[News] Shadowlands Class Updates

I think that as they were going into Legion, they had a choice to make and I do think they made it wrong (BM should be the melee spec, Survival should be the mobile ranged spec) – but I would rather see them stick with the course they chose in the Legion overhaul than try to force people to re-spec post-Legion. I honestly think everything they did with Titanstrike would have worked better for Survival, Including Hati, while the Talonstrike questlines starting from tracking a killer beast to claim a spear is much more beast master-oriented than survival oriented. I think they got it wrong.

Despite that, it is the path they chose, and even though they got it wrong, they still made a fun melee spec for Hunters. It’s not the spec I wanted to see become melee oriented, but it is almost exactly the play I wanted to see out of a melee oriented spec.

Note: I wanted to see BM become a melee spec, and I would have gladly specced into melee to keep all of my spirit beasts and other exotic pets. It’s the thing I miss most about the fact that survival is literally more fun than BM for my mostly solo-oriented playstyle.

I still hate the GCD change for class gameplay more than just about anything. Inserting interruptions into our rotations, that really doesn’t accomplish a damn thing, sucks.

This is only going to get worse in Shadowlands when I see some cooldowns getting added back, and some cool summons and such. The cooldowns and summons are COOL THINGS to have, but any time you ever to use more than one cooldown the gcd change feels completely and totally awful.

It was a stupid change, and blizzard seems like this is their hill to die on. Very unfortunate.

Sigh…a few warrior specifics

Rallying Cry - By far feels the worst. This is a reactionary “oh sh*t” button. Yes you pre-plan it in raids, it’s not pre-planned in any other content in the game but it’s still useful in other forms of content. BY FAR the worst ability on the GCD for warriors. Even when it is pre-planned it interrupts your rotations and doesn’t feel good no matter how you use it.

Sweeping Strikes - this does absolutely nothing. You can’t take advantage of it until you press abilities that are 100% regulated by the GCD anyway. It feels like crap.

Offensive cooldowns don’t feel great, but at least if Recklessness did something. The rage gen for Avatar doesn’t really cut it either IMO. Examples:

Recklessness - Grant rage and enrage you. It would at least feel not totally terrible at this point.

Avatar - It needs something. The rage is just really meh, and the snare break (while cool) you never notice in most forms of content.

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I’d make a fourth spec that uses explosive shot/black arrow/serpent sting (and spread), etc. and let the several dozen people who play melee survival keep their spec. Ideally, I’d go back in time four years and Blizzard would do the same thing, rather than deleting a spec that thousands of people played.

Survival also changed significantly from Vanilla->WotLK, and less so from then on. Vanilla Survival was the most melee that Hunter has ever been. I’m curious why you played Hunter since Vanilla if you found it unfun and wanted to play a melee spec.

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I found Survival Hunter unfun. I loved Marks and Beast Mastery. I still love Beast Mastery, though Marks has gone a bit down in my personal enjoyment of it.

I just find Survival to be the most fun and engaging of the three specs right now.

Its actually not as bad as I was assuming which was a relief~ There is no bar system just 2 more procs to juggle, wrath and lunar have a chance to proc an eclipse then after it will go on a hidden cd for 30 secs.

So its just kind of a flavour throwback? Still not on board with the spell name change pandering though.

We’ve made an update to reflect the ongoing development of Shadowlands in the Frost Mage section.

“Moving into Shadowlands, Winter’s Chill is now a much longer debuff that causes Frost Mages’ next two spells to treat the target as frozen, a debuff that increases the critical hit chance from the Frost Mage.”

How do you feel about some of these talent changes being “dead” in certain aspects of the game?

Cleave talent, or the Retribution LoH talent isn’t even usable in PvP situations. (2v2 for warriors, all rated play for paladins)

The talents stop becoming “hard choices” when there’s situations for them to completely not work at all…

Personally, I think BM should be the melee spec and they could make Survival what it used to be :man_shrugging:

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Does this also mean it won’t interact with the Water Elemental attacks now too? Last I saw the Water Bolts eat the stacks of the debuff.

As a side note, any chance of getting commentary on the Soul Wrack mechanic that was removed from the preview for Affliction? It looked like Malefic Grasp from Legion, which was a pretty fulfilling mechanic for Warlocks.

Malefic Rapture is a nice ability to complement multi-dotting, and Soul Wrack looked like a much more exciting filler than Shadow Bolt or Drain Soul.

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Yes, i understood that. I was taking off on their general statement" In an expansion that is all about choice." That is a general statement, not a class statement. I was just demonstrating how their general statement was dead wrong.

Pathfinder doesn’t force you to play or do anything. Flying gives no real competitive edge and is a convenient luxury. You’re dont have to do pathfinder at all. Choices.

Darn, I must be playing them wrong then…as I find them fun. why do I keep failing , why?!..I keep thinking the point of a game is my enjoyment…sorry guys I forget playing WoW isn’t about one’s fun…its about living up to expectations of others…I’ll try to do better and play things “properlY” from now on…fun be damned! (fyi - no I’m not talking about the hunter this posted with either…I have 5 hunters, across several realms)…

Some of the changes seem useful, others not so much. Speaking as a Fury Warrior why would I need Shield Block and Shield Slam? I’ve never had a use for a shield and I don’t imagine using one in Shadowlands

I really was hoping druid would see actual love instead of this half hearted attempt at whatever you want to call this.

Fierce felines will see their Bloodtalons Talent reimagined, tapping into their primal power. When Feral Druids use Shred, Rake, and Ferocious Bite in quick succession, the damage of their next Rip will increase dramatically.

