Kamalisaura, the Dracthyr Evoker

Over the holidays, I eventually managed to get my Dracthyr Evoker out of the Forbidden Reach. Partly, I wanted to be sure I was through that questline in time for the Forbidden Reach opening up to everyone in Patch 10.0.5 (or will it be .7?). Partly, my pre-literate 5-year-old created a Dracthyr on another realm where I have a sufficiently high-level alt and was bugging me to get through the questline myself so I could tell him what to do.

I appreciated the insight into the main Dragonflight storyline and some of the other events we encounter around the Dragon Isles; it was worth playing through the Forbidden Reach storyline for that. Perhaps I’m just getting old and tired, though, because other than the gorgeous hair options for their Visage forms — which my Eversong Elves are totally envious of — I’m not too excited about either Dracthyr as a race or Evokers as a class.

After looking at all the bright colors, I was drawn to the grayish-brown for Kamalisaura’s scales because it seemed like it would probably be a relatively rare choice.

Dracthyr: Body Size 1, Primary Color 2, Secondary Color Strength 3, Secondary Color 3, Body Pattern 1, Body Markings 1, Markings Color 1, Chest Spikes No, Leg Spikes No
Horns 10, Horn Color 14, Horn Jewelry 4, Jewelry Color 5, Crest 10
Face 3, Snout 5, Face Pattern 1, Face Markings 1, Eyesight 1, Eye Color 2, Eye Style 1
Ears 6, Cheekbone 1, Cheek 1, Throat 1
Helm 2, Shoulders 3, Chest 3, Breastplate 3, Upper Arms 3, Lower Arms 4, Arm Spikes 1, Armor Color 5
Waist 3, Breechcloth 3, Thighs 6, Feet 4, Wing Decoration 1, Armor Style 1, Tail 7, Tail Ridge 1

Visage: Skin Color 1, Face 1, Hair Style 3, Hair Color 22, Hair Highlights 3, Hair Decoration Yes, Eyesight Both, Eye Color 2
Horns 1, Scale Pattern 1, Scale Markings 1, Scale Color 2, Eyebrows 3
Headdress 4, Ears 3, Earrings 3, Nose 1, Chin 1, Necklace 3, Jewelry Color 5
Underclothes Top 3, Underclothes Bottom 2, Underclothes Color 5, Body Scales 1

Shoulders and Belts showing up in Dracthyr form as well as in Visage form gives Mogging for Dracthyr a bit of complexity, because you’ll need to get the color scheme for the standard armor of the Visage form to coordinate with one of the 10 color schemes available for Dracthyr body armor. Speaking of which, I’m kinda annoyed that there are 10 colors for the body armor but only 5 colors for horn & hair jewelry, so you can’t always have your horn & hair jewelry match your body armor.

Also, I’m going to have to do Wrathion/Sabellian rep with Kamalia after all, because WELL, DUH that’s the source for the Obsidian variation of the Dracthyr Battlegear and also black scales for Dragonriding mounts.

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Tentative Dragonflight alt priorities

Thankfully, the Dragonflight Quest armor and Dungeon armor sets are not the same as the PvP armor. I like the both of the Cloth sets, the Dungeon Leather set, and the Quest Mail set, but I don’t find either of the Plate sets particularly inspiring.

Even better, that Dracthyr Battlegear is just the kind of awesome-looking new Mail armor that I was hoping we’d get with a new Mail-wearing class joining the game! Kamalia is really looking forward to wearing it… if it’s not ridiculously exclusive to Dracthyr Evokers, that is.

