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Predictions for WoW Chronicle: Volume 3

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With the release date of the next Chronicle volume slowly approaching, we've sat down to look at some of the possible plots that will get filled in based on the knowledge we already have from previous novels and games.

When the release was first announced, it was revealed that the book would cover the events "that shaped the modern history of Azeroth and delves into the backstories of Arthas Menethil, Illidan Stormrage, Jaina Proudmoore, and other iconic World of Warcraft characters". With two volumes already released, we are starting to get an understanding of the aim of these books: to produce facts that create new canon lore and establish truths among the numerous possible details that have surfaced around old lore. With so many examples and pieces of work to draw from, we can (hopefully!) predict what we're going to finally see in Chronicle: Volume 3.

It is worth noting that this post will contain lore spoilers, should you care about that. If so, I would recommend stopping reading now. 

If you wish to catch up on the lore of the books prior to reading through the post, you can use our recommended reading order.

Chronicle: Volume 1

The first book released was focused on establishing a huge amount of new lore, especially given the time-frame that was looked at. Prior to the release of Chronicle: Volume 1 (C:V1), the lore surrounding the titans was filled with pieces put together through mentions of their names, as opposed to proper written confirmation of what happened when Azeroth was formed. 

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Magical layout of the universe according to Chronicle: Volume 1.

The purpose of the book was to confirm and fill in the gaps of the lore that previously was created within the game as to how our world came to be. To some extent, you can say that the focus of the book is "higher forces", with it being focused on the idea of powers that are beyond a mortal's reach. If we look at the subjects covered, there are:

  • The Universe - how it functions, was built, and is constructed according to a magical diagram detailing different forms of magical power, as well descriptions of every non-mortal being.
  • Titans - how they came to be, how they would monitor and mold worlds, how their hierarchy was structured.
  • Void Lords and Old Gods - the existence of the former, the creation of the latter and how they came to bring about a threat to the universe.
  • Elemental Lords - their rise and fall, the world under their control and the different wars they waged on one another, as well as against the Old Gods.
  • Dragons - how they came to survive against the threat of Galakrond, how they managed to become the aspects of their Dragonflights and how they became the protectors of Azeroth's races.
  • The Burning Legion - their existence, the formation of their army under Sargeras and his corruption, as well as their ability to expand and control races (the Eredar, namely).
  • The Keepers - their roles and the hardships they faced before becoming the non-Keepers of Yogg-Saron at the hands of Loken.
  • The Primal Races - the establishment of the Mantid, Mogu, Trolls, Pandaren, Hozen and others, as well as the gods they worshipped, such as the Loa, the Old Gods and the August Celestials. 
  • The Well of Eternity - establishing it in the story as an ancient well of infinite power, the abuse of it at the hands of the Night Elves and the war that surrounded its use under the watch of Queen Azshara and the Legion.
  • The War of the Ancients - introducing, by name and power, the Wild Gods and their power, as well as the power of the Dragon Aspects.
  • The Mortal Races - introducing the existence of the mortal races, such as Humans, but ensuring there is a focus on a specific type of human, namely Aegwynn and Medivh, both of whom had close relations in their story to Sargeras. Another example would be the War of the Three Hammers, where Ragnaros makes an appearance after being summoned by Thaurissan.

For C:V1, I think it is safe to say that the theme of the book rests firmly on the idea of the "supernatural", those forces beyond our imagining that would shake the world if one of them were to sneeze. The cover of the book features Medivh, as opposed to any of the other figures the book mentions, because I feel that it is where the book is aiming to be. 

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The image of Medivh used on the cover of Chronicle: Volume 1.

The book goes from the beginning of time, through tens of thousands of years of history, constantly reminding us just how important and powerful Sargeras is to the downfall of everything. At every attempt, he seems to fail to appear and destroy our world, no matter who attempts to summon him. Medivh was his key to changing the strategy of taking Azeroth and was a perfect opportunity to battle on a front that nobody could have ever expected. 

In my eyes, Medivh was the perfect choice to go on the cover because he was the key to changing Azeroth forever with Sargeras' influence. 

Chronicle: Volume 2

Just as the first book saw to establish the lore around Azeroth and the universe, Chronicle: Volume 2 (C: V2) had to establish the lore surrounding a new planet, Draenor, and how it became Outland. The subjects that were included are as follows:

  • Formation of Draenor - the shaping of the world under Aggramar, the fall of the giants that ruled the world and the establishment of the races that would live there, along with the gods they worshiped.
  • Fall of the Ogrons - the establishment of the Ogron empire and how it eventually fell to the might of the ogres and their revolution, which in turn allowed the orcs to come out of hiding and construct their civilizations across the world.
  • Orcs Before Fel - the life and structure of living of the orcs prior to the introduction of the power of the Legion, their learning of Shamanism and the power of the elements.
  • Arrival of the Draenei - the arrival of Velen's group on Draenor, their battles with the orcs and ogres, and the establishment of peace between orcs and Draenei by Velen.
  • Orcs After Fel - the introduction of the Burning Legion and fel power to the Orcs, Ner'zhul's rise and fall, Gul'dan's journey to power and the construction of the first Horde.
  • The Effects of Fel - the power gained and the sacrifices made by the Orcs, their genocide against the Draenei, the loss of connection to the elements by Shamans and the creation of Warlocks.
  • The First War - the creation of the Dark Portal, the introduction of Garona, Khadgar and Medivh, the first invasion, the siege of Stormwind and the fall of Medivh, along with the effect it had on Gul'dan.
  • The New Horde - the fall of Stormwind at the hands of the new Horde under the new Warchief's command, the murder of King Llane, the stealing of the Demon Soul and the re-introduction of Deathwing.
  • The Second War - the promise of power by Gul'dan, the creation of Death Knights, the creation of the Alliance, the kidnapping of Alexstrasza and her brood, the betrayal by Gul'dan and the battle of Lordaeron.
  • Gul'dan - the quest for power in the Tomb of Sargeras, his death at the hands of the demons and the creation of the artifact, the Skull of Gul'dan.
  • End of the Second War - the death of Lothar, the fall of the Horde, the orc internment camps.
  • The Rise of the Horde  - Ner'zhul takes command, gains control of the Skull of Gul'dan, the Book of Medivh, the Scepter of Sargeras and the Eye of Dalaran, the journey to Draenor and the battle for Hellfire Citadel.
  • The Breaking of Draenor - Ner'zhul destroying Draenor by opening portals, the "death" of Turalyon and Alleria, the battle between Deathwing and Gruul, the destruction of the Horde.

As we can see, even after his death, there is a huge emphasis placed on the role of Gul'dan. Even after perishing at the hands of demons, his influence lingered on in the power of his skull, which went on to be used as an artifact. He played an absolutely fundamental role in establishing the trust in power that led the orcs to taking the fel magic from Mannoroth, as well as turning them against the Draenei. He, with the aid of Sargeras and Medivh, was instrumental in constructing the Dark Portal and leading the Horde against the human army. 

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The image of Gul'dan used on the cover of Chronicle: Volume 2.

It is no surprise that he sits on the cover of the second book, given that he is essentially the reason why every piece of information in that succession of events happened.

Chronicle: Volume 3 - Why Tyrande?

You should now have a fairly clear view of why Medivh and Gul'dan were on the covers of the respective Chronicle books that came before Volume 3, but the question that should now be raised is - why is Tyrande on the cover of Volume 3?

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The image of Tyrande used on the cover of Chronicle: Volume 3.

The two volumes prior to this one both featured characters that were fundamentally essential to the events that the book covered, with Medivh finally being a method for Sargeras to not fail his invasion and Gul'dan being the other half of that plan, ensuring that it all went as planned on Draenor. From the information we have, we can try to speculate what the contents of the book might be in order to justify such a cover.