Feral druid- Changing the mastery will not improve this build, because your forcing them to do abilities faster on an already straved rotation. Its not helping anything as well when you don’t state if the Ferocious Bite “refresh” of rip will or will not get the bonus at which time you make timing a nightmare. Overall you need to leave the current mastery alone and work on doing other changes to fix the spec dps output.

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.

This is cool but we need more info than substantially. not to mention even if its for Guardian only they need to have Fear removal/immunity added. Make the tank version different from cat other than abilities it works on.

Renewal also returns as a Talent choice, instantly healing the Guardian Druid for a fair bit of their maximum health.

This is an okay change, it will give druid tanks a chance to have a kinda vault heal for large spikes in damage that can happen in succession. Not the best but not a terrible add.

Swiftmend will return to its historic functionality of consuming a heal-over-time effect on the target, but with a substantially reduced cooldown and cost

I’m confused on why your deciding this now. You take away basic heals to force druids to hots then you give us a large heal to only be changed back to the original form. I know it was a heal of a way to give someone a HUGE amount back without needing to make sure another heal was on them first. To balance this I would give back nourish or healing touch as a way to not have to just use HoTs to do any healing… druids need atleast 1 constant direct heal.

Nature’s Swiftness will again allow a Regrowth, Rebirth, or Entangling Roots to be cast instantly. Communing with the wild spirits in death’s realm has reawakened Restoration Druids’ inert knowledge to cast Nourish , a Talent option that heals an ally for a significant amount. Nourish receives triple the boon from Mastery: Harmony, which increases the healing for each active Restoration heal-over-time spell on the target.

Are you trying to say Flourish Talent, are you actually now giving us a talent, or are you talking about the PVP talent which has no real need to be listed here like a fix to something your changing for all modes.

Starfall will also return to its previous design, used from Wrath of the Lich King through Warlords of Draenor . Instead of needing to telegraph the affected area, Balance Druids again call down waves of stars, which strike the surrounding ground while they stand, run, or flap for its duration.

I feel this is better than before but if you changing the design does that mean your fixing the damage output that the spell has been suffering from??

Solar and Lunar Empowerments are being strengthened and updated into Eclipses. Reminiscent of past expansions like Wrath of the Lich King , Wrath and Starfire will grant each other alternating Lunar and Solar Eclipses for a longer duration, with special moments of Celestial Alignment allowing both to occur at once. Balance Druids who master the flow of these Eclipses will be able to ensure a period of sustained power to either Wrath or Starfire at key moments of a fight. Starsurge will extend the current Eclipse to continue focusing power into either Wrath or Starfire, while Starfall instead extends your current Moonfire and Sunfire effects, giving the main Arcane Power spenders distinct roles based on situation.

So as a person who has hated balance since wrath, this change is meh at best. It’s an old tested system which frankly has little draw backs and has a clear goal. Now as a topic of DPS its hard to say if this will effectively kill or level the spec out with the other casting classes. I personally feel it will do more damage than good after the last change they did to the spec.

All Druids will be able to use Ferocious Bite , Barkskin , Cyclone , Stampeding Roar , and Ironfur regardless of their active specialization. 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.

I don’t remember this talent much and thats saying the most. I don’t remember it because it clearly wasn’t either used or good. After relooking up this old thing it shows up as a 6 min CD which doesn’t give any bonus worth a 6 min CD. It is simply out classed because you failed to balance it the first time so bringing it back as is won’t do you a bit of good unless you put it in a tier with 2 other worthless talents.
Now the other part of this or top part its really a whatever add trying to what i’m going to call “filling in”. They needed to do more to make druid look like its getting a lot but in reality is this
-Feral getting Barkskin
-Balance/Resto getting Stampeding Roar
-Ironfur and Ferocious bite will never be used by any other spec except maybe ferals using barksin as a last ditch effort tank but even then.

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 .

I really don’t see this being of damn bit of use. It adds minor flavoring to picking an affinity but in the end will it really have any effect is to be seen. personally its another “filling in” to make the druid look like its getting great stuff.

Overall summary is piss poor. They are messing with stuff that they don’t, adding stuff that should have been either there, taking away from what we can do now, or its whatever and will be doing it anyways because we want it. To be honest it completely seems that blizzard didn’t care about what they did to druid after doing considerate buff’s/changes for the better to all other classes.

For Balance and Feral, HOTW was practically mandatory for progression in mid-MOP. (HOTW+Tranquility was the strongest healing cooldown in the game.) Feral had to juggle Dream of Cenarius in their extremely complex combat flow, which may be why you don’t remember it?

Resto PVP used it to great effectiveness as it allowed you to Ferocious Bite for a huge amount.

In Alpha, it appears they simply want it to be an emergency button based on the affinity.

Ursol’s Vortex + Solar Beam is the dream. It makes Solar Beam less crappy. Maim won’t be that good. Incap Roar is an extra interrupt and peel (great PVP potential). Typhoon has a wide range of clever uses, especially in PVP where Y-axis geometry matters…such as Blade’s Edge or Arathi Basin Lumbermill.

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Additionally, Touch of Death returns to its original design, killing an enemy with less health than the Monk. Each specialization also gains a unique benefit by dealing damage with Touch of Death.

Is there… A particular reason why? You changed ToD because it had no impact other than very very very specific circumstances. I appreciate you giving us a few baseline abilities, but is there a reason for the ToD revert?

Classic is looking better and better. No worry about a missing spell. Downranking is a game in itself. Utility is needed to survive. 3 mobs in the outside world require CC when soloing or you take a dirtnap. My Druid does not have to worry about missing Innervate or Tranquility.

Just my two cents.

While you’re giving abilities back to classes, how about giving demonology warlocks the ability to turn into a big demon again.

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sounds like your bad at classic, i aoe face roll that just the same as this.