosses here drop 278 gear, and you get a quest early on that will award a 278 weapon for completing the dungeon. It's easy enough that most groups will plow through it (obviously when we get to the actual dungeon at level 70, we might want to be more careful and actually learn how the bosses work.)

What was that? Learn how the bosses work? Ok, let's go through them:

The Lost Dwarves are back, and to be fair this fight I have less of a sense of all the little things, but basically they will, at certain health percentages, jump into their flying longboat and bombard the place. I think you're supposed to take them down together to avoid the later bombardment.

Next, in Ironaya's old room, we fight a Trogg chieftain. He summons adds periodically, as well as a big totem. Destroying the totem will stun all the troggs for several seconds.

Third is a sort of Titanforged Sethrak guardian. She will gain a stacking buff, and also puts down these sand traps on random players that will stun anyone who walks into them. The tank can run her through these to cause her to lose her buff stacks.

Fourth is, I want to say "Emberon," which is a stone golem. Several other golems around the room, which are not targetable, will shoot little balls of fire around the arena. Periodically (and with current gear, often he's dead before you hit this phase,) he'll go to the center of the room and create this rotating flame wall that will quickly kill people standing there. There are three golems who can now be attacked, so you want to burn them down quickly while keeping on the move to avoid the flame wall.

Finally, we have an Infinite Dragon who steals the information we went in here to find in the first place. He has a breath attack, so the tank should face him away from the party. The room fills up with weird time-pools, and periodically he "steals your time," so the party needs to run through these pools to get it back (before this phase, you'll take damage from them, I think.)

Anyway, it's relatively quick for now.

That more or less covers the event. We've got a little less than two weeks before the expansion proper launches, but for now, we can get back into the swing of things.

Finally Figuring Out the Evoker (Devastation)

 For I believe over a month now, the "Dragonflight Beta" has been open for everyone to create a level 70 Dracthyr Evoker, though you can't actually do stuff in the Dragon Isles.

Getting dumped into a level 70 class, especially with the new, complex talent system, can be a little difficult. But I've started to figure out how this thing works, at least at its most basic level.

The Devastation spec is the Evoker DPS spec, and thus likely to be the more popular of the two.

While you have mana as a resource, much as most casters (other than Arcane Mages) do these days, you don't really need to worry about it. Instead, you'll track a different resource: Essence. This takes the form of six little spheres below your mana bar, and actually works similarly to a Death Knight's runes (I haven't confirmed if it does the thing where only three can recharge at a time, but I believe it does). Essence regenerates over time, and so the rhythm here is that of alternating powerful spenders with filler spells.

Your bread-and-butter single target filler is Living Flame. This is actually both a damage and healing spell, depending on who you're targeting. It has a relatively short cast time and there are talents that will cause it to sometimes be instant-cast.

For cleave situations, there's Azure Strike, which is instant-cast and hits three targets. I believe there are times when you want to use this even in single target, though that's more of a strategy thing than an explicit design.

Both Living Flame and Azure Strike have talents that are triggered by them called Essence Burst, which make Disintegrate and Pyre free.

Your main single-target Essence spender is Disintegrate, which costs three Essence and channels a beam of destructive energy at the target.

For multiple targets, you can spend Essence on Pyre, which lobs a ball of fire at the target and splashes to hit anyone nearby. Like Azure Strike, this is instant-cast.

Eternity Surge is one of your main Empowered spells - you hold down the button (or hit it quickly once and then again to set it off) to scale it between levels 1 to 4. The levels of empowerment here actually only determine how many targets it hits, so on single targets, there's no reason to charge it up all the way. This does a big burst of arcane damage, and I think picks targets based on proximity. This has a 30-second cooldown, so you'll weave it in when it's up.