As a starting point, let's look at where the first two volumes have left us in terms of the timeline. With the second war having finished and the Horde now scattered to small clans trying to survive, we are anywhere between 8 and 18 years after the Dark Portal was first opened. 

At this point, the Alliance are hunting any orcs they can find and putting them into the internment camps that have now been running for a few years. The orcs are treated badly, kept in filthy conditions and are slowly wasting away. 

The Elves are, at this time, unaccounted for in Kalimdor and are presumably going about their lives as normal. They are, up until this point, a very closeted race, sticking close to their own lands and rarely traveling away from them, as far as we can tell. There is very little history about them at this period until the siege of the World Tree by Archimonde.

For the start of the book, we now have one of two starting points. We can either start where we are in history, 8-18 years after the Dark Portal opened and move on from there, or we can look back at something that needs to be known before moving forward in the story. Given that the cover is Tyrande, it's entirely possible there will be a journey looking back at Elune, the Goddess of the Moon. Given that Tyrande is the High Priestess, it would make sense that we finally start to understand who or what Elune is. 

Speculation surrounding Elune has been going on for many years, with people saying she is an old god, a titan, she is Azeroth itself, she is the moon - the list goes on, as you can imagine. I doubt I can make any headway into identifying Elune, but I think we can almost certainly expect to see some light shed on her, especially since the book will release after the new expansion is, presumably, announced at Blizzcon. This opens up the potential for her to finally play a visual role in the new expansion, rather than just appearing in displays of magic or intervention on Tyrande's behalf.

The Characters

In the announcement post, we saw the quote that details a number of characters that we might see, including:

  • Arthas Menethil
  • Illidan Stormrage
  • Jaina Proudmoore
  • "other iconic World of Warcraft characters"

All of these definitely play a huge role in a certain part of Warcraft's history, so we can start to piece together what we will see by looking at what we already know and, more importantly, where the gaps are.

Arthas Menethil

Arthas is a very peculiar name to find among these as having his backstory delved into since, with 2 games focusing on his story and a full book detailing his childhood and journey to power, his story is already fairly fleshed out.

The only real area that would particularly need extra information added beyond simple repetition of already available lore would be the relationship between Arthas and the Crypt Lord, Anub'arak. Around the time of meeting him, things become rather rushed since they focus instead on the chase to find Illidan and stop him in Northrend.

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Arthas meets Anub'arak for the first time in Warcraft 3.

We see very little development about the underground tunnels and city of Azjol-Nerub and, with a taste of it granted in Wrath of the Lich King, it's something that players have eagerly wanted to know more about. It would definitely be interesting to find out more about the history of the underground race, how they came to be of service to Arthas beyond the few paragraphs we receive and what their motives are. 

There is a slight gap of information between the events of Warcraft 3 and Wrath of the Lich King, but it is said that Arthas is simply dreaming, essentially wrestling with his instincts before turning fully to the power of the Lich King. While this wasn't really fleshed out, I can't see it being much of a story point to focus on, since the only thing happening would be memories of Arthas jumping around and his eventual consumption of Ner'zhul's spirit.

After his death at our hands, there is a period of uncertainty that does somewhat give an opportunity for elaboration - after we return the locket to Jaina, things start to go somewhat downhill for her. She starts to go down her "new" story arc (will go into this later) and it's possible that it had some effect on her in the run up to the events of Theramore. Her memories of him, brought back by Kalec, do end up stopping her from trying to kill everyone in Orgrimmar in the Tides of War book.

Realistically, I think we will learn very little that we do not already know about Arthas. I think he had his story told, in its entirety, through the novels and games. It will most likely be a small amount of retconning details to ensure continuity, with it mainly being put in to follow the story of the Third War properly.

Illidan Stormrage

This is another character that, with his being the focus novels and games, his story has already essentially been told and is still being told in Legion. We don't know much about Illidan's very young childhood, since the War of the Ancients books mainly pick up around the time that Illidan is already somewhat grown up with Malfurion and Tyrande. He has already started to master magic after completely failing to follow his brother's natural ability in the teachings of Cenarius. 

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Illidan, Malfurion and Tyrande stand before Cenarius in an in-game cinematic.

There is fierce competition between the brothers over Tyrande, at least in the eyes of Illidan, since he so desperately wants to be with her while she wishes to be with Malfurion. This is spoken about often, but never in any kind of particular depth. Constant references to it elude to the fact that Illidan will never be the favourite in Tyrande's eyes and, in the present day, this is very unlikely to change, especially with everything that happened under the Burning Legion's threat.

Regardless of the amount of story surrounding Illidan, there are definitely parts that are going to be given new light, especially concerning his time after going to Outland. There will likely be far more in-depth assessments of how he brought his army together, the advance on Icecrown and the betrayal by Akama. It's also likely that we will see more of the story surrounding the Skull of Gul'dan fleshed out, given that we only know of it through some discussions during quests in Cataclysm.

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Illidan holds the Skull of Gul'dan in the Black Temple.

For Illidan, I think we are almost certainly going to have new lore put into his story, given how much of a prominent character he was for this expansion. There are huge gaps in his story because of how many times he went "missing" or was imprisoned. It's also extremely likely, in my opinion, that we will see his story continued in C:V3 after Legion has come to the end of its lore cycle. There will likely be some form of redemption or sacrifice arc that will lead to a final fleshing out of his story before he is shelved for next expansion. Unfortunately, a Demon Hunter doesn't have much storytelling capacity when facing non-demons and, if the expansion does follow a void theme, it's unlikely he will be centre stage.

Jaina Proudmoore

Jaina will be, in my opinion, the centre-piece of new lore, regardless of whether she has the most impactful role. She is a character that has been rewritten in so many different styles, so many times, and she desperately needs some strong, canon lore to solidify what is happening with her.

She studied under one of the most powerful Archmages in Dalaran, she watched the man she loved murder him and countless thousands of innocent people, all the while becoming one of the most evil beings on Azeroth at the time. This was all documented in the Arthas novel, as well as in Warcraft 3, so there's no dispute as to what happened there. 

She moved on with her life, making an ally of Thrall on Kalimdor and founding the refugee city of Theramore, all once again documented in Warcraft 3 and following the style of Jaina that we all knew. She maintained that concern for the innocent, regardless of who they were or where they came from.

This continued through World of Warcraft and, in Wrath of the Lich King, she tried to reason with The Lich King, hoping to bring Arthas out once again. She failed, but when you bring her Jaina's LocketJaina's Locket from the Shadowmourne questline, her feelings are still clear. 

Jaina was fairly quiet in Cataclysm, doing barely anything for the expansion, but this changed hugely in Mists of Pandaria, along with her personality. It was as if a completely different person began writing her story. Tensions were incredibly high between the Alliance and Horde and inevitably, with their location on Kalimdor being so close to Orgrimmar, they were always going to be a target for the new Horde under Garrosh.

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Theramore as it appeared in-game before the Mana Bomb attack.

The Horde launched the attack on Theramore and, despite the forces easily repelling them, Jaina didn't realise Garrosh was going to drop a Mana Bomb on the city. He wanted to kill all the Alliance members present with the bomb, but she ended up surviving alongside a few others. She went to Varian, to the Kirin Tor, but nobody could or would help.

She ended up trying to kill everyone in Orgrimmar, she tried to banish all Horde from Dalaran, she opposed the Horde helping to fight the Thunder King and she wanted to disband the Horde forever after Garrosh was defeated. She opposed Khadgar's vote to try and reintroduce the Horde to Dalaran to help them fight and, after they were permitted, she left the Kirin Tor. She is since completely unaccounted for in Legion.

