The Sword, New Paladin Quests, Bonus Rolls - Blizzard Interview with Icy Veins, Raider.IO and Wowhead

Wowhead, Icy Veins, and Raider.IO teamed up in an interview with Paul Kubit and Kim Flack to discuss the Sword and the Worldsoul, new <span data-wow-class="Paladin">Paladin quests and how Bonus Rolls in the Great Vault played out!

This interview was a joint effort between Wowhead, Icy Veins, and Raider.IO. Please check out their content as well!

These three websites teamed up to interview:

Paul Kubit, Associate Game Director
Kim Flack, Senior Game Designer

Full Summary

Overall Story

Don't read too much into Ion saying we need to help Azeroth "one last time".
They've set up a lot of pieces in the story, and they're gonna start knocking them down. It's going to be full action going forward.

Talebound

Talebound will not be around forever, but they don't have an exact end date yet.
It should be something similar to Plunderstorm's duration, which should give you plenty of time to get the rewards that you want.
Never say never for old limited-time game modes coming back.
They were happy to see players engage in the reward shop in Plunderstorm, whether it was for a full clear of the rewards or just for a limited time to get what they wanted.
Players shouldn't expect the rewards to change significantly from Plunderstorm.
Paul enjoys the Witch and finds throwing frogs at things very fun. Paul really enjoys Roguelike choices.
Kim enjoys dying, and the bosses are difficult, so every time you die, there's a learning experience, and you can try again.
It is a Rogue-lite, so there is progression after death.

Prey

Kim loves Astalor and is so excited for Astalor to be the Delve nemesis in Season 3.
He's going to be flavoring the Delves, similar to Ula'tek's minions being in the Delves in Season 2.
He's also going to be flavoring Valeera's curios in Season 3.
Astalor is not going to die, but it's not as simple as he turns corrupted and we need to beat him back to his senses.

The Worldcore

Xal'atath has gotten to the Worldsoul, but the Worldsoul is fighting back, and the players are also fighting back.
There are story turns coming, and not all of them are going to be the players completing their mission.
During the cinematic, players saw Xal'atath entering the Mantle Vault with a beam of void energy. You may ask what is that beam of Void energy, and Kim teases that we last saw Xal'atath going down the Darkwell with their army and we may want to consider who else went down the Darkwell, and may be unaccounted for.

Transmog

The transmog change is coming in Patch 12.2.5.
As they built transmog, they wanted players to maintain distinctive silhouettes, such as Priests, Warlocks, and Mages always wearing cloth.
Many cosmetic sets transcend typical armor types and look very plate-y or leather-y, dodging the previous guidelines they've wanted.
With a new philosophy similar to housing, if you want to be creative, they want to support that.
Armor type restrictions are being removed, but weapon type and class restrictions will remain.
Never say never for the Forever transmog acquisition in Retail.

Paladins

They have thought about Forsaken <span data-wow-class="Paladin">Paladins for a while. 12.2 seemed like the perfect time with the battle of the Void versus Light.
There are some races that they've heard a lot of talk about, Night Elves being one of them.
Each of these races will have a new Charger mount.
There is a new story for each <span data-wow-class="Paladin">Paladin Race, but it's not needed to unlock it. It's there to give you the story of one particular member who chose the path of becoming a <span data-wow-class="Paladin">Paladin.

Calibration Chamber

Things are still in flux, but here are the thoughts so far.
You should be able to reset your cooldowns.
They are looking at adding temporary raid buffs and consumables.
They want to support different variations and layouts of enemies to test clustered, single target, or spread cleave damage profiles.
It's made just to test things.

The Mantle Vault

The Deepscar are a crew of underground races. It's not only Niffin, but Drogbar, Troggs, and Vermin. The Niffin are the smartest, so they're the leaders and are not the ones we met in Loamm.
There are some great fights with the Niffin coming up.
The Radiant Screams are a feature of the zone. It's a callback to the Radiant Song, and figuring out what it means for it to be a Scream versus a song.
When you enter the Mantle Vault, the zone is completely different from other underground zones. Aesthetically, it feels very different than other zones.
There are the things that players want to expect, such as the Campaign, quests, side quests, rares, and treasures, but there are a lot of little secrets that they're putting in.
It's going to look like other Titan spaces such as Ulduar or Uldir with very big, larger-than-life structures.
They're going to play with the lighting, such as from the Worldsoul in the raid.
The way that you get down to the Mantle Vault, you can see what kind of stories Blizzard is going to tell.

