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World Of Warcraft's Next Expansion Is Legion
At Gamescom 2015, Blizzard unveiled many details regarding the next World of Warcraft expansion, Legion.
Players will fend off the Burning Legion and its hordes as Azeroth falls under its demonic gaze, and they won't be doing it without new tools. The level cap will be increasing to 110 (up from 100), a new Demon Hunter hero class will be available, players can band together in class halls, and perhaps the most interesting - players will have access to powerful iconic artifact weapons (like the Doomhammer and Ashbringer!) that provide a new form of progression.
Demon Hunters will be able to tank or DPS - The Vengeance spec is designed for tanking, and the Havoc spec is designed for doing damage. Demon Hunters will use Demonic Fury as a resource, with various class abilities generating and consuming the resource. There's some iconic and interesting stuff here, including Spectral Sight - which will allow you to see enemies through walls!
Artifact weapons are highly customizable and can essentially be "leveled up" via a variety of activities by obtaining artifact power - almost a talent tree within the weapon. These weapons can obtain extremely powerful abilities and tweak the way you play, and there are also a variety of cosmetic upgrades and styles for these weapons to help you distinguish yourself from other players also wielding these amazing items. Corrupted Ashbringer, Flaming Ashbringer, and many other styles were mentioned - so there are ways to express yourself via the weapon, you won't be stuck in a swarm of paladins all wielding the "same" Ashbringer.
Class orders will focus on enhancing class identity - making warlocks feel different from mages, warriors from paladins, etc. Order halls will be a base of operations only for members of your class. Paladins will hang out beneath Light's Hope Chapel, Shamans will overlook the Maelstrom, Warlocks in a Legion portal world, and other similar thematic matches between class/location.
These areas are where you will go to get special quests and missions, upgrade your artifact weapons, and interact with Champions. Champions are essentially a refined version of the follower system from Draenor - these important characters will have much greater impact than the passive send and collect follower missions featured in Draenor. It's a small collection of powerful characters that will have greater interactivity with your character and your experiences.
The first raid will take players into the Emerald Nightmare to face 7 bosses in a twisted and shadowed version of the Emerald Dream (yes, it's happening!).
This post will be continually updated over the course of the reveal presentation, which you can watch live here http://www.blizzgc.com/
Our Take
I am definitely NOT prepared. A new class is always cool, but the artifact weapons look like they could provide some incredibly interesting advancement options outside of hitting level cap and gearing up. While I thought Warlords of Draenor was a cool expansion, Legion seems like it's taking things in new directions instead of just providing more of the same - which is awesome.
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