OwnedCore Report #98 - Blizzcon Roundup >Sponsored by BlazingBoost<

**Kenneth** · 11-04-2019

Blizzcon. The biggest event of the year for Blizzard. This year was no exception. We had announcements across the board for every game that were newsworthy. That means buckle yourself up because this is the Blizzcon News Round Up.

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World of Warcraft Shadowlands

This expansion was leaked time and time again and even more so the last week before Blizzcon. It started off with a trailer that actually has a lot of controversy surrounding it. If you’re a lore person this opening cinematic might make you either really excited or really pissed off. Check it out above.

So Sylvannas takes the helm of domination off of the current Lich King, Bolvar, and destroys it opening up the pathway to the Shadowlands. Bolvar is not dead but it seems the idea of a Lich King is officially done. No more helm and no more Frostmourne. What could this mean for us? Well looks like were diving into the land of the dead to find out. Shadowlands is not short of features either and the theme of this expansion seems to be fixing a lot of the issues BFA has rather than adding a ton of new mechanics. Here is a list of what we can expect

5 New Zones

Level Squish to 50 with new cap at 60

New leveling experience all together

Endless Dungeon?

New character customizations for all existing races. Pics below.

Class abilities coming back

Everybody can be a Death Knight now!

Covenant system

Let us talk about the new leveling system a little bit more in depth. This is by far the biggest changing coming to Shadowlands in my opinion. It is basically revamping the whole leveling system. If you’re a new player and make a new character you will see the list in the above picture. If you choose 1-10 since you are new you will not be going to Mulgore, Durotar, Elwynn Forest, or wherever your race starting zone is. But rather you will be going to a new island where everybody leveling 1-10 will be. Now once you hit 10 you have a choice. Pick your era. From 10-50 you can choose an expansion you want to level through. For example, maybe you missed out on Mists of Pandaria and your friends always told you it had amazing questing and stories. Well now you can experience all of Pandaria yourself and have it mean something because its actually leveling you to 50. In my opinion this is fantastic.

Now once you hit 50 it will be like any other expansion where you are probably introduced with a quest to go somewhere and start your journey, in this case the Shadowlands. One last kicker is after you’re level capped in the most recent content you now have the ability to make all of you’re alt characters 50 as well. That’s right. Once you complete current content and want to make an alt you can just make that alt level 50 right off the bat and go into Shadowlands. HUGE if you ask me.

Covenant Abilities

Okay so what are covenant abilities? Let me quote Blizzard here.

“When players reach maximum level and have explored the first four zones, they’ll be able to pledge themselves to a Covenant, like the Kyrian. Each Covenant offers its champions abilities, along with other powers and cosmetic rewards that can be unlocked through a Covenant Campaign—an epic storyline unique to the faction—and other activities over time. This alliance also gives the player access to a Covenant Sanctum, a city only open to players who have forged a pact with its rulers.”

Basically these are abilities that impact the way you play the end game. Here are some of them.

Kyrian - Unburden: Dissolve into pure anima, increasing your movement speed to 300%, slowing your falling speed, and propelling you forward for 4 sec. Greatly reduces the radius at which enemies will detect you.

Necrolord - Transcend the Flesh: Separate your soul from your body for 20 sec. Your soul is invisible and untargetable, though your body remains vulnerable. This effect will end early if you move further than 60 yds from your body. When Transcend the Flesh ends or is cancelled, your body rejoins with your soul.

Night Fae - Soulshape: Turn into a Spirit Fox, increasing your movement speed by 30% and causing enemies to ignore you. Lasts 10 sec, or until cancelled while in a rest area.

Venthyr - Door of Shadows: Wend through the shadows, appearing at the targeted location.

Another explanation on how they work are you choose a covenant by spellbinding with that covenants character. This spellbind has it’s own talent tree. There are general and class specific covenants. Here are some of the mages.

A lot of these are really cool but when it comes to stuff like this I can’t help but think there is always going to be a meta option and you’re most likely going to be forced to take it. Maybe I am wrong but that’s the vibe I get. And yes it seems like you can change after choosing a covenant but not so much that you can PvP as one, Raid as another, and M+ as another all in one day. The respec has limits. This is Blizzard in 2019 of course. Also these are usable in every aspect of the game. Raids, PvP, and open world.

On to the new race visuals. Four were shown at Blizzcon but they stated all existing races so I am sure there will be many more to come.

Tower of the Damned

This is the endless dungeon mentioned above. It is a scalable dungeon for 1-5 players, yes its soloable. The difficulty adjusts based on party size. The further in you get the more powerful your enemies become. Each time you enter the tower it will be different from the last. The Jailer will be sending more enemies at you fast so don’t get comfortable according to Blizzard. It is not timed so you can take your time to explore which will most likely be necessary to overcome the challenges in front of you. It seems to me this is a version of a Greater Rift from Diablo 3 but for WoW. Either way it is definitely interesting and I am sure people are going to be addicted to pushing the limits of this.

Class Abilities

Ion said we want to bring back Class Identity over Spec Identity. HUGE if you ask me. With that being said we are getting a handful of abilities back that were formerly pruned!

Here is the full list.