Jaina, for me, is the perfect person to receive new lore now. She is extremely emotional, has a pure, unwavering hatred for the Horde, she is incredibly easily to manipulate at this time and she is a very powerful Mage. In my eyes, if the next expansion does involve Old Gods, I truly think Jaina will end up going one step too far to achieve revenge against the Horde and turn to the Void, becoming an enemy of the Alliance and Horde both.

She has been missing since the start of Legion, which means she must be doing something other than waiting around. She doesn't have Theramore to be looking after anymore, so where could she be? Could she even have ventured north to Northrend, possibly being baited by a power that rests there?

Regardless of what it is, I am certain we will find out more about Jaina and what she has planned for the Horde.

Where will the book end?

Realistically, I think we are going to see the book ending at the events of Legion. They have shown that they aren't afraid to re-tell stories from different perspectives (likely what we will see in Chronicle: Volume 4) in V1 and V2, so I don't see a reason for them to not focus on these characters and move straight to the present day. It will give us an extremely solid base to work with for the next expansion lore-wise and, with the characters that are going to be looked at, it's a perfect line-up to reach the present day.

The book will likely cover:

  • History of Elune;
  • Tyrande's childhood;
  • Jaina and Arthas;
  • The Third War;
  • The Battle of Mount Hyjal;
  • Arthas becoming the Lich King;
  • Illidan vs. Arthas;
  • Illidan in Outland;
  • Arthas' death;
  • Theramore and Mana Bomb;
  • Jaina vendetta against Horde;
  • Jaina after Kirin Tor;
  • Illidan against Legion;
  • Illidan on Argus.

I think it will skip the majority of what happened in Cataclysm and instead develop it in Chronicle: Volume 4 from the perspective of Thrall, then using the new information we have on Jaina and their relationship. This would also allow them to go back to the story of the internment camps, Thrall bringing the Horde back after Doomhammer falls in battle and them freeing the orcs from Mannoroth's control. You could see his campaign in Northrend, him passing the mantle of Warchief to Garrosh, Garrosh's corruption over Mists of Pandaria. I definitely think C: V4 will be hugely Orc centred and so they will be barely mentioned in Volume 3.

What do you think we're going to see in the next book?

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The forces under the "Holy" section are a mystery.

1. We haven't seen the Light counterpart for the Void Lords. Maybe Elune?
2. The Naaru can change from Holy to Shadow, but we haven't seen the Old Gods do the same.

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13 hours ago, Archimage said:

The forces under the "Holy" section are a mystery.

1. We haven't seen the Light counterpart for the Void Lords. Maybe Elune?
2. The Naaru can change from Holy to Shadow, but we haven't seen the Old Gods do the same.

Interestingly, we don't actually have the Void Lords counterpart anywhere. I think Elune might rest above the Titans on the Arcane spectrum, rather than be Light-based.

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18 hours ago, Xaethron said:

A shame i have to buy these books. i can barely get the monthly subscription for the game lol

You can get some of the lore from the game, but the more in-depth things do seem to be covered outside of the game. I'm looking at doing a few pieces on the differences in lore that the game doesn't cover. Would something like that sound good?

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16 minutes ago, Blainie said:

You can get some of the lore from the game, but the more in-depth things do seem to be covered outside of the game. I'm looking at doing a few pieces on the differences in lore that the game doesn't cover. Would something like that sound good?

yeah that sounds great

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what exactly are the wild gods? Have we seen.......anything about them at all in game? I've wasted invested a lot of time studying the lore and i feel this is the first i've heard of them. When I think of beast esque beings they all end up being druids of known origin. So are there examples of wild gods out there or may this be a thing to be fleshed out in the future?

tldr, wild gods wut?

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3 hours ago, Tri said:

what exactly are the wild gods? Have we seen.......anything about them at all in game? I've wasted invested a lot of time studying the lore and i feel this is the first i've heard of them. When I think of beast esque beings they all end up being druids of known origin. So are there examples of wild gods out there or may this be a thing to be fleshed out in the future?

tldr, wild gods wut?

Wild Gods are primal manifestations of life and nature. Being creatures of two realms, the Wild Gods inhabit the physical world of Azeroth, but their spirits are bound to the ethereal Emerald Dream. Many of them appear in the form of gargantuan animals, such as wolves, bears, tigers, or birds.
As the titan-forged began shaping Azeroth, Keeper Freya wandered the world, creating enclaves of life and nature in the places where the waters of the Well of Eternity had coalesced, such as Un'Goro Crater, Sholazar Basin and the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. The greatest creatures to emerge from Freya's enclaves were the colossal Wild Gods. Seeing these creatures as her own children, Freya and the Wild Gods often wandered side by side through the primal forests and grasslands of early Azeroth. The area that they spent the most time at was the massive forested peak known as Mount Hyjal, and it was upon the slopes of Hyjal that Freya bound the spirits of her beloved Wild Gods to the Emerald Dream. Forever after, Hyjal would remain a sacred refuge to the Wild Gods.

Known Wild Gods:

  • Aessina <The Mother Wisp>
  • Agamaggan <The Razorboar>
  • Akali
  • Akil'zon
  • Ashamane
  • Aviana <Mistress of Birds>
  • Bethekk
  • Cenarius <Lord of the Forest>
  • Chi-Ji <The Red Crane>
  • Ela'lothen <The Moonspirit>
  • Goldrinn (Lo'Gosh) <The Great Wolf>
  • Gonk <The Great Hunter>
  • Halazzi
  • Hakkar <The Soulflayer>
  • Har'koa
  • Hethiss
  • Hir'eek
  • Jan'alai
  • L'ghorek
  • Malorne (Apa'ro) <The White Stag>
  • Mam'toth
  • Nalorakk
  • Nespirah
  • Niuzao <The Black Ox>
  • Ohn'ahra <Eagle Spirit>
  • Omen
  • Quetz'lun
  • Rhunok
  • Shadra <God of Spiders>
  • Shirvallah
  • Sseratus
  • Tortolla <The Wise>
  • Ursoc <The Mighty>
  • Ursol <The Wise>
  • Xuen <The White Tiger>
  • Yu'lon <The Jade Serpent>
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1 hour ago, Demenzel said:

Wild Gods are primal manifestations of life and nature. Being creatures of two realms, the Wild Gods inhabit the physical world of Azeroth, but their spirits are bound to the ethereal Emerald Dream. Many of them appear in the form of gargantuan animals, such as wolves, bears, tigers, or birds.
As the titan-forged began shaping Azeroth, Keeper Freya wandered the world, creating enclaves of life and nature in the places where the waters of the Well of Eternity had coalesced, such as Un'Goro Crater, Sholazar Basin and the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. The greatest creatures to emerge from Freya's enclaves were the colossal Wild Gods. Seeing these creatures as her own children, Freya and the Wild Gods often wandered side by side through the primal forests and grasslands of early Azeroth. The area that they spent the most time at was the massive forested peak known as Mount Hyjal, and it was upon the slopes of Hyjal that Freya bound the spirits of her beloved Wild Gods to the Emerald Dream. Forever after, Hyjal would remain a sacred refuge to the Wild Gods.

