Final Changelog for Class Changes coming in 1.16.1

[Brandedblade]

So I'm going to mainly give feedback towards Paladin and Priest as those are my babies as far as classes are concerned.

With Paladin? The addition of Holy Strike alone did alot to improve the feel of vanilla paladin, so I'm immediately feeling optimistic about Adding Crusader Strike on top of it. I am admittedly worried that any and all of this will be overtuned but the raw numbers can always be adjusted as long as the gameplay feels good.

I'm actually pleasantly surprised by the Improved Seal of Justice suggestion. My fantasy of a "Seal that has a taunt effect when judged" was always aimed towards a reimplemented Seal of Fury, this is actually super clever as Seal of Justice is such an underrated tool in the paladin toolkit, especially in places like scarlet monestary, and this indirectly encourages more use of it while giving it further utility on mobs that don't flee at low health.

My only real negative is the removal of lasting judgments, as tagging mobs with Light or Wis was always a favorite part for me when it comes to healing on paladin. But at the same time this would also make me more motivated to do the occasional smacking to maintain them.

With Priest, I'm definitely liking the adjustments to shadow, but I am a little curious, what's the current plan concerning smite builds? I know you gave High Elves a few racials that make it more viable of an option, but has there been any considerations for adjusting some of the holy and disc talents to help with that? From an initial thought the only things that immediately spring to my mind would be to additionally add a crit damage bonus to Searing Light and possibly add mana reduction to Smite and Holy Fire onto Mental Agility. Otherwise I'm definitely liking what I'm seeing for priest. I will definitely want to poke and prod around with the champion spells.

[Mantigora]

Btw, will druids be able to learn to use polearms?

Yea, that would be very nice!
There are so many good Polearms that would fit a Druid, perhaps even better than any other class.

I would like to see some small changes first and then later see what more could be done.
If you want to keep people happy, give them something new once in a while, don't choke them with everything in one go.
That's what I would do...

[Rafale]

For the druid changes, I was thinking about 2 more things :

- 35% mana cost on Regrowth. This is a change Druids got in TBC. If you compare the mana cost on flash heal, holy light, and Lesser healing Wave, you will immediately understand the problem.
- Entangling Roots usable indoor. That is a more utility boost. This will make druid very welcome in every dungeon.

[Afaslizo]

Let's be honest, most player feedback is so hyperbolic its useless for a designer. For most players, each thing is either "burning trash" or "perfect", and the difference between those 2 categories can be as tenuous as a 1% efficiency.

Player feedback is not useless if you look at it aside from debating the changes in detail. The purpose of the thread is quite obvious in testing if the proposed changes might affect the player population in a largely negative way as it certainly comes up even in game while here are just a drop of the players assembled. So it helps to gauge the reaction to the planned additions as well as facilliating communication between the team and the playerbase. Aside from up to five commentaries which oppose it entirely the reception seems to be largely positive if a bit wary but hopeful. I am sure the staff takes examples from this as well as discord and a bit in game from passively reading the chats (like Jamey does in HC where I mostly play).

That helps to assemble player reactions in what is well received and where it might be lacking and even if the end result will never please everyone it might be enough of a compromise. Will it lead to some players leaving? Maybe. But it can also lead to player-increase.

Aside from that it seems likely that while the list is extensive it is not anywhere near to be implemented as mutiple times stated that numbers are still under consideration, rogue change appears to be largely without ideas and some new mechanics are quite largely opposed like the new holy priest spells. So there might be further changes coming or even a rescaling on what will be implemented.

Thus all feedback has worth.

[Jamey]

Greetings lovely turtles!

We have put up a Talent Calculator for the tentative upcoming talent changes.

You can play around with the talents yourself here:
https://talents.turtle-wow.org/

DISCLAIMER: These changes shown on the calculator are tentative and may be subject to change without warning.

Please notify us if you notice any problems with the calculator.

[Rafale]

Suggestion for warlocks who could want to be fire PVE specced and don't have many changes :
- Make the talent "Improved Searing Pain" only 3 points : 3/7/10%
- Add a talent following this one : "Gentle Flames : Reduces the threat generated of your Searing Pain spell by 25/50% (2 points)"

People could take it or not take it if they want searing pain to stay a tanking spell.
This new talent could make FireLocks a good alternative, with fire mages debuffs and without costing any debuff themselves.

Edit: I just saw the base damage, gonna be hard to make it viable without another buff to the damage. Maybe a new R6 Searing Pain would help, and make the improved Searing Pain 5/10/15% ?

[Xyosickman]

Are there any plans to add increased damage to the [Improved Entangling Roots] talent? Something like 10%/20%/30% increased damage would make this talent way more attractive, especially since balance is getting some more interesting gameplay. Maybe even something like 30%/60%/100% damage boost

[Merikkinon]

We have put up a Talent Calculator for the tentative upcoming talent changes.

You can play around with the talents yourself here:
https://talents.turtle-wow.org/

Just really awesome. Thanks so much, dev team.

[Merikkinon]

I want to name something, and I think it needs to be considered from a server culture level. It's more an observation, but it is an observation of a significant trend:

Since the devs mentioned the potential (likely, in some form/format) upcoming changes to class abilities and talents, we have been weighing in (mainly in this thread), and in discord and so on. Rightly so, with the announcement, as we have actual data to debate.

