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Category: Warcraft

Dragonflight Previews: The Forbidden Reach Zone, Get to Know the Dracthyr Evoker

Yesterday Blizzard posted two new Dragonflight preview posts. This time they focussed on the Dracthyr Evoker and their starting zone, The Forbidden Reach.

Dragonflight Zone Preview: The Forbidden Reach Zone

Quote from: Blizzard

The Forbidden Reach, once the secret training grounds of the black dragonflight, has descended into a broken and deserted landscape, lost to the ravages of time. Those few dragons who remember the island know that it is taboo to visit, a place where something dreadful fell. Those who have braved the shores found little of consequence in this cauldron-like caldera apart from a shattered landscape and nature-claimed ruins half buried by magma.

No Longer Forgotten

Neltharion the Earth-Warder fashioned these lands as a secret training ground for the ultimate soldiers, the dracthyr. But in the aftermath of a terrible battle, the island lay dormant and abandoned for ages.

A dracthyr looks at an island surrounded by water with dragons flying overhead

An image of an old gate with trees, plants, and statues

Time To Wake

Deep beneath the surface, vast underground chambers contain legions of dracthyr, resting in magical stasis for thousands of years. As an ancient, magical surge ripples through the Forbidden Reach, the dracthyr are waking from their long slumber.

An image of three dracthyr standing still

In this place of ancient power, dracthyr Evokers will begin a journey that will lead them further into the mysteries of their past.

An image of a large chamber filled with tables and chairs, and a dracthyr

An image of a large door surrounded by rocks in a storm

Inhabitants of the Forbidden Reach

Over the ages, the Forbidden Reach has been reclaimed by nature and wildlife who have made this land their home. Here are some that you’ll meet on your journey.

An image of an otter like creature

An image of fox like creatures with wings

An image of a large pink flying beetle

Journey through the Forbidden Reach and dive into the mysteries of the past as enemies and potential allies, new and old, are drawn to this place of ancient power.

We look forward to sharing more details as development continues on Dragonflight. Visit the Dragonflight site for more information. Check WorldofWarcraft.com/news for updates and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

See you in the Dragon Isles!

Dragonflight Preview: Get to Know the Dracthyr Evoker

Quote from: Blizzard

Your awakening was unprecedented, but the time has come to claim your place in the world of Azeroth. The Dragon Isles are waiting for you to discover your purpose and awaken your wing mates in your new adventures. You will not be so easily contained.

Created by Neltharion the Earth-Warder the essence of dragons was combined with the adaptability of the mortal races to create an elite soldier capable of switching from a draconic form to humanoid form. Long in a magical stasis, they are now awakening to a new threat within the Dragon Isles. It is in the Forbidden Reach that the dracthyr will start their journey to reclaim their fractured memories and face a new reality.

Dracthyr Evoker Quick Facts:

  • Class: Evoker
  • Two Forms: Dracthyr and Visage
  • Armor Type: Mail
  • Weapon Types: Intellect Daggers, Fist Weapons, Axes, Maces, Swords, Staves
  • Specializations: Devastation (DPS) and Preservation (Healing)
  • Alignment: Horde or Alliance (chosen at character creation)
  • Starting Level: 58

Creating Your Dracthyr Evoker

Dracthyr Evokers are a new Hero class and begin their adventures at level 58. Creating your first dracthyr has no restrictions other than it requires Dragonflight and you are only able to have one dracthyr per realm. Subsequent dracthyr can only be created once there is a level 50 (non-dracthyr) character on the realm you wish to create it.

You will also choose your faction on character creation along with all the various elements that make your dracthyr uniquely— you. There are a multitude of options and combinations you can choose. (We wish you luck in your endeavor. You’re going to need it.)

The Color of Magic

Dracthyr Evokers were created to wield the magic of all five dragonflights providing a very distinctive style of spell casting. You will be able to see the coalescence of these powers each time you cast. Evokers also have two distinctive specializations which take advantage of these magic types: Devastation and Preservation.

Devastation is a ranged DPS specialization that uses the power of the red and blue dragonflights to do devastating damage to their foes.

Blue Spells: Focused and overwhelming power
Red Spells: Fast explosive power

Preservation is a healing specialization that uses the power of the green and bronze dragonflights to heal their allies in battle.

Green Spells: Nurture and heal
Bronze Magic: Bend and manipulate time

Each ability associated with a dragonflight will have the name listed both in the spellbook and in the tooltip.

