HealingWoW

Thursday, 6th August, 2015

At Gamescom, 2015, Blizzard revealed the next expansion – World of Warcraft: Legion. We’re heading back to our Azeroth to face the latest threat, and with it we’ll be getting some new features, such as Artifact weapons and the new Demon Hunter hero class. Your first port of call is going to be the official World of Warcraft: Legion website. Be sure to visit and sign up for the BETA opt-in if you haven’t already.

Blizzard revealed a few videos regarding the new expansion. Check them out below in the order they appeared during the presentation.

Cinematic Teaser

Full Expansion Reveal Presentation:

Official Blizzard blog post:

With the announcement, the developers got up on stage and gave us a brief overview of the new expansion. They focused on Story, new features including Artifact weapons, Class Order Halls and slo the new hero class, Demon Hunters. First on stage, we had Alex Afrasiabi, going over the Story and the set up for the Legion expansion. Unfortunately, the hype really wasn’t felt with Alex presenting. I’m not sure what it was but this side of the announcement left a lot to be desired. I’m glad it’s not all about Orcs again, but had it been, Chris Metzen would have delivered this a lot better than that. Anyway, here’s what we learnt from Alex regarding the story:

The Story

• We’re going back to the “bones” of the bustling Night Elf civilization that is now The Broken Isles. A graveyard of sorts
• We will discover the Tomb of Sargeras. Tomb is an active gateway to endless legions world thanks to Gul’dan
• Demonic Invasion bigger than the War of the Ancients is currently underway. The biggest demonic invasion of Azeroth… ever
• We are taking the fight directly to Gul’dan on the Broken Shores
• After a glorious battle at the Tomb of Sargares, our story will begin
• We’re gonna be “really really surprised and shocked”

Artifacts

Next up we had Ion Hazzikostas, who presented a lot better and when he began discussing the new features, displayed the excitement and delivered much more interesting content. Ion started on Artifacts, the new and only weapons available to players in the new Legion expansion. Here is what we have learned in a quick summary on Artifacts.

• In order to fight this ultimate enemy, we need the ultimate weapons. We need weapons of greater power than any we’ve had before, in order to stand a chance. And that’s where Artifacts come in to play
• Every single specialization is going to have it’s own artifact
• Class & spec determines story
• After landing on the Broken Shores, seek out the artifact for your spec. Follow your destiny. Varies for each class & spec
• As you accomplish deeds in the world, you will earn artifact power for your weapon. Earned by completing a major questline, killing a dungeon boss etc.
• Earned artifact power is spent on unlocking traits that empower your weapon/character + visual customizations
• You choose your path to greatness

Class Orders

Ion then discussed Class Orders. Because the Alliance and the Horde aren’t able to come together as a whole to defeat this threat, instead the classes are working to overcome it. Who else would lead them if not you? Because of this, all of the classes will need a central hub where we can all congregate and collaborate to best attack the legion.

• Heavy focus on Class identity
• Base of operations or “club house” just for members of your class, similar to Death Knight only area
• Second to claiming your artifact, you will come upon your order hall and establish it
• Class Order Halls are the location or hub where your class will congregate. i.e. Light’s Hope Chapel for Paladins
• Champions
  • Evolution of Draenor Follower system
  • Established characters
  • More customization
  • More integration with the world
  • Not doing things instead of you. But have them enabling you to do greater deeds – they might go out and discover a lair that you then go to and investigate
  • Work alongside them and with them, rather than them compete with you in terms of the rewards that you’re seeking out

Dungeons and Raids

• They feel they’ve done dungeons a bit of a disservice
• Dungeons are essential – they are at the heart of what makes the MMO experience awesome
• More dungeons in Legion
• More varied challenges in dungeons
• More replayability
• More reason to keep doing dungeons throughout the expansion

Ion then discusses some specifics around some of the dungeons and raids they have prepared for Legion. Feel free to watch the video above to get specific information into where the dungeons are and why we’re going there.

Demon Hunter

Next up was Tom Chilton, speaking specifically on the new Demon Hunter

• Two specs, Tank and DPS
• Demon Hunter Healer though – “ehhhh not so much. Little bit weird for us. So uh, it felt like that was kind of out of the picture
• No new healing spec this expansion. Move along, nothing to see here…

New PvP Honor System, V3

• PvP talent system
• As you gain Honor, you progress through honor ranks from 1 to 50
• As you progress through ranks, your earn different perks and bonuses, including PvP talents
• PvP talents designed and balanced independently from PvE – they only work in Battlegrounds and Arenas
• Unlock abilities from top to bottom in the first tree. Progress to next tree from top to bottom
• All unlocked at level 50
• New Prestige concept
• If you want to, you can reset your honor level and go through the progress again
• Reset your pretige and start from level 1 again and earn honor for prestige cosmetic rewards
• Unique PvP only prestige Artifact cosmetic earnings

Tweet