[News] Shadowlands Class Updates

You forgot to add Shaman Tank Spec - Earth Warden

Monks are being given this same freedom to choose between dual wield and using a 2-hand weapon.

2 Likes

I am not a fan of the changes to enhancement at the moment. I like the way the class plays now. What is being proposed sounds a lot like what we had in WoD and after a life time of playing enhancement I respeced to elemental. If you can keep survival hunters as they are you can keep enhancement as it is.

Yet they won’t change destro demo…Dispite those specs relaying on their current azrite traits and hoa essences.

1 Like

I actually love the way BFA Survival plays. But I feel like that should have been BM (because Beast Masters have always been traditionally melee in RPGs) and Survival should be as it was in WoD (probably the most fun spec I’ve ever played in WoW). So BM should be the Mongoose Bite/Kill Command spec, and Survival should get Explosive Shot and Black Arrow back. So the ranged specs would be very ranged-focused (Survival ran Lone Wolf in WoD), and the melee spec has interactions with their pet (Kill Command, Flanking Strike, Coordinated Assault, etc).

But as it stands, Survival is one of the most fun and engaging (melee) specs on live. Managing Mongoose Bite stacks, focus generation, and Kill Command reset procs is so satisfying to pull off.

God. I hope they remove this from Hunter’s Mark.

Jeeze. Really? It hardly heals now anyway. It should be buffed a little, not nerfed.

If they don’t change how this works, I would rather see them remove it. Every time I see somebody use it in raid, I reposition myself so people don’t think it’s coming from me.

This sounds like the mop version., Hopefully it has a similar animation as that version. It was fun to use back then.

I wish they would give us the damaging version of Explosive Trap back. It was always a good AoE ability that took a little skill to use correctly.

They probably thought that players who had spent years collecting BM only pets would have been upset if they had to spec into Melee to see their collection.

No. They probably didn’t think that. They could care less about the work we put into our class. It was all about how different it was from the other ranged spec. Since they didn’t play Hunters, they assumed, like so many other non-hunters, that SV and MM were essentially the same. Then, of the two that were “the same”, they removed the mobile one, because for God’s sake lets force Hunters to finally stand still.

3 Likes

You’re still missing baseline Camouflage. You know, that iconic ability of Hunters that has been in the game for 10 years. The one many Hunter will feel forced to pick no matter what.

Oh yeah, and ranged SV is still missing. Thanks for deleting my spec three years ago.

3 Likes

As someone who found Survival to be unfun right up until Legion, and has been playing since Vanilla, I respect your freedom to have your opinion, and I vigorously disagree with it.

Now, perhaps you feel Beast Mastery should be a melee spec and Survival should be the gun spec – that would be an understandable approach, and pre-Legion I always argued that BM should be a Rexxar-like melee spec, while Survival should be a gun-and-trap-oriented spec. I still sort of feel that way.

However, Survival is a very fun spec to play right now, and is my go-to for leveling and solo play as a Hunter. Survival has high mobility and speed, good DPS crunch and feel, and is very good at surviving fights as the spec name might suggest.

If there’s something specific you want to see, offer advice, not just a complaint. How should Survival play to be fun in your mind, when someone who hated Survival from Vanilla through Draenor actually considers it to be fun?

2 Likes

The fact that they are bringing (IMO and many of the boomkins i play with) back the worst iteration they have ever had for the class is sad. I personally like current boomkin. It feels balanced for the first time in a long time if not ever. Yes that’s largely because of the Azerite traits requiring it, but than make streaking stars baseline or a talent. But please dont ruin a class you finally got right after nearly 16 years.

1 Like

I still don’t see Fury warriors quad wielding… we have feet you know.

1 Like

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.

1 Like

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.

4 Likes

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:

1 Like

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.

1 Like

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.