However... prior to this and for some time, there has been a growing, significant shift in discussion about classes and reworking them. It has possibly always been somewhat of a topic during the lifetime of TWoW. And pretty much most Vanilla pservers. However, I do note since I joined in Feb/March of this year, the discussion has RAMPED up. It's become a dominant topic in the community, and was becoming so even before the dev announcement on class changes.

My concern, and I think people might want to give pause to this, is that this is part of the way the WoW community and Blizzard unconsciously conspired to punt Vanilla down a road of constant class-balancing frackas and the twisting of the game far away from Vanilla. Both the WoW devs and community were complicit in mangling that game.

It was undeniable that as we (TWoW) got an influx of new players (many of whom came from either Classic or Classic TBC, and were still in the somewhat Retail mode), that discussion of the TWoW project model would occur, and along with that all sorts of talk about 'what to do about 'Class X''.

I am simply making commentary that this IS what is occurring, and has been steadily increasing for awhile, and the rate and pitch at which it is occurring. In the end, it's up to everyone to figure out what we'd want TWoW to be about, because it's not just the TWoW devs who determine that, but the community also - what they perseverate on and bang drums about becomes community culture, community vibe.

As I said, understandable that we are talking about it so hot and heavy now after the dev announcement. However, is did not just start with that announcement, but had been growing strong for some time prior.

IMO, focusing on class change and making it a bitching point or constant topic to be debated absoultely is RETAIL, in the end.

Let's figure out what we're gonna do about all this, and get on with the game and culture. Hell, I don't want to see this spiral into the void that WoW went originally. And let me stress, on the way out, this isn't just in the hands of the devs to control. This is purely a TWoW total community issue.

/END_SOAPBOX

[Aomiaz]

For the Paladin talent tree.
I would swap the position of Blessing of sanctuary with Holy shield.
I would swap the position of Blessing of kings with Seal of command.
And I would move Improved seal of justice to row 7 as the 31 point talent.

[Darreno]

A way to generate combo points from range and a range combo point finisher like Deadly Throw would be awesome!

It's only in Woltk, where Throwgue
spec starts to take form.

[Jcarrill0]

Greetings lovely turtles!

We have put up a Talent Calculator for the tentative upcoming talent changes.

You can play around with the talents yourself here:
https://talents.turtle-wow.org/

DISCLAIMER: These changes shown on the calculator are tentative and may be subject to change without warning.

Please notify us if you notice any problems with the calculator.

I enjoy looking forward to trying out these new talent revamps

[Brandedblade]

I do have a few more thoughts now that I've looked over the other feedback provided here.

Hunter: I do see you're trying to implement the ability to be a melee hunter, are there any plans to alter some of the talents to accommodate this? I also agree overall that the proposed design for Aspect of Wolf doesn't seem to cut it, while you can simply stance dance to negate the ranged penalty, I do think that it's unnecessary to completely lock out the ability to use your ranged weapon, massively reducing ranged attack power and speed might be a sufficient enough punishment, perhaps combined with a minor attack speed increase for melee?

Paladin: I'm still in agreeance with Crusader Strike being implemented. But as stated earlier, how does Seal of the Crusader/Judgement of the Crusader and everything that alters it, namely talents and pvp gloves, factor into this? I did have a few ideas myself but I don't consider myself sufficient skilled of a game designer to hold much weight into this.

Any plans of altering benediction to include other instant actions, especially holy/crusader strike and consecration? Or even a separate talent, something like.

"Art of War (2/2): Reduces the mana cost of Holy Strike and Crusader Strike by 7/15% Increases the Holy Damage Bonus of Crusader Strike by 5/10%"

[Hark]

New Talent: Tree of Life Form (Row 7)
Shapeshift into the Tree of Life. While in this form you increase healing received by 15% of your total Spirit for all party members within 30 yards, your movement speed is reduced by 20%, and you can only cast Swiftmend, Innervate, Nature's Swiftness, Rebirth, Barkskin, poison removing and healing over time spells, but the mana cost of these spells is reduced by 20%.

The act of shapeshifting frees the caster of Polymorph and Movement Impairing effects.

Huge NO. Tree of life is a BC spell. If people want to play ToL drood, they go BC or retail. In vanilla, restodruid has a unique playstyle base on human form and other forms in PVP. I agree that restodruids are behind in PVE but they have solid spec choices: 21/0/30, 24/0/27, and X/0/31+ are solids specs. Give druids the benefit of Tree of life without the spell to not break identity/gameplay :

New Talent: Life Giver (Row 7)
While in human form you increase healing received by 15% of your total Spirit for all party members within 30 yards.

Resto druids will have to choose between sniper heal with nature grace in balance tree or giving buff to all healers with this 31 points in resto. Strategic choice ! Also, it will not change at all the gameplay of a resto druid, with the same variety of spells.

And Last, I will add a new change to an under-used talent / spell :

Improved Tranquility (Row 5)
Reduces threat caused by Tranquility by 50/100% and increases the healing by 30/60%

Thx for reading !

I agree with basically everything Rafale said, but this specific excerpt was important enough for me to make a post. Please do not add the TBC Tree of Life, it sucks. Obviously it is a buff, but it forces druid healers to use the form, which is just plain ugly, is weird from a lore perspective and makes the druid's humanoid 'form' basically useless. If I wanted to use ToL, I would play on a TBC server.

To add on the lore perspective: no druid in lore transforms into a treant to heal, they all heal in their normal humanoid form, the same goes for balance spells in lore, really. Secondly, all the druid forms are animals, aspects of nature, the treant is a magical walking tree, not an animal. If a druid needs stamina and power, they turn into a bear, if they need to scout an area they turn into a bird, etc., why would turning into a weird walking tree help you with your healing? This has no basis in Warcraft III lore and is why Tree Form isn't a thing in that game. It is one of TBC's lesser lore atrocities.

