Get ready to Raid in Rumble! At Blizzcon we saw a preview of the biggest feature in Rumble yet, and it's finally arriving. Not only that, we're seeing a new game mode, Siege, changes to dungeons, new minis, and the arrival of the Cenarion in Season Seven. What's more, we're getting some pretty significant rebalancing changes arriving immediately, as well as the expansion of Guilds to twenty members.

With a lot to cover, lets get into it!

Arriving Today

First, we look at the systems changes arriving with the announcement. Guilds are going from a cap of fifteen players to twenty, making it just that bit easier to play with your friends. If the Darkmoon Faire Ticket cap is still enforced, it will be much easier to get all the rewards, even if one or two players miss out on some dailies.

Dungeons are reducing their cap from 30 to 23, which should make the dungeon quests fairly trivial for any player making steady progression in the game. We're also seeing a rebalancing of the rewards - each week a completion per leader will award 1200 AE and 100g. Some nice bonuses and part of an overall shift to help f2p or low spending players.

Balance changes are also arriving with the patch.

  • Sylvanas Windrunner's movement speed aura is now a passive that affects all Horde and Undead allied minis, similar to Cairne's 20% increased health aura. While this doesn't help her survive in PvP, we should see some exploration of the Banshee Queen in increasing the speed of key minis, such as Gargoyles, Sappers, or Raiders.
  • Baron Rivendare is taking another nerf to his Skeletal Mages talent, as they now spawn every 25 seconds, up from 20. He has overperformed in PvP since the game was released, this might be enough to dethrone the king.
  • Quilboar is going from 780 health to 700. This makes him, even with resistance factored in, one of the lowest health tanks and firmly places him in a utility role. I believe he will continue to see large amounts of play since distraction is so important in Rumble, but a nudge to his efficiency might make players consider other options.
  • Whelp Eggs are losing damage on their explosion talent, going from 110 to 50, for a total of 330 down to 150. This makes eggs only about as powerful as a chain lightning (that doesn't hit air), which should significantly change how they're played. In turn, many minis which would kill themselves on eggs can now breathe a bit easier.
  • Deep Breath is seeing a gold nerf to Double Dragon, the talent which doubles the range. Like Miner Harpies, selecting this talent will now increase the cost of Deep Breath to 5g, significantly lowering its efficiency. This should make the choice of talent a more considered decision, since 5g for 400 damage is quite expensive and you really need to be hitting a lot of additional targets for it to be worth it. When added to the mid-season change to halve the damage that spells deal to a Barracks (base), we should see it drop off significantly.
  • Finally, Molten Giant is getting a buff! Often considered the worst mini in the game, the lumbering lava-lord is going from 2900 to 3500, making him the highest-health mini in the game (outside of Cairne using Warsong Grunts. Will this make him see play? I'm sceptical, but he probably can be considered in PvE at least.

Siege

The first co-op mode to arrive with the patch are Sieges! Similar to a raid, a Siege is 3 PvE maps to tackle with a guildmate. The main difference between Sieges and raids seems to be that they're much shorter, at lower levels, and presumably easier (since the rewards are smaller). The positioning seems to be entry-level content for progressing (or practicing) players, rather than the hard-core strategic challenges offered by raids.

Our first raid is Stormwind (Garrosh would be proud). We challenge General Marcus Jonathan, Innkeeper Allison, and Highlord Bolvar Fordragon, at levels 18, 19, and 20 respectively. For players looking at those levels and seeing something completely trivial - don't worry, since players more than two levels above will be scaled down (it's not clear yet if this will apply to dungeons as well).

As for rewards we get

  • 200 Valor for the first wing
  • A Mega Leader Tome for the second
  • A Wildcard Slot for the third.

Valor is a returning currency that allows players to upgrade the Gold Slots on their leaders to Diamond, granting one extra level. Each upgrade costs 200 Valor, so a Siege week only allows upgrading a single slot. A Wildcard Slot, like the name suggests, allows the leader to use any mini in that slot and gain the level bonuses. It affects slot three (top right), which was previously one of the locked slots on a leader. The flexibility gain is therefore rather large.

New Mini!

Season Six brings a new seasonal mini with Earth and Moon, extending the Cenarion family with their first spell! Earth and Moon is a dual spell, consisting of Starfall and Entangling Roots. Each time you play Earth and Moon (or any Cenarion mini), it swaps between the two forms.

Starfall is a 6g AoE elemental damage spell (same size as Blizzard), whereas Entangling Roots is a 3g AoE root that applies stacks of poison. Earth and Moon has three talents:

  • Moonfury: Starfall lasts 25% longer.
  • Nature's Grace: Entangling Roots also grants Resist to allies for 10 seconds.
  • Balance: Can be cast a second time.

Moonfury is presumably a straight 25% damage increase to Starfall damage. We don't yet have the numbers on Starfall, so it's hard to say whether this is worth it yet. Nature's Grace in constrast improves the root half, but so far these temporary armour spells have seen limited play. Balance seems the most interesting, ensuring you'll always get both halves of the spell each time. If you want to play ER or Starfall twice in a row, you can swap it back with a Faerie Dragon. It's hard to imagine you'll need 2x6g Starfall, but casting roots twice in a row might be useful, and could enable massive poison stacks in PvE.