Known Wild Gods:

  • Aessina <The Mother Wisp>
  • Agamaggan <The Razorboar>
  • Akali
  • Akil'zon
  • Ashamane
  • Aviana <Mistress of Birds>
  • Bethekk
  • Cenarius <Lord of the Forest>
  • Chi-Ji <The Red Crane>
  • Ela'lothen <The Moonspirit>
  • Goldrinn (Lo'Gosh) <The Great Wolf>
  • Gonk <The Great Hunter>
  • Halazzi
  • Hakkar <The Soulflayer>
  • Har'koa
  • Hethiss
  • Hir'eek
  • Jan'alai
  • L'ghorek
  • Malorne (Apa'ro) <The White Stag>
  • Mam'toth
  • Nalorakk
  • Nespirah
  • Niuzao <The Black Ox>
  • Ohn'ahra <Eagle Spirit>
  • Omen
  • Quetz'lun
  • Rhunok
  • Shadra <God of Spiders>
  • Shirvallah
  • Sseratus
  • Tortolla <The Wise>
  • Ursoc <The Mighty>
  • Ursol <The Wise>
  • Xuen <The White Tiger>
  • Yu'lon <The Jade Serpent>

ah great ty, yeah a lot of the ones listed i thought wouldn't count because of druidness but then I saw your part about her favs being shoved into the emerald dream. Fun that the pandaland 4 count as wildgods as well. Was aware of many of these, just didn't realize they fit the classification. cheers mate :D

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21 hours ago, Demenzel said:

Wild Gods are primal manifestations of life and nature. Being creatures of two realms, the Wild Gods inhabit the physical world of Azeroth, but their spirits are bound to the ethereal Emerald Dream.

This part is actually somewhat ambiguous - Wild Gods aren't necessarily all bound to the Emerald Dream - the August Celestials are Wild Gods, but have no evidence of whether they can actually visit/belong to the dream. Just something that I thought was worth mentioning/might be interesting. 

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20 hours ago, Tri said:

ah great ty, yeah a lot of the ones listed i thought wouldn't count because of druidness but then I saw your part about her favs being shoved into the emerald dream. Fun that the pandaland 4 count as wildgods as well. Was aware of many of these, just didn't realize they fit the classification. cheers mate :D

See above! Also, about them being fleshed out in game, a lot of them actually made the races we see today. There's a lot of speculation and guessing around it (Brann does a lot of this), but some are confirmed. All harpies are children of Aviana, for example. Cenarius made most of the nature-races, like dryads, centaurs etc.

Brann had anthropology notes in one of the WoW magazines, I can't remember which - he says things like a bull wild god made the Tauren, but then Chronicles says they came from the Yaungol. Maybe the bull is Nizuao on Pandaria who made Yaungol, which then became Tauren. 

Anyway, the Wild Gods are a pretty huge part of how the world formed. You actually fight Agmaggan's children in RFK (the dungeon). He even gives you a quest AFAIR.