And as mentioned, adding ToL means the druid's humanoid form is used much less, which again is not really in keeping with WCIII/Vanilla's lore and is a shame because the player gets to see their character and their gear less often. One of the big reasons I like Vanilla is because while shapeshifting is an integral part of the druid's identity, it is not an all-encompassing part of their identity. If a Druid of the Claw wanted to cast rejuvenate in WCIII he would do so in humanoid form, not first shift into a tree form. Druids live in harmony with nature, in balance with it, having them be shapeshifted all the time would mean there is no balance as they are leaving behind their Night Elf/Tauren selves. It is a drastic departure from WCIII and Vanilla. I much prefer Rafale's ''Life Giver'' solution!

Anyway, this turned out to be a rather long rant about a change that is probably insignificant or positive for most players.

I'd also like to add that while the Holy Champion idea is cool, the current iteration is much too unwieldy. Also giving Shadow Priests and AoE reeks of homogenization and Pain Spike is just plain weird. As others have suggested, have Shadow stick to being a DoT spec and tune the mana battery aspect so that it is a boon to the party but not a requirement. It is also funny that you mention that Combat is the only viable rogue spec in PvE but yet add no changes to address this! I love the racial Shaman spells inspired by the WCIII units, but they do not seem nearly as valuable as one another. Bloodlust is cool, but again as others have mentioned it is in danger of being the new Innervate in that it will never be self-cast in a somewhat serious group.

Most other changes are great however! Preserving class and also spec identity is paramount, which the majority of the changes do, but not all as previous posters have pointed out.

Anyway, thank you Turtle WoW devs for making such a wonderful server! <3

[Exizefra]

Looking on all that changes, for now i have just one suggestion: that champion mechanic should be given to the end of discipline tree. Because holy priests are already have much more bonuses than disc - for healing and damage. Shield talents, spirit buff and Power Infusion - it's all not so much in fact and don't make disc spec any better healer or much more support than holy. Champion talent will make that spec a fully one-target heal and support while holy spec will be mass heal or holy damage (if you want to change a Lightwell, i suppose that Circle of Healing from TBC is the best option).

[Rafale]

I agree with basically everything Rafale said, but this specific excerpt was important enough for me to make a post. Please do not add the TBC Tree of Life, it sucks. Obviously it is a buff, but it forces druid healers to use the form, which is just plain ugly, is weird from a lore perspective and makes the druid's humanoid 'form' basically useless. If I wanted to use ToL, I would play on a TBC server.

To add on the lore perspective: no druid in lore transforms into a treant to heal, they all heal in their normal humanoid form, the same goes for balance spells in lore, really. Secondly, all the druid forms are animals, aspects of nature, the treant is a magical walking tree, not an animal. If a druid needs stamina and power, they turn into a bear, if they need to scout an area they turn into a bird, etc., why would turning into a weird walking tree help you with your healing? This has no basis in Warcraft III lore and is why Tree Form isn't a thing in that game. It is one of TBC's lesser lore atrocities.

And as mentioned, adding ToL means the druid's humanoid form is used much less, which again is not really in keeping with WCIII/Vanilla's lore and is a shame because the player gets to see their character and their gear less often. One of the big reasons I like Vanilla is because while shapeshifting is an integral part of the druid's identity, it is not an all-encompassing part of their identity. If a Druid of the Claw wanted to cast rejuvenate in WCIII he would do so in humanoid form, not first shift into a tree form. Druids live in harmony with nature, in balance with it, having them be shapeshifted all the time would mean there is no balance as they are leaving behind their Night Elf/Tauren selves. It is a drastic departure from WCIII and Vanilla. I much prefer Rafale's ''Life Giver'' solution!

Anyway, this turned out to be a rather long rant about a change that is probably insignificant or positive for most players.

Thx for your good arguments !!!!

Btw I forgot to say that I think Regrowth need to be reworked to benefit to restodruids but also Ferals / Moonkins.

In Classic : Regrowth R9 (max rank) mana cost is 880 mana
In TBC : Regrowth R9 mana cost is 575 mana
In TBC : Regrowth R10 (max rank) mana cost is 675

HT is already good. Rejuvenation is good too. Regrowth isn't. If you want druids to be as efficient as others in raid healing, they need the -35% mana cost reduction which TBC gave them.

[Snigery]

Lacerate
Wounds the target causing them to bleed for X% of your melee attack power over 21 sec.
(Value still under discussion.)

Aspect of the Wolf | 120 Mana
The hunter takes on the aspects of a wolf, increasing melee attack power by 120 and disabling the use of ranged attacks. Only one Aspect can be active at a time.

Talent Changes

Beast Mastery

Improved Eyes of the Beast
Increases the duration of Eyes of the Beast by 30/60 seconds. While channeling this ability your tamed pet deals 5/10% additional damage and increases its focus generation by 10/20%.

Already playing a BM Melee Hunter here. My thought about them was they are quite basically a warrior, but with extra goodies rather than good melee abilities (passive pet dps/aggro and extra health pool ontop of yours if you think about it, trap initiation dmg, ranged dps and abilities, dodge/movement aspects). Yet with all that they only have access to three melee damaging abilities, two are conditional - one on dodge, the other parry (the parry is unlocked in survival tree). Though they lack more of warrior abilities and longevity, Hunter can apply a ranged DoT (Serpent Sting) and a ranged speed debuff (Concussive Shot).

