WoW Dragonflight: Caller of the Dracthyr – Everything about the new race / class and their chargeable abilities

In the new Wow expansion “Dragonflight” everything revolves around the dragons and this also includes the “Callers of the Dracthyr”, which we get with WoW 10.0 as a new playable race for both Horde and Alliance. This is a new hero class that tightly combines race and class, bringing unique dragon attacks (Fire Breath, Wing Bash, Tail Sweep) and the new Empowered Abilities (aka Charged Spells) attack mechanic. We had the chance to talk to Production Director Patrick Dawson about the new breed of dragons and more. What we found out can be found in the summary below.

WoW Dragonflight – Caller of the Dracthyr Content:

Melee, ranged, healer, tank – what role / specialization can callers of the dracthyr take?

Callers of the Dracthyr are the first race-class combo in World of Warcraft. Means: Only the people of the “Dracthyr” can learn the class of “Callers”, accordingly “Callers” can only ever be “Dracthyr”. It’s a unique hero class – like the Death Knights in WotLK or the Demon Hunter in Legion of its time – that starts at level 58 in its own introductory questline in a new starting zone on the Dragon Isles.

Dracthyr Callers only have two different specializations, namely damage dealers and healers:

The DD-Spec is called “Devastation” and is a kind of mid-range class. According to Patrick Dawson, you don’t have the reach of a hunter or a mage, but you also don’t stick to an opponent’s right or left leg like rogues or warriors do. So it’s not a traditional melee or ranged fighter, but a mix of them.

Sounds very interesting and unique. You’ll have to see how good or bad that looks, for example, with raid bosses and zones to be dropped (I can already hear the Melees whining that the dragon heini always trashes the path), but the upcoming tests in the beta should show that.

Not much is known about the healer spec, which is called “preservation” (probably still in the middle of development). He is described as a healing specialist who “harnesses the healing power of the green dragonflight and its nurturing spells, while also harnessing the power of the bronze dragonflight to manipulate time to achieve feats such as healing wounds more quickly.”

The latter could simply indicate fast healing spells that just map to the bronze school of magic, or – and this would be far more interesting – a spell speed buff like Power Soul from the Priest that you can cast on yourself or others. A healing zone very reminiscent of druid “blossoming” was also featured in the trailer, so maybe a dracthyr healer could become some sort of priest/druid mix?!?

How about Dracthyr tank or melee?

According to Patrick Dawson, from the very beginning, the Dracthyr have focused heavily on their two specializations (Devastation and Conservation) to get their new spells, powers, and animations right—particularly their empowered abilities. Accordingly, there are currently no plans for a melee or tank specialization for the Dracthyr, but it is never entirely out of the question, as history has shown (e.g. with the splitting of the Feral spec into cat and bear)

On the one hand, that’s understandable – after all, the development of a new class / race always involves a lot of effort – on the other hand, it’s a pity, because when you think of a dragon attack, the first thing that usually comes to mind is the breath of fire or a powerful blow with the claws. An unstoppable Dracthyr that shreds enemies with claws and teeth in melee combat would be a good fit for a tank or melee spec. Hope is the last to die, so let’s keep our fingers crossed (and pop a few bottles of whine on the forums).

The Dracthyr’s unique attacks and abilities

The Dracthyr people were created long ago by Neltharion on the Dragon Isles (before he became Deathwing). His goal was to combine the powerful magic of the five dragonflights with the flexibility of the mortal races to create the perfect soldier. As such, the Dracthyr possess a few unique abilities from the dragon repertoire—like being able to flap enemies, knock them off with their tail, breathe fire, and perform claw attacks—as well as all the magics of the Dragon Aspects.

For example, many spells have a “Prismatic Effect” when fired, which reflects all the colors of the aspects, but which changes color just before hitting its target. So that not too many colors fly around in a fight and cause confusion, the developers have divided the five types of magic into the two specializations.

The damage spec (Devastation) primarily uses the magic of the Red and Blue Dragon Aspects. Red attack spells tend to focus on quick and explosive spells that burn opponents, while blue arcane magic is used for enhanced claw slashes or powerful energy beam attacks.

As a Dracthyr healer (preservation), the green and bronze magic forms are primarily used instead. The green magic of the Emerald Green Dream mainly provides mana-efficient spells that can be used to heal and care for individual targets and groups rather slowly but permanently, while the bronze time magic is mainly responsible for fast, violent healing spells (aka Flash Heal).

What armor do Dracthyr Callers wear?

Raid leaders should be able to cheer at this news, because although leather would be a very suitable armor class for the dragon people, callers of the Dracthyr wear chain armor. This puts them in line with the hunters and shamans.

Empowered Abilities and Boosted Spells (Charging Attacks) – This is how the new game mechanic works in WoW 10.0

A special feature of the Dracthyr Callers are their “Empowered Abilities”. That’s exactly what you probably suspect behind it: chargeable attacks and healing spells. In other words: the longer you press a button for an attack / heal, the stronger its effect. This can mean more damage or healing, but also more targets hit or a larger area of ​​effect with an AOE attack or healing spells (or combinations thereof).

The possibilities of chargeable abilities are immense. Among other things, attacks can be timed in such a way that the next pull either throws a fat attack into the pack or just a half-charged attack in order to avoid involving other opponents in the fight with a smaller AOE effect zone in a narrow area.

If you get the chills when you “press and hold” a button to charge, Sr. UX Researcher “Nikki ‘Gazelle’ Crenshaw” can calm down, because a switching function is planned.

Can you move while casting?

partly, partly. As with the previous spells in WoW, there will also be a few abilities that can be activated while moving and others for which you have to stay in place so that they don’t cancel – similar to the well-known instant spells and channeling spells.

It’s currently still in a “testing phase” to find out which spells make or don’t make sense to be able to move. The feedback from the beta testers should also play a role here.

Do other classes get empowered abilities too?

The chargeable spells sound very promising, so the question arises as to whether existing classes will also get the new game mechanics – think a charged mage pyroblast, charged chain lightning for a shaman or even bigger hammers for paladins / bigger planets for owls.

Patrick Dawson says that the empowered abilities are currently only focused on the Dracthyr Callers. Accordingly, it will remain its sole feature for the Dragonflight expansion. However, he also says that depending on how the empowered abilities develop, one could consider introducing them to other classes in the future. So the option remains open for the next extensions.

Dracthyr human and dragon form customization

Similar to the worgen, the callers of the dracthyr have two different forms that they can freely switch between: a more human-like form and a dragon form. Both have individual styling options that you can change and customize independently in the character editor (and later in the barber shop) to suit your taste. According to Ion Hazzikostas, everything from skin color, hair color, scale color to hair and head ornaments, horns or tattoos can be individualized with the Dracthyr.