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      Today, we have various Core and Affliction tree changes hitting the Alpha. We want to take a moment to go a bit more in depth as to what certain changes were made and why. As a refresher, here are the goals for our Core and Afflictions that we posted last week along with some additional goals that we can dig into here.
      Class
      Ensure each capstone is interesting and exciting. Reduce the amount of throughput talents, to free up utility choices. Reduce the number of ranks for talents that don’t warrant multiple ranks. Affliction
      Address the tuning of Malefic Rapture in single-target and multi-target situations. Reduce complexity and the amount of active buttons that contribute to it. Erase the need to choose between a single-target or multi-target profile by adding more adaptability and flexibility. While we cannot go over every change here, we’d like to get a bit more detailed than last week’s update and explain some of the bigger changes coming in this build.
      Class Tree Throughput
      We’re removing a lot of throughput talents from the class tree to allow warlocks to pick up more utility without feeling forced to take mandatory talents to be competitive. These talents aren’t compelling options when placed against utility as they will always be the right answer to have. This allows us to move that power into the specialization trees and tailor throughput-centric talents to be specific to that specialization’s gameplay.
      Malefic Rapture
      In addition to becoming baseline for Affliction, we are introducing new talents that will help Malefic Rapture become the go-to spender for both single-target and multi-target situations. This should also shift Seed of Corruption to being a means to apply Corruption to multiple targets rather than what you spam in dungeons. In addition, we are redesigning Siphon Life to be friendlier to Affliction’s rotation and expect that its new design will make it easier to optimize Malefic Rapture.
      Affliction’s Adaptability
      While we do want Affliction warlocks to have a preferred talent setup for single- versus multi-target situations, we don’t want it to feel like they are powerless if they are in the opposite situation. By focusing on Malefic Rapture being Affliction’s main spender and removing talents that are only valuable in multi-target situations (Soul Flame, Soul Swap, Doom Blossom, etc.), we’re hoping that the Affliction tree feels less punishing to fill out.
      Is This It?
      Not at all. We expect to make changes based on feedback and our own playtesting. We want to get the ball rolling on changes we knew we want to make, so we could start the discussion early on and make adjustments before The War Within launches.
      Thank you all for the continued discussions and we look forward to your feedback!
      And here are the full changes from the development notes:
      Affliction (Source)
      Affliction Malefic Rapture is now baseline and has been removed from the Affliction tree. Unstable Affliction has been moved to row 1. Writhe in Agony has been moved to row 2. Absolute Corruption and Siphon Life have been moved to row 3. New Talent: Cunning Cruelty - Malefic Rapture has a chance to trigger a Shadow Bolt Volley, dealing damage to 5 enemies within 10 yards of your current target. New Talent: Summoner’s Embrace – Increases the damage dealt by your spells and your demon by 3%. New Talent: Death’s Embrace – Increases Drain Life healing by 30% while your health is at or below 35% health. Damage done by your Agony, Corruption, Unstable Affliction, and Malefic Rapture is increased by 5% when your target is at or below 20% health. New Talent: Relinquished - Agony has 1.25 times the normal chance to generate a Soul Shard. New Talent: Improved Shadow Bolt - The cast time of Shadow Bolt is reduced by 15% and Shadow Bolt deals 20% increased damage. New Talent: Volatile Agony - Refreshing Agony with less than 10 seconds remaining deals Shadow damage to its target and enemies within 10 yards. New Talent: Summoner’s Embrace - Increases the damage dealt or life drained by your Shadow spells and your demon by 3%. New Talent: Malediction - The periodic critical strike chance of Agony, Corruption, and Unstable Affliction is increased by 10%. New Talent: Contagion - Critical strike damage dealt by Agony, Corruption, and Unstable Affliction is increased by 20%. New Talent: Cull the Weak - Malefic Rapture deals 5% increased damage for each enemy it hits. New Talent: Empowered Unstable Affliction - Reduces the cast time of Unstable Affliction by 10/20% and damage dealt by Unstable Affliction has a 5/10% chance to generate a Soul Shard. New Talent: Oblivion - Unleash wicked magic upon your target’s soul, dealing Shadow damage over 3 sec. Deals 10% increased damage, up to 30%, per damage over time effect you have active on the target. Costs 2 Soul Shards. 45 sec cooldown. Siphon Life has been redesigned - Corruption deals 20% increased damage and heals you for 5% of the damage dealt. Kindled Malice has been redesigned - Malefic Rapture damage increased by 4/8%. Corruption damage increased by 10/20%. Malevolent Visionary has been redesigned – Increases the damage of your Darkglare by 70%. When Darkglare extends damage over time effects it also sears the target for Shadow damage. Shadow Embrace has been redesigned - [Shadow Bolt/Drain Soul] apply Shadow Embrace, increasing your damage dealt to the target by [4.0%/2.0%] for 16 sec. Stacks up to [2/4] times. Pandemic Invocation has been removed. Sow the Seeds has been removed. Soul Swap has been removed. Doom Blossom has been removed. Dread Touch has been removed. Soul Flame has been removed. Agonizing Corruption has been removed. Seized Vitality has been removed. Soul-Eater’s Gluttony has been removed. Grand Warlock’s Design has been removed. Grim Reach has been removed. Xavius’ Gambit has been moved to row 6. Withering Bolt has been moved to row 8. Shadow Embrace has been moved to row 7. Inevitable Demise has been moved to row 6. Tormented Crescendo has been moved to row 7. Sacrolash’s Dark Strike has been moved to row 5. Grimoire of Sacrifice has been moved to column 4. Creeping Death has been moved to column 3. Dark Virtuosity has been moved to column 1. Malevolent Visionary has been moved to row 10. Summon Darkglare has been moved to row 9.
    • By Staff
      Here come this week's Windwalker changes as well, with Blizzard detailing adjustments to Tiger Palm and Combo Strikes, as well as announcing talent tree layout changes coming with next week's build.
      Monk (Source)
      This week’s Alpha build brings more updates to Windwalker and we’d like to go over the underlying philosophy and reasoning for these changes. The main changes we’ll be discussing are to Tiger Palm and its damage distribution, making Combo Strikes more consistent and intuitive, and some incoming shifts to their spec tree talent layout.
      Tiger Palm
      Tiger Palm is the most commonly used button for Windwalker, but historically it has represented very little overall damage itself. We want Tiger Palm to remain mostly about generating Chi, but also represent a more meaningful percentage of Windwalker’s damage breakdown. Our goal is not to change rotational priorities, but to make every button press feel directlymeaningful to your overall damage.
      This also helps us tackle some interesting damage profiles by increasing their priority target damage, even in AoE scenarios. We’re excited about talents like Martial Mixture for this reason, which could offer some additional support to this profile.
      Combo Strikes
      We’ve removed Chi Wave and Expel Harm from the list of spells that trigger Combo Strikes for Windwalker Monks in The War Within. Since these are now automatically triggered, we didn’t think it was intuitive for these to trigger Mastery. Our intent for Combo Strikes is that the main focus should be directly on the action bar and relying on direct spell casts rather than auras to determine your next spell to cast.
      Alongside this, we’re making a couple adjustments to Combat Wisdom and Storm, Earth, and Fire to support these changes.
      Combat Wisdom will now rebalance Chi to 2 while out of combat instead of the default depletion. We think this will help both Windwalker’s opener feel more intuitive (only one required Tiger Palm before entering cooldowns with max Chi when playing with Ordered Elements) and also improve the experience of traveling between packs in Mythic Plus or the open world.
      Storm, Earth, and Fire is being added to the list of spells that triggers Combo Strikes. Our goal here is to make the transition to bursting feel as smooth as possible – both when maximizing Rising Sun Kicks with Ordered Elements and in the cases a Windwalker may choose to Storm, Earth, and Fire immediately before using other globals to set up Combo Strikes.
      Windwalker Tree Talent Layout Adjustments
      In next week’s Alpha build, we’re repositioning some nodes in the Windwalker tree to free up some builds we’re excited about. The main change is moving Teachings of the Monastery to Flying Serpent Kick’s location and moving Flying Serpent Kick baseline. Teachings of the Monastery is a talent we’re now considering core to the spec’s design in all scenarios, and moving it to a more centralized location frees up a talent point to increase optionality elsewhere.
      Thank you very much for your testing and feedback!
      And the changes from the development notes:
      Windwalker (Source)
      Developers’ notes: Please note that not all of the below changes will be available in Public Alpha 2, but we want to give players a full picture our next planned update for Windwalker, so we’ve opted to include all of our changes.
