"They're recycling content"

For those who cant view the site:

The Icy Veins team sat down with Tom Chilton and Ion Hazzikostas from the WoW development team to ask questions about Demon Hunters, Artifacts, the story in Legion, and what to expect for changing game play in the new expansion.

Here is what we learned:

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Demon Hunters

As it stands, Demon Hunters are slated to wear Leather armor. The developers used to feel that having too many classes on one armor type could cause problems, but as the game has moved towards Personal Loot, that has become less of an issue.

An all-new weapon type, Glaives, will be the only weapon type that Demon Hunters can use. They are a weapon 'pair' that comes together and fills both hand slots. Having only one available weapon type for the class will not be an issue in Legion, as you mostly focus on your Artifact throughout this expansion. In the future, Demon Hunters might eventually dual wield the 'standard' agility weapon types.

Demon Hunter starting level has not been set, but a starting level between 95-100 is currently being debated (as it is a Hero Class). It's "hard to imagine a Demon Hunter running around Elwynn Forest."

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Artifacts

You obtain your Artifact early on in the Legion experience. This is the weapon you will use throughout the expansion. You will not get weapon drops in Legion. Something that wasn't mentioned during the reveal is that each Artifact has a number of Relic slots, which will determine its raw item stats (DPS, ilvl, etc.) and modifiers to the traits you've chosen, so the Artifact's stats will still improve as you defeat bosses.

It will be very important to see how the story plays out regarding Artifacts that come from characters like Tirion. No spoilers!

Existing Legendary weapons (and items) are unchanged. Artifacts will be presented differently. There will not be any Legendary weapons in Legion.

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Story Line

This is the main universe Illidan. There is no 'alternate universe' Azeroth going on. Gul'dan was banished through the Twisting Nether into our world, into our time today. The scene where Gul'dan discovered and awoke Illidan is part of the Demon Hunter experience and why the Legion is at this place - they came specifically for Illidan. "Maiev was out at the pub." tongue.png

The only time you spend inside the Emerald Nightmare is in the raid zone. Its influence will be felt outside, but only the raid takes place inside the Nightmare. The Emerald Dream/Nightmare might be expanded on further in the future.

The Mists of Pandaria story saw the Horde expelled from Dalaran, but with Khadgar as the leader of the Kirin Tor, he has worked with the Horde and feels responsible for Gul'dan, and wants help from both sides.

Asked if Wrathion will be back, as he foretold the coming of the Legion? "We'll see."

Karazhan's brief appearance in the cinematic teaser was important. Karazhan is an 'important place'.

Dalaran is more or less lifted from Wrath of the Lich King, and will be a neutral capital city for both factions. For game play purposes, it will still also be in Northrend - it won't be 'moved' the way it was for Wrath. Some things will have changed.

Regarding the new Violet Hold and other Dalaran changes, the devs noted that Dalaran has some ancient purposes that weren't fully understood, and it is affected by being brought this close to the Tomb of Sargeras.

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Game Play

Classes will evolve in a number of ways in Legion. The development team is looking closely at the core fantasy for each class. Talent changes and class changes are being made - stay tuned. The PvP talent system also gives the developers room to take PvP-type talents out of the current talent trees. PvP talents will not function in PvE environments.

As an example of class changes, the Survival Hunter 'spear' Artifact was brought up. In Legion, Survival Hunters will be a melee spec that utilizes a pet. To differentiate specializations, the developers will try to de-homogenize the classes. Further to this, Beast Mastery Hunters will fight at range with a pet, while Marksmanship Hunters will fight at range with NO PET.

Demonology Warlocks will be masters of summoning and controlling demons. Metamorphosis sort-of came to dominate the class, but the devs are refocusing the spec on demons. Affliction will continue to be about 'decay', and Destruction about 'bursts of fel fire'.

No stat squish is planned for Legion. Health numbers are 'fairly high', but that is because health was intentionally increased to manage the feel and flow of healing. DPS is still 'easily an expansion away' from the numbers players were seeing in Siege of Orgrimmar.

Professions are getting a lot of new stuff. The professions team for Legion is the largest that Blizzard has ever had for WoW, and they clearly heard the feedback that professions were underutilized in Warlords and overlapped with the Garrisons too much.

Realm firsts are not coming back. There was value in some (Ion mentioned things like the first player to beat Brawler's Guild, Mythic guild firsts, etc.), but the general philosophy is to allow players to take their time and enjoy the content at their own pace. Plenty of third parties actively track 'first to 100', etc.

Miscellaneous

Garrisons are staying in Draenor. If you want to go back and visit them, you can! They were always designed as something that you would leave in Draenor. The developers may revisit the system with something bigger, better, and different in the future.

Order Halls are very different - they are a shared multiplayer space. They just happen to be the place you'll go to send your Champions on missions. They don't duplicate the functionality of cities (no AH, no bank) - think Acherus for Death Knights.

A release date is not set yet. The full cinematic is being actively worked on, but it isn't quite complete yet.

For new players who feel intimidated by the size and scope of the game, the developers feel that the character boost helps get people to playing with their friends faster.

Learn anything you're excited about in this interview? Still new things you're hoping to find out about Legion? Let us know.

/r/wow Thread