Elvui enhanced again (bfa)

Miscellaneous updates

Blizzard is making a range of additional improvements to the World of Warcraft experience, some small, and some fairly big. Here’s a list of additional improvements and updates coming to Dragonflight.

• Blizzard is lifting restrictions on rogues, mages, and priests, meaning every race can now perform these roles. That means for the first time, tauren and draenei will be able to be and rogues, with tauren also grabbing the capability to become mages. Blizzard has said in an that they wish to move away from race/class restrictions, while noting some class/race combos may need additional lore and quest information to make them fit into the Azerothian universe. It may be a while before we see an undead druid, I reckon.
• Blizzard that their PvP team has grown lately, and they want to iterate and improve the experience in general. There are no new battlegrounds planned for launch, but long term, they want to create more compelling PvP seasonal content, and examine the system as a whole.
• Blizzard will continue adding «Brawls» to experiment with different modes. The success of Solo Shuffle arena queue will become a permanent mode in Dragonflight, for example. Blizzard also wants to add world PvP areas like Highmaul Coliseum as new brawl events.
• PvP gear will function similarly to the way it does now. Initial PvP gear will come from the revamped profession system, functioning well in PvP but not PvE. Cosmetic rewards for high-level play will give players unique items for their personal dragonriding mount.
• Blizzard to make most features account-wide in Dragonflight, including reputation and dragonriding progression, for example. Levels and gear will remain character-bound, but they want to make it easier to make and play alt characters.
• The Mission Table mechanic that lets you send NPCs on small quests has been removed.
• Blizzard is dropping the «borrowed power» system (artifact weapons, covenants) that gives players new spells and abilities over the course of an expansion, only to remove them at the end. Instead, Blizzard will focus on iterating on the permanent core WoW experience instead.
• The new raids will use group loot, instead of personal loot as standard. Blizzard also wants to guarantee one major BoE drop per trash run, to make dungeon environments feel more rewarding. 

Revamped UI

Source: Blizzard (Image credit: Source: Blizzard)

Blizzard will also revamp the user interface, making it more modernized, while taking inspiration from some of the most popular UI mods out there in the process.

Blizzard is looking to accommodate larger monitors and build a UI that frees players from feeling like they need to use UI mods to play, although they are committed to supporting UI mods into the future as well. Blizzard is focusing on usability, accessibility, and aesthetics as part of this revamp, aiming to preserve the «charm» of the classic interface while modernizing it in the process.

The UI is far more minimal, taking cues from the popular ElvUI system, with larger health bars with fewer elements dominating the screen. Blizzard will allow players to move UI elements around the screen wherever they fancy, while also allowing you to save HUD designs to specific characters and specs.

Part 5: Modules in-depth

5.2 General

UI ScaleThin Border ThemeLogin MessageLog TaintsTop PanelBottom PanelAFK ModeMulti-Monitor SupportAccept InvitesAuto Greed/DEChat OutputUnit Prefix StyleSmoothing AmountLanguageAnnounce InterruptsAuto RepairThreatClass TotemsCombatTextNamesTexturesApply the selected texture to all framesBordersBackdrop ColorValue ColorCrop IconsAlternative Powerfor exampleSmooth BarsStatusBar TextureLootLoot RollHide Error TextEnhanced PVP MessagesMissing Talent AlertRaid ControlVoice OverlayTutorial ButtonsRessurect SoundVehicle Seat IndicatorDurabilityMark Quest Rewardcharacter frameinspect targetObjective TrackerChat Bubbles

5.3 ActionBars

Keybind ModeMacro TextKeybind TextColor Keybind TextKey DownLock ActionBarsPick Up Action KeyHide Cooldown BlingAuto Add New SpellsColorsFontsFont SizeFont OutlineMasque SupportPlayer BarsPet BarStance BarMicro BarBoss Button

5.4 Bags

Currency FormatMoney FormatShow CoinsShow Junk IconDesaturate Junk ItemsShow Upgrade IconFontColorFont Size / Font OutlineSizeColorsBag Bar/moveuiVendor GraysSortingSearch Syntax

5.6 Chat

GeneralURL LinksEmotion IconsLFG IconsTab Selector, History, Fade Chat, Fonts, Alerts, Voice Chat, Chat Timestamps Class Color MentionsTab SelectorHistoryFade ChatFontsAlertsVoice ChatPanelsPanel HeightPanel WidthSeperate Panel SizesChat Editbox

5.7 Cooldown Text

The Cooldown Text options are seperated in different tabs for different modules: Global, Buffs and Debuffs, ActionBars, Bags, NamePlates and UnitFrames.This means you can either set up a global text and/or color setup or do it for each module seperately!GlobalthresholdsBuffs and DebuffsActionBarsBagsNamePlatesUnitFramesIndividual UnitsGroup Units

5.11 NamePlates

You will find sections like Health, Power, Name, Level, CastBar, Buffs, Debuffs in every tab like Enemy NPC, Enemy Player to fully customize every single pixel of your NamePlates. You can also use the «Copy From» button in the top right to copy options from for example Friendly NPC to Friendly Player.GeneralVisibilityColorsStyle FiltersTriggerActionPlayerTargetClassBarFriendly PlayerName OnlyGeneralFriendly NPCName OnlyGeneralEnemy PlayerRole IconsEnemy NPC

