4/13 Legion Alpha Design Notes, World Quests Design Notes, Destruction Warlocks, Level 110 Cap

Опубликовано 13.04.2016 в 13:39 perculia

talent calculatorHonor calculatorartifact calculatorWorld Quests are also added in today's build and the level cap is 110!Legion Alpha Infographic

Blizzard

We're keeping this infographic updated throughout Legion testing to update you on which zones, dungeons, and specs now available for testing.

For Azeroth!

4/13 Legion Build Notes

Celestalon

Hey all,
We have another alpha build going up today. This build includes a variety of revisions and bugfixes all around.

Broken Shore (Alliance) available - Alliance players will be given the quest "The Legion Returns" upon logging in. Follow Varian Wrynn to the Broken Shore and face off against Gul'dan in the experience that will begin your adventure into Broken Isles.

World Quests available - Once you level to 110, World Quests and Emissary Quests will appear on your map. This is our new approach to endgame questing in Legion. Please direct your feedback to the new World Quests forum here.

Notable changes focused on classes:

New Specialization Unlocked – Finally, the last specialization is unlocked. We’d love any and all feedback about gameplay, artifact quest line, abilities, etc.
Destruction Warlock

Class Status – We’ve made many iterations based on feedback and testing. Here are some highlights:

Frost Mages – Splitting Ice has returned.
Frost Death Knights – Many talents revised for more engaging gameplay.
Unholy Death Knights – Many talents revised for more engaging gameplay. Artifact ability () revised further.
Windwalker Monks – Неистовые кулаки, Танцующий журавль, and Буря, земля и огонь revised to adjust AoE gameplay.
All Hunters – Growl threat massively increased.
Subtlety Rogues – Мастер теней and Неослабевающие удары swapped and revised.

Thanks, and we look forward to your feedback!

Also, check out the design notes from the previous build, if you haven't already as well: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/20742806438

Sorry, I originally wrote this last night, expecting to post it then, but it got delayed. Forgot to fix 'tomorrow' to 'today'. It'll be today, hopefully! Sorry for the undelay!

World Quest Notes

There is no central quest hub like daily quests.

World quests cover a variety of activities, including world PvP, rare spawns, and pet battles.

Quests are not available on a daily basis; the time greatly varies.

Muffinus

Greetings everyone! In the next test build we will be unlocking the World Quests feature, which will play a major role in the endgame content of Legion.

At BlizzCon, we spoke briefly about World Quests, and since then we have been busy adding and iterating on this system. We now have well over 300 World Quests ready for testing. Before you dive in on the test realms, we’ve got details for you.

What are World Quests?

World Quests represent our new approach to end game questing, with a few key differences from other systems such as daily quests.

First, you don’t have to head to a daily quest hub to gather up quests. Once you’ve unlocked World Quests, simply open up your map and look around. You will see a variety of things to do, including which loot and reputation gains you can earn from each activity. You’ll plan your adventure, then head out into the wilds.

Second, World Quests encompass many types of gameplay. World Quests will show you quests, rare elite spawns, rare spawns, pet battles, outdoor PvP activities, world bosses, special dungeon activities, profession activities, and more. Want to know what there is to do in Azeroth today? Just open your map!

Third, and perhaps most importantly, World Quests aren’t daily. Some World Quests will stick around for a week, such as world bosses, while others will rotate every three hours, such as PvP towers. Our goal is for your map to be an evolving landscape of engagements throughout the day, where interesting things can pop up periodically, rather than on a strictly daily basis.

What are Emissaries?

Emissaries are the representatives of the major factions in Legion. Each day, you’ll receive a new emissary quest which will automatically appear on your map of Broken Isles.

To complete the Emissary quest, simply finish four World Quests that are associated with that faction. This will reward you with a lucrative cache of loot. Most World Quest types will satisfy this requirement, allowing you to choose which activities best fit your gameplay style.

Each Emissary quest will be available for three days. If you forgot to log in yesterday, that emissary quest will be available for two more days, and you’ll also have a new one. You can have up to three Emissary quests active at once.

I believe loot was mentioned?

Yes! World Quests provide many types of loot, including toys, mounts, battle pets, and even power items. While many items are still works in progress, our main goal here is to provide you with a variety of activities and rewards that will evolve with your character, keeping World Quests viable for a long time.