I think the proposed changes are an ineffective attempt to perhaps make them as viable as warriors. Simply put, the proposed additions to Hunter do not synergize well with the flavour the class has. I would like to propose something along the lines of what follows, which will keep in step with the flavour of the class and its' synergy in a melee spec:

Wing Clip: This is an instant cast ability at a low mp cost that applies a 50% movement debuff. I suggest making Wing Clip a spammable ability that will give Hunter a small boost in some other aspect. Maybe it adds a debuff on target that increases pet dmg, or inversely, increases pet focus thereby increasing dmg? Perhaps it applies a secondary debuff that increases hunter chance to parry/dodge enabling more use of the two other melee abilities. Because melee hunter is trading aggro with pet and seeking to proc Mongoose Bite/Counterattack outside of Raptor Strike, this ability will be a nice inbetween attack to add advantage to the target aside from movement debuff.

Raptor Strike: This ability is probably fine as it is, though it's obviously a knock off Heroic Strike locked behind a 6 second rotation.

Mongoose Bite: This attack is pretty weak and does not proc too often to justify it. If we wanted a DoT for hunter, this would be a good one to add it to to help with an ongoing fight rather than just adding DoT for no reason since Hunter can start off with serpent sting. It would be nice if additional procs would do extra bonus damage if DoT is on target, rather than just reapply it.

I don't know, just some more interesting ideas in my opinion.

Aspect of the Wolf | 120 Mana
The hunter takes on the aspects of a wolf, increasing melee attack power by 120 and disabling the use of ranged attacks. Only one Aspect can be active at a time.

I feel like you guys are forgetting that Mongoose Bite exists and can only be used with Aspect of the Monkey on when you are leveling melee. It seems like a big tradeoff to lose dodge % and a melee spell in order to get some AP.

I'm not sure what your goal was here exactly, but if it was to make melee weaving in raids more viable of a DPS boost then I feel like these changes also fall flat there considering you'd have to spend a lot of mana to switch between Hawk and Wolf.

Agreed.

[Connelly]

Hello. I took a break from Turtle and WoW in general about 1-2 years ago, but I heard there were going to be class changes and came out of curiosity to check even if it was true (because I remember when that was a no-no subject).

When I played vanilla, I was primarily a Arms/2H Fury DPS warrior, so that's what I will focus on. Others have already pitched in about other points like soloing, leveling, farming and tanking and I mostly agree, so I'll try to stick to what I know (and what I don't, well, it's been more than a year since I last played, give me some slack :P )

Thunderclap can now be used in Defensive Stance.

Improved Thunder Clap (Row 2)

Being usable in Def is a good thing on paper, as it helps control area threat. Usually, along with spamming Demoralizing Shout, what you'd do is change targets and sundering each one in turn (which is effective enough if things are under control, but can go to hell if you mess up say your tabbing or the area damage is far too much than what you can keep up with), or dance to Battle Stance and TC quickly before returning to Def (which is snappier than the previous method, but requires spot on stance dance skills, and if leaves you open to get slapped down to oblivion even if you do it as fast as possible, so you don't really do it unless you really need the slow debuff. That, and it's peanuts for damage. You could instead go Berserker Stance and Whirlwind, which is far more damage than TC specially as it scales with your stats and gear much better, but sword and board isn't the best setup to squeeze any juice from WW). So mechanically this is a good quality of life change.

But for this to be actually worth it, it needs TC to produce at least enough threat to be worth the rage, even if not necessarily as much as to take the spotlight in area tanking from the bears and pallys. Increasing the damage a 100% for a skill that already does very little damage even with decent gear is not going to matter much in the long run, and Arms warriors are definitely going to skip it unless a situation calls for it. For Protection, if the changed talent won't touch threat itself, then ideally this damage increase should affect the threat.

If main raid tanks ignore these changes, that would be one thing. But at the very least this should actively help new tanks or those focusing on dungeons. Otherwise it's a moot point.

And while I'm not in hard agreement with Chaossonic, I'll also echo what they said about devaluing Tactical Mastery. There are other reasons for a tank to stance dance other than TC (Berserker Rage or Charge/Intercept, for instance), but for tanks who doesn't find themselves in need of these abilities regularly, you're certainly giving them less of a reason to get TM. But I understand why would you make this a baseline change instead of Protection exclusive, because this way Arms and Fury players can also benefit from it. Still, I'd argue a tweaked Whirlwind is better suited for their setups, making it the area skill they can reliably use for area would be a better change (for example, changing Dual Wield Specialization and Sweeping Strikes to also allow using WW in Def Stance, even with a smidge weaker damage when using that stance).

New Ability: Intervene

A tank charge. I loved it in WotLK, and it can see some uses even in vanilla. I'm not sure what problems it would be for Protection warriors that Chaossonic thinks it'll case if it baseline; closest thing I can think about might be something about the interaction of mob outgoing damage with how they're received by the target, but tanking isn't my specialty. Purely from a DPS perspective, it allows me to let a raid leader know that I have some utility beyond waving a stick with enthusiasm, even if it's just as an extra cooldown for the tank or any other raider who might be in predictable danger.