      Windwalker Expel Harm no longer triggers combo strikes. Chi Wave no longer triggers combo strikes. Combat Wisdom now balances your Chi to 2 while out of combat. Developers’ notes: With the removal of Expel Harm from the list of combo strikes triggers, we’d like to naturally smooth out Windwalker’s opener by having them start each combat with some additional Chi. This also reduces the ramp-up steps for them to get going rotationally. Storm, Earth, and Fire now triggers Combo Strikes. Developers’ notes: Moving forward, we’d like for Combo Strikes to not trigger from spells that aren’t intuitive to mix into your rotation or aren’t directly under your control, such as Flying Serpent Kick and Chi Wave / Expel Harm procs. Along this line of thinking, we’re also adding Storm, Earth and Fire to the list of spells that can trigger Combo Strikes. We want the initiation of cooldowns to feel as smooth as possible, and we’d like to allow for Ordered Elements to feel easier to play around (also back to back Rising Sun Kicks are fun!). Ordered Elements now has a 7 sec duration (was 5). Jadefire Harmony now increases damage and healing taken by 8% for its duration (was 12%). Crane Vortex is now a 1 point talent and increases the radius of Spinning Crane Kick by 15%. Rising Star is now a 1 point talent. Vivify healing increased by 30% for Windwalker. Developers’ notes: With the removal of Expel Harm as an active button for Windwalker, we’d like Vivify to better fill the on-demand healing niche for them. Skytouch no longer increases the range of Tiger Palm, now increases critical strike chance by 15% (was 50%), and its lockout duration is 30 sec (was 60). Dance of Chi-Ji may now stack up to 2 times. Storm, Earth, and Fire clones will now copy your Tiger’s Lust casts. Developers’ notes: With the removal of Serenity in mind, we’re looking to open up counter play options for Windwalkers when their Storm, Earth, and Fire clones are crowd controlled in PvP. Flying Serpent Kick is now a 30 sec cooldown (was 20). Shadowboxing Tread’s extra Blackout Kicks are now 80% effective (was 100%). Developers’ notes: We’re adding a tuning knob to Shadowboxing Treads so we can more easily tune Blackout Kick’s damage between single target and AoE scenarios.
    • By Staff
      Blizzard have detailed the changes coming to Fire Mages in this War Within build, as we as their intentions behind them. There are many talent tree changes, with new talents aimed at more choices being available, especially in the AoE department.
      Fire (Source)
      Hello Mages!
      We have a lot of Fire Mage changes hitting the Alpha today, and we want to take some time to go over what changes were made and why. As mentioned in our update post last week, we have a few goals that span all mage specializations. These are:
      Allow you to acquire each specialization’s core gameplay with less talent point investment. Simplify rotational complexity. Provide new nodes that can help you adapt your damage profile to better match a given encounter’s demands. Provide competitive choice nodes that let you opt-out of complex gameplay. Since we’re talking about Fire only, we can get a bit more granular:
      Fire’s AOE
      The biggest issue we were looking to address with this iteration was giving you more ways to adjust your talents and rotation to better suit different profiles, which goes hand-in-hand with increasing the effectiveness and excitement of Flamestrike, Phoenix Flames, and Living Bomb. We’re excited to see what Fire Mages can cook up with the new talents. Our goal with these changes is to push Ignite-spreading out of the default playstyle in higher forms of content, especially above 3 targets-- but retain and add talent support for it so its still exciting to utilize when it makes sense.
      Sun King’s Blessing
      Sun King’s Blessing is a powerful and exciting capstone that Fire Mage players have been utilizing heavily for quite a while. We like the Sun King’s Blessing / Unleashed Inferno capstone choice node, but recognize that Unleashed Inferno still has some gaps to close, particularly in AOE.
      By increasing the stack requirement of Sun King’s Blessing to 10 and increasing Unleashed Inferno’s effectiveness in AOE, we’re hoping that the two talents can better coexist as a meaningful choice when going into an encounter.
      Maintenance Buffs
      Fire’s array of maintenance buffs has been a sore spot in Dragonflight, and its something we’re looking to address moving forward-- especially given the addition of the Aberrus tier set as talents in the Fire tree.
      Firemind is our first removal, but we’re also being sensitive to the fact that Firemind didn’t require you to play around it very much, so its removal might not be doing much to simplify the landscape of Fire’s maintenance buffs.
      We’re also simplifying Improved Scorch’s damage amplification effect to be less punishing when its dropped, but also allowing it to be opt-in complexity. Fire Mages who want increased execute damage without the addition of another maintenance buff should look towards Down in Flames, a new choice node against Improved Scorch.
      Feel the Burn is on our radar, but its output is impactful enough that it serves as a great way to express skill for Fire Mages who have mastered its gameplay. New talents along with effects from the Frostfire and Sunfury trees are increasing player’s access to Fire Blast and Phoenix Flames, so keeping Feel the Burn up should be easier than ever before.
      That’s all for this update. We’re excited to read all of your feedback on the new Fire talents!
      And here are the specific changes from the development notes:
      Fire (Source)
      Fire Fuel the Fire is now baseline New Talent - Lit Fuse: Consuming Hot Streak has a small chance to grant Lit Fuse. Lit Fuse makes your next Phoenix Flames apply Living Bomb to up to three targets. Living Bomb explodes after 2 sec, dealing damage to the target and up to 5 nearby enemies. Up to 5 enemies hit by this explosion gain Living Bomb, but this effect cannot spread further. New Talent - Explosive Ingenuity: Consuming Hot Streak has a higher chance of granting you Lit Fuse. Living Bomb damage increased by 50%. New Talent - Down in Flames (Choice node with Improved Scorch): Scorch deals 300% damage to targets below 30% health. New Talent - Quickflame (Choice node with Flame Patch): Flamestrike damage increased by 25%. New Talent - Focused Fury: Living Bomb deals more damage the fewer targets it hits, up to 300% at 1 target. New Talent - Mark of the Fire Lord: Flamestrike and Living Bomb apply Mastery: Ignite at 100% increased effectiveness. New Talent - Spontaneous Combustion (Choice node with Improved Combustion): Casting Combustion refreshes up to 3 charges of Fire Blast and up to 3 charges of Phoenix Flames. New Talent - Charring Embers: Phoenix Flames applies Charring Embers to all enemies it damages, increasing their damage taken from you by 5% for 12 sec. New Talent - Fire’s Ire: When you’re not under the effect of Combustion, your critical strike chance is increased by 2.5%. When you’re under the effects of Combustion, your critical strike damage is increased by 2.5%. Two-rank talent. New Talent - Explosivo: Casting Combustion grants Lit Fuse. While under the effects of Combustion, consuming Hot Streak has a substantially increased chance to grant you Lit Fuse. New Talent - Blast Zone: Lit Fuse can now apply Living Bomb to up to five targets. Living Bombs can now spread to eight enemies. New Talent - Ashen Feather (Choice node with Majesty of the Phoenix): If Phoenix Flames hits only one target, it deals 50% increased damage and applies Ignite at 100% effectiveness. New Talent - Majesty of the Phoenix (Choice node with Ashen Feather): When Phoenix Flames damages 3 or more targets, your next 2 Flamestrikes have their cast time reduced by 1.5 sec and their damage is increased by 20%. Fervent Flickering has been redesigned: Now reduces the cooldown of Fire Blast by 2 sec Controlled Destruction has been redesigned: Damaging a target with Pyroblast increases the damage it receives from Ignite by 2%. This effect stacks up to 25 times. Developers’ notes: This talent is currently stacking past 25. This is not intentional and will be corrected in a future update. Improved Scorch has been redesigned: Casting Scorch on targets below 30% health increases the damage the target takes from you by 5% for 12 sec. This effect stacks up to 2 times. Flame Accelerant has been redesigned: Every 12 seconds, your next Fireball, Flamestrike, or Pyroblast has a 40% reduced cast time. Unleashed Inferno has been redesigned: While Combustion is active your Fireball, Pyroblast, Fire Blast, Scorch, and Phoenix Flames deal 50% increased damage and reduce the cooldown of Combustion by 1.25 sec. While Combustion is active, Flamestrike deals 25% increased damage and reduces the cooldown of Combustion by 0.25 sec for each critical strike, up to 1.25 sec. Convection has been redesigned: When a Living Bomb expires, if it did not spread to another target, it refreshes its duration. A Living Bomb can only benefit from this effect once. Pyromaniac has been redesigned: Casting Pyroblast or Flamestrike while Hot Streak is active has an 8% chance to repeat the spell cast at 100% effectiveness, but the copied spell cannot contribute to Hot Streak. This effect counts as consuming Hot Streak. Phoenix Reborn has been redesigned: When your direct damage spells hit an enemy affected by Charring Embers 20 times, the damage of your next 2 Phoenix Flames is increased by 200% and they refund a charge on use. Call of the Sun King is now in Gate 1 Searing Touch has been removed. Searing Touch’s critical strike threshold functionality is now baseline to Scorch. Improved Scorch’s movement speed increase is now baseline to Scorch. Incendiary Eruptions, Firemind, and Tempered Flames removed. Firestarter, Intensifying Flame, Inflame, Controlled Destruction, Wild Fire, and Flame Accelerant are now in Gate 2. Flame On is now 1 point and no longer reduces the cooldown of Fire Blast. Critical Mass is now 1 point. Wildfire is now 1 point. Conflagration has been removed. Fevered Incantation is now 2 points Sun King’s Blessing now grants Sun King’s Fury after consuming 10 Hot Streaks. Hyperthermia now has an activation overlay.
