Moonkin in Legion: Bye bye pixel butt and eclipse

BlizzCon 2015 is over after two awesome days. I watched the live stream which was very good except for some panels which they didn’t show there, so I had to read about it later on Twitter and different WoW fan sites. The Legion panels were very exciting and they announced many changes and updates to druids like Moonkin Form update, info about the artifact weapons, class halls and other druid changes. Druids have a lot to look forward to in Legion.

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The biggest news for me was the moonkin model update. If you’ve read some of my older posts about moonkin then you know how long I’ve been waiting for this update. I sent a question to Tom Chilton at last year’s BlizzCon where I asked about when we would get an update to the moonkin model and his answer was:

We have given a lot of love to druids over time with their different forms, so the moonkin will have to wait a little bit longer

Then, in September this year, Lore wrote the following on the US forums:

They indicated that it wouldn’t be a major update, it would still look like the old moonkin form.

Yesterday at the World of Warcraft: Legion – World and Content Overview panel they showed us this picture of the old and the new moonkin form. Julian Morris, lead game designer, said the new model is faithful to the old original but with a ton of character detail and  really expressive.

I’m very happy with what we’ve seen so far because I like the moonkin form, it’s the reason I wanted to start playing a druid when I first leveled one back in The Burning Crusade. All I wanted was an update like the ones bear and cat form got in Cataclysm and it looks like that’s what we’re getting now.

There are a few things I really hope and expect them to add. I want the moonkin form to have unique features for each race, like different looking horns or antlers, maybe fangs on the troll moonkin, different colors and shades, maybe some other features inspired by races and similar to what the cat and bear models got. I also want the colors of the feathers to change depending on which hair or skin color you choose. Like for example if you as a troll choose a white hair color, then your moonkin model will have white and maybe light grey feathers. So basically just like how the cat and bear models work.

Some pictures of the new model were shared a few days ago after someone datamined the Legion beta

AdriaCraft shared these videos of the new moonkin model animations

Another form that’s getting a much needed update is the sea lion aquatic form. It will pretty much the same but updated.

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Blizzard wrote a post about the druid artifact weapons and we learned much more about them at BlizzCon today, notes from MMO-Champion.

• Artifact power comes from quest bosses, rare spawns, rare drops, dungeons, raids, battlegrounds, arenas
• Artifact traits are unlocked by artifact power. You start with some traits unlocked. You first unlock active traits that you put on your bar
• After the active trait there are more choices, some of them passive. Minor traits have multiple ranks, you have to unlock them all to progress into the tree
• Eventually you can unlock every trait in the tree. You can keep getting smaller power increases after that, so weapon will get more powerful throughout the expansion.
• Relics can be socketed into the artifact to increase power. Increases item level and gives bonus ranks to some traits
• Two types of relics for each weapon
• You can eventually upgrade your artifact. Dungeon and world content lead up to a big upgrade moment. Upgrade will unlock a new model
• You can also get other models and colors from different types of gameplay
• Finish questing zones or do something that is significant to your weapon

You have become one of the greatest Druids in Azeroth, deserving of a weapon not only with power—but with a name. 

The balance weapon is called Scythe of Elune and the story tells us:

This mystical artifact was created millennia ago from the Staff of Elune and a fang from the wolf demigod Goldrinn. The Scythe of Elune carries a long and unsettling history for druids: those who are not careful enough can easily be overwhelmed by Goldrinn’s spirit, which infuses the scythe. Tied to the origin of the worgen on Azeroth, the scythe is said to possess untold lunar power for the druid with balance enough to keep control.

I think it’s great that each artifact weapon has a story and unique quests, so I’m looking forward to learning more about my weapon and it’s story.

You can read about the restoration, guardian and feral artifact weapons here.

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Class halls: The Dreamgrove – a home for druids

There won’t be any garrisons in Legion, but we’ll have class halls which are an area for your class.

• Class halls needed to be in a location that strongly represents the class. Dreamgrove is in Val’Sharah where druidism was born in Azeroth
• Druids almost had a class hall already with Moonglade. It gets pretty close to meeting the criteria, welcoming a variety of druids, but it could do a better job of immersing them in nature, welcoming feral and guardian druids more
• Druids can reach many other natural places in the world very quickly
• There is class specific content in the halls
  Every class will have their own variation of Death Gate to quickly go to their class hall and back
• Class champions are also found in your class hall. You will unfold their backstory over time and see them in the world
• You will interact with your Scouting Map in your class hall. It lets you select your starting leveling zone and you come back to it for new content later on
• You will find a shrine in your class hall to unlock traits and work with your artifact weapon
• There are lots of features and bonuses in the halls. Some are shared among many classes, such as armor stands to show off tier sets you have earned from previous content

More on MMO-Champion

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Druid changes – Darkmoon Faire Community Amphitheatre Class Changes Q&A

This panel wasn’t part of the Virtual Ticket, so thanks to Wowhead and Restokin for summarizing the most important points, you can read more on their websites.

I expected to see some changes to the balance spec and I was hoping they would do something about the Eclipse bar because I’ve not been a fan of the changes they did in Warlords of Draenor which is why I have barely played my druid this expansion. I just didn’t like the way the Eclipse just went back and forth all by itself and how I had to constantly stare at that bar to know which spells to use. So these changes made me very happy. We’ll get more info about every class here in a few days.

General:

• Lots of new talents
• Base abilities for druids are pruned – less core abilities that enhance other roles
• New talent – Affinity: A secondary spec, weaker than your main spec. Example: Guardian druid with Balance Affinity has Moonkin Form and can do useful damage.

Moonkin:

• There have been multiple failures with the balance spec and it’s time for a revamp. Core problem with moonkin is the whole spec is a bar cycle on your UI. You are playing the UI game – that’s done.
• Eclipse is gone
• Builders and spenders with different strengths and weaknesses and reasons to use them
• Focus on DOTs but keeps Moonfire, Sunfire, Starfall
• Stampeding Roar is gone for moonkin
• Innervate is returning to moonkins as their specific utility and it can be cast on yourself or other players

You can read more about the druid changes in Legion on these sites:

Moonkin in legion: Easy to learn, hard to master by Lissanna of Restokin
Legion Spell Changes – Build 20740 by MMO-Champion
Balance druid Legion Talent Calculator by Wowhead
Balance druid Legion PvP Talent Calculator by Wowhead

Which of these news are you most excited about?