Death Knight
- Raise Dead is available to all specs
- Summon Gargoyle is no longer a talent
- Anti-Magic Zone is no longer a PvP talent

Druid
- Ursols Vortex is available to all specs
- Cyclone is no longer PvP only

Hunter
- Hunter Mark is no longer a talent
- Kill Shot is coming back
- Eye of the Beast is coming back

Mage
- Frostbolt, Fire Balst, and Arcane Explosion are available across all specs.

Paladin
- Auras are returning. Devotion, Retribution, Crusader, Concentration.
- Hammer of Wrath is no longer a talent
- Consecration is available to all specs

Priest
- Mind Blast, Flash Heal, and Shadow Word: Death are available to all specs

Rogue
- Poisions are returning. Instant, Deadly, Crippling, Mind-Numbing.
- Shiv is no longer PvP only

Shaman
- Totems are returning. Healing Stream, Searing, Tremor, Capacitor
- Primal Strike is returning for all specs
- Frost Shock is back for all specs

Warlock
- Curses are coming back. Doom, Tongues, Recklessness, Weakness
- Demonic Circle is no longer a talent
- Ritual of Doom is coming back

Warrior
- Shield Block is now available to all specs but requires shield
- Shattering Throw is back
- Challenging Shout is back

Diablo 4

This announcement was no surprise after last year with Diablo Immortal and all the drama that followed afterword. Diablo 4 has been something a lot of fans have wanted for a long time. Diablo 3 kind of died down and games like Path of Exile and soon Lost Ark were grabbing the ARPG player base by storm. What did people want out of Diablo 4? Darker, Gritty, and a lot more mechanics that go back to its roots. It seems like we may be getting that and more this time.

Diablo 4 will not be a linear storyline but rather a shared open world with 5 regions. This is pretty big and was almost a must to survive in this upcoming wave of ARPG. Lost Ark and formerly Devilian showed that adding a ton of MMORPG aspects into an ARPG can actually be amazing. We have actually talked about this many times in the past Reports. Quests, coop content, trading, and more will all be in Diablo 4.

5 classes. Right now Sorceress, Barbarian, and Druid have been announced but it has been confirmed that two more will be coming with the base game. Which can we expect? Blizzard wouldn’t give any hints in the interviews I watched but if I had to throw a dart at the board it would be a summon class like Necromancer and an agility class like Demon Hunter.

Diablo 4 will be on PC, Xbox One, and PS4. With the announcement of trading I can only wonder if there will be cross platform playability and if so will there be cross platform tradability. This could be huge if so. The game is also on a brand new engine. Skills will be class bound, sets are making a return, and expansions are already planned. Hardcore mode is also returning.

As far as a release date? Don’t expect this game anytime soon. Based on the gameplay and feature video I watched along with the interviews I have seen this game is nowhere near done and they are open about it. They said “it’s not even Blizzard Soon” to come out. My guess is it comes out in 2021 and we will get to see a more completed version of the game next Blizzcon. With this in mind I am very surprised we didn’t get a Diablo 2 Remastered to hold us over for this huge gap in time. Especially because Path of Exile is making their gigantic 4.0 announcement that is apparently going to shake up the ARPG industry in only two weeks. Lost Ark is also getting closer and closer to coming to the west. All in all I am happy the game was announced, a little sad it’s going to be a long time before we get to play, and content with what is in store.

Overwatch

A brand new Overwatch is coming our way and it seems to be PvE focused. This has been rumored for a long time and turns out a lot of the leaks were true. New Hero Sojourn will be joining the crew, new game mode called Push is being added, and new maps like Toronto, Gothenburg, Monte Carlo, and Rio De Janeiro are all coming in Overwatch 2. So what is this PvE? Well it seems like there is going to be a campaign of sorts where there are talents and progression for whichever hero you choose. Story Missions, Hero Missions, and Progression are the 3 pillars of OW2. They are adding item system to these story modes such as:

Healing Station – Heal 100 health, 90 second CD

Corrosive Grenade – Throw grenade that makes enemies take 60% more damage

Barrier Fence – 2000 HP Barrier, 90 second CD

Hero Missions are like adventure mode in Diablo or World Quests in WoW. You can play them daily, monthly, weekly, whichever. These take place across the globe in old and new maps. Hero Roster is much more open in Hero Missions compared to Story Mode. Easier way to level up heroes you don’t play in PvP as much.

Progression will include talents, leveling, player power, and more. These talents will not come to PvP. Here are some of Tracer’s talents to get a feel of what is to come.

Adaptive Reload – Pulse Pistols reload when using any ability
Chain Reaction - Pulse Bomb causes secondary explosions on enemies that are damaged by it.
Flash – Blinking through enemies damages them

As far as gameplay goes this is not on a new engine like some people have been saying but rather an upgraded version of the already existing engine. This will be interesting as PvP will be shared across OW1 and OW2. Meaning you play with people on OW1 while on OW2 in PvP while being on an altered engine. Does this mean hitboxes will be different for people on one and not the other? I am sure there will be some advantages for one and not the other in some fashion.

Hearthstone

Hearthstone added another expansion but more importantly added a new mode called Hearthstone Battlegrounds. This is there version of Auto Chess according to them. Interestingly it doesn’t look anything like Auto Chess but at the same time has some features such as the economy system. Release date for Descents of Dragons expansion is December 10th.

Trailer for DoD

Trailer for Hearthstone BG

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