Demon Hunter Class
Moderator: Yea, it’s really really cool. A lot of my friends have been talking about it, as well. Spealing of things that people have been talking about for ages, one of the coolest features in this expansion — one that I know that a lot of players and even developers have been really excited about and wanting for a long long time — is the Demon Hunter class. How did you guys go about bringing them into the game with all those expectations, and making sure those expectations could be met?
Barriga: Well, expectations were really really high. Like the last hero class we did (Death Knights), they really set the bar. They had a custom starting zone, with the Lich King as your first quest giver, they had custom skins, death-knight-only voice filter (that made them sound mighty), and a custom mount.
So for Demon Hunters we went all out and took the bar to a whole new level. You are an elf, but you can look as elf like or as demonic as you want to make your character. So you have horns, tattoos, demonic skin, and you have an awesome starting area with two halves: the first part takes places during the Burning Crusade (so you get to get to see the follow up of the Black Temple, which is really rad), but then there are also little things like once we had the class up and running, we noticed they sounded a little strange saying: “For Elune!”… you know, in their regular elfie things.
We had to give them custom VO (voice acting) in that dark and brooding tone, as well as new sets of emotes, custom animations. For the longest time, the class didn’t feel right. We couldn’t figure out why, and then we looked at the combat run, we looked at Heroes of the Storm, we looked at Warcraft III. Demon Hunters have a very ninja-like run. We were like: “OK, we’ll get that in, and they will finally look like a Demon Hunter.” And they did.
Moderator: So there are two specializations: Havoc for DPS and Vengeance for tanking. Can you tell us a little bit about how those specs play?
Barriga: Absolutely. Havoc takes direct inspiration from Illidan Stormrage. That is the fullfilment of that class fantasy. They are very high-mobility based, they tend to cut through their opponents, kinda dash and cut — that sort of thing; and they base their playstyle around Metamorphosis, which gives them a really high burst of damage, they turn into hulking demons… you better look out in PvP, they look tough when they metamorphosize.
Then Vengeance, if you think Havoc as sort of the hunter of demons, they track them down and exterminate them, Vengance are built more around this concept of being inquisitors. They are built around capturing demons, causing pain, torment, and hunting them as well as this idea about sigils. So mechanically, they play a mix of the other tanks. You guys will notice some mechanics are Warriors, some mechanics are Monks, Healing feels similar to Death Knights, and what is unique about Demon Hunters for tanking is the sigils where you place these demonic runes on the ground and you cause adverse effects on the opponent: be it damage or silences, or fear, etc. Very cool class. We got a lot feedback about them.
Moderator: Now that the class is in the hands of the players, and people have gotten a chance to make their own Demon Hunters, are there any favorite Demon Hunter names that you guys have seen so far?
Stockton: There have been some pretty amazing names out there. I think my favorite is WinonaGlider. I wish I have been able to get that.
Barriga: LicenseToIllidan.
Maloof: TomChillidan.
| Panel Pages | Intro | Story | Demon Hunter | Artifacts | Class Halls |
| World Quests | Mobile App | Karazhan | New Raid | Suramar Update | |
| Q&A |
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