Becoming Empowered

Dracthyr Evokers have special Empowered abilities that they can use to change the strength of the spell or ability they are casting. By holding down a button on your keyboard or mouse, you will power up a spell. The longer you charge the spell, the more damage it could do or the more targets the spell could hit.

For example, one Empowered spell first learned is called Fire Breath. Fire Breath can be powered up as a Level I, Level II, or Level III spell. An indicator bar will appear when casting to display the level of the spell that will be cast. Releasing the button or moving before completing a cast will stop the spell from going off provided it hasn’t reached one of those levels. Releasing the spell when the indicator is within the range of the level indicated will cast at that level.

At each level, the amount of damage done when using Fire Breath is increased. Not all Empowered abilities are alike, and over time, you will learn how to make the most of them.

Embracing your Draconic Nature

Dracthyr have two racial abilities that truly embrace the nature of this race: Wing Buffet and Tail Sweep.

Wing Buffet: With a powerful flap of your wings, knock away your enemies in front of you.
Tail Sweep: Lash out with your tail, knocking enemies within 6 yards into the air.

You will also learn to Glide which you can activate by using the jump key while falling to slow your descent.

Better than simply gliding slowly to the ground beneath you, you will also learn how to Soar for a time to move around the land. To get the most lift to your loft and go the distance, you’ll want to hone your timing and start from a higher elevation such as the edge of a cliff.

Soar: Muster your strength and launch into the air.

There are several other base abilities that will enhance your time spent as an elite dracthyr Evoker including the Living Flame spell which you can use to either damage enemies or heal yourself.

Living Flame (Red): Send a flickering flame toward your target, dealing Fire damage to an enemy or healing an ally.

In Essence

Select spells and abilities require a resource known as Essence. This is displayed under your character portrait as five small opalescent globes and will automatically refill over time. One such spell that uses Essence is Disintegrate, which is the first spell you will learn as you progress through the starting area for the dracthyr.

Disintegrate (Blue): Tear into the enemy with a blast of blue magic, inflicting Spellfrost damage, and slowing their movement speed.

This is just the tip of the iceberg and there is more to explore during testing. We look forward to reading your feedback and we will see you in the Dragon Isles.

Dragonflight Dev Interview – Manacrew, Season 4 Fated Raid Schedule

Another dev interview for Dragonflight has made its way to the internet, this time Manacrew interviewed Morgan Day. The following new bits of information were discussed:

  • They are putting out blog posts explaining new features as they make their way to the Alpha so that not just those that got an invite to the Alpha can give feedback but the WoW community as a whole can too
  • They’re confident they’ll be able to release content at a pace that’ll satisfy the player base in DF
  • They see DF as a chance to rebuild the foundations of WoW systems, to make systems such as talents much more future proof
  • They have some fun plans in store for fishing with the Tuskarr. What would co-op fishing look like for example?
  • The main focus of the expansion will be the Dragon Isles, but they are always looking for stories to tell on mainland Azeroth
  • They have nothing to announce yet on a new Threads of Fate type system but they do want to offer players different ways of leveling up their alts
  • They have big plans for M+ but are not ready to announce them yet

Previous Interview/Information recaps:
WoW: Dragonflight Alpha Launch – Interview/Information Roundup
WoW: Dragonflight Alpha Launch – Interview/Information Roundup Part 2
WoW: Dragonflight Alpha Launch – Interview/Information Roundup Part 3

Season 4 Fated Raid Schedule

Blizzard also posted the fated raids schedule and it is perhaps not very surprisingly in Shadowlands raid release order.

Quote from: Blizzard

As we are approaching closer to the launch of Season 4 on the week of 2 August, we wanted to provide the Fated Raid schedule in advance so that raid groups can start their preparations and planning.

Fated Raids will be on the following weekly rotation:

  • August 2 – Fated Castle Nathria
  • August 9 – Fated Sanctum of Domination
  • August 16 – Fated Sepulcher of the First Ones
  • August 23 – Fated Castle Nathria
  • August 30 – Fated Sanctum of Domination
  • September 6 – Fated Sepulcher of the First Ones
  • And so on until the rotation is removed and all raids are Fated later in the season.

While a raid is Fated, it will only be available in Fated difficulty, but the other two raids will still be available that week in their non-Fated difficulty.

See you in Season 4!