New Ability: Decisive Strike

In other words, the Slam of later expansions. Ignoring the swing timer and being able to move while casting makes my kokoro go doki-doki. Well, it should. It doesn't. Calling it a "brilliant rework" it's, huh, far, far too optimistic or naive.
See, having played both Arms and 2h Fury up to Naxxramas, I was in a love-hate relationship with Slam. It carries its weight, of course, but it's as spammy as it's awkward to use, no matter if you go 2H Fury or Arms. Taking away the two main impediments (swing timer interruption and cast without moving) definitely makes it not awkward, but suddenly you turned Slam into a howitzer that leaves the main specialization skills (Mortal Strike and Bloodthirst) eating dust.
Furthermore, if you play 2H Fury, you helped them overcome dual wield Fury players to an extent. Don't misunderstand me, I'm biased; I love the 2handed style and D U A L W I E L D C A N D I E A N D B U R N I N H E L L. But not only that's just me, it doesn't solve the problem of dual wield Fury being considered overpowered, instead you potentially made a second spec just as overpowered.

I'm not sure how to solve the issue in respect to the interaction with Improved Slam. Still, considering the difference in attack speeds between Arms and Fury, I'd argue that these changes would fit much better as an Arms exclusive (maybe baked into Sweeping Strikes or the weapon specializations). 2H Fury works well enough with Improved Slam as the Slam Barrage specialization; maybe allowing them to move while casting should be enough for them (I know I'd love to in fights like Heigan). Making Arms the "Snap Slam" specialization in contrast has some potential, but I doubt even Decisive Strike as currently intended can help it get out of the "suboptimal" situation.

If you want to help the DPS specs without buffing what's already too strong, I'd advise to look at the specs as a whole instead, both Arms and Fury, and make sure there are enough reasons to bring both and/or either of them to a group.

TL;DR: Simply taking the brakes out of Slam only makes more things overpowered, not better.

New Passive: Die by the Sword

New Talent: Improved Disciplines (Row 6)

Oh dear. Talking only about that passive, Chaossonic already mentioned making a strong (even if situational) skill even stronger. i don't necessarily agree but I'll also add that a tank won't care: they'll keep using Shield Wall forever. Furies will just pop Recklessness. And most PVP players with any degree of awareness know not to melee a warrior with Retaliation up anyway.

With the passive and the talent together, an Arms DPSs who has been roped into tanking a dungeon might actually make real use of them, because now Ret becomes a real choice against Shield Wall in heavy area situations that also plays into Arms strengths... but mostly for those players with really high gear; those who are fresh lv60 do not really want to leave Defensive Stance.
Edit: Technically it would also help Arms raiders, but their burst damage is already good enough; their issues come from lack of real sustained damage. In PVP, there is some value in the shorter cooldowns, but they're still so absurdly long timed that most opponents won't care more than they did before.

At the end of the day, no matter what you do, everything will be inherently affected by the issues that already plague the Cooldown Trio in vanilla: stupid long cooldown time shared by the three of them, at its most simplified. That new talent doesn't really help that much either. Waiting 24 minutes instead of 30 for three cooldowns is an improvement in paper, but not one that really changes things. This is a matter of addressing the Cooldown Trio directly, not patching things around them.

Polearm Specialization (Row 6) has been combined into Axe Specialization (Row 5) and renamed Poleaxe Specialization (Row 5).

Redundancy reduction. Which is fine. Just fine. More of a neutral change than anything else. There aren't that many interesting polearms in vanilla for Arms, and not only the best ones are the kind that are already itemized for hunters, they're surrounded or precluded by other weapons more attractive to warriors. This might help leveling warriors to respec fewer times, loot allowing, but it's not going to change anything important.

Improved Shield Block

Absolute agree with Chaossonic. At the least problematic, it frees two talent points. But we all know those points are going to go to reinforce DPS tanking.

any change made to the class must down one of two things only: either optimize what doesn’t work but should for the class, or improve on suboptimal playstyles to allow for more options for the player. The changes proposed for the coming patch attempt to stick within those guidelines.

I say this in the most gentle and concerned way possible: this should go back to the drawing board. There are decent ideas here but the intended implementation won't really solve any real issues, and you might even hurt more things along the way.

I never understood why you should not be allowed to see certain ingame content because you like to play a certain spec or class.

It says something that the entire industry doesn't really look any keen into retreading this philosophy decades later. Or at least, it should.

ABOUT 2H FURY WARRIOR

Make fury not only for dual wield. Maybe increasing damage and healing of bloodthirst when wielding a slow 2 hander.

2h fury only does good damage when having very high AP compared to mortal strike. And with a slow weapon you only use 2-3 charges of bloodthirst healing before time.expires so maybe doubling the ap bonus and healing wielding a 2 hander would be a good idea

And about rend. Is pretty useless.(like vanilla lacerate) Maybe if scales with ap. OR bring the wotlk mechanic (rend ticks procs overpower)

decisive strike. I love a better slam but in raw numbers is not a upgrade in fact is a downgrade. Does same damage than slam rank 4 but is 0.5 sec slower. Maybe with a level 60 rank wich gives more damage? Something to compete with Bt or Ms and make a third option

What do you think about my ideas?

I'm fine letting Fury be for both dual wielders and 2handers. I've played 2H Fury a fair while after all. But there should also be some worth in allowing Arms to compete in equal terms with Fury, so that 2hander players don't find themselves presured to switch to Fury.

