I have played WoW for nearly 15 years and I consider it to be one of the greatest games of all time. I am ecstatic to go back to vanilla and relive that adventure when WoW Classic goes live. However, as amazing and revolutionary as vanilla wow was, to deny that it had flaws or could be improved (ie. #nochanges) is, in my mind, ignorant. Here I’ve listed the changes that I would like to see implemented in WoW classic. These are of course biased based on my own experiences playing vanilla, playing modern, and playing on private servers (mainly played druids/priests/warlocks)
Changes relating to class balance:
- Give Paladins a taunt
Of the three tanking classes in 1.12 WoW (Warrior, Druid, and Paladin), Paladins were the only class without a taunt. They were also the class that arguably needed it most because:
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they had no ranged attacks to pull a mob. This meant a safe pull often requires another player to pull and then for the paladin to pick up agro.
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A large fraction of a paladin’s threat was generated by BEING hit (Blessing of Sanctuary, Holy Shield). In Vanilla, threat was a big deal and sometimes dps would pull mobs off a tank. Good luck regaining threat when you aren’t being hit
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Consecration (one of the best ways a pally has to pick up threat on multiple mobs) was a 11 point HOLY talent in 1.12, meaning many pally tanks couldn’t even get it without drastically delaying their protection build
- Let feral druids parry
I realize many people will freak out about this and say it doesn’t make sense, but actually animals parrying is already in 1.12 vanilla WoW. I was in bear form fighting Moonstalkers and Thistle Bears in Darkshore and imagine my surprise when these bears and cats parried my attacks. Feral druids not parrying is actually an exception to this general rule. According to Vanilla WoW, animals CAN parry attacks.
By allowing Paladins to Taunt, and Druids to Parry, you level the playing field moreso between the three tanks and increase diversity of raiding parties. In original Vanilla, Warriors were (mostly) the only tanks used in high-end progression raiding
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Let Feral Druids interact with items in shapeshift forms
Another weakness of ferals is the inability to use potions, pick up quest items, etc in feral form. However, in 1.12 Feral druids CAN pick herbs, skin animals, and loot corpses in feral forms. This is inconsistent. Being able to use a healing potion while Bear tanking could also save a group from wiping. They are the only tanks that cannot do this in vanilla. -
Fix Oomkins
Balance druids were so bad in Vanilla that they were often called Oomkins instead of Moonkins because they always ran out of mana. After Blizzard fixed this in modern, they have now come to be known as Boomkins, because they are effective ranged DPS. Adjust mana cost/regeneration in some way to make this spec viable -
Remove the 40 debuff cap on raid bosses
The limit of 40 debuffs on a raid boss is an oversight that boggles my mind in a raid designed for 40 players. This implies that Blizzard expected no more than 1 debuff per person on a raid boss despite classes like affliction warlocks often using 4 simultaneous debuffs (corruption, immolate, curse, siphon life, etc). This limits the viability of dot-based classes such as warlocks and shadow priests in raid encounters -
Allow HoTs from different healers to stack
In a 40 man raid, it seems absurd that two resto druids will over-write eachothers HoTs on a target. I am unsure if having multiple healers being able to renew/rejuvenate a single tank was causing some sort of cheapening of raid mechanics, but if a single enemy can have corruption from multiple Warlocks, why can’t a single ally have Renew from multiple Priests? This especially benefits classes who are meant to be HoT focused (Druids) -
Give pets aoe damage reduction (I was told this was absent in 1.12) to make pet-based specs viable in raids (demonology warlock and beast mastery hunters)
Quality of Life Changes:
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Easier use of mail (some of this is already in BETA)
ability to attack multiple items, ability to right click/shift+right click to add/remove items from mail. Maybe even add a mailbox near the Darnassus auction house to be more in line with what SW and IF have. -
Auction house interface (basing this on my 1.12 private server experience)
- Let us post multiple auctions at once instead of having to manually post each stack.
- Add a reset button to AH interface
- Let us shift-click an item to search its name in AH
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Add Guild Banks to facilitate organization of consumables for 40 man raids. Allow officers to restrict access
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Add auto-loot option in settings (already in beta)
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1.12 WoW actually had a group finder mechanic - it was just horrible. You could click stones or talk to inn keepers to queue for a dungeon. But no one used it. Fix this to make it work, but keep it restricted only to your server. Many view cross-server queues as the beginning of the downfall of the sense of community many love about WoW. Also, have the queue ask what ROLES the person wants to fulfill. That lvl 18 priest with 5 points in spirit tap may want to heal, and that lvl 18 druid with 5 points in furor may want to tank. Specs weren’t black and white back then. In short, make the mechanic that already existed in 1.12 actually function the way it was intended.
These are all just my opinions, but I feel that these changes would make the game better without ruining what made vanilla so great: the difficulty, the RPG/fantasy elements, the community, etc. I hope the developers use Classic as an opportunity to improve on what was an already amazing but not perfect game. I’m sure I missed some things given that I have not played every class, but these are the changes I’d like to see.
![:grinning:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/grinning.png?v=6" ":grinning:")