Dragonflight Alpha: Timeskip Officially 3 Years After SL, Feedback: Shamans, Hunters, Death Knights

Hello friends,

I wanted to take a moment to address the topic of time passage between Shadowlands and Dragonflight.

There has always been some amount of time passing between expansions, though rarely has it been called out in game. We maintain an internal timeline of what year each expansion begins, and the gap between them has either been one year (as with earlier expansions) or two years (as with most of the later ones). But NPCs in the world don’t talk about how the Burning Crusade took place in the year 26 after the Dark Portal opened, or how we rediscovered Pandaria in the year 30.

When you look back at the Warcraft timeline, one of the things you’ll notice is that a lot of massive, world-changing events were tightly clustered together. This is especially true for WoW, which since launch has seen a multitude of invasions and catastrophes back-to-back in the chronology.

With Shadowlands representing the closing of one book in the Warcraft saga (as we mentioned in interviews around the release of our Eternity’s End update), it felt like an opportunity to give Azeroth and its inhabitants a bit of breathing room before Dragonflight ushers in the start of our next major storyline.

Shadowlands began in the year 35 after the opening of the Dark Portal, and Dragonflight will begin in the year 40.

Given that the events of Shadowlands took place over the course of two years, that leaves a few additional years that we are fast-forwarding through. Our purpose here is not to have a litany of events take place outside the game that you need to read about in a novel or other media to understand the state of the world. The goal of the fast-forward is to provide the people of Azeroth with a slice of “normal” life without a major threat looming over their heads.

When our heroes return from the Realms of Death, you can imagine them easing back into their lives and duties without an immediate crisis to address or enemy to fight. With the Alliance and Horde honoring the truce signed after the Fourth War, the average Azerothian citizen will be able to enjoy a time of stability and reflection.

That said, we plan to offer a digital short story on our website that details one particularly joyous occasion which has been referenced in the alpha build. It’s going to be a fun and charming read, but it won’t be necessary in order to understand the events of Dragonflight.

Besides stretching out the WoW timeline a bit, another benefit of this fast-forward is that it will let our younger characters get a little older, allowing some of them to take a larger role in future storylines. Yet not so much time will be passing that you’d expect characters who are already adults to look significantly different.

As for changes to the world that have been discussed or foreshadowed, such as the resettlement of Gilneas, those will not be happening during the fast-forward. As cool as it is to show locations and populations evolving because of story progression, we want events of this importance to be in-game questing that our players experience for themselves (as with the reclaiming of the Ruins of Lordaeron in the 9.2.5 update) rather than having it happen off-camera.

For your player characters, it has always been left to your own interpretation how much time had passed when they log in after the arrival of a major update or new expansion. Dragonflight is no exception. You are free to imagine what your characters have been doing in that time of respite as you look forward to the arrival of the Dragonflight pre-patch.

Hopefully this post helps clear up confusion about the timeline and explains our goals for having a few more years pass than we normally would.

–Steve Danuser, Narrative Lead

Enhancement Shaman,

Several changes are coming in the next build you receive, in addition to several bug fixes. We also removed a -35% damage and healing modifier to your spells that benefit from Maelstrom Weapon in an effort to make your spells more impactful, but may have to reintroduce this as tuning goes on.

Talent Changes:

• Primal Primer is no longer an option in the tree.
  • Primal Primer and Primal Lava Actuators were two different ways of making Lava Lash better. We opted to keep Primal Lava Actuators.
• Hailstorm now provides your next Frost Shock a bonus for up to 10 Maelstrom Weapon charges spent to better work with Overflowing Maelstrom. The maximum bonus targets is still limited to 5.
• Stormstrike now replaces Primal Strike.
• Doom Winds now does some immediate damage when you activate the ability.
• Ice Strike’s Frost Shock buff now highlights Frost Shock.
• Alpha Wolf now works with Chain Lightning, rather than Crash Lightning so you do not have to take Crash Lightning to get the benefit.
• Ascendance now is now a choice node vs Deeply Rooted Elements.
• Thorim’s Invocation now remembers whether you most recently cast Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning, and uses that spell when you use Windstrike, rather than always using Lightning Bolt.
• Chain Lightning (rank 2) functionality baked into Crash Lightning/Chain Lightning interactions.
• New 1-point talent: Crashing Storms: Crash Lightning damage increased by 40%, and Chain Lightning strikes 2 additional targets.
• Gathering Storms has been consolidated down to a 1-point talent.
• Hot Hand has been converted to a 2-point talent with the same total values.
• Feral Spirit cooldown has been reduced to 90 seconds.
• Elemental Spirits no longer reduces the cooldown of Feral Spirits.
• Several talents have shifted around due to the above changes.