Tweaking the Bloodthirst damage is interesting though I'm not sure how to go about it. The issue with the healing charges is not only that a slow weapon can't make use of all healing charges, it's also that (for both dual wielders and 2handers) the healing provided is barely worth speaking about. A dual wielder can use it as a buffer when for example soloing things, although it won't save them from dying, but it won't help a 2hander. But if you allow a 2hander to make proper use of this healing, say, by increasing the healing provided by each charge, then you risk giving the dualwielder far, far too much self healing in comparison. Not that I'd be against it (anything that helps warriors soloing is good in my book, given how badly we have it compared to other classes) but it'd be better to provide different mechanics to each style.

I've always been a proponent of doing anything with Rend. Anything at all. The Wotlk mechanic is good, but you need a reason to allow Rend to stay in a boss and not be screamed at for it (I mean, I should know. I've been the jerk screaming other warriors for using Rend). You don't even need to change its damage if you don't want to. Burning Crusade did this for Arms warriors by introducing the "bleeds increase party damage" concept and it's been a mainstay of the class for many expansions.

If you want to solve the problem of warriors scaling like madmen, just reduce the %speed on flurry. Easy. It might also encourage experimentation with other talent builds.

Indeed. Flurry is a main factor in Fury dual wielders becoming so strong (and why 2H Fury can even hope to catch up with them). Scaling it a bit back and giving Arms a potential alternative (no, Axe and Sword Specialization are not that alternative. Mace Spec? What Mace Spec?) could help level the scales.

[Lahire]

I agree with Rafale and the others that introducing the Tree of Life form to vanilla is a bad idea, as players will feel "forced" to use it because of its power, but will lose their character identity in the process.
That's a sad prospect tbh. An equivalent humanoid-form buff is a good compromise.

[Raukodor]

My favorite warrior talent tree was wotlk arms

I love the "rend activates overpower" mechanic. I love play arms but for pve i endes being 2h fury (indont like dual sorry)

So if it possible make to classic would be a good option to make rend useful and arms more viable (and if you make slam to arms oriented i always though slam needs a level 60 rank and inproved slam should be 2/2 instead 5/5)

[Raukodor]

And for melee hunter. Now i play one and i created a post in suggestions with the changes i think he needs. take a look

[Rafale]

About druids :

Frenzied Regeneration now also heals for 1% of your Stamina.

Do you mean 1% of stam / sec during 10 seconds ?

1% of your stamina is very very low. A BIS feral has like 500 stam in bear form. 1% of stamina is 5.

If you want to buff Frenzied Regeneration, makes it :

Frenzied Regeneration Rank 3
Instant 3 min cooldown
Requires Druid
Requires level 56
Requires Bear Form, Dire Bear Form
Converts up to 10 rage per second into health for 10 sec. Each point of rage is converted into [20 + 1% of your total HP] health

With a 10K HP bear, it means frenzied regeneration will give back 300 HP/second, so 3000 HP in 10 sec. I think it's not OP at all for a cost of 100 rage.

[Selderan]

These changes are astronomically bad.

Vanilla wasn't about having "Balanced" specs. You're taking why we play the game, OUT OF THE GAME.
And even then, how are warriors "straight up overpowered"?

Is it because they can taunt?
Is it because you're fighting max-geared warriors in pvp with 5 healers + consumables?

Having a private server doesn't mean you know anything. It doesn't mean you know how to balance a game, and it doesn't mean you know what you're talking about.

If you are going to redesign a class like warrior and use an innocuous statement such as "They are straight up overpowered", please pull your head out of your ass and play the fucking class. From level 1, to 60, with no instance gear and blues.

There is only ONE class that is overpowered in vanilla, and that class is MAGE. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that.

Here are SEVERAL issues warriors have:

1. Tactical Mastery being mandatory in the arms tree. If you are giving away abilities, you might as well make this trainable and baseline.

2. Rage is a HUGE problem: Getting 2-4 rage per attack makes tanking miserable, especially at early levels. There is a reason you see paladins tanking a lot more then warriors-- because it's easier, and less heart-ache. These buffs will only make this WORSE. I propose upping the rage to a regular 8-10 rage (with a 1hander) and 15-20 rage (with a 2hander). Rage is supposed to be a break from mana, not a hinderance.

3. I hope you understand that Warriors, with no healer, have crap for self-sufficiency. Any buff here would be nice; why not introduce something useful like "Berserker Invigoration" which works like druids Frenzied Regeneration but better (since warriors are a PURE tank).

4. Why not give warriors a baseline instant strike? Like "Brutal Strike" for 80% weapon damage, instant, 6 second cooldown, REPLACED BY MORTAL STRIKE, BLOOD THIRST, or SHIELD SLAM. It would help with leveling big time, but only after the rage issues have been addressed.

5. If you are going to claim warriors are overpowered, YOU SHOULD PROVIDE REASONS AS TO WHY YOU FEEL THAT WAY.
How you can feel that way and not say mages are overpowered when they can instantly fireball you (with 600+ spell damage) for 3-4000 damage is insane to me. Is frost mage a joke to you? What instances are warriors "op" in exactly?
Is it really the talents, or the gear make up? These are things that ANY solid developer should question before "Fixing" and "Adding" things to a class.

6. The Prot Tree is fucking terrible outside of its early talents and shield slam. Why not give prot warriors reckoning? I mean you apparently think a paladin one-shotting with reckoning is completely okay and balanced, especially while being invincible, why not show some love here? Why not give the Prot Warrior a counter ability (like revenge, only it actually deals good damage). What about making revenge cleave instead of being a weak stun that's on DR with rogue stuns?

