Apologies in advance to all of our non-WoW-playing readers! The World of Warcraft: Dragonflight release is exactly one month away today, so in the weeks ahead we’re likely to talk more about the game than not.

Here’s the announcement video:

Dragonflight Announce Cinematic Trailer | World of Warcraft by World of Warcraft on YouTube

One of the most astounding things to me is that this expansion will fully enable flying, considering how fervent Blizzard’s opposition to giving PCs the ability to fly has been thus far. (Perhaps some of the old guard are out and a new guard is in?)

This week, since the patch, we have started diddling with the UI changes. The larger minimap for sure is nice, but otherwise I’ll just have to see which elements on screen I might want to move. I mean, I’ve tried a few configurations and re-adjusted them multiple times already, but it’ll take a little longer to figure out what really works. The talent trees will take even more time to get used to, and that’s fine.

At the moment I’m more excited about the crafting orders, however. I haven’t found professions very satisfying at all for many years now; it’s about time we get something new.

Soon! 🙂

Image: Dragonflight gardern screencap via Blizzard

Of Dice and Dragons talks about games and gaming.

Wowhead has made available a talent calculator for Dragonflight on the basis of preliminary info on the upcoming expansion. Hooray, we get to dink around with test builds ahead of time!

At this writing, there are only a limited selection of classes to try: death knight, druid, hunter, priest, and rogue. In addition, the new race / class combo, Dracthyr evoker, is available for preview. Excitement! Below are some thoughts from the point of view of my main toon, a balance druid.

On one hand, there still isn’t quite enough information available. For example, on the Druid Tree, I’d like to pick Frenzied Regeneration, but the description doesn’t say whether it’ll pop you into bear form immediately upon use, which would make it less useable for me. (I assume it does, but the button doesn’t say.)

It’s great, however, that you can elect to skip certain spells. For example, I’ve never taken to Typhoon or Cyclone; they’ve always felt awkward and unconducive to my playing preferences or our joint style when Erik and I play together.

So, assuming that I’ll skip a number of lower-tree talents due to personal preferences, I’m having a hard time assigning enough points to reach the 20 required level. If this tree configuration is retained for the release, I’ll just have to hold my nose, pick talents I’d rather skip, and just not drag them onto my action bars.

On the other hand, I love that a balance druid gets more healing spells than is available in Shadowlands. When we play our druids together, we have quite a bit of staying power. I used to play a healer when we raided, but when it’s just the two of us it’s more beneficial to have a tank + dps combo. At times, though, I could use a bit more heals—the tanks are more than fine—and now I’m going to get it. Yay!

In the Balance Tree, it’s especially delightful that we can choose Convoke the Spirits, a Shadowlands covenant ability. A huge surprise was that they’re moving one of my favorite spells, Fury of Elune, to an end-tree position.

What remains to be seen is how the spells and talents become available as you progress, but so far it doesn’t look too awful. 🙂

Image: screencap from Wowhead

Of Dice and Dragons is an occasional feature about games and gaming.