Dragonflight Alpha Development Notes: August 2nd

(Source)

Take a look at this week’s updates to Dragonflight Alpha:

DISCOVER THE DRAGON ISLES

Thaldraszus

Removed: The Waking Shores

CHARACTER LEVEL

Developers’ note: 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 . After making a new template character, make sure to talk to Questzertauren and he will prepare you for any available content.

Level 68 Character Template

Maximum Level: 70

Dwarves have been re-enabled.

CLASSES

NEW TALENT SYSTEM

Warrior

Developer’s note: We feel that all three Warrior specializations have excellent foundations for both their class fantasies and with regard to how fun their rotations are to play. So, our goal for the class in Dragonflight has been to evolve and enhance each specialization rather than to revolutionize or rebuild them.
We’re trying to strike a balance between existing things you know and love, exciting new talents and greatest hits from that past such as Blood and Thunder, Odyn’s Fury and Cold Steel, Hot Blood.
With this in mind, players should expect core rotations to feel comfortable and familiar but with a much wider variety of choice in terms of which elements they can enhance. In addition to this we’re also attempting to build in support to enable players to experiment with more varied playstyles if they desire, such as the Arms being able to heavily investing in damage over time abilities and Fury being able to double down on auto attacks.
We are excited for Warriors to be joining the Dragonflight Alpha look forward to hearing your feedback!

Known Issues

Some talent overrides are not working correctly, and you are able to use both spells (E.G. Annihilator doesn’t replace Raging Blow).

Some talent dependencies and combinations are not working correctly. (E.G. Combining Titanic Throw and Improved Heroic Throw doesn’t apply Deep Wounds to all affected targets)

Stances are currently a work in progress and undergoing internal iteration. A large part of their goal is to guide the fantasy of each spec but mechanically, the goal for these is not to encourage frantic stance shifting. But rather switching at certain major points in an encounter, such as For DPS Warriors during a painful AOE damage phase, or for Protection Warrior that are off tanking they may temporarily switch to deal more damage.

A handful of talents will be getting a choice-node option in a later Alpha build (E.G. Rumbling Earth and Thunderous Aftershocks).

Fury has some issues with Execute related to the new player experience that causes you to have both the Arms and Fury versions of Execute (players should use the variant that attacks with both Weapons).

Multi Rank nodes are not always awarding full values.

We’re still working on the background art for the Fury talent tree, it will be added in a later build.

PROFESSIONS

Inscription

Developer’s note: In this Alpha build, Inscription has been enabled and can be trained by the Associate Professor Instructaur in Orgrimmar and Stormwind. In addition to the traditional Inscription recipes, we’re introducing a new system to Inscription: the Darkmoon Deck Box. Scribes that have fully unlocked the Darkmoon Mysteries specialization tree will be able to make Darkmoon Booster Packs that contain the cards necessary to create traditional Darkmoon Decks much like before. However, Scribes can now use these Darkmoon Decks to craft Darkmoon Deck Boxes, which are higher item level and are able to be inscribed with Scale Sigils that allow them to customize their Darkmoon Deck Box with different attributes, such as removing all Even cards from the deck, shuffling faster or only shuffling when the player jumps. We’re very interested in feedback on this new system, so please let us know how it feels once you’re able to playtest with it!
Please note that for Alpha purposes, the Darkmoon Ace cards can be bought from Reagent Lord Herbataur. The other remaining cards will need to be crafted by Scribes.

Skinning

Developer’s note: In this Alpha build, Skinning has been enabled and can be trained by the Associate Professor Instructaur in Orgrimmar and Stormwind. While the core gameplay of Skinning remains largely unchanged for Dragonflight, we are adding a new consumable that aims to give Skinners a new form of gameplay: Creature Baits. Skinners will be able to create and place Creature Baits to lure elusive creatures out of hiding.
Please note that for Alpha purposes, the cooldown on Creature Baits has been removed so that players can use the item and give feedback. These items will have a medium length cooldown in their final version, which can be reduced by Bait Crafter Specialization traits.

Specializations

Unlocking Specializations requires 25 skill in that Profession. Once unlocked, players can spend Specialization points to unlock various bonuses for their Profession.

Developers’ note: 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:

Inscription

Archiving — Improve at the art of archiving various texts, gaining + 1 Skill per point in this specialization.

Darkmoon Mysteries — Improve at understanding the complex mysteries behind Darkmoon Cards, gaining +1 Skill per point in this specialization.

Rune Mastery — Improve at the art of Inscription and utilizing various reagents, gaining +1 Skill per point in this specialization.

Understanding Flora — Improve at milling various herbs in the Dragon Islands, gaining +1 Resourcefulness per point in this specialization.

Skinning

Bait Crafter — Improve your skinning efficiency, gaining +1 Finesse while skinning in the Dragon Isles per point in the Specialization.

Elemental Infusion — Hone your eye for detail, gaining +1 Perception while skinning in the Dragon Isles per point in the Specialization.

Tanning — Improve your capabilities at gathering general materials from creatures, gaining +1 Skill while skinning in the Dragon Isles per point in the Specialization.

Leather Mastery — Bolster your knowledge of leather skinning, gaining +1 Skill while skinning leather creatures in the Dragon Isles per point in the Specialization.

Known Issues

Leatherworking: Feral Hide Drums cannot be crafted. This will be fixed in a later build.

Skinning: A few of the Specialization trees are missing description text. This will be fixed in a later build.

USER INTERFACE AND ACCESSIBILITY

New HUD UI

Edit Mode

Added Pet Bar

Added Possess Bar

Equipment sets, guild bank, and macro icon selection can now be chosen with a drag and drop from certain sources (items, spells, mounts, battle pets, macros).

Known issue: Macros do not display their spell icon when the question mark icon is used.