Thank you all for the continued feedback and testing.

Happy Friday, Hunters.

Several changes will be in your next build and we wanted to share what to expect. There are also several bug fixes, and some things that were previously marked NYI are now working.

Class Tree:

• Survival Hunters: corrected a missing connection between Kill Command and Improved Mend Pet on the class tree.
• Alpha Predator’s value has been lowered from 30%, to 15%.
• Improved Traps now also lowers the cooldown of Hi-Explosive Trap.
• Stampede now snares targets hit by 30%, and you and your pets gain 10% increased critical strike chance against targets hit by your Stampede.
• Hunter’s Agility is once again Avoidance.
• Camouflage no longer links directly to Improved Traps. The choice node below Survival of the Fittest now links to Born to be Wild.
• New 2-point passive talent, Serrated Shots: Serpent Sting and your bleed damage is increased by 10/20% damage. This value increases to 20/40% against targets below 30% HP.
• New 2-point passive talent: Arctic Bola – Aimed Shot/Cobra Shot/Raptor Strike/Mongoose Bite have a chance to fling a bola out at your target that bounces 2/4 times and deals increased damage per point. Targets struck by the bola are snared by 20% for 3 sec.

Beast Mastery:

• The top of the Beast Mastery tree has been shuffled around a bit, and now starts with Cobra Shot rather than Barbed Shot.
• Barbed Shot damage has been increased by ~75% (this is unrelated to talents and just a change to the ability)
• Loaded Quiver has been removed. Barbed Shot is now 2 charges always.
• Barbed Wrath is now 1 point, down from 2. It no longer affects Aspect of the Wild.
• Wild Call has been reduced to 1 rank.
• Call of the Wild’s cooldown has been increased to 3 minutes.
• The Bloody Frenzy that adjusted Barbed Shot Frenzy stack generation has been removed.
• New 1-point talent: Brutal Companion. When Barbed Shot causes a 3rd stack of Frenzy, your pet automatically uses their special attack (Bite/Claw/Smack) with increased damage.
• Aspect of the Wild has been redesigned.
  • Aspect of the Wild now fires a Cobra Shot at your target and another nearby target. While Aspect of the Wild is active, Cobra Shot’s Focus cost is reduced by 10, and each Cobra Shot fires a Second Cobra Shot at a nearby target.
    • New choice node below Aspect of the Wild:
      • Each temporary beast summoned reduces the cooldown of Aspect of the Wild by 5 sec.
      • Cobra Shot damage increased by 30% while Aspect of the Wild is active.
• Several talents shifted around past the first gate due to the above changes, but the tree’s structure is very similar.

Marksmanship:

• Dead Eye now also reduces the cooldown of Kill Shot.
• Windrunner’s Guidance has been lowered to 25% critical strike damage bonus.
• New choice node below Wailing Arrow:
  • Wailing Arrow resets the cooldown of Rapid Fire and grants a charge of Aimed Shot.
  • Wailing Arrow now fires 5 wind arrows at your primary target, and up to 10 split between any secondary targets.
• Crack Shot lowered to a 1-point talent.
• Calling the Shots and Eagletalon’s True Focus have swapped spots.

Survival

• Coordinated Assault, Spearhead, and related talents should be working.
• Explosive Expert tooltip updated, it has no interaction with Kill Shot and is just some cooldown reduction to Wildfire Bombs.
• Birds of Prey has been redesigned. Kill Shot now strikes up to 3 extra targets while Coordinated Assault is active.
• New choice node against Birds of Prey: Bombardier. The cooldown of Wildfire Bombs is reset when Coordinated Assault is activated, and when it fades.
• Guerilla Tactics increases the initial damage of Wildfire Bombs by 50%, down from 100%.
• Fury of the Eagle once again grants 50% critical strike chance against targets below 20% HP.
• Ruthless Marauder increases the HP threshold for increases critical strikes by 5% per rank rather than increasing critical strike chance.

Thanks for the continued feedback and testing.
And yes, have a nice weekend everyone!

Hello Death Knights,

We’ve got an info drop for you. Here’s what we’ve been working on, and what you can expect to see in the next Alpha build for both the Class and Unholy trees.

Class Talents

In an effort to further increase choice, we’ve updated some talent positions, added two additional connections from Might of Thassarian and Merciless Strikes toward the center section of the class tree, reduced 3 rank talents to 2, and updated the lead-in talent to Abomination Limb with a throughput talent.