Fire Breath is another Empowered spell, and this one works kind of interestingly - it does a burst of fire damage in a cone and then puts a DoT on creatures it hits. However, charging it doesn't simply increase the damage. Instead, the longer you charge it, the more damage it does up front, and the shorter the DoT lasts. Essentially, it does the same amount of damage at any level of empowerment (or possibly slightly more at a lower empowerment) but you can pick between sustained damage or burst. On trash, for instance, you might choose to go for a full empowerment to burst enemies down quickly, but on a boss you might pick instead to do a low empowerment to keep the DoT ticking longer.

Dragonrage is your big 2-minute cooldown ability, and buffs your damage, while also doubling the chance to get the Essence Burst proc, and also shoots off several Pyres to start with.

Deep Breath is another 2-minute cooldown, which both does damage in the area and moves you to the targeted location, in a cool animation that has you do the classic dragon breath-strafe.

There are other abilities, but I think these are the basics you'll be using frequently and want easily accessible on your action bars.

Of note, Evokers don't get the 40-yard range of most ranged characters, instead fighting at 25 yards. This will make movement and positioning that much more important. Thankfully, your AoE abilities are mostly instant-cast, so you'll be able to keep up with the tanks and melee on a fast-moving dungeon run.

The nuances of various talents and passives, and other, more niche abilities are something I'll have to get more experience with the class in order to talk intelligently about it.

Subclass Levels in One D&D

 As someone whose first real class-based RPG was World of Warcraft (actually, I think it's technically Quest for Glory V, though those were always kind of adventure games with RPG elements) the idea of subclasses is pretty natural. In WoW, each class has three "specializations," which will significantly change the way you play (and is used to make some classes capable of performing the tank or healer role).

    (TANGENT: Actually, not every class has three specializations, or "specs." Druids initially had three, but when Mists of Pandaira, the fourth expansion, changed the way that the old talent trees worked, it was no longer feasible to separate the Melee DPS, Cat-form-focused version of the "Feral" tree and the Tank, Bear-form-focused version. So they just gave them a fourth spec, called Guardian, which focused on Bear form. Then, with Legion (expansion 6) they introduced the Demon Hunter, who only has one DPS and one Tank spec. On Tuesday, they'll add the Evoker, who has one DPS and one healing spec. Thus, while the average has been 3 since Legion, the average number of specs in WoW for each class is going below 3 for the first time ever.)

In 5th Edition, each class makes a choice at 1st, 2nd, or 3rd level (most at 3rd) to pick a subclass. While there are other choices to make, like Spells, Fighting Styles, and other nuanced options (Warlocks get a lot of these) this is the big one, which has a big impact both on your mechanics and your flavor.

In the Expert Classes UA, they announced that subclasses will now all get their features at the same levels - you'll pick yours at level 3 and get your first features, then get more at level 6, 10, and 14.

Notably, this was a big deal for the Bard given that previously, they only got subclass features at three levels.

The implications here are pretty big. Let's start with the big ones:

The first pretty huge thing is this means that multiclassing will require a bigger investment to grab subclass features. It's actually pretty easy to pick up some powerful effects with a single level dip in some cases - perhaps the most infamous being the Hexblade Warlock, which gives you weapon proficiencies and armor training, along with the ability to designate a (non-two-handed) weapon to use Charisma for its attacks. Now, getting any such features will require a three-level investment, which is not insignificant.

But, also, from a roleplaying point of view, I think it will be contingent on players and DMs to coordinate for those subclasses that have heavy lore implications. A Warlock, for example, has subclasses based on the patron with whom they formed a pact in the first place to have literally any of their power - at least that's how it's been explained in 5E so far. Rather than choosing a subclass at level 3, it seems like if you want to play it this way, you'll need to have in mind what you're going to play from the get-go if you want to be able to figure out a backstory with your DM.

