7.0 Speculation Thread

[Chinassiah]

...
I'm very curious to see ... what weapon Arcane Mages will get.

Fire mages get Felo'melorn (Kael'thas' weapon, teased in the Gamescom presentation)
Frost mages get Ebonchill, Greatstaff of Alodi (shown on the expansion website)
...

I am expecting these 2 to be the Arcane Artifact

[Chev]

Arcane/Fire/Frost have such distinctive fantasies that I can't see merging any of them. It's a very different case from DHs.

"Needing all the specs" is not an issue at all. In fact, I think it would be even better, and I also prefer things stay that way. Having 3 viable specs on Imperator, each providing different contributions to the raid, was great design.

I agree. Especially with what they have said about hunters and defining their roles more.

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.

[Liandry]

I'm kind of bored with staves.

I'd like arcane to get like a swirling globe of arcane energy. Kind of like the FFXIV astrologian starglobe, but all super awesome. :p

The portal to Dalaran should prove to be.. interesting to say the least.
Ancient, Dalaran, and Super-Dalaran? Fel-aran?
Maybe it won't even say Dalaran, it might just be "Lost Isles"

[Caimion]

One cool aspect of the Artifact system is that they can always patch in new art (I would love swirling arcane globes, even just like the Diablo 3 Wizard!) in future patches and tie them to achievements or something to do. Never-ending content carrot!

[Rabona]

Will be interesting if they keep the same roles for mage specs. They're limiting Demon Hunters to two specs (a tank and a dps spec), maybe hinting at some sort of trim for all pure classes?

Regardless i hope they change how specs work for pure classes. We almost ran into the issue of needing all the specs every raid this expansion but the 3rd spec always ended up not being a super hard boss so it wasnt really needed (frost in highmaul for twin ogron, frost in BRF for hans/franz, fire for xhul)

Can't see that happening at all. Fire Arcane and Frost are three different elements, giving them three different speccs seems logical and I don't see why they should change that since imo mage has been one of the most well rounded classes in this tier.

Arcane/Fire/Frost have such distinctive fantasies that I can't see merging any of them. It's a very different case from DHs.

"Needing all the specs" is not an issue at all. In fact, I think it would be even better, and I also prefer things stay that way. Having 3 viable specs on Imperator, each providing different contributions to the raid, was great design.

I agree. Especially with what they have said about hunters and defining their roles more.

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.

Oh well.. Hunter twink it is..

[Phurox]

There will most likely be catch-up mechanics for your other specs' artifacts but not for alt catch-ups

source: https://youtu.be/d7u8vKLjwZM?t=3m50s" target="_blank

[Kirielle]

Ugh. Not having shared artifact power levels between specs sounds awful.

[Rabona]

That sounds flat out retarded. Surely they realize that this would deeply impact class balance and could potentially force force raiders into hybrid classes whose DMG specs are balanced around one for everything?

[Liandry]

So apparently the staff from above is called "Aluneth".
Wish I knew where it came from in the lore.

There's speculation that it might also be a priest weapon (Which.. I kind of hope it is, that weapon doesn't really wow me). The trailer however showed the wielder to be wearing mage-ish armor sets, so.. meh.
*Edit - HOWEVER, they DID say they were revamping the transmog system. So it's entirely possible that you could "learn" a transmog, and use it cross-class. That could very well be a priest wearing mage mog.

I remain hopeful that we can have an arcane orb, or book of medivh, or some sort of new object that isn't a staff.

[Espeonage]

I found it interesting in the Felo'melorn lore blurb on the Legion site that they specifically mentioned it being able to deflect Frostmourne's blows... Unsubstantiated melee spec hype?

[Rabona]

Maybe they swap the Frost specs from DK and Mage

[Methusula]

I found it interesting in the Felo'melorn lore blurb on the Legion site that they specifically mentioned it being able to deflect Frostmourne's blows... Unsubstantiated melee spec hype?

Well apparently, the lore is that it was shattered by Frostmourne and Kael'thas reforged it. He bragged about elvish blades gaining power each time they were reforged, and proved it to be true when he parried Arthas' attack.

