UPDATE: We have made a few changes to this blog to reflect the accuracy of class abilities in the beginning of alpha. You can find these updates in the Affliction Warlock, General and Discipline Priest, and Unholy Death Knight sections. Please keep in mind that Shadowlands class updates are still in development and subject to change.
As Azeroth’s champions prepare to traverse into the Shadowlands, they will gain powers both old and new to take on the realms of death.
Memories of the Lich King’s legendary sword Frostmourne stirs the hearts of Frost Death Knights, who can again choose between two 1-handed weapons or one 2-handed weapon to cut down their foes.
Stalwart Brewmaster Monks are prepared to do all they can to restore balance and can again choose between two 1-handed weapons or one 2-handed weapon to subdue their foes.
Like their Brewmaster brethren, Windwalker Monks will once again be able to choose between two 1-handed weapons or one 2-handed weapon in their fight to restore balance.
I didn’t see that coming but it should make plenty of DKs and monks happy. Now I’m curious how they’re going to handle balancing 2H vs DW.
I wonder why they’re not bringing back SMF though if they’re doing this. It seems odd to me to bring that choice back for monks and frost but leave Fury where they’re at with just TG.
The iconic Frostwyrm’s Fury will be accessible to all Frost Death Knights, rather than needing to be selected as a Talent.
Awesome; this is hands down my favorite ability to use.
There seems to be a mistake here in the notes. Survival Hunter appears to still be a melee spec, and not something fun.
Meanwhile fury warrior still can’t transmog 1 handed weapons, I still can’t use thunderfury, but now DK’s can 
Overall these changes actually look pretty good on paper
blizzard overhaul the warlock pet system for the love of god. Give warlocks a baseline interupt. Let us use ritual of doom to summon and enslave new perms pets. But the main thing give warlocks a baseline interupt. Demo needs it if they are to use the felguard for dps. Without it don’t bother.
Arms warriors still have a Bleed mastery?
heya Blue, can you have your people look at Demonology? Dark Pact is a wall, not an offensive ability, the only thing it deals damage to is ourselves
I like what I see so far but I’m saddened that healer dispels will continue to be locked to class fantasy.
I do think much of my concerns about affliction can work here and resto shamans having a way to burst heal the tank is nice.
More good than bad is always welcome. Thanks for the update!
Surrender to Madness returns with a wicked twist. On use, the Shadow Priest instantly gains a huge spike of Insanity and casts Void Eruption on the target. Over a long duration, Insanity-generating abilities grant 100% more Insanity, and you can cast your spells while moving. However, this power comes at a terrible price—if the caster fails to slay their target during the buff window, they succumb to the shadows and die.
I’m confused. Isn’t this pretty much how it was when it first came out and was very overpowered? This will be interesting to see how it turns out.
Druid section looks pretty terrible. 
All Druids will be able to use Ferocious Bite , Barkskin , Cyclone , Stampeding Roar , and Ironfur regardless of their active specialization. Druids of any specialization will also now be able to use Cyclone and Stampeding Roar .
OK, but… this is making it sound more impressive than this is. For example, everybody had Barkskin already except Feral, so it’s really just “Ferals get Barkskin back”.
Likewise, druids of other specs already got Ironfur if they took the Guardian Affinity. Making it baseline is OK I guess, although it also adds to the problem of “any other spec has most of the Guardian’s toolkit”, which is already the case.
Giving Stampeding Roar to Resto & Balance is pretty dumb, because it’s been the only reason to bring a bear tank or kitty druid for a while, now. Hopefully you actually fix bear & cat so that they can stand on their own merits - are you going to do that?
The Affinity Talents associated with each specialization (Balance, Guardian, Feral, and Restoration) also gain an additional utility ability. Balance receives Typhoon , Feral gets Maim , Guardian gets Incapacitating Roar , and Restoration can use Ursol’s Vortex .
Some weirdness here, Typhoon is already available to everyone, so moving it into Balance affinity could actually be a nerf. Guardians can already talent into Ursol’s, but now it’s being moved to Resto. So we won’t be able to do the Ursol’s-in/Typhoon-out combo that we can do already.
So… a Guardian nerf? Not a big one, but a nerf nonetheless.
In addition, Heart of the Wild has returned as a Talent, providing an option for Druids who want to use off-role abilities during combat.
Heart of the Wild was never popular, because its 6 minute cooldown didn’t justify taking it. It also took bigs hits in WoD when Tranquility was removed from 3 of the specs. How about giving us back Tranquility, instead?
Guardian Druids in the Shadowlands can once again embrace (or bear hug) their brutish side with Berserk , reducing the cooldowns of Mangle, Thrash, Growl, and Frenzied Regeneration substantially, while also halving the cost of Ironfur.
OK. But where did the fear immunity go? Or are you just removing that?
And by “reduce substantially” I hope you mean “removed completely”, otherwise it’s just a (baseline) inferior Incarnation, no?
Can we get Rage of the Sleeper back, instead? It was vastly superior.
In any case, Guardian needs SUBSTANTIAL improvements on top of this, given the
absolutely deplorable state of the spec this expansion. Hopefully those will be coming.
" Blessing of Sacrifice , Hammer of Wrath , Sense Undead , Shield of the Righteous , Turn Evil , and Word of Glory will be available to all Paladins, regardless of their specialization."
Blizzard, these are fantastic! Especially turn evil and sense undead. Thematically they are so fundamental to the paladin fantasy.
Very happy with word of glory and holy power returning for hpal (if wog is instant cast). I’d kill to see guardian of ancient kings return for holy as well though. Easily my favorite ability of all time.
Seems mostly good for my main classes and specs. Kinda worried about Enhance shaman. Feels like it could be good or it could be bad. Also slightly worried about Affliction but we’ll see. Sad to see the doubling down on Roll the Bones but whatevs. At least it’ll be free.
THANK YOU BLIZZARD.
Original S2M is back though, not sure how I feel about it.
I skimmed thru and like the incoming changes, a lot.
Yes, it’s mentioned in the Arms section (click on the drawer to view each specialization’s changes):
Cleave (Talent) has been redesigned—after striking three targets with Whirlwind, the Warrior can use Cleave to strike all enemies in front of the Warrior, inflicting Mastery: Deep Wounds —a scaling bleed effect.
Yeah I was hoping to see a return of some nature spells, MoTW, and tranquility (a weaker version ofc) back to all specs.
:Hypersweat: it’s time to bring my spriest back from the shadow realm
Blizzard please consider readding single minded fury. There has to be a way to balance it out. If anything you could allow fury warriors to transmog to 1h weapons at the very least.