5.14 UnitFrames

UnitFrames options are seperated in 3 different sections:GeneralIndividual UnitsGroup UnitsGeneralStatusBar TextureFrame GlowDisabled Blizzard FramesRaidDebuff IndicatorIndividual UnitsText Format & Custom TextstagsAvailable TagsGroup UnitsSmart Raid FilterText Format & Custom TextstagsAvailable Tags

5.19 Profiles

NewExisting ProfilesEnable spec profilesCopy FromcurrentDelete a ProfileShare Current ProfileShare FiltersExport ProfileImport ProfilePrivateper characterProfilePrivateNewExisting ProfilesCopy FromcurrentDelete a Profile

Dragonriding

Source: Blizzard (Image credit: Source: Blizzard)

One major revamp heading into Dragonflight is that of flying, which has remained unchanged since it was introduced the best part of near two decades ago. Flying mechanics were simply an extension of swimming (in the air), but with Dragonflight, Blizzard is aiming to make it feel more physics-oriented, while also tying it to a progression system perhaps inspired by the movie How to Train Your Dragon.

Your Dragonflight drakes will level up over time and throughout the expansion, and have unique flight controls that govern momentum, speed, alongside their top elevation. Indeed, some higher reaches of the game will be inaccessible until your drake is strong enough to fly higher up into the clouds. Blizzard has shown how gravity can help you build up momentum and speed, complete with flourishes like barrel rolls. A that Blizzard also seeks to add racing, and eventually PvP racing for Dragonriding as well.

Drakes will be customizable with a range of cosmetics, including their snout, horns, tails, armor, color, and more. Blizzard has noted that some customization items will be exclusive to secrets, achievements, and potentially even high-end PvE content. Blizzard wants to add these mechanics to previous WoW areas as well, although their focus for Dragonriding right now is specifically on Dragonflight and the Dragon Isles.

Dragonflight: TL;DR quick facts

• Dragonflight is the latest expansion for World of Warcraft, taking place in a new «massive» Dragon Isles continent.
• Dragonflight is live now, launching on November 28, 2022. 
• The Dragon Isles were sealed away magically by the Titans, but a surge of power has reawakened the magic beneath the land.
• The Dragon Aspects (blue, red, black, bronze, and green dragons) return to the isles, to reclaim their place as the guardians of Azeroth.
• The expansion will set a new level cap to 70, and feature several new dungeons and raids, starting with a «Primal Incarnate» raid.
• The will be more grounded and Azerothian, rather than cosmic, as we’ve seen in the previous recent expansions.
• The expansion will add a new draconic race called the Dracthyr.
• The Dracthyr will only have access to the new , which is a medium-range DPS or healer that uses draconic abilities.
• A new Dragonriding skill will allow players to traverse Dragon Isles’ vertical map designs, with a large array of customization with new physics-oriented flying mechanics. Blizzard also plans to add PvP dragon races in the future.
• Blizzard is focusing on core systems for this expansion, fully revamping to make them more collaborative and deep. The UI and HUD will also get a revamp.
• Old school systems are returning, with players able to allocate points into a tree, rather than select from boring rows of three options every few levels.

New and revamped talent trees

Source: Blizzard (Image credit: Source: Blizzard)

The talent specs are undergoing another major revamp, taking them back to the tree-style progression system pioneered by WoW’s classic gameplay. The new system will allow players to allocate points within their general class for utility, while also spending points on their specialized roles. Blizzard plans to start showcasing the new trees before the Alpha begins, which is supposedly «soon.» Blizzard doesn’t plan to include flavor abilities like Pickpocket and Eyes of the Beast into the trees. Every point spent should result in something interesting for your class.

Blizzard noted that they saw how popular the trees have been in WoW Classic, and how their general gameplay still holds up in 2022. Blizzard wants the new system to afford new opportunities and combinations that up until now have been unavailable to players. Players will be able to shift talents and specs around «at the same kind of frequency» they do now, supposedly in rested areas and preparatory situations. Players will be able to save and name builds, and switch between them easily on the fly. Blizzard says it will also be easy to change talent builds based on combat encounters, most likely using tomes as is the case today. As you can see from the UI, players will still be able to select three PvP talents alongside their general spec sheet, which become active in PvP situations like battlegrounds, arena, and warmode.

The talent trees look as though they’ll afford players greater gameplay customization possibilities than the current trees, but they’ll need to be tested thoroughly to avoid balance issues. Notoriously, players offered Blizzard feedback for Shadowlands’ Covenant systems during the expansion’s alpha and beta, that ultimately went ignored until the wider playerbase went hands-on, and discovered how underpowered some Covenant / spec combos ended up being. Blizz cited an end to «borrowed power» mechanics as part of the motivation to bring back the classic talent trees, expressing a desire to iterate and focus on building them up instead, rather than layering on systems that go away after each expansion.