The new World of Warcraft expansion has been revealed. Starting with patch 10.0, we will be heading to the land of dragons. We have summarised what you can expect there.
The wait is over: As usual, Blizzard announced its ninth expansion, World of Warcraft: Dragonflight, with a cinematic trailer. This time it goes to the land of dragons. Or more precisely: to the Dragon Isles. As you can probably already guess, some old acquaintances are waiting for us there. Among them are the red dragonflight and its mistress Alextraza.
We have summarised all known information about the new addon for you:
- New Territory: Dragon Isles (with four new zones: the wild Coast of Awakening, the vast plains of Ohn’ahra, the sublime Azure Mountains and the ancient, magnificent Thaldraszus)
- New Maximum Level: Level 70
- New class-race combo: Caller of the Dracthyr (Ranged-DD or Healer)
- New flight mounts: Customisable Dragons
- Revised Talent and Profession System
- Revised HUD
So much in a nutshell, what we already know about the story and the individual gameplay elements, we elaborate on below. But first, you can watch the trailer for the expansion:
Table of Contents:
- Release: When will Dragonflight be released?
- Story: What is it about?
- New class-race combo: Caller of the Dracthyr
- Reworks: New Talent and Profession System
- New Feature: Dragon Riding
- Other changes: Mythical Plus, UI and co.
- Alpha: Pre-release version is probably within reach
Table of Contents
Release: When will WoW Dragonflight be released?
World of Warcraft: Dragonflight is supposed to be released in 2022. There is no concrete date yet. But Blizzard has already started the pre-sale of the new expansion) and promises in the shop that Dragonflight will be available on 31 December 2022 at the latest
Since this concrete date is mostly used as a placeholder, we assume a release in Q4 2022
For those who would like to participate in the beta before then, you can find all the important information in our Dragonflight beta overview ()!
Alpha: Pre-release version is probably within reach
According to the insider (Jez Corden) the alpha version of WoW: Dragonflight will start already this week. To be exact, he suspects July 14 as the launch date. Even if the info is not confirmed and you should therefore take it with a grain of salt: It sounds plausible that the alpha is not too far away. After all, the pre-sale for the Dragonflight expansion has already started, and the shop page talks about releasing Dragonflight by the end of the year. Furthermore, the developers are always posting new updates about the upcoming addon on their (official WoW Twitter channel) and on the (official website)
I heard World of Warcraft: Dragonflight alpha will start some time next week, possibly July 14th, if everything lines up.
You can opt-in to be considered as a tester here, invites usually go out in waves: https://t. co/Vyw983SwfL WoW Warcraft Dragonflight WorldofWarcraft https://t.co/IsyVHorhRJ
– jez (@JezCorden) July 9, 2022
Also, some data on Dragonflight has been added to the Battle.net app, as shared by resourceful user “Lumy” on the (forum page MMO Champion). With the last expansion Shadowlands, there were five days between the added alpha client and the official release. So a release of the pre-release version soon is very likely, but of course we can’t say for sure.
The story of Dragonflight
In the trailer you can see that over 10,000 years ago the Dragon Islands were sealed off and the Dragon Aspects left their home. Now, however, the island is coming back to life and the dragons are returning. But the land has changed.
Those of you who remember the events of Shadowlands know that the dungeon master Zovaal spoke of an even more powerful threat when he died. In all likelihood, it is now coming our way, threatening the dragons’ breeding cities.
In Cataclysm, Alexstraza already stood by us as an ally, standing against Deathwing and being severely wounded in the process. Since then, we have heard little from the Dragon Queen. It is a different story with Alexstraza’s younger heaviest named Ysera.
The leader of the green dragonflight we last met in Shadowlands, where her soul was forever bound to the Deadworld. Does this mean that there is a new dragon aspect – that is, a new ruler or ruleress for the green swarm?
In addition to the green and red dragonflight, we also see blue and yellow, respectively bronze dragons in the trailer, which points to the two leaders Kalecgos (ruler of the blue dragonflight after Malygos died) and Nozdormu (ruler of the bronze dragonflight).
Either way, we will learn quite a lot about the culture and land of the dragons and the giants who live there. The new playable race, the Dracthyr also come into focus. They have strong ties to the black dragon aspect (Nefarian) that later became Deathwing.
The Callers of the Dracthyr
What fits the Dragon Isles better than a new playable race? Exactly. Blizzard is not only offering you the dragon-humanoids this time, but is also linking them to a fixed class: the Dracthyr (Evoker) callers. You can play them either on the Horde or Alliance side.
They combine the powers of the five dragonflights and have two specialisations: Ranged Damage Dealer and Healer. They also bring an entirely new gameplay mechanic to the WoW mix in that when you use the Empower ability, you charge it by holding the button and release it when you let go.
You can play the Dracthyr as soon as you start the Prepatch. They start at level 58 and their story logically begins directly on the Dragon Isles.