Dragonflight Alpha Phase 2 Development Notes, Hotfixes: July 19, 2022

The Dragonflight Alpha is already moving into phase 2 of testing! The Azure Span has been disabled, two dungeons open up as well as the Dracthyr Evoker starting experience and we get our first look at Profession Specialisations! Additionally we got our first hotfixes on the live servers in quite a while. The 50% exp buff has been enabled and there are a couple of bug fixes.

Dragonflight Alpha Phase 2 Development Notes

Quote from: Blizzard

Hello everyone! Here are this week’s updates to Dragonflight Alpha:

NEW ZONES

  • The Forbidden Reach (Dracthyr Starting Zone)
  • Removed: The Azure Span

NEW DUNGEONS

  • Neltharus
  • Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr

CHARACTER LEVEL
Developers’ note: This week we have removed the Azure Span zone to allow alpha testers to focus on the Dracthyr starting experience in the Forbidden Reach, the two new level 60 dungeons, the profession changes, and the talent revamps. With each phase, we encourage players to make a new template character and avoid using their previous characters as they could potentially be in a broken state.

  • Level 58 Dracthyr Template (The Forbidden Reach starting experience)
  • Level 60 Character Template
  • Level 60 Max

CLASSES

  • TALENT REVAMP
    • Shaman
      • Developers’ note: With the Shaman talent trees in Dragonflight, we wanted to hone in on some core concepts that are unique to the class. Totems have long been a special thing for Shaman, and we’re giving some new options to manipulate your totems position, radius, duration, cleanse poisons, or even potentially reset the cooldown. We’re bringing back Alpha Wolf for Enhancement Shaman, spreading some Stormkeeper functionality to Restoration Shaman, and trying out a new variation of Elemental Blast for Elemental Shaman, where it replaces Earth Shock as a more expensive Maelstrom Spender. All three of the Shaman specializations have a distinct style of play, and we’re hoping the new talents allow you to focus on your important totems, utility, and style of damage or healing you enjoy.

PROFESSIONS

  • Cooking
    • Developers’ note: Firelord Nomi is back and well versed in all of the new Cooking recipes in Dragonflight. He is located next to the other Profession Trainers in the Valley of Strength in Orgrimmar and the Trade District in Stormwind. Players can interact with Firelord Nomi to both train their Cooking skill and obtain reagents for Cooking recipes.
  • Specializations
    • Developers’ note: In this Alpha build, Alchemy and Blacksmithing Professions now have their Specializations enabled. Unlocking Specializations requires 25 skill in that Profession. Once unlocked, players can spend Specialization points to unlock various bonuses for their Profession. For the purposes of Alpha we’ve added a consumable, Professor Instructataur’s Top Secret Guide, on the Associate Professor Instructaur vendor that gives players 50 Specialization points. Below are a few Specialization paths for Alchemy and Blacksmithing:
      • Potion Mastery – Improve at crafting potions and related alchemist stones, gaining +1 Crafting Skill per point in this specialization.
        • Batch Production – Master the art of producing potions more efficiently, gaining +1 Multicraft per point in this specialization.
      • Weaponsmithing – Improve at making weapons and large tools, gaining +1 Crafting Skill per point in this Specialization.
        • Long Blades – Improve at making long bladed weapons and tools such as swords, glaives and sickles, gaining +1 Crafting Skill per point in this Specialization.

With the new Alpha build deployed to the servers Wowhead has started datamining it. They have already found that the new mount for the 500 mounts achievement is an otter!

Hotfixes: July 19, 2022

Quote from: Blizzard

World Events

  • Winds of Wisdom 50% experience buff is now available until Shadowlands Season 4 begins.

Covenants

  • Venthyr
    • Fixed an issue that prevented the Obliterate Ember Gnats event in Revendreth’s Ember Court from working as intended.

Dungeons and Raids

  • Tazavesh: Streets of Wonder
    • Fixed an issue causing items to sometimes become permanently uninteractible during the Market trading game.

Player versus Player

  • Paladin
    • Protection
      • (4) Set Bonus: Judgment cast from Luminous Chevalier’s Gallantry will no longer interrupt Fleshcraft (Necrolord Ability).
    • Retribution
      • Fixed an issue that could cause the additional Templar’s Verdict triggered by Templar’s Vindication (Conduit) to fail to cast against moving targets.
  • Warlock
    • Fixed an issue that could cause Grimoire of Sacrifice (Talent) to be removed from the Warlock during the Arena and Battleground preparation period.

Gain the Winds of Wisdom 50% Experience Buff

Starting with the weekly reset players who are leveling a character from level 10 to 60 will get a 50% exp buff! It will last until the start of season 4, which means it will last until the first weekly reset in August!