There are three classes that currently get their subclass right away at level 1: the Warlock, Cleric, and Sorcerer. In each case, the person gets their power from something implied in their subclass. The Warlock, as discussed above, gets it from their patron. The sorcery subclasses, I'd say, tell a story of how you got those inherent magic powers. The Cleric is somewhat more flexible, but at the very least it implies that your powers derive from some deity that embodies the domain your subclass represents (though in my newly-begun Spelljammer campaign I'm running, the Trickster Cleric worships my God of Invention, Science, Knowledge, and the Stars - I'm allowing her to flavor it as trickery being a kind of inventiveness).

Now, I think you can work out a solution here, but it won't work for every backstory. I think the first two levels in each case might be a process of discovering the nature of your power's source. In the Cleric's case, it's easy enough to imagine that there are multiple orders amidst worshippers of your deity, and that you pick your domain by picking a priestly order - this is the easiest to pull off. In the case of the Sorcerer, it might be that the true nature of your powers doesn't really manifest itself until you've managed to unlock something about it. The Warlock... here I think we have the trickiest thing to deal with. It's easy enough to say that you were making a deal with someone whose nature you didn't fully understand, but that sort of forces you into a type of backstory you might not really want. It's a decent choice to make if you want to play a Warlock but don't have a strong sense of what subclass you want, but I think simply playing it as if your powers were always themed around your patron and just don't really manifest specific rules for it until level 3.

Currently, these are the levels at which each class gets its subclass features:

Artificer: 3, 5, 9, 15

Barbarian: 3, 6, 10, 14

Bard: 3, 6, 14

Cleric: 1, 2, 6, 8*, 17

Druid: 2, 6, 10, 14

Fighter: 3, 7, 10, 15, 18

Monk: 3, 6, 11, 17

Paladin: 3, 7, 15, 20

Ranger: 3, 7, 11, 15

Rogue: 3, 9, 13, 17

Sorcerer: 1, 6, 14, 18

Warlock: 1, 6, 10, 14

Wizard: 2, 6, 10, 14

*This is only Potent Spellcasting or Divine Strike, which you could argue is more of a class feature than subclass one.

So, as we can see, the Barbarian won't have to change where its subclass features come at all. The Druid and Wizard will only see their subclass choice bumped back to 3rd level, but the rest come at the same time. Artificers will push their middle two back and the last one up a level (though unless we get an updated Artificer, I don't think we'll need to change them).

But some classes - the Cleric, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, and Sorcerer, will no longer have a subclass feature that doesn't come online until tier 4. The Paladin in particular might need some revisiting, as their final subclass feature is simultaneously their capstone ability for the entire class. These take the form of "ultimates," usually letting the paladin go into some kind of super-mode. It actually makes for one of the better (maybe best, though I think "infinite rages" and "infinite wild shapes" might beat it out for sheer cackling joy) level 20 capstones. Of course, now, the old level 20 abilities come at level 18.

The Artificer (who, again, might not be affected by this) will likely feel not so great about this, given that two of the subclasses get their Extra Attack feature currently at level 5, along with all the martial classes (sans Rogues). Here, they're delayed by one level. To be fair, this is true of Bladesinger Wizards, College of Swords Bards, and College of Valor Bards, who get their second attack at 6. Still, those subclasses are kind of exceptional, whereas Battle Smiths and Armorers make up a full half of all Artificer subclasses, and thus you could argue that it's also a "martial" class.

As stated before, Bards get a new level in which to learn subclass features. Interestingly, none of their existing subclass levels have to shift - they just get something new at 10. Clerics and Fighters get 5 subclass feature levels, though. Now, Clerics always get either Potent Spellcasting or Divine Strike at level 8, so I sometimes argue that this is more of a class feature than a subclass feature. But Fighters do, truly, get subclass features at 5 different levels. Two of these could be shifted by one level, and then you'd just need to drop their 18th-level features.

I've also speculated on a drastic redesign of the Fighter to basically make everyone a Battle Master, and so I could imagine that subclasses would also need to be significantly redesigned with that in mind.