The following changes are not everything you’re going to see in the next build. Rather, these are highlights of the bigger changes (and a few more-subtle position changes with existing talent nodes).

Rune Mastery

• Max ranks increased to 2, up from 1.
• Now leads into Abomination Limb (replacing Improved Death Strike).

Icy Talons

• Max ranks reduced to 2, down from 3.

Unholy Bond

• Max ranks reduced to 2, down from 3.

Unholy Endurance

• New talent: Increases Lichborne duration by 2 sec and while active damage taken is reduced by 15%.

Death Pact

• Now has a new connection from Might of Thassarian

Asphyxiate

• Now has a new connection from Merciless Strikes.

Clenching Grasp

• New talent: Death Grip slows enemy movement speed by 50% for 6 sec.

Improved Death Strike

• Max ranks reduced to 1, down from 3.
• Now available much earlier in the tree.

Here is a look at the updated tree with the new structure:

Unholy

As we mentioned previously, we have updates to both the baseline and talent tree for Unholy. These will be available in the next Alpha update. The baseline changes focus on helping reduce the cooldown desync as well as baking in existing talents to help the flow and feel of the spec. Additionally, the Unholy tree itself experienced substantial iteration and has been mostly redesigned and restructured with 11 new talents.

Below is a list of changes previously mentioned, as well as new talents. The below list does not document each individual restructuring of existing talents, as that’s quite substantial, but we do have a screenshot of the tree below to help contextualize what can be expected.

Abilities

Death Coil

• Runic Power cost reduced to 30, down from 40.

Epidemic

• Damage increased by 20%

Scourge Strike/Clawing Shadows

• Damage increased 20%

Talents

General

• All 3 max rank talents have been reduced to max 2 rank (where applicable)

Deadly Coil

• Cut

Unholy Command

• No longer reduces the CD of Dark Transformation when dealing damage with Death Coil
• Now reduces the cooldown of Dark Transformation by 8/15 seconds.

Army of the Damned

• Now reduces the cooldown of Apocalypse by 45 seconds (No longer reduced by Death Coil)
  • Death Coil still reduces the cooldown of Army of the Dead
• No longer summons a Magus of the Dead when Apocalypse or Army of the Dead are cast

Summon Gargoyle

• Duration reduced to 30s, down from 35s
• Now gains 1% damage per 1 runic power spent (down from 1% per 2 runic power)
  • At first read this can be confusing but it is a buff to the damage ramp for Gargoyle.

Improved Scourge Strike – Increases the damage of Scourge Strike by 10/20%

• Cut

New Talent – Feasting Strikes: Festering Strike and Scourge Strike/Clawing Shadows have 15% chance to generate 1 Rune.

New Talent – Runic Mastery: Increases Maximum Runic Power by 10/20.

New Talent – Plaguebringer: Scourge Strike causes your disease damage to occur 150% more quickly for 5 sec.

New Talent – Magus of the Dead: Apocalypse and Army of the Dead also summon a Magus of the Dead who hurls Frostbolts and Shadow Bolts at your foes.

• Magus of the Dead’s Shadow Bolt damage increased by 20%.
• Magus of the Dead’s Frostbolt damage increased by 10%
• Magus of the Dead’s Frostbolt slow duration increased to 6 sec and 60% slow (up from 4 seconds and 50%)

New Talent – Ruptured Viscera: When your ghouls expire, they explode in viscera dealing Shadow damage to nearby enemies.

New Talent – Commander of the Dead: Dark Transformation also empowers your Gargoyle and Army of the Dead for 30 seconds, increasing their damage by 40%.

New Talent – Eternal Agony: Death Coil increases the duration of Dark Transformation by 1 sec.

New Talent – Coil of Devastation: Death Coil causes the target to take an additional 35% of the direct damage dealt over 4 sec.

New Talent – Rotten Touch: Sudden Doom causes your next Death Coil to also increase your Scourge Strike damage against the target by 30% for 6 sec.

[NYI] New Talent – Plaguebearer: Inflict disease upon your enemies spreading Festering Wounds equal to the amount currently active on your target to 8 nearby enemies (45s cooldown, 30 Runic Power).

• This ability may not make it into the next Alpha build.

New Talent – Superstrain: Your Virulent Plague also applies Frost Fever and Blood Plague.

• Currently grants full effectiveness for the other diseases. Tuning is always likely to change in future builds.
• Please note: Morbidity will now also scale damage from FF and BP because of this the damage per rank has been reduced.

The new and updated Unholy tree looks like this:

Thank you very much for all of your discussion and feedback.

We look forward to hearing more from you about the updated trees.