Quote from: Blizzard

If you’re just returning after a hiatus from World of Warcraft, leveling another character (or two), or preparing to get a head start on Shadowlands Season 4 then this is the perfect time to jump into the game. Beginning this week with each region’s local weekly reset,  World of Warcraft* players level 10-59 will gain an experience buff called “Winds of Wisdom,” which will increase experience gains by 50%!

Players will also be able to take advantage of this experience boost while still using their favorite heirlooms. Don’t delay. The winds will shift once more with the start of Shadowlands Season 4, and the experience buff will no longer be available.

* Experience buff not available in World of Warcraft® Classic titles.

Blue Reactions To Alpha Feedback: Hunters, Evokers and Dragonriding

Feedback: Hunters

Quote from: Blizzard

Hello Hunters,

We wanted to discuss some plans we had coming in the next few builds and address a few points of feedback.

Class Tree Changes:

  • Improved Mend pet reduced to 2 points for +25/50%. Also now has a chance per tick of Mend Pet to also dispel a magic effect from your pet.
  • Scare Beast is no longer on a path that connects to other nodes below it, it’s a one-off thing to the side of the tree.
  • There is potentially a placeholder +Agility node where scare beast was. This will be changed if it shows up in your build to something that isn’t direct throughput.
  • Chimaera Shot removed from the class tree.
  • Master Marksman will likely be changed to also work with melee critical hits.
  • Death Chakram will likely be changed to increase all damage taken, rather than just Physical. This should make it more competitive to Survival Hunters, who do a fair bit of non-physical damage.

Beast Mastery

  • Dire Pack needs to be reworked.

Marksmanship

  • Double Tap is being moved near the middle of the tree.
  • New bottom left talent as a selection node:
    • Kill Shot now works with Trick Shots
    • Some number of targets hit by your Trick Shot ricochets also have Explosive Shot applied to them.
  • Legacy of the Windrunners has moved, and is consolidated down to 3 points instead of 5.
  • Chimaera shot added near the top of the tree. It will once again replace Arcane Shot, and things that modify Arcane Shot will modify Chimaera Shot
  • Quick Shot removed.
  • Rapid Fire’s Focus generation will just be part of the baseline ability and no longer an upgrade.

Survival

  • A bunch of 3-point talents adjusted to fewer points.
  • A dependency problem with Frenzy Strikes needs to be resolved where you can get this talent without either Wildfire Bombs.

This is not a complete list of what will change in the next build, or even the next few builds. As more decisions are made, we’ll try to post here. As always, things are subject to change and what is there now, or in the builds to come, may not be final.

Bug fixing is also an ongoing process.

One other quick note:

Serpent Sting is intentionally low on the class side of the talent tree. If it’s up higher, it starts competing in space we have designated for utility options and starts to feel like a mandatory throughput choice. We want to put most of the actual throughput stuff past the second gate, so you have adequate points to get the utility you feel is important while playing. Moving it up higher means you would likely be getting less utility options.

edit: The note about Serpent Sting is specific to the Hunter class tree layout. Different classes have different tree layouts and where utility and throughput is scattered about.
edit2: note about Rapid Fire Focus generation in the MM tree area.
edit3: Death Chakram note in class tree area.
edit4: Frenzy Strikes note was wrong, you have to take Butchery/Carve, but not Wildfire Bombs.

Quote from: Blizzard

There are no plans to change the 3+ target requirement for Trick Shots.

Quote from: Blizzard

While I don’t want to comment for every single tree directly, comparing a class that has been around for 17+ years to a brand new class is very difficult. Evokers don’t have years of precedent and mechanics to build off of. It is a very different experience to design a talent tree for a totally new class with basically zero core ideas that players are accustomed to, compared to designing talents for a class that has years of expectations and styles of play around it.

I’m not saying don’t look at the Evoker tree or whatever other class and see cool ideas and try to relate it to your class or spec or express frustrations where you feel them. That’s always a fun experiment and something we often do with our internal peer reviews. I’m just trying to say, Evokers are very new, and currently have these core interactions created for them within the tree.

Feedback: Evokers

Quote from: Blizzard

Hi all! I wanted to Soar over and touch on some of the great feedback that’s been posted thus far.

Talents & Talent Builds
There has been so much wonderful discussion about the talent trees, and we’re still digging through all of it. No firm plans to share just yet, but please continue sharing your feedback as we iterate on the trees. We’ll let you know specifics as soon as we have them!