What remains to be seen is what we'll see reprinted and how it'll look. In the Expert Classes UA, we got the College of Lore, the Hunter, and the Thief, with promises that other subclasses for those classes would show up in later UAs. We also know that there will be more subclasses in the One D&D PHB than there were in the 2014 one, but we of course don't know which those will be. I think it's a relatively safe bet that we'll see some familiar ones from later books like Xanathar's and Tasha's, but there could also be some brand-new ones.

Reprinting revised versions of other subclasses would also help make it easier to update existing characters to One D&D - rather than wondering how your, say, Rune Knight is going to work in the new system, you might find it right there in the Player's Handbook and update accordingly.

We are, I hope, due for another UA to drop relatively soon. Tuesday will be the 15th of November, which would put us about a month and a half from the Expert Classes UA, which itself came about a month and a half after the Character Origins UA (it's also when both Brother's War comes out on MTG Arena and the Dracthyr Evoker becomes playable in World of Warcraft, so if we get a UA I'm going to be a very busy nerd indeed). I don't know if that will answer or clarify any of the things we looked at here, but we'll see.

Light Weapons, Bonus Actions, and Who Wins

 One D&D will bring about various rules revisions, some large, some small. The game still basically works the same way - we're not going back to THAC0 or replacing proficiency with skill ranks.

One of the most popular changes is also a rather subtle one.

In the current rules, nothing is stopping anyone with Extra Attacks from fighting with two different weapons - attacking with your Flame Tongue Longsword in one hand with attack number 1 and your Frost Brand Rapier in the other hand with attack 2. But light weapons have a special property, which allows you to make two attacks with your main hand and then get an additional, bonus attack with a weapon in the off hand - allowing those who don't have extra attack to make two attacks and those who do to make three (or, if you're a fighter, possibly 4 or 5, depending on how many extra attacks you get). The only downside is that you don't get to add your Strength (or Dexterity, with a finesse weapon) to the damage roll.

That's not actually changing.

Again, this is a subtle change. What is changing is that, under the current rules, that bonus attack uses your bonus action.

Depending on your class, this might be no problem, or it could be a bit of a hinderance.

However, under the new One D&D rules, the light weapon bonus attack is now just part of the attack action, leaving your bonus action free.

What's the real implication here?

What I want to go through is how this is likely to affect each class that likes to fight with weapons and to see how powerful this can be.

Artificers:

Two of the four Artificer subclasses favor weapons, but the Armorer is rather locked into using their built-in armor weapons, neither of which has the light property. However, the Battle Smith does need to use their bonus action more or less every turn to command their Steel Defender to attack.

Artificers don't get Fighting Styles, but an Artificer can pretty easily get magical weapons. Even if they have a stingy DM who doesn't give them any magic weapons, the Battle Smith could, by level 6, have one light weapon infused with Enhanced Weapon and another infused with Radiant Weapon, giving them at least a +1 bonus on the damage of each weapon.

Still, the ultimate bonus damage here might not be all that exciting. We can do better.

Barbarians:

Ok, now we're talking. The Barbarian, of course, typically starts an encounter by going into a Rage, which takes a bonus action. Barbarians love getting more attacks, because their damage is boosted by Rage in addition to their Strength and any magical bonus the weapon has.

Under the current rules, a dual-wielding Barbarian will suffer a bit of a drop in damage compared to someone using a two-handed weapon in short fights, due to the fact that they miss out on that first bonus attack. But this downside will disappear - partially - with the new rules.

For example, let's imagine a level 9 Barbarian with +5 to Strength, using a Greataxe versus dual-wielding Hand Axes. At this level, they have a +3 damage bonus from Rage.

Under the new rules, every turn, not just turns after Raging, will look like this:

2H: 1d12+8, or 14.5, times 2, which is 29

Dual-Wield: 1d6+8, or 11.5, times 2, so 23, plus 1d6+3, so 29.5.

