BlizzCon Day 2 - WoW Raid Panel

Movies shown during this panel on their way.

From left to right:

   

5 Man Dungeons

Halls of Lightning

• Lvl 80 located in the Storm Peaks

  • The design philosophy behind this dungeon is to follow in with the lore of titans.

• Discover the secrets of the titans

  • Wanted to get a feel of epicness with every creature that is fought in the dungeon. But we can’t let you fight titans right off the bat.

• Epic lore + Epic Gameplay = Awesome

  • In-Game footage for the halls of lightning.

  • We try to get the feeling of largeness through the art of the dungeon while keeping the actual movement areas compact.

• Some of the dungeons are going to be non-linear where you can fight bosses in any order you want, and others will be completely linear.

• In WOTLK dungeons, there were “…a ton of new character models created to establish a greater feeling of uniqueness.

• Lokien is a messenger to the titans – the final boss of the dungeon.

Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom

• Five Player dungeon in the heart of Azjol-Nerub

• Features both indoor and outdoor terrain—while under the earth.

• What horrors lie underneath Northrend?

• There is a deeper influence of the old gods, akin to C’Thun.

  • There’s a reemergence of the faceless ones in Ahn’kahet.

  • The populous of Naxxramas originally resided in azjol-nerub.

  • There’s a faceless one boss that separates the party into their own phases of the fight where players have to defeat mind controlled versions of themselves. When one target is defeated and another is still alive, the victorious player phases into another player’s phase to help out.

Raid Zones

Chamber of the Aspects – The Obsidian Sanctum

• Raid zone located inside Wyrmrest Temple

• Expandable

• Choose your own difficulty and reward

  • 10 or 25 man content for all players

  • You can choose to kill the twilight drakes or not. If you choose not to kill the sub-bosses before attempting the final boss, you get a twilight drake mount as an award.

Eye of Eternity

• This is the home of Malygos, the blue Aspect of Magic.

• Story wise, you shouldn’t be able to beat the aspect of the blue flight by yourself—so the red dragonflight comes to help midway through the flight.

Itemization

• Higher quality loot from heroic dungeons

  • The loot is escalated up one tier from normal to heroic difficulty.

• Different Currencies per raid tier

  • Emblem of heroism and emblem of valor

    • Different tiers of badge gear.

    • Lending set bonuses to both tiers of gear.

Q&A:

• Is there any way that a raid leader can hearth an AFK raider out of the instance?

  • This is a great suggestion—Raid uptime is something we’re for. We’re definitely working on this.

• Will legendaries be distributed in the 10 vs. 25 man equally?

  • This hasn’t ironed out yet.

• Will legendaries be random?

  • We’re leaning towards quest based legendaries.

• Are you designing raid encounters that lend to the dual-spec feature?

  • NO. They are designed towards roles.

• Are you going to implement Uldum ever?

  • It’s a question about how it fits into the storyline of the current expansion. We will pick the ones that fit best when the time is right.

• Will healer / dps caster weapons be balanced in terms of droprate?

  • The ratio of caster weapons to melee weapons should be proportionate
    

• Will raid specific tier tokens drop?

  • The Valor and Heroism badges may be used to purchase a few of the set pieces.

• Attunements in WOTLK?

  • The prerequisite for raids will be level 80.

• Will Hunter Pets be able to offtank?

  • That is certainly the goal.

• Will the raids become more difficult over time? On the level of Sunwell?

  • We want to keep it fun and challenging.

• Will we see fights that incorporate non-class specific roles in new boss encounters?

  • Yes.

• Are there going to be interoperability between dungeon wings in the WOTLK dungeons?

  • We want to create dungeon experiences that feel more epic. This is definitely something we are looking into for the future?

• Will it be implemented a “one-each” drop rate for the tier tokens?

  • No, but certain set token slots will be bought by the emblems of heroism and valor, specifically shoulders and chest slot pieces.

• What is the estimated time frame for completion for top guilds?

  • For Naxx, probably less than two weeks. For Arthas, it can’t be said.

• Will there be a Sunwell version in Wrath, accessible only to top guilds?

  • I think not. I want the final raid to be more accessible.

• Will Ashbringer and Atiesh be available in WOTLK?

  • The old versions will be unavailable for 3.0.

• Is there a way we can mix and match our set piece bonuses?

  • We’d like to see this, but if you’re carrying around tier loot that is 5 tiers old we might be doing something wrong.

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