Visage
In the next build, Dracthyr will no longer switch to Visage when getting on a mount, flight path, etc. Additionally, they will have a new racial ability called Chosen Identity that you can “Activate to automatically assume your Visage when you leave combat or after Soaring.” Chosen Identity will stay toggled on until manually deactivated. As a note, existing Alpha characters may not have Chosen Identity learned.

Azure Strike
In a future build, Azure Strike’s targeting will behave more consistently. Currently it is built similarly to Chain Lightning, but it will be updated to be more of a circular AoE, and pick N targets within 6 yards of your selected target.

Empower Spells
It is intended that casting a different spell while Empowering (eg, casting Disintegrate while empowering a Fire Breath) cancels the Empower spell, refunds the resource cost(s) and cooldown, and begins casting the other spell. Empowers have a global cooldown when they finish casting, meaning Fire Breath and Disintegrate can’t be cast at the same moment. Therefore, we have to interpret what a user is trying to do when they cast a different spell while empowering – Some may be trying to use the second spell as a shortcut for finishing their Fire Breath, while others may be trying to react to a situation and change what spell they’re casting as soon as possible. The current version is opting to treat the new spell input as a change in intention.

Thanks for the ongoing feedback and discussion!

Feedback: Dragonriding

Quote from: Blizzard
This is a very good call-out. We’re working on improving the dragonriding gap detection to fix issues like this. We’ve noticed that dragonriding won’t kick in with some slope types, so we’ll be addressing those in a future build.
Quote from: Blizzard

This is a great call-out of a few distinctions between “flying” and “dragonriding.” We’d like to slot dragonriding into its own unique space without crowding out flying, so it feeling like an investment is in the desired ballpark. How much of an investment is definitely something we’d love to hear continued feedback on, especially as progression comes online and as players get more used to the feature.

We’ve found that this is a big part of the appeal of WoW’s flying, so pulling that into dragonriding would encroach on that space too much.

Oh I think you might like the progression then! (And good note about that balance.)

Also, we’ve also seen a request or two from testers to drop the cooldown on Soar for testing purposes, and we don’t think that will be necessary to get the whole system well-tested. We’re getting great bug reports, and we thank you very much for them.

WoW: Dragonflight Alpha Launch – Interview/Information Roundup Part 3

The initial burst of new information from interviews and blog posts seems to be dying down. Here’s the few tid bits of new information that we could find and you can, of course, expect spoilers:

World/Outdoor Gameplay

  • The world isn’t only bigger because of Dragon Riding but they also wanted to have more space to make the world feel more like an organic world to be explored. Rather than a densely populated map where everything serves a gameplay purpose (Wowcrendor)
  • The amount of experience needed to level from 1-60 has been adjusted/nerfed to put lvl 50-60 into Chromie Time (MMO-Champion)

Professions

  • Primary professions are initially the primary focus of the profession revamp, especially the crafting professions (Wowcrendor)
  • They want to update secondary professions later on (Wowcrendor)
  • Archaeology will be looked at for revamping later in DF (Wowcrendor)
  • When specializing in a profession you initially choose one area, but eventually you will be able to unlock all specializations in your profession (Wowcrendor)

Talent System

  • Being able to see how Talent Trees played out in Classic in the modern era helped them think about how Talent trees could work in modern WoW (Wowcrendor)
  • By splitting talents into a class tree and a spec tree allows them to give you different choices in utility without you having to sacrifice throughput talents (Wowcrendor)

Dragon Riding

  • If they continue with Dragon Riding after DF and it potentially replaces existing flying then they will have to look at how they’re going to handle existing flying mounts that players have collected over the years because they don’t support the new animations and tech that are required for Dragon Riding (Wowcrendor)

Achievements/Collections

  • They’ll have a look at adding a raid skip in Siege of Orgrimmar to help mount/garrosh shoulder farmers (Wowcrendor)

Misc

  • No allied races are currently planned for DF for now (Wowcrendor)
  • They want to have more frequent patches over the course of DF, to deliver more of different types of content and be more flexible in patch size. (Wowcrendor)

Full Interviews/Sources:
Wowcrendor Dev Interview
MMO-Champion Experience Changes Datamining

Previous Recaps:
WoW: Dragonflight Alpha Launch – Interview/Information Roundup
WoW: Dragonflight Alpha Launch – Interview/Information Roundup Part 2