    • By Staff
      The Earthen join the Allied Race roster in this week's War Within Alpha build! Blizzard detail their current Alpha experience, as well as their racial abilities and future plans.
      Earthen (Source)
      Greetings, Alpha testers!
      With today’s Alpha update, testers can all rock the Earthen first hand.
      First, some context.
      To get right into the action, new Earthen on the Alpha bypass their starting quest experience. We also have abilities that are in the final stages of design but aren’t quite ready in terms of visuals or corner-case functionality. If you’d like a higher level experience, you can create a template character using an Earthen, but in this release, we’re particularly looking for your impressions of the extensive customization options the Earthen have to offer. Feel free to show us your awesome creations!
      We’re also looking for your thoughts on the set of racial abilities we’ve imbued in our rocky friends.
      Earthen’s active ability is Azerite Surge, an empower spell which has the following effects:
      (We’re still working on the visuals for this spell, so expect to see changes in the near future as we refine it.)
      Azerite Surge–
      Draw upon your inner strength. Release to invoke the power of Azerite, dealing $s1 Fire damage. Empowering has the following effects: Stage 1: Deals Fire damage to enemies. Stage 2: Heals allies for a moderate amount. Stage 3: Deals additional Fire damage to the highest health enemy. Additionally, Earthen have four other characteristics/traits:
      Ingest Minerals – You are always Well Fed, but cannot consume food. Activate Ingest Minerals to consume a gem and change the benefit granted to you by Well Fed. Hyper Productive – Increases Finesse, which increases the chances of gathering additional materials. Titan-Wrought Frame – Base armor from items is increased by a moderate amount. Wide-Eyed Wonder – When you gain experience for exploring a location, gain additional exploration experience. Please let us know what you think in this thread. Thank you!
    • By Staff
      This week's Alpha notes bring a new zone, two new dungeon, the Earthen Allied Race, and many class changes, including the Demon Hunter Fel-Scarred Hero Tree! 
      Notes (Source)
      The War Within Alpha has been updated with Alpha #2, build 54361.
      NEW ZONES AND DELVES
      The Ringing Deeps NEW DUNGEONS
      The Stonevault Darkflame Cleft NEW ALLIED RACE
      Earthen 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 73 Character Template Maximum Level: 75 CLASSES
      The following Hero Talents are available for playtesting in Public Alpha 2: DEMON HUNTER Fel-Scarred Fel-Scarred Demon Hunters embrace the monster within! Blasts of devastating Fel fire are unleashed while in demon form, and activating Metamorphosis greatly empowers additional Fel-themed abilities. The Fel-Scarred endure a pain that bubbles just beneath the surface, granting increased maximum Fury and a portion of their demon form bonuses at all times. Those who stand in their way will inevitably be introduced to that pain by intense fiery abilities and blades that burn with Fel energy. MONK Mastery of Harmony Developers’ notes: Master of Harmony was accessible in the Public Alpha 1 build but several talents were still being worked on. In Public Alpha 2, Master of Harmony is now fully playtestable. All Fear, Silence, Sleep, Stun & Interrupt visual effects have been updated with a new visual. Additionally, all movement speed slowing effects greater than 50% will now display a universal Slow visual on the target. Developers’ notes: Our main priority for this visual update is to help increase the clarity and consistency of messaging for common status effects. Slow (the status effect not the spell), for example has taken quite a few different visual forms over the years, mostly in the range of multicolored dust clouds around a target’s feet. As you can imagine this particular visual was difficult to notice from a distance and wasn’t easily recognizable. So, we did a pass on Slow and the other status effects listed to help address those clarity/messaging issues making them easier to quickly identify in combat. MAGE Sunfury Spells cast by the Arcane Phoenix no longer benefit from the caster’s secondary stats, spell damage bonuses, or talents. Arcane Phoenix’s Arcane Surge damage reduced by 50%. Reduced the damage of all Arcane Phoenix AOE spells by 50%. Arcane Barrage, Flamestrike, and Phoenix Flames Activation Overlay added for Hyperthermia and Arcane Soul Memory of Al’ar - Arcane Soul buff redesigned: Arcane Barrage costs no mana, grants Clearcasting, and generates 4 Arcane Charges. Fire Fuel the Fire is now baseline New Talent - Lit Fuse: Consuming Hot Streak has a small chance to grant Lit Fuse. Lit Fuse makes your next Phoenix Flames apply Living Bomb to up to three targets. Living Bomb explodes after 2 sec, dealing damage to the target and up to 5 nearby enemies. Up to 5 enemies hit by this explosion gain Living Bomb, but this effect cannot spread further. New Talent - Explosive Ingenuity: Consuming Hot Streak has a higher chance of granting you Lit Fuse. Living Bomb damage increased by 50%. New Talent - Down in Flames (Choice node with Improved Scorch): Scorch deals 300% damage to targets below 30% health. New Talent - Quickflame (Choice node with Flame Patch): Flamestrike damage increased by 25%. New Talent - Focused Fury: Living Bomb deals more damage the fewer targets it hits, up to 300% at 1 target. New Talent - Mark of the Fire Lord: Flamestrike and Living Bomb apply Mastery: Ignite at 100% increased effectiveness. New Talent - Spontaneous Combustion (Choice node with Improved Combustion): Casting Combustion refreshes up to 3 charges of Fire Blast and up to 3 charges of Phoenix Flames. New Talent - Charring Embers: Phoenix Flames applies Charring Embers to all enemies it damages, increasing their damage taken from you by 5% for 12 sec. New Talent - Fire’s Ire: When you’re not under the effect of Combustion, your critical strike chance is increased by 2.5%. When you’re under the effects of Combustion, your critical strike damage is increased by 2.5%. Two-rank talent. New Talent - Explosivo: Casting Combustion grants Lit Fuse. While under the effects of Combustion, consuming Hot Streak has a substantially increased chance to grant you Lit Fuse. New Talent - Blast Zone: Lit Fuse can now apply Living Bomb to up to five targets. Living Bombs can now spread to eight enemies. New Talent - Ashen Feather (Choice node with Majesty of the Phoenix): If Phoenix Flames hits only one target, it deals 50% increased damage and applies Ignite at 100% effectiveness. New Talent - Majesty of the Phoenix (Choice node with Ashen Feather): When Phoenix Flames damages 3 or more targets, your next 2 Flamestrikes have their cast time reduced by 1.5 sec and their damage is increased by 20%. Fervent Flickering has been redesigned: Now reduces the cooldown of Fire Blast by 2 sec Controlled Destruction has been redesigned: Damaging a target with Pyroblast increases the damage it receives from Ignite by 2%. This effect stacks up to 25 times. Developers’ notes: This talent is currently stacking past 25. This is not intentional and will be corrected in a future update. Improved Scorch has been redesigned: Casting Scorch on targets below 30% health increases the damage the target takes from you by 5% for 12 sec. This effect stacks up to 2 times. Flame Accelerant has been redesigned: Every 12 seconds, your next Fireball, Flamestrike, or Pyroblast has a 40% reduced cast time. Unleashed Inferno has been redesigned: While Combustion is active your Fireball, Pyroblast, Fire Blast, Scorch, and Phoenix Flames deal 50% increased damage and reduce the cooldown of Combustion by 1.25 sec. While Combustion is active, Flamestrike deals 25% increased damage and reduces the cooldown of Combustion by 0.25 sec for each critical strike, up to 1.25 sec. Convection has been redesigned: When a Living Bomb expires, if it did not spread to another target, it refreshes its duration. A Living Bomb can only benefit from this effect once. Pyromaniac has been redesigned: Casting Pyroblast or Flamestrike while Hot Streak is active has an 8% chance to repeat the spell cast at 100% effectiveness, but the copied spell cannot contribute to Hot Streak. This effect counts as consuming Hot Streak. Phoenix Reborn has been redesigned: When your direct damage spells hit an enemy affected by Charring Embers 20 times, the damage of your next 2 Phoenix Flames is increased by 200% and they refund a charge on use. Call of the Sun King is now in Gate 1 Searing Touch has been removed. Searing Touch’s critical strike threshold functionality is now baseline to Scorch. Improved Scorch’s movement speed increase is now baseline to Scorch. Incendiary Eruptions, Firemind, and Tempered Flames removed. Firestarter, Intensifying Flame, Inflame, Controlled Destruction, Wild Fire, and Flame Accelerant are now in Gate 2. Flame On is now 1 point and no longer reduces the cooldown of Fire Blast. Critical Mass is now 1 point. Wildfire is now 1 point. Conflagration has been