7. The real reason you think warriors are overpowered in vanilla is because they probably two shotted you. This has more to with the completely low levels of HP in this game (4k at max level with good gear for most classes). But if this is the only way a warrior can win, they aren't op. Any class in this game can do big bursts -- ever play an Ambush/BS rogue with naxx gear? i have. And it's far easier to zerg a priest with one then it is a warrior.

8. Retaliation sucks. The "big three" should be unlinked. The only abiltiy of the three that is broken is "Recklessness". You can make that one an hour CD and noone would care. But retaliate is kind of a meme in pvp and could easily be reduced to a 5 min CD and be fine. Same with Shield Wall.

9. If you really want to ignore me because of my language, I encourage you to look up what "passion" means, because when someone speaks from the heart or passionately, policing their own language is the LAST thing they do. That said, making a warriors life easier in tanking by making sblock cost 0 rage would be ideal. Prot isn't overpowered, at ALL. If it is, it's gear only and not talent or spec or class.

10. Please consider making disarm either A): always work like in TBC, or B): be a 30 second cooldown, because in pvp weapon chains make it completely useless against the classes it SHOULD be good against (rogue, ret paladin).

In conclusion: do not use a term like "Warriors are straight up overpowered in vanilla", because nothing is more false then that statement. Needing to have the best gear, windfury, and a zillion consumables, suggest otherwise.
They have a few things that could be broken, (mainly sweeping strikes and whirlwind), but it becomes the only viable PvP tactic in the game. The current changes will make ret paladins STUPIDLY BROKEN and spriests even more infuriating then they already are.

Sincerely,
Someone who actually cares about the Warrior class (my mains a paladin)

P.S.

Another "aspect" of 'Would-be-OP-in-Vanilla" is Sword Spec.
If you want to nerf something, change that to 10% haste and you'll see a big difference. Remove things or Balance trinkets such as Hand of Justice and you'll see results.

[Lahire]

Reading this thread makes me feel like changing "classes balance" is like opening Pandora's box.
One thinks they can obtain enlightenment from it, but they actually get hundreds of problems, frustrations and divisions.

[Selderan]

Another thing I wanted to mention for warriors is "REND"

By saying "Warriors are straight up OP in vanilla" is to imply Rend, an ability at max rank which deals 30 damage a tick at MAX LEVEL, is somehow "overpowered". If rend could deal respectable damage, and scaled with AP, I could at least attempt to understand this statement.

I guess the Bottom line of my post is this: Don't blindside Warriors based on your own perception of OPness. Being max damage in raids is the result of being complete trash at low levels -- they're gear dependent, after all. A statement like "overpowered" implies every area of the game which, honestly, isn't true.

But if gear dependency just means "garbage until it gets gear to be on par with everyone else", then you might as well fix the warrior at earlier levels and add Quality of Life changes to them to make them much more fun at low levels as opposed to being frustrated constantly.

[Rafale]

Reading this thread makes me feel like changing "classes balance" is like opening Pandora's box.
One thinks they can obtain enlightenment from it, but they actually get hundreds of problems, frustrations and divisions.

I agree but don't agree. For example, paladins absolutely love Holy strike. I don't want to play any other server because I just love it.

That's why I think every change need to be analyzed with those 4 questions :

1) Does it answer the class/spec problem ?
2) Does it keep the class identity ?
3) Does it keep the vanilla gameplay of the class/spec ?
4) Is it balanced (not OP) ?

If there is a "NO" on any answer, you shouldn't make that change. Holy Strike for example is a YES on every answer.

[Lahire]

4) Is it balanced (not OP) ?

What does "overpower" means ? Only in a raiding context, or in all activities of the game ?
If you answer "in all activities" : isn't polymorph "OP" in PvP ? Or pickpocket OP in farming ? Or bubble OP in leveling ? Etc.

I am doubtful the concept players call "overpower" has as much merit as people think. A game without any "OP" elements is a boring game. Isn't the Queen "OP" in chess, for example ? Though the Queen is "OP", using it, losing it or sacrificing it are among the most fun/memorable moments you can obtain from a chess game.
The notion of "overpower" taken for itself has little meaning. I would even say it is a trap for the mind, as it supposes there is a "correct power" (which is never defined).

One needs also to consider things like : context of use ; risk vs reward ; interactions between players ; interactions with other elements of the same gameplay ; and other complex evaluation methods.

[Sonpansatan]

This is a social game. You're not going to get any "variety" when raids pick all Queens, with perhaps 1-2 Knights depending on the fight.

So here's your context: Activities that can be done solo or with low difficulty, you can so it however you want. I can level by auto-attacking as Holy Paladin and while it will be hard it is still possible. How hard or difficult it is only matters to myself. Leveling dungeons are also easy enough that a strict comp isn't necessary.

However, any time you do large scale group content you come up with the group psychology for MMOs, which is largely unchanged since the Everquest days. You'll have to pick an optimal, or at least viable, spec or else you will not be invited. The difference between this an other content is that the choice is enforced on you. I can choose to level or grind in a suboptimal spec, but I cannot choose that for a raid, the group will choose for me.

[Lahire]

However, any time you do large scale group content you come up with the group psychology for MMOs, which is largely unchanged since the Everquest days. You'll have to pick an optimal, or at least viable, spec or else you will not be invited. The difference between this an other content is that the choice is enforced on you. I can choose to level or grind in a suboptimal spec, but I cannot choose that for a raid, the group will choose for me.

I sincerely think this usual context formulated since ~TBC ("only raiding context matters and each player has to feel equal during it" in a nutshell) is one of the axioms that made the MMORPG genre evolve into something else (a action-RPG closer to Destiny or Diablo than Vanilla).