Lore-wise, the Dracthyr are descended from Neltharion, who later became Deathwing. They are the result of an experiment in which Neltharion tried to bundle the dragon powers and channel them into the bodies of the Primalists. Despite their great strength, however, the Dracthyr are a very inexperienced people who, thanks to the isolation of Dragon Isle, have had little contact with the world outside the islands for over 10,000 years.
Reworks: New talent and profession system
As you have already read in the keyword list above, WoW 10.0 and Dragonflight are also supposed to screw something with already existing systems. One of them is the talent system, which is now back to its former form (before Mists of Pandaria). Instead of having to choose a talent every few levels, the classic talent trees are returning:
From now on you shall receive a talent point with every level again, which you can put into the tree. Although there will still be no talent hybrid system possible, as you may still know it from Wrath of the Lich King, the rework should give you more freedom when skilling again. We don’t yet know whether and how well this will work. Further information and impressions can also be found in the developer video.
With Patch 10.0 you will only receive about 70 talent points for the time being. That is, one for every level you reach. However, more talent points are also conceivable for the future. Ion Hazzikostas, the game director of WoW, told us in an interview:
“What we have considered for further Dragonflight patches are additional talent points that you can earn at maximum level and that are tied to important content“.
However, this does not seem certain yet.
The description of the profession overhaul is similar. Here, player-influenced work orders, new professional equipment, a brand new specialisation system and more [are said to play a role] in allowing players to advance to become professionals known throughout their realm
With this, Dragonflight wants to continue the basic idea of the profession system from Shadowlands and give the professions more leeway and importance again. The first images show a revised profession system in which you have to consider other parameters in addition to the reagents in order to craft the best possible items. You can watch more insights into the professions in the developer video
The talent system as well as the crafting will also be crucial for player progression. Game Director Ion Hazzikostas told us in an interview:
“We don’t have a lapsed power system in this expansion like artifact power or azerite. […] Player progression ultimately takes place in the form of their items. This includes things like tier sets […] and other itemization systems, including the depth that comes with professions “
New feature: kite riding
Dragonflight also introduces a new system called dragon riding, which replaces classic flying. Here you get your own dragon, with which you move across the dragon islands. The dragon is not a run-of-the-mill flying mount but learns new abilities as you progress through the game, such as a barrel roll. You can also customise your scaly friend to your liking.
Ion Hazzikostas sums up the feature as follows:
The Dragon Ride has a system. Your ability to gain altitude or use speed boosts is limited to one stamina bar. This is something you will be able to upgrade and improve as well as unlocking additional abilities such as barrel rolls. This is part of the progression.
There is no concrete info on this yet. But we suspect that while you’ll be allowed to fly quite fast at the beginning of the expansion, you won’t be able to reach certain areas until you have some abilities that can be unlocked later or a bigger stamina bar.
Other changes
Besides these big changes, there’s a whole bunch of smaller info, like the changes to the interface, which is supposed to be free-moving and more modern looking in the future. But there was also information that Blizzard only revealed after the livestream in the interviews that followed. We have picked out the most exciting quotes and information for you:
Mythical Plus
The Mythic Plus mode has also been harshly criticised lately, because many players were bored by the same eight dungeons despite affixes. This is now to change with Dragonflight:
“We want to find a plan to completely change our dungeon pool from season to season. Our current plan is to have 8 dungeons at the launch of Dragonflight. But the first season of Mythic Plus might only have four of these dungeons in the pool, plus four dungeons from past expansions that have never been included in Mythic Plus. Season 2 would then include the other 4 Dragonflight dungeons and 4 different older dungeons to have a completely different pool from season to season “
Timegating
The artificial withholding of story content was also a major point of criticism in the last Shadowlands addon. When we asked if anything will change about this problem, Game Director Ion Hazzikostas replied:
“It is likely that timegating will continue in some form. […] we will try to find a balance here. There will be some aspects of the narrative that will be paced. But there’s a lot more that you can delve into at your own pace”
PvP Armour
The player-versus-player faction doesn’t go empty-handed in this addon either. According to game designer Brian Holinka, who spoke to streamer Bajheera, Dragonflight will once again feature armour that has different item levels in PvE and PvP.
So far, so Warlords of Draenor. In addition to the item level feature, the armour will also retain a system from Shadowlands: The upgrading of the item level through honour. However, this upgrade only applies in PvE and not in the PvP area.
Improved reputation system
The reputation system from Shadowlands, which you know from the pacts, is not flying out of the window with Dragonflight but rather undergoing an overhaul. Speaking to AusGamers, lead game designer Jeremy Feasel said:
“You’ll see an evolution of the reputation system we used in Pacts, which we think is a really cool way to establish a reputation in a way that feels fresh for World of Warcraft. Our four main reputations each have their own set of notoriety levels […] “
Also new is said to be the ability to level up all four reputation factions at once. In Shadowlands, you had to choose a pact.