removed. Fevered Incantation is now 2 points Sun King’s Blessing now grants Sun King’s Fury after consuming 10 Hot Streaks. Hyperthermia now has an activation overlay. MONK Developers’ notes: Please note that not all of the below changes will be available in Public Alpha 2, but we want to give players a full picture our next planned update for Windwalker, so we’ve opted to include all of our changes. Conduit of the Celestials Heart of the Jade Serpent now increases the cool down rate of affected spells by 75% (was 100%). Fists of Fury now channels 50% faster during Heart of the Jade Serpent. Windwalking is now a 1 point talent. Some connections have been moved within the final gate. Hasty Provocation has moved to a choice node with Quick Footed. Windwalker Expel Harm no longer triggers combo strikes. Chi Wave no longer triggers combo strikes. Combat Wisdom now balances your Chi to 2 while out of combat. Developers’ notes: With the removal of Expel Harm from the list of combo strikes triggers, we’d like to naturally smooth out Windwalker’s opener by having them start each combat with some additional Chi. This also reduces the ramp-up steps for them to get going rotationally. Storm, Earth, and Fire now triggers Combo Strikes. Developers’ notes: Moving forward, we’d like for Combo Strikes to not trigger from spells that aren’t intuitive to mix into your rotation or aren’t directly under your control, such as Flying Serpent Kick and Chi Wave / Expel Harm procs. Along this line of thinking, we’re also adding Storm, Earth and Fire to the list of spells that can trigger Combo Strikes. We want the initiation of cooldowns to feel as smooth as possible, and we’d like to allow for Ordered Elements to feel easier to play around (also back to back Rising Sun Kicks are fun!). Ordered Elements now has a 7 sec duration (was 5). Jadefire Harmony now increases damage and healing taken by 8% for its duration (was 12%). Crane Vortex is now a 1 point talent and increases the radius of Spinning Crane Kick by 15%. Rising Star is now a 1 point talent. Vivify healing increased by 30% for Windwalker. Developers’ notes: With the removal of Expel Harm as an active button for Windwalker, we’d like Vivify to better fill the on-demand healing niche for them. Skytouch no longer increases the range of Tiger Palm, now increases critical strike chance by 15% (was 50%), and its lockout duration is 30 sec (was 60). Dance of Chi-Ji may now stack up to 2 times. Storm, Earth, and Fire clones will now copy your Tiger’s Lust casts. Developers’ notes: With the removal of Serenity in mind, we’re looking to open up counter play options for Windwalkers when their Storm, Earth, and Fire clones are crowd controlled in PvP. Flying Serpent Kick is now a 30 sec cooldown (was 20). Shadowboxing Tread’s extra Blackout Kicks are now 80% effective (was 100%). Developers’ notes: We’re adding a tuning knob to Shadowboxing Treads so we can more easily tune Blackout Kick’s damage between single target and AoE scenarios. PALADIN Retribution Highlord’s Judgment has been renamed to Highlord’s Wrath. Mastery: Hand of Light has been renamed to Mastery: Highlord’s Judgment – Now also causes Judgment to have a chance to blast the target with the Light, dealing Holy damage. Highlord’s Wrath has been redesigned – Mastery: Highlord’s Judgment is 50/100% more effective on Judgment and Hammer of Wrath. Judgment applies an additional stack of Greater Judgment if it is known. Adjudication has been redesigned – Critical Strike damage of your abilities increased by 5% and Hammer of Wrath also has a chance to cast Highlord’s Judgment. Blades of Light has been redesigned – Crusader Strike, Judgment, Hammer of Wrath, and damaging single target Holy Power abilities now deal Holystrike damage and your abilities that deal Holystrike damage deal 5% increased damage. Divine Arbiter now has an additional effect – Highlord’s Judgment and Holystrike damage abilities grant you a stack of Divine Arbiter. Searing Light now has an additional effect – Highlord’s Judgment and Radiant damage abilities have a chance to call down and explosion of Holy Fire. Blessed Hammer from Adjudication now spawns from the target of your Hammer of Wrath. Execution Sentence now causes the enemy to suffer 20% of the damage dealt during its time after it expires (was 30%). Execution Sentence damage no longer counts as a damage over time effect. Highlord’s Judgment damage increased by 50%. Highlord’s Wrath is now a 1 rank talent. (was 2 ranks) Highlords Wrath: Mastery: Highlord’s Judgment is 50% more effective on Judgment and Hammer of Wrath. Judgment applies an additional stack of Greater Judgment if it is known. Vanguard of Justice is now a 2 rank talent (was 1 rank) Vanguard of Justice has been redesigned: Enemies hit by Templar’s Verdict take 30/50% increased damage from your next Divine Storm. Judge, Jury, Executioner has been redesigned: Divine Storm has a 40% chance to cause your next Templar’s Verdict to hit an additional 3 targets. WARLOCK New Talent: Pact of Gluttony – Healthstones you conjure for yourself are now Demonic Healthstones and can be used multiple times in combat. Demonic Healthstones cannot be traded. New Talent: Swift Artifice - Reduces the cast time of Soulstone and Create Healthstone by 50%. New Talent: Demonic Tactics - Increases melee and spell critical strike chance for you and your summoned demon by 2%. Fel Pact is now 1 rank and has been redesigned - Fel Domination cooldown is reduced by 60 sec. Fiendish Stride is now 1 rank and has been redesigned - Reduces the damage dealt by Burning Rush by 10%. Burning Rush increases your movement speed by an additional 20%. Grimoire of Synergy has been removed. Inquisitor’s Gaze has been removed. Summon Soulkeeper has been removed. Profane Bargain has been removed. Demonic Circle has been moved to row 3. Soul Leech is no longer baseline and has been added to the Warlock tree. Soul Conduit has been moved to row 10 and is now 1 rank. Fel Synergy has been moved to row 9. Soul Link has been moved to row 9. Abyss Walker has been moved to row 4. Affliction Malefic Rapture is now baseline and has been removed from the Affliction tree. Unstable Affliction has been moved to row 1. Writhe in Agony has been moved to row 2. Absolute Corruption and Siphon Life have been moved to row 3. New Talent: Cunning Cruelty - Malefic Rapture has a chance to trigger a Shadow Bolt Volley, dealing damage to 5 enemies within 10 yards of your current target. New Talent: Summoner’s Embrace – Increases the damage dealt by your spells and your demon by 3%. New Talent: Death’s Embrace – Increases Drain Life healing by 30% while your health is at or below 35% health. Damage done by your Agony, Corruption, Unstable Affliction, and Malefic Rapture is increased by 5% when your target is at or below 20% health. New Talent: Relinquished - Agony has 1.25 times the normal chance to generate a Soul Shard. New Talent: Improved Shadow Bolt - The cast time of Shadow Bolt is reduced by 15% and Shadow Bolt deals 20% increased damage. New Talent: Volatile Agony - Refreshing Agony with less than 10 seconds remaining deals Shadow damage to its target and enemies within 10 yards. New Talent: Summoner’s Embrace - Increases the damage dealt or life drained by your Shadow spells and your demon by 3%. New Talent: Malediction - The periodic critical strike chance of Agony, Corruption, and Unstable Affliction is increased by 10%. New Talent: Contagion - Critical strike damage dealt by Agony, Corruption, and Unstable Affliction is increased by 20%. New Talent: Cull the Weak - Malefic Rapture deals 5% increased damage for each enemy it hits. New Talent: Empowered Unstable Affliction - Reduces the cast time of Unstable Affliction by 10/20% and damage dealt by Unstable Affliction has a 5/10% chance to generate a Soul Shard. New Talent: Oblivion - Unleash wicked magic upon your target’s soul, dealing Shadow damage over 3 sec. Deals 10% increased damage, up to 30%, per damage over time effect you have active on the target. Costs 2 Soul Shards. 45 sec cooldown. Siphon Life has been redesigned - Corruption deals 20% increased damage and heals you for 5% of the damage dealt. Kindled Malice has been redesigned - Malefic Rapture damage increased by 4/8%. Corruption damage increased by 10/20%. Malevolent Visionary has been redesigned – Increases the damage of your Darkglare by 70%. When Darkglare extends damage over time effects it also sears the target for Shadow damage. Shadow Embrace has been redesigned - [Shadow Bolt/Drain Soul] apply Shadow Embrace, increasing your damage dealt to the target by [4.0%/2.0%] for 16 sec. Stacks up to [2/4] times. Pandemic Invocation has been removed. Sow the Seeds has been removed. Soul Swap has been removed. Doom Blossom has been removed. Dread Touch has been removed. Soul Flame has been removed. Agonizing Corruption has been removed. Seized Vitality has been removed. Soul-Eater’s Gluttony has been removed. Grand Warlock’s Design has been removed. Grim Reach has been removed. Xavius’ Gambit has been moved to row 6. Withering Bolt has been moved to row 8. Shadow Embrace has been moved to row 7. Inevitable Demise has been moved to row 6. Tormented Crescendo has been moved to row 7. Sacrolash’s Dark Strike has been moved to row 5. Grimoire of Sacrifice has been moved to column 4. Creeping Death has been moved to column 3. Dark Virtuosity has been moved to column 1. Malevolent Visionary has been moved to row 10. Summon Darkglare has been moved to row 9. WARRIOR Protection Defensive Stance no longer reduces damage dealt by Protection Warriors. New Talent replacing Improved Heroic Throw - Fight Through the Flames: Defensive Stance additionally reduces magic damage you take by 5%.
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