How are World Quests unlocked?

As soon as you hit level 110, World Quests will become available to you.

We’re looking forward to your feedback on this feature. Please bring it here to this new discussion forum so that we can talk as we test World Quests with you.

Thanks!
Currently, World Quests can drop power items all the way up to top-tier raid loot.

With the usual caveat that the frequency, distribution, and item levels possible are in a very early state and subject to change.
That refers to player power items. :) Like hats, and bracers, and pug hats.

It will be significantly faster to obtain the gear through raiding. In general, the more challenging content you take on (raids, mythic dungeons, world bosses, etc.) the faster you will obtain power gear.

Kaivax

Yes, World Quests are in the build coming today.

I'll add that to the other thread.

Muffinus

When you are max-level, World Quests will show up asking you to kill rares you may have already killed while levelling. These rares will be buffed with a random, kit-appropriate affix (or two or three), making them much more difficult, but also more rewarding.

Profesion Forums Open

Kaivax

With the availability of level 110 in the latest build of the Legion Alpha, you'll find a lot more of the various Professions systems are available to test.

In this discussion forum, we'll operate dedicated feedback threads for each main topic of testing that falls into this category. Please feel free to create other threads about professions in Legion here, but know that our focus will be on the dedicated threads.

Thank you!

Spec ClarificationsBlood Death Knights

Celestalon

Hey Blood Death Knights. You may have noticed that Frost and Unholy got some significant revisions to their talents in today’s build. We were in the process of doing the same for Blood when today’s build was made, along with some baseline changes, and most of those changes didn’t make it in in time. Here’s a full list of what’s yet to come in the next build for Blood:

Blood Strike removed.
Удар в сердце is now baseline for Blood. It hits 2 targets, generates 5 bonus RP, and snares. While in Death and Decay, it hits 5 targets.
Blood Boil damage increased by 300% in order to let it function as snap aggro.
Asphyxiate is now baseline for Blood.
It also is no longer channeled, and now has a 45sec CD, down from 2min. (This part applies to Unholy’s as well.)

Many talents have been changed. Here’s a full list of Blood talents and what’s changing with them:

Level 57

Быстрое разложение – Unchanged.
– No longer replaces Blood Boil, but Blood Boil no longer applies Blood Plague.
Spectral Deflection (NYI/TBD) – Swapped from Level 58. Redesigned to: Attacks that deal more than 25% of your maximum health will consume a second Bone Shield charge to further reduce the damage.

Level 58

Склеп – Swapped from Level 57. Now triggers at 5+ Bone Shield stacks, and also increases max Runic Power by 10.
Blood Tap – New: Active. Generate 1 Rune. 2 charges, 1min recharge. Recharge time reduced by 1sec whenever a Bone Shield charge is consumed.
Антимагический барьер – Unchanged.

Level 60

Кровавая метка – Swapped from Level 90. Now costs 30 Runic Power, lasts 25sec, has no cooldown, only triggers from auto attacks, and application range increased to 15yd.
Красная жажда – Swapped from 58.
Надгробный камень – Unchanged.

Level 75

Жесткая хватка – Unchanged.
Трепещи! – Now a fears the target in place, and only breaks on significant damage, like other fears.
Марш проклятых – Unchanged.

Level 90

Воля мертвых – Unchanged.
Захват рун – Swapped from 60. Redesigned to be similar to live: Active. Consume a Rune to reduce all damage taken by 25% for 3sec. 2 charges, 25sec recharge.
Нечестивый оплот – Unchanged.

Level 100

Буря костей – No longer costs Runes. Now costs 10-100 Runic Power. Lasts 1sec per 10 Runic Power spent.
Кровавое зеркало – Unchanged.
Чистилище – Swapped from 60.

While you unfortunately won’t be able to play with these changes until the next build, we look forward to your feedback on them. Thanks!
What exactly are your plans for Blood mobility, snare capabilities and immunities? Because the status quo is just terrible.

Will Heart Strike be generating bonus RP per target hit?

Thank you! Depending on DnD for aoe damage felt awful and this plugs a hole in our toolkit. I'm assuming it's still 2 charges with no rune cost.

So this is going to reduce the damage by an extra 20%? Multiplicative?

