To end today’s Legion Alpha previews we have another 2 videos ready: The Spells, Talents and Artifact Intro quest line for both the Shadow Priest and Survival Hunter!
With the Legion alpha having more content we can start taking a look at the Artifacts! To start with, we’ll take a look at the balance druid spells, talents and then the artifact quest line! Balance druids will obtain the Scythe of Elune. Naturally there will be spoilers in the video. Keep in mind it’s in Alpha, so anything can and probably will change!
Legion Alpha Test – Stormheim and Highmountain Open for Exploration
Now that thanksgiving is over a lot more content has been released on the Legion Alpha!
Quote from: Blizzard
The World of Warcraft: Legion alpha test is now underway! A small group of testers have already been trying their hand at the Demon Hunter, and today we’ve added some new areas for players to check out. Alpha testers can now explore the Stormheim and Highmountain zones, as well as the Halls of Valor dungeon. All classes except for Shaman are now available; character copy is currently disabled, but testers can create high-level characters using templates we’ve provided.
There’s no NDA (non-disclosure agreement) for the Legion alpha, so those invited to play are free to stream the game and take screenshots or movies. Please keep in mind that Legion is still in development—we’ll be making changes to the game as we continue to prepare for the upcoming beta test, and what you’ll see during the alpha test is not necessarily representative of the final game.
Players selected to participate in the alpha will receive an email invitation directing them to download the alpha client directly from their Battle.net account. As always, please be aware of phishing attempts—if you’re unsure whether your invitation is legitimate, please log in to your Battle.net account to verify that there is a Legion alpha license attached (under Your Game Accounts).Getting Started
- If you’ve been selected to participate in the Legion alpha, your Battle.net account will already be flagged for access.
- Make sure your graphics drivers are up to date.
- Run the Battle.net desktop app—it may need to update itself if you haven’t run it recently. If you don’t have it installed, get started here.
- Once Battle.net is installed and updated, select World of Warcraft from the list of games on the left.
- In the Region/Account drop-down menu above the Play button, choose Alpha: Legion (listed under In Development), then click Install.
- Allow installation to complete, and click Play.
Once you’ve launched the game, use the Legion alpha template to create a character. This is located near the Enter World button.
Providing Feedback
We’d love to hear about your experiences on the Broken Isles, so once you’ve had a chance to play, please send us your feedback.
- For general feedback, use the in-game Feedback interface.
- For crashes, please use the Crash Reporter feature that appears when the client crashes.
- For general game bugs, use the in-game Bug Report interface.
- If you’re getting a wrong version error, please uninstall and reinstall the client.
- Discuss the alpha with your fellow testers in our Legion alpha General Discussion and Bug Report forums.
How do I opt in?
Once you’ve set up a Battle.net account and have attached at least one Blizzard game, you can choose to opt in to future beta tests from the Beta Profile page—just check the box next to which games you’re interested in testing. Once that’s complete, it’s simply a matter of waiting for an invitation.
Adopt Brightpaw Now for Make-A-Wish®
Welcome to the WoW Weekly Design Corner! In this editorial series I (Mezzy) look at different parts of WoW and see how I would design the next new thing, or perhaps improve upon it. The following designs and mock content are NOT official content.
You can find the introduction, the lore and the first wing of the raid instance here: Design Corner: Time-Lost Halls of Karazhan Part 1
You can find the second wing of the raid instance here: Design Corner: Time-Lost Halls of Karazhan Part 2
Last time we found ourselves in the Halls where we encountered the servants and occupants. But today, we climb the tower of Karazhan where we will find our final challenge to overcome before the rift in time and space can be closed: The Echo of Medivh.
When designing the final wing/boss I wanted to make something that was memorable. It was a final boss fight, but didn’t necessarily have to be complex. In the end it does have some more chaotic elements to it that you can’t control, but also some more fun aspects to it through the fighting of not just the Echo of Medivh, but the echoes of foes you’ve fought in the past. In normal/heroic you fight just those within TLHoK, but on mythic you’ll encounter the abilities of foes beyond the halls. Which in the end makes for a really fun (theoretical) encounter!
Due to the amount of abilities the encounter has, it’s been split into 2 tabs below. The first being the normal/heroic fight and the second tab being the mythic changes. These mythic changes replace the Echoes of normal/heroic. As usual, the encounter journal entires are at the bottom of the tabs.
Other than a video I hope to release in the future to bring the Time-Lost Halls of Karazhan further to life, this will be it for the TLHoK. I certainly hope you enjoyed it!
Echo of Medivh
The Echo of Medivh prevents the Time-Lost Halls from disappearing, keeping the portal to Draenor open. Defeat the Echo to close the rift in time and space.
Encounter description and design notes:
- Arcane Blast – Deals 80,000 arcane damage to the target. Medivh gains Arcane Infusion on target.
- Arcane Infusion – Increases Arcane Blast damage by 15%. Increases all magic damage by 1.5%. Stacks.
- Note: Just means Medivh will do increasing damage on the target with this ability.. had to change wording to fit it in the photoshopped dungeon journal entry.
- Arcanic Thunder – Puts an arcanic storm in the targeted area, any player standing in it will take 120,000 arcane damage per second.
- Mana implosion – Medivh expels the mana from the targeted players, causing their mana to be depleted and spawns mana orbs around the room for each player’s mana that was depleted.
- Mana Orb – Restores 30,000 mana when picked up by a player.
- Mana explosion – Medivh detonates the mana orbs floating around in the room, dealing 30,000 arcane damage to every player per orb.
- Consume Essence – Every 20% health the Echo of Medivh will draw on the essence from enemies once defeated, resulting in one final echo from your foes. Medivh can have up to 2 essences active at the same time. Resets Arcane Infusion stacks.