The Sword

Paul confirms that Sargeras' sword just missed the Worldsoul, as seen in the image that players have noticed.
It should become very clear that Blizzard has not forgotten about the Sword in Eclipse.
The sword came very close to hitting the Worldsoul.

Bonus Rolls

They've looked at the actual percentages of Bonus Rolls versus Gear. It's been close to what they expected.
It's pretty balanced between people taking bonus rolls and gear at the high end.
It's more focused on gear for people at the lower end.
They've heard lots of feedback from players that they wanted to take something from the Vault, but based on the way that things are set up, they've felt like they should take the Bonus Roll, and it's uncomfortable tension.
Data on this also changes over the Season.
Early on in the Season, you really want to complete your 4-piece, and people could take a Tier Piece if it's in the Vault because it gets you closer to that goal.
The volume of the feedback that they've gotten on the tension is something that is going to flavor the design of Season 3.
One possible solution is delaying Bonus Rolls in the Great Vault for a couple of weeks.

Mythic+

Uldaman will have 4 bosses, with the Lost Vikings encounter being removed.
They saw a lot of positive response to the 1% reward, as the 0.1% is, by definition, inaccessible to a lot of players.
They wanted to expand it further with the 5% reward and have people think about how high they can push.
For the spec-specific achievements, this change was made so players feel the game supports the class they want to play.
The 0.1% is overall and not spec-specific.

Legendaries

They're still working on details regarding acquisition and power.
They wanted to make sure that this weapon was usable by a broad group, so that's why it's a dagger.
Devourer Demon Hunters were recently changed to use daggers.
They also think it's really cool to have this be a weapon that's not usable by everyone.

Lairs

The difficulty of the Patch 12.2 Lair is aimed at an early Mythic raid boss.
Noctinaxx in the Gearhold is a giant Azerite bat, and our job is to make sure he doesn't cause more trouble.
Azerite is the blood of Azeroth, and part of the zone is seeing how Azerite is affecting the creatures in.
There's a really cool way to infuse yourself with Azerite in Patch 12.2, and it will be part of the way your character plays.
Early tuning challenges were a lesson from the Nyrmissa Raid. Otherwise, it's been working as expected.
Maybe they'll make the next one not underwater.

Wrath Remix

Wrath has a lot of thematic resonance regarding where the story is going to be in Patch 12.2.7 since we're heading into Northrend and the Last Titan.
It's cool to have that swan song of Northrend ahead of time.
There's a lot of really cool ideas that they haven't shared yet for Wrath Remix that they'll share as we get closer to Patch 12.2.7.

Patch 12.1.5

Kith'ix shouldn't be a pushover for some guilds, though for a lot of guilds it will be a pushover.
There won't be a Race to World First, for example, due to the gear disparity.
Difficulty-wise, it should land in the middle of the raid. It shouldn't be harder than Coiled Altar or Ula'tek.
There will be a Story Mode for this raid, and it will be flex Mythic.
For Season 3, the plan is still to have Story Mode be one week after the launch of the raid. They want to balance the players who want to see the story as soon as possible, but also have the cool moment of seeing the story as something you accomplished together.

Cool Stuff

Kim: There's a lot of Astalor in Season 3, and if you want some challenge, check out Agony Mode. Prey will be getting a refresh on some of the affixes and targets.
Paul: There's a banger of a raid in Season 3 as we're taking on Xal'atath! Boss 7 is also a big story moment.

What are you Most Excited for?

Kim: Everything Eclipse! They are excited for everyone to see the new zone and the campaign!
Paul: Excited for Delves and the big robot thing that's hanging out outside Wyrmrest and has its sights aimed at us.