Notably, until hitting level 9, this does not outpace the two-hander. (I'll also note that if Barbarians get Fighting Styles, as they look likely to, the total damage bonus of taking Two Weapon Fighting will be 5 per turn, while Great Weapon Fighting with a Greataxe will be about 2.67, which should let dual-wielding pull ahead. I believe that Brutal Critical will actually balance out as, while your critical with a short sword will not as impressive, you also have a 50% higher chance to get a critical with an extra attack.)

So, Barbarians, at least by mid levels, will win quite a bit here.

Fighters:

Fighters have always devalued dual-wielding because they already get so many attacks. If you only get two attacks per turn normally, an extra one is 50% more attacks. But if you're attacking 4 times a turn (granted, that's only level 20 Fighters - though we'll see about that given how everyone's getting Epic Boons at 20 now) that's only 25% more. One thing we also have yet to see is how this will interact with Action Surge - I believe the wording still says once per turn, which would seem to have Fighters further devalue light weapons.

Monks:

This all depends on whether a Monk's bonus action Martial Arts unarmed strike remains a bonus action or gets similarly folded into the attack. If one could do both of these, it would allow you to attack four times a turn at level 5, quite a bit more impressive than Fighters having to wait for level 20.

Currently, the Martial Arts attack functions kind of like built-in dual-wielding along with the fighting style. If it's a choice between a Shortsword with no damage bonus (a straight d6) versus even a tier 1 monk's unarmed strike (1d4 plus probably 3) the unarmed strike will do more damage.

We just need to see how things are designed here.

Paladins:

Paladins currently don't have access to two-weapon fighting as a fighting style. But even without it, a dual-wielding paladin build is not crazy, especially at high levels. First of all, dual-wielding lets you fish for critical hits, which you can then drop a Divine Smite on. At level 11, every weapon attack you make does an extra d8 of radiant damage, which durns a potentially dinky 1d6 light weapon into 1d6+1d8, or about 8 extra damage on average (Polearm Master is great on Paladins as well, as the bonus strike may only be a d4, but with the extra d8 and getting to add your strength modifier on top of any magic bonus).

That being said, Paladins don't really struggle for bonus actions in most cases - there are the specialized smite spells, and depending on how liberal you are with such spells, you might feel better about this, but I think you won't see a huge change here.

Ranger:

For opening rounds, this can potentially be a game changer, because Hunter's Mark is now being positioned as a central Ranger mechanic (not that it wasn't before). I can definitely say that my Gloomstalker dual-wielder would sometimes feel frustrated that things were dying each turn, and so he'd only get a turn on something with Hunter's Mark, and not be able to take advantage of doing 2d6 damage with his main hand and off hand.

The point is, Hunter's Mark is the sort of spell that gains value for every attack you make, but is also rather demanding of your bonus action, as you'll often need to use that to move the effect from one target to the next as your foes go down. Freeing up your bonus action is going to make this way less painful.

I'll also note that the Crossbow Expert feat has been updated with this in mind - sort of. The current version lets you make an attack with a hand crossbow (or now, a crossbow with the light property, which is at least currently just those) as a bonus action after you make an attack with a one-handed weapon. Here, the implication is that you can always wield a hand crossbow and get the same benefit of the light weapon, but this lets you add your ability modifier to the damage. This might actually be a nerf, as I don't know that this will allow you to use the same crossbow for the "normal" attacks and the bonus, light weapon attack. (Also, Jeremy Crawford has said that "ignoring the loading property" only allows you to use it with something like Extra Attack, and still expects you to have a hand free to reload). Indeed, this could either be a buff or a nerf, as on one hand it could imply that even if you have, say, a rapier in one hand, you don't need that free to load the hand crossbow. But it also seems to imply that if you have, say, a souped-up +3 Hand Crossbow, you need a second to fire off the off-hand attack.

Rogues:

Rogues might be the big winners here. Dual-wielding as a Rogue is generally a really good idea, because it significantly increases the chance to get sneak attack. The actual damage of the off-hand attack is kind of inconsequential, because you're getting way more out of it when you get a chance to get your sneak attack after missing on the first attack.