Without hard numbers on the damage of Starfall it's hard to assess Earth and Moon for now. The other 6g spell (Living Bomb) is often a candidate for one of the least-used minis in the game, so it's clear it has to be very potent for Earth and Moon to see play.

Raids!

Now for the juicy part. Raids are finally arriving with Season 6, opening the second week (Siege will take their place for the first week). As promised at Blizzcon, we're headed to the Molten Core to face off with the Firelord's minions. This makes for 4 wings, the first 3 have two fights a piece and the final wing has Ragnaros himself!

  • Wing 1: Lucifron and Magmadar at levels 23 – 24. Rewards a Boost Slot.

  • Wing 2: Garr and Gehennas & Shazzrah at levels 25 – 26. Rewards a Mythic Tome.

  • Wing 3: Baron Geddon and Golemagg at 27 – 28. Rewards a Legendary Core.

  • Wing 4: Ragnaros at level 29. Rewards Ragnaros as a Blackrock Leader.

Additionally, each victory over a boss awards 100 Valor, totalling 700 (or 3 and a half upgrades). Note that while the Wildcard Slot affects the top-right, the Boost Slot affects the bottom-right. A Boost Slot sets a mini to the max XP level, 20. Then, talents, rarity, and slot bonuses apply as before.

Blizzard has told us that raids will be hard, which might be necessary considering how some players are already significantly outleveling the first 2 wings. How co-op gameplay works exactly is still a bit of a mystery - the rule of thumb we've been given is that local auras, like Prowler, affect both players whereas global auras, like Jaina, do not. I'm pretty eager to see the damage output of Fury Aura Sylvanas + Grom.

What we do know is how the lockout system works. Each week of raiding, a leader can only complete one boss, and will be locked to that boss for the week. A player can get the raid rewards once for themselves, but can complete it three times to help out guildmates with their attempts. After the third clear, clearing will grant rewards to neither player. Being in an active guild will still be very important, but it's nice to see that there's ways that the top players can help the less-progressed players in their guild.

Siege will be available in the first week, and then Raids arrive one week later. We've been told that the first cycle will look like:

  • Siege
  • Raid
  • Offweek

afterwards, they'll switch to

  • Siege
  • Offweek
  • Raid
  • Offweek

While I'm sure some players would rather grind away and get their Diamond slots ASAP, I'm pretty happy I won't have to be tackling organising a full raid with other players every other week. I can imagine many players who grew up on World of Warcraft are also happy to get a low-obligation experience.

What do we know about Ragnaros? He's a 5g leader of the Blackrock Faction with 2000 health, AoE elemental attacks, and a very deployment unusual mechanic. Braze says that Ragnaros when deployed is 'attached' to a tower, shielding it from damage. This means the tower cannot be attacked until Ragnaros dies. Then, Ragnaros is replaced in your deck by Blast Wave (5g?) which does AoE Burn and Knockback for all minis near your buildings. His regular attack has a wide range (both outward and horizontally) and taunts nearby enemies. Finally, Armoured allies deal damage back to their attackers.

The exact implementation of his shielding mechanic is still a bit of a mystery, but hopefully it works better than Roost or Guard Duty. It does seem to indicate Ragnaros will have very little offensive utility.

Ragnaros comes with three talents:

  • Son of Flame: At 50% health, summon a Fire Elemental that lasts 15 seconds.

  • Radiant Flames: Buildings you control periodically damage nearby enemies.

  • Concussive Blast: Blast Wave stuns enemies for 2 seconds.

Getting a free Fire Elemental seems like the best bet, but we'd have to see how much damage Radiant Flames does and whether it applies only if Ragnaros is on the field. Concussive Blast might be okay, but it's not clear how many Blast Waves you can realistically play, and the knockback effect should stun enemies briefly anyway, if it works the same as Overpower.

While I'm not a huge fan personally of the kind of defensive style that Ragnaros seems to lend himself to, kudos has to be given to the devs for stretching their creative muscles and finding a way to bring large, bombastic characters into Rumble. Also, while we lack the numbers to make a full judgment, nothing about him screams overpowered, which is probably good for perceptions of fairness coming from a reward locked behind difficult, high level content.

Season Seven

While we don't know all the details yet, we've gotten a preview that Moonglade and the rest of the Cenarion Family are landing in Season Seven. We're getting another 3 Cenarion troop minis, and 2 Cenarion Leaders, giving a total of 7 minis to start the family off with overall. Speculation on my part is that we'll be rewarded the base mini for each by completing the Moonglade campaign zone, but nothing announced yet.

Rumble is finally rolling out the content with Darkmoon Faire in Season 5, raids and siege in Season 6, and Moonglade with the Cenarion in Season 7. I'm hoping this will be a major turning point for the game, and I can't wait to see what arrives in Season 8.