- Howl of the Den Mother – Echo of Medivh summons Fel Pup Echoes.
- Fel Pup Echo – Deals 30,000 auto attack damage every second.
- Fire Pulse – Deals 100,000 fire damage to every player every 5 seconds. Medivh gains a stack of Fired Up! Resets on Essence change.
- Fired Up! – Increases fire damage dealt by 1%.
- Summon Duplicate Echo of Atiesh – The duplicate Echo of Atiesh deals 50,000 arcane damage to a random player.
- Sore Spot – Increases magic damage by 10% per stack. Resets on Essence change.
- Arcane Beam – A beam of arcane energy travels around the room, if the player gets hit by it they will take 250,000 arcane damage.
- Empowered Staff – Atiesh becomes heavy, dealing heavy physical damage to the player
- Howl of the Den Mother – Echo of Medivh summons Fel Pup Echoes.
- Wrath of the Last Guardian – At 30% health Echo of Medivh goes into a frenzy, breaking the barrier between the magical ley lines and the Time-Lost Halls.
- Mirror Image – Summons 3 Mirror Images that each cast a bolt in a different spell school.
- Sargeras’ Wrath
- Sargeras’ spirit deep within the echo unleashes his anger, destroying any mortal who gets hit. Find cover!
- Demonified Medivh voice over: “Die you pathetic mortals!”
- Development notes:
- The tower room is very big and circular. Next to the Echo of Medivh there are holograms of each of the previous bosses that have all been defeated by the raid. Medivh is seen channeling a beam with which he’s drawing the essence from Celeus.
- During the 2nd phase, the air color will change, showing the collapse of the dimension of the Time-Lost Halls. After the defeat of the Echo of Medivh the environment will continue to have this light, creating a sense of urgency to get out and escape the dimension, back to Draenor.
- Sargeras’ Wrath gets cast at 10% health, causing an explosion of chaos damage. A bubble safe zone will appear for players to stand in to not get killed by the ability.
- When Mana Implosion is cast, the more mana a player had, the more mana orbs will spawn. This means later in the fight it’ll have less effect.
Mythic Abilities
On Mythic Difficulty Medivh draws upon the powers of enemies you have faced in the past, outside of the Time-Lost Halls. This replaces the Echoes from normal/heroic.
Development/Encounter Notes:
- (M) Echo of the Lich King
- Infest – Deals 75,000 Shadow damage to all players. In addition, the targets will take increasing Shadow damage per second. This effect is removed when the target has more than 90% health.
- (M) Echo of Garrosh Hellscream
- Touch of Y’Shaarj – Corrupts the targeted players minds. The targets snap out of their corruption when they hit 20% health.
- (M) Echo of Yogg-Saron
- Summon Crusher Tentacles – Summons 2 Crusher Tentacles that reduce the players damage done by 20% each while it has no target to attack.
- (M) Echo of Lei Shen
- Thunderstruck – Echo of Medivh hurls lightning at the targeted area, dealing 400,000 nature damage damage to nearby enemies. Damage decreases the further an enemy is away from the point of impact.
- (M) Echo of Illidan Stormrage
- Agonizing Flames – Deals 200,000 fire damage to every player and continues to deal 75,000 fire damage every 3 seconds to every player.
So what do you think of the final encounter in the Time-Lost Halls of Karazhan? Do you like the raid instance as a whole? Let me know in the comments!
Quote from: Blizzard
We have some big news concerning some of the smallest residents in Azeroth. Gnome players will at long last be able to play the Hunter class! That’s right—in World of Warcraft: Legion, you too will be able to rise up to become a big game hunter.
One for the Gnomies
Long at the forefront of cutting-edge technology in Azeroth, the inventive gnomes are finally ready to break out the big guns. Their propensity for things that go “bang” and knack for high-tech weapons like rocket launchers, high-powered rifles, and death rays make them perfect candidates for hunting down prey.
And with the events about to unfold on the Broken Shore, High Tinker Mekkatorque has commanded his people to get outfitted and ready for battle—any way they know how.
Mecha-Minions
Of course, gnomes wouldn’t be gnomes if they didn’t apply their own particular brand of engineering to their job—this time in the form of a new Hunter pet family: Mechanical.
Gnome and Goblin players will be able to tame this new kind of hard-to-find pet right from the start. Other races will also be able to learn how to control these artificial animals via a device Engineers will be able to make.
Most Mechanical pets will be challenging to tame, requiring you to first locate them and then use your Hunter abilities in unusual ways. (You didn’t think we’d make it easy, did you?)
For example, one rare mechanostrider requires you to create a special punch card that grants access to a closed section of Gnomeregan (we hope you remember the way). Once you locate the clockwork creature, you’ll then need to figure out how to overload its circuits. Solve the puzzle, and you’ll have this magnificent mechanized minion striding by your side.
What do you feed a high-tech pet that’s not technically alive? Mechanical Bits, of course! Hunters will be able to keep their shiny metal friends “happy” and “healthy” through the creative use of Engineering supplies such as a Handful of Copper Bolts.
And just in case you think we’re lowering ourselves by making “small” jokes, we present to you the Gnome Hunter’s starting pet—the Giant Mechanical Rabbit—as proof!
Will you rise up to the challenge and collect them all?
The Legion Alpha has officially gone live and we were lucky enough to get invited! Currently just the Demon Hunter starting area is enabled, so that’s exactly what we’ll start with! LJ and Mezzy experience it first-hand and are just a tad excited!
The first Legion beta build has been datamined by MMO-Champion and wowhead! You should definitely check out their full datamining pages, but here’s a highlight summary:
Be aware, spoilers after the break!