Let's imagine a scenario to demonstrate: We have a +5 to hit and are attacking something with an AC of 16, meaning we have to roll an 11 or higher to hit the target (and obviously critting on a 20). We'll say we're level 3, so our sneak attack is 2d6. We're using Daggers because we're being stylish rather than optimized.

So, our "hit array" is:

Miss 1-10 (50%), Hit 11-19 (45%), Crit 20 (5%)

We start by calculating the damage when just attacking once (and we're assuming we've got an ally in 5 ft of the target and don't have advantage).

So, our damage will be 1d4+3+2d6, or 5.5+7, aka 12.5. Crit damage is 2d4+3+4d6, or 22 on average.

So, 45% times 12.5 is 5.625 and 5% times 22 is 1.1, meaning our total average damage per attack (in a single-attack scenario) is 6.725.

But, when we dual-wield, we calculate this differently. Sneak Attack can trigger on either attack, but only once per turn. Thus, if we miss with the first attack, we can potentially get the damage on the second. The way we calculate this is the following: We start by simply calculating the weapon damage for the first attack on its own and subject it to the same Hit/Crit chance coefficients to find our average weapon damage per first attack. We do the same for the second attack (which will be less as we're not adding our Dexterity modifier to the off-hand damage).

However, for the Sneak Attack, we start by applying the same to its 2d6, which will account for the first attack. Because a hit on the first attack means no sneak attack on the second, we need to basically imagine a nested, microcosmic scenario where we miss the first attack and then apply the same thing.

Essentially: Our chance to get sneak attack on the second attack only happens if the first misses, and so we're only working in the 50% of the time that the first attack misses. Within that scenario, we then have the same chance as before, so we take our usual 45% hit chance times hit damage and 5% crit chance times crit damage and then multiply it by 50% to account that this is only ever happening if the first attack misses.

The ultimate upshot of this is that Sneak Attack in this case goes from missing 50% of the time to only 25% of the time, which should increase our potential damage significantly. Let's calculate it out:

Main Hand Weapon Hit: 1d4+3, or 5.5

Main Hand Weapon Crit: 2d4+3, or 8

Damage per first main weapon attack: 45% x 5.5 + 5% x 8, or 2.875.

Off Hand Weapon Hit: 1d4, or 2.5

Off Hand Weapon Crit: 2d4, or 5

Damage per off hand attack: 45% x 2.5 + 5% x 5, or 1.125 + 0.25, or 1.375

Sneak Attack Hit: 2d6, or 7

Sneak Attack Crit: 4d6, or 14

Main Hand Sneak Attack Damage Per Attack: 45% x 7 + 5% x 14, or 3.15 + .7, or 3.85

Off Hand Sneak Attack Damage Per Attack: 50% x that last number, or 1.925

Now, we add them all up and find that our total damage average per round is 10.025.

That's a huge jump from the 6.725 when attacking with just one weapon, and most of that difference is accounted for in the bump to sneak attack.

Now, what does this matter? Rogues can already dual-wield light weapons. The key here I think is that Rogues are also a class that really likes to use bonus actions - there's basically no reason not to use a bonus action on your turn thanks to Cunning Action at 2nd level.

So, now you can get these two attacks in and then potentially hide to get advantage on a subsequent attack or dash or disengage to position yourself more favorably. One popular move is to run up to a foe that is within melee of an ally, attack, and then disengage, forcing them to chase after you (and draw an opportunity attack from your ally) if they want to punish you.

    So, in conclusion, I'd say that our probable biggest beneficiary of this change is the Rogue, though I think that Rangers and Barbarians are going to be very happy about it as well. (I'm curious to see if there's any errata for subclasses printed outside of the PHB - the Soul Knife would probably love to be able to get their extra psychic blade as part of the attack. That does have the Dex bonus built into it, though, so who knows.