[DocileCraig]

There will most likely be catch-up mechanics for your other specs' artifacts but not for alt catch-ups

source: https://youtu.be/d7u8vKLjwZM?t=3m50s" target="_blank

I'm thinking that we will have artifact power come alot like valor points, tied to the weapon with say a cap of 1000, then when the cap is reached we get a buff much like in MoP where Artifact power is earned faster.

I'm interested in ilvl power. will the weapon act like heirloom gear and scale to our item level? I've heard some saying (can't quote exactly) that raid bosses will give us items to further increase our weapons. How far will this go, and will it give us all of that upgrade from the start, or possibly give us a new set of things to spend artifact power on? To be honest, I don't think they have figured this out yet themselves although I love the system of trinkets being the only thing raiders want to rip each others faces off over. My only fear is that we get overlooked for spec identity talent wise as they seem to be giving that treatment to hunters and warlocks.

[Imnick]

Artifacts will get Item Level, Stats, and "Modifiers to your Traits", from drops called "Relics" which replace dropped weapons on boss loot tables.
They won't scale with your general item level.

http://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/1 ... zzikostas/" target="_blank

[Rage]

Ugh. Not having shared artifact power levels between specs sounds awful.

This is what worries me too. I enjoy being able to play multiple specs with what the fight dictates.

[Imnick]

Yeah I hope they change their minds on that, there is still time.

[Liandry]

It boils down to how they build the encounters and what the trinkets do.

If it's anything like HFC + PoF --- You could essentially just be arcane for the whole tier. Great ST + (sometimes) amazing aoe/cleave. As I've said in other places, I think if they make more encounters such as M Imperator, then all 3 specs would be viable, and you wouldn't need to switch as often.

This is of course just one solution to the problem. I'm hoping that they just make obtaining points for it harder, and then apply it to your secondary/tertiary weapons. So say you've got 6 points on the arcane weapon - as soon as you do the questline, and follow the story for the fire weapon til you were caught up to arcane, your fire weapon would also have 6 points. I think this would make switching specs less punishing, while also preserving the lore behind the weapons.

[Liandry]

Kind of random, and would likely -NEVER- happen, but I think it would be cool as hell if like... you had a mage of each type in a group - they could cast an amplified version of Forb/Aorb/Meteor, it would channel up, and if the other mage types started channeling with the first, it would coalesce all 3 of them sort of like how Khadgar destroys the dam in the beginning of Tanaan.

3 frost mages would make a huge frozen orb that would collide with the enemy and splash the area with frozen shards, doing a dot
3 fire mages would create a massive meteor to slam into the foe and cause little flamestrikes to erupt under every target.
3 arcane mages would form an arcano-storm that would zap enemies repeatedly (Think hurricane, but 3-4x bigger and 1000x cooler)
1 of each type of mage would just make this mish-mash ball of destruction that would look fantastic and just be utterly devestating.

-Sigh- A girl can dream, right?

[Rage]

Kind of random, and would likely -NEVER- happen, but I think it would be cool as hell if like... you had a mage of each type in a group - they could cast an amplified version of Forb/Aorb/Meteor, it would channel up, and if the other mage types started channeling with the first, it would coalesce all 3 of them sort of like how Khadgar destroys the dam in the beginning of Tanaan.

3 frost mages would make a huge frozen orb that would collide with the enemy and splash the area with frozen shards, doing a dot
3 fire mages would create a massive meteor to slam into the foe and cause little flamestrikes to erupt under every target.
3 arcane mages would form an arcano-storm that would zap enemies repeatedly (Think hurricane, but 3-4x bigger and 1000x cooler)
1 of each type of mage would just make this mish-mash ball of destruction that would look fantastic and just be utterly devestating.

-Sigh- A girl can dream, right?

They are kind of doing this already with the legendary rings? Their approach is better through gear because it allows you to still bring a variety of classes. Even though I think the idea you mentioned above is cool, Blizz wouldn't go for it because if the alienation it would put on other classes, especially if it was powerful. The rings is kind of their testing grounds I think for a raid wide DPS spell (other than heroism), the problem is too many people's DPS cooldowns are out of sync and doesn't allow you to use it optimally with each class. Still think it would look cool though

[Rabona]

I'm pretty sure that anything which requires more than one player of a class is a big no go for Blizzard developers ("bring the player not the class").