With that in mind, and keeping in mind that any alt management plan I concoct during the beta phase of a new expansion never ends up being exactly what I actually do with my characters — at the moment, I’m thinking that for Dragonflight, I’ll lead out with Kaelinda. Mages have unparallelled world mobility with their capital city teleport, and Invisibility is a pretty good aggro drop and run away ability. It’s okay for reconnaissance sneaking around, too, on occasion. Kamalia will go next; I missed her too much in early Shadowlands, and I’m excited about the new Mail armor. Then either Kerisa or Kasheena; I love being a Balance Druid AOE Goddess and a sneaky kitty to get from one place to another, but although I like the Leather armor, I want to get the Mail first. Then Kaelyla, to keep my Alliance Main caught up. And then… maybe Kamalisaura the Dracthyr Evoker, just to see how the new Class plays? She will be Alliance, so that I can put her in the “Blue Team” category on my Characters page instead of having to make a new category just for her.

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Renown 2.0 and Talents 4.0 (?) in Dragonflight

Ion Hazzikostas on Renown 2.0 in Dragonflight, from an interview with Hazelnutty, via summary by Wowhead: “…if you’re that outdoor world player who doesn’t do Mythic+, who doesn’t do progression raiding, all those players still want, deserve, and need gear progression of their own, and I think this is a more streamlined and elegant way to have those goals that you can work towards on your own pace…”
That player is me, and I am glad to be acknowledged and validated!
Having been so far behind the curve in Shadowlands that I was always riding the catch-up mechanics for Renown, I haven’t had the frustrations with it that others have expressed. If anything, I felt like it was a bit clumsy having both Covenant-agnostic zone faction Reputation and Covenant-specific Renown that both had to be ratcheted up. It was good that, in catch-up mode, Callings could contribute to both. From what little I’ve read, it seems like maybe the Renown iteration in Dragonflight is an iteration of both Renown and Reputation and might serve both purposes?
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Which iteration of Talents are we on by now?
Let’s see, there was the Classic/BC version, and then I think there were some modifications to the tree for the Wrath/Cata version, and then we got the Mists rows which have persisted until now; and then there have been the Talent-like systems of Artifacts, Azerite Armor, and Soulbinds+Conduits.
From the information shared in this post and this post and this post, I am feeling cautiously optimistic about the new Talent system. It’ll be good to not have to choose anymore between a utility option and a throughput option in the same Talent row.
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After we just had Venthyr, really Blizzard really Dracthyr???
I’m bound to roll a Dracthyr Evoker eventually to play with how the Class plays and to play with the racial customization options. She’s going to be named Kamalisaura and she’ll probably end up having a “phase” of her Draconic and Visage forms for each of the five Classic Dragonflight colors. I think I’ll probably look for versions of the scales (I keep wanting to call it “carapace” a la the Singers in Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive…) that look less tiger-stripey and more lizardy.

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buy me a ticket to the DRAGON ISLES!

So, after three or four expansions of the leading fan favorite wish being “Dragon Isles”, at last for 10.0 the next expansion actually will be Dragon Isles.
The Dragonflight [sic. Dragonriding] system itself sounds like a minigame that I will find extremely frustrating until I finally get the hang of it, and then I’ll probably enjoy it; I probably won’t go all out to try to master it.
But of course there would be a Dragonborn-type race. The idea of a mutually-locked race/class combo is a different take on the new race, new class trope of new expansions, at least for WoW. I’ll want to try out the Evoker to see how the new class plays — I’ve had fun with Death Knight, Monk, and Demon Hunter as alts — but I’m not going to be in Dracthyr starting zone on launch day. The Evoker being mail-wearing is very nice — hopefully this means we’ll get lots of awesome-looking new mail armor for Kam to wear, too.
Feeling kinda meh about the Tier set previews, though. They have the same problem as the initial concept art preview for the Sepulcher sets — it’s a big guessing game which set is supposed to be for which class.
The glimpse of the revamped Talent system looks like it has promise. It also looks like setting up Talents just for my Four Mains (Elemental Shaman, Balance Druid, Fire Mage, Frost Mage) on systems patch day will be exhausting due to decision paralysis!
On the whole — wind in the sails to get done the stuff I want to get done in Shadowlands so that I’ll be in the clear to jump on the boat to the Dragon Isles on launch day!

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