Blood Tap is the preferred rune regeneration talent on live because of the degree of control it gives the Death Knight. Being able to bank a Death Strike for when you need it, or just being able to keep tighter control on runes in general without relying on RNG, made the talent great. Since Death Strike has a runic power cost now, is it possible that you'd consider making Blood Tap give runic power instead of a rune? Say 20 RP/charge? And is this version of Blood Tap off the GCD?

This looks REALLY strong. Blood has traditionally struggled with auto attack damage disproportionately to the amount we've struggled with boss abilities, but I think this might be too much. 100% uptime on an 8% hp heal per melee swing is kind of crazy. 3 minutes was too long of a CD but 0 CD is too little. I'd suggest putting it on a 1 min CD and make it cost a rune instead of RP.

Part of me is saying THANK GOD, because Blood really needed a way to pass AM checks without misusing Death Strike. But this talent is far and away the strongest of the tier, and significantly devalues Tombstone. Tombstone was going to be our answer to large, predictable bursts of damage but if we have Rune Tap we probably won't need to exchange bone shield charges for an absorb, and can take Mark of Blood for a much larger benefit overall.

Is there any way we can roll Tombstone and Rune Tap into one talent? Maybe take Rune Tap, decrease the base damage reduction and the cost to 0, and allow it to consume Bone Shield charges for increments of damage reduction up to a certain cap? Something like 1 charge for 10%, 2 charges for 20%, etc?

No hope for that one iteration of Bonestorm that worked off of consuming Runic Power for uptime the same way Breath of Sindragosa does on live? It's a fun mechanic that's only going to be more fun with the elimination of RNG in our runic power generation.

Also, the tooltip for this ability is a bit unclear; if Bonestorm hits multiple targets, is it intended to heal us for each target hit? So a 5 second Bonestorm heals us for 5% of our HP if it only hits one target, but 10% for 2 targets hit and 15% for 3 etc. or is it going to be that a Bonestorm will always heal for 1% of max HP/second?

Purgatory will still be mandatory for progress on any boss that threatens the tanks

Windwalker Monks

Celestalon

Hey Windwalkers. Today’s build includes the previously-described new design for Windwalker AoE. Please give it a try, run a dungeon, and let us know how it feels. There are a few changes still to come that we’ve made internally, but not in time for today’s build, that are further revisions to this, that I’d like to describe.

It feels odd for the only throughput benefit of Буря, земля и огонь to be the bonus Танцующий журавль damage, in most situations (since on <5 targets you likely already have tagged them all for Танцующий журавль even without Буря, земля и огонь). Fantasy-wise, Буря, земля и огонь is a really cool spell, and we think this version is too restrictive on its use case. As such, we’re going to merge it with Tigereye Brew, to function in all the ways you used Tigereye Brew as well. With the below changes, Буря, земля и огонь will become your primary DPS cooldown, for both single-target and AoE, with the added bonus of quickly tagging targets for Танцующий журавль.

Tigereye Brew has been removed.
Буря, земля и огонь has been revised again, in order to fill Tigereye Brew’s purpose:
Each spirit does 45% of normal damage, for a net gain of 35% damage.
It has 2 charges.
It no longer increases Танцующий журавль damage.
The spirits will no longer attack CC’d targets.
While Буря, земля и огонь is active, the button can be reactivated to direct your spirits to focus their attacks only on the selected target.
Безмятежность now replaces Буря, земля и огонь, instead of Tigereye Brew.

This is intended to be a pure upgrade to Tigereye Brew, so let us know if you see any issues this may cause. You’ll be able to try this out in the next build.
Any changes to healing brew? Because of the removal of TEB we will lose a trigger for the talent.

There's no mention in the description, but since you said it is our "single target dps button" as well, I imagine the clones can attack the same target we are attacking for full dmg, right?

Also, whats the planned duration / recharge time cd?

Destruction Warlock

Sigma

Is Chaos Barrage intended to be a portal that is SIGNIFICANTLY better than the other two portals?

Bugs

Zorbrix

Hello,

In Today's Alpha build you may notice an issue where Players and NPCs rapidly pop in and out of view. This mainly seems to happen in Dalaran, but we've seen it on other zones as well.

We're still investigating into this, sorry for any inconvenience this causes.