The new World of Warcraft expansion has officially been announced today at Gamescon. Titled World of Warcraft: Legion, players head to The Broken Isles after Gul’dan brings back Illidan and delves into the Tomb of Sargeras. With the level cap raised to 110, players can expect several changes to World of Warcraft including a new class and a new honor system.
New Class: Demon Hunter
Originally seen around Outlands during the Burning Crusade, players finally get their hands on the Demon Hunter class. The class is specific to Night Elves and Blood Elves, keeping with the lore. Their starting zone is unique, much like Death Knights as it is a Hero Class, where they learn what it means to be a Demon Hunter and “the meaning of sacrifice.” It is located in the Den of the Wardens and the Black Temple, as well as a world called “Mardoom.”
Character creation is unique, giving players the options to customize tattoos and horns as well as the usual skin tone, hair, and facial features. Instead of eyes, though, players choose the different “eyeware”, or the bandage that the demon hunters wear over their eyes.
Demon Hunters have only two specs, Havoc and Vengeance. Havoc is the melee DPS spec and Vengeance is the tank spec. The class gets the ability to double jump, jumping in mid air by pressing the spacebar twice.Below is a screen cap of some of the classes other abilities:
New Systems
Artifacts
At the being of World of Warcraft: Legion, players are sent on a spec specific quest to find their artifact. Since this quest is spec specific, not class specific, there are 36 different artifacts, one for each spec. This artifact will be the main weapon through out the expansion, with the artifact not only visually customizable, but has its own talent tree which gives bonuses to your class spec. This talent tree is very similar to the one from Skyrim with tree branches to locking later abilities. Since Druids can’t see their weapons, they will get to change the look of their forms:
Class Orders
Since once again the Alliance and Horde can’t work together to save their own lives, classes will band together under orders like The Silver Hand and the Mages of Dalaran to do it for them. Players are the leader of their class, though the Order barracks are shared between all player characters. Each Order has different allies, powers, and locations. Unique quests are found here and this where the followers wait to be sent out on their missions.
Honor Version 3
Taking the complain that “gear has too much to do with PvP” to heart, Blizzard is implementing a new PvP Honor system. The new system consists of an honor talent tree and PvP levels from 1 – 50. Once you’ve reached level 50, players can gain prestige ranks by resetting their PvP level to 1 and leveling up again. This grants cosmetic bonuses such as portrait badges, PvP artifact variants, and unique PvP mounts.
See below for some of the abilities granted by the talent tree:
New Dungeons
There are nine new dungeons scattered through the Broken Isles:
Halls of Valor: Located in Stormheim, this dungeon will be accessed by players as they level up.
Black Rook Hold: Located in Val’sharah, this is Lord Kur’talos Ravencrest’s ancestral home, an ancient elven fortress that has been twisted by darkness. Players will have to confront true threat that has corrupted the castle.
Vault of the Wardens: The demon hunter prison, players venture here to begin their hunt for Illidan and Gul’dan. For players of the new demon hunter class, they will be returning after their escape.
Eye of Azshara:
Darkheart Thicket: Located in Val’sharah, this is the heart of the nightmare corruption.
Neltharion’s Lair: Located in Highmountain, this is where Neltharion lived before he was corrupted and became Deathwing. Since then, it has become the center of drogbar society, the warriors of Highmountain. A pillar of creation is located here for players to rescue.
Helheim: Sort of, kind of, located in Stormheim, the story will play out similarly to the Grimrail Depot, but on a ship of the damned sailing through stormy seas.
Suramar City: A city of night located in Suramar ,where the Nightborn rule from their palace (see new raids), players will venture inside to uncover ties to the Legion and the nefarious plan unfolding here.
Violet Hold: Located in Dalaran, the proximity of the city to the Tomb of Sargaras stirs ancient secrets and mysteries within the Violet Hold. Players will learn about the origins of Dalaran and its mages, as well as Azeroth itself.
New Raids
World of Warcraft: Legion will have two new raids, though there is no information yet on how they will be gated:
The Emerald Nightmare: Located in the Emerald Dream, players will pursue Cenarius and defeat seven bosses. Finally they will face and defeat the demon Xavius.
Suramar Palace: Located in Surama and home to the Nightwell, players must face off against ten bosses, including the Suramar Grand Magistrix before finally facing off against Gul’dan himself.
What wasn’t mentioned, but is in the cinematic, is the Tomb of Sargeras. It remains to be seen if this will be a raid in a later patch, or some kind of questing zone.
New Zone: The Broken Isles
The main hub for The Broken Isles will be Dalaran, now lead by Kadgar. From there, players will attempt to stem the tide of the largest attack on Azeroth by the Burning Legion that has begun thanks to Gul’dan breaking into the Tomb of Sargeras. The Broken Isles has several new zones, each with their own unique storyline that all ties into how we are fighting against the Legion. We don’t know much yet, but here’s what we do know:
Val’Sharah
Once the pinnacle of Druidism in Azeroth, now a forgotten druid refuge, this was where Malfurion learned to be a druid under Cenarius. The demon Xavius is there, trying to unleash the Emerald Nightmare upon Azeroth.
Stormheim
The dwarven holy land, this is where we will learn the origins of the Kavaldir and the Valkyr. Two Titan keepers are locked into war here and have been fighting for thousands of years.
Azsuna
Beautiful ruins of a former night elf civilization are here, along with the Night Fallen, exiled high elf royalty. Queen Azshara returns to World of Warcraft as players fight her over control the pillar of creation located in Azsuna.
Highmountain
A mountain zone possibly encompassing new Tauren lore. Nessingwary finally returns and players hunt down beasts for him once again!
Suramar
Suramar hosts a new race of elves who follow the burning legion. Strong magic users, players will have to commit genocide against this race to get to Gul’dan and acquire a “relic”.
Thoughts and Observations
The new expansion looks to be delivering on everything players asked for. Less grind in PvP, more customization, dungeons that aren’t useless as soon as you reach maximum level, a new class, and a story line that doesn’t ignore the high position your character obtained in Warlords of Draenor. Personally, I’m excited for all of this, but what excites me the most is:
THAT NEW ANDUIN MODEL: Holy shit our boy’s grown up!
Spec into Misdirect 
Disagree? Have an opinion?