Vanilla's design was great because the character design took into consideration :
1. all activities and facets of the game
2. didn't subdue fantasy to mechanics
3. obtained equal invitation not by equality of power, but by specificity/niche of gameplay.

From a designer perspective, one shouldn't only design with raiding in mind, because it is not the core player experience, but only one facet of this experience. An average player levels for 6*24 to 7*24 hours : 144 to 168 hours. Which is a massive experience in itself. If you are designing a game, you cannot say that 150 hours "don't matter" and that you'll ignore it during your design. There are other parts of the game experience (PvP, dungeonning, exploring, etc) that also participate in the class design ecosystem.

For example, vanilla has non-combat abilities specifically designed for exploration, that retail removed over the years because they didn't contribute during raiding (double vision, etc). But there are players who do not care about raiding and want to explore, that's their fun and it should be supported by the game. So, when the class is designed, it should take into consideration all facets, and not just say "i design for raiding and all the after-effects on other aspects i don't care about or will correct them in the future".

----

Imo, the problem is the convergence of player culture into a circle that only values raiding, and repeats "this is trash" / "this is perfect" until they convince themselves so much that they became intolerable to "trash specs". This culture is in most part a simplification amplified by repetitive speaking (if you repeat a dumb sentence 1000 times it becomes a truth). Because it usually only looks at the race-spec combo, and not at all the others criteria of raiding efficiency (gear, skill, readiness, conso, wb).

And it also sanctions as "trash" something that is inefficient, but that doesn't matter even in a raiding context. It's like all players think they are Apes speedrunning the content, and aim for this 100% efficiency. Though they raid at 80% efficiency already and if they raided at 75%, it would just cost them some minutes on the timer, and that's about it. But even if there is no point, they argue that talent points distribution, or spec, is "trash" and "shouldn't be invited". That's not very rational, but that's the raider player mindspace apparently.

----

Even if it was true, a designer shouldn't cater to this pov, because there are other players than raiders that have other pov and it is as much valid, even if it is less heard (pvp players and levelers for ex). This raiding-centric efficiency culture is what pressured blizzard into the design decisions that made retail into a lesser game than vanilla. Raiding players are most vocal, so they are most served.

[Sonpansatan]

I've heard a lot of vague pronouncements of doom from you on the dangers of catering to raiders, and that doing so will ruin everything else. OK, so can you tell me exactly how these changes will make the non-raiding parts of WoW more unbalanced than they are currently.

Vanilla's design was great because the character design took into consideration :
1. all activities and facets of the game
2. didn't subdue fantasy to mechanics
3. obtained equal invitation not by equality of power, but by specificity/niche of gameplay.

How will the changes made affect this?

From a designer perspective, one shouldn't only design with raiding in mind, because it is not the core player experience, but only one facet of this experience. An average player levels for 6*24 to 7*24 hours : 144 to 168 hours. Which is a massive experience in itself. If you are designing a game, you cannot say that 150 hours "don't matter" and that you'll ignore it during your design. There are other parts of the game experience (PvP, dungeonning, exploring, etc) that also participate in the class design ecosystem.

How will the changes made affect this? Being balanced in raiding doesn't automatically make anything else worse. How will the changes make non-raiding content worse?

For example, vanilla has non-combat abilities specifically designed for exploration, that retail removed over the years because they didn't contribute during raiding (double vision, etc). But there are players who do not care about raiding and want to explore, that's their fun and it should be supported by the game. So, when the class is designed, it should take into consideration all facets, and not just say "i design for raiding and all the after-effects on other aspects i don't care about or will correct them in the future".

None of these non-combat abilities are being removed.

Imo, the problem is the convergence of player culture into a circle that only values raiding, and repeats "this is trash" / "this is perfect" until they convince themselves so much that they became intolerable to "trash specs". This culture is in most part a simplification amplified by repetitive speaking (if you repeat a dumb sentence 1000 times it becomes a truth). Because it usually only looks at the race-spec combo, and not at all the others criteria of raiding efficiency (gear, skill, readiness, conso, wb).

And it also sanctions as "trash" something that is inefficient, but that doesn't matter even in a raiding context. It's like all players think they are Apes speedrunning the content, and aim for this 100% efficiency. Though they raid at 80% efficiency already and if they raided at 75%, it would just cost them some minutes on the timer, and that's about it. But even if there is no point, they argue that talent points distribution, or spec, is "trash" and "shouldn't be invited". That's not very rational, but that's the raider player mindspace apparently.

Yes, but changing this type of player behavior is impossible. Many people have tried, pretty much none have succeeded. The truth is, if the specs are wildly unbalanced for difficult group content, some people will not be able to play the game. You don't have to like it, but you can't ignore reality. While there are several quality of life features that can mitigate this, none of them are in Vanilla and probably will not be added.

[Aomiaz]

i agree with what Lahire said

[Jamey]

I'd like reply to everyone's feedback on this post but I sadly don't have the time to address them all. But I will summarise my thoughts, these are my own and not the team's:

Overall, most comments can be split up into either:
1. Positive comments on our changes.
2. Negative comments with constructive feedback.
3. Negative comments that lean into insults.

We welcome 1 & 2, we do not welcome 3. You can disagree with changes or additions in a polite manner but insulting the team because you disagree is never a correct way to approach discussion.

I'd like to swiftly speak on #3:
The general consensus for these comments is that we as a team don't know what we're doing and Blizzard when designing these classes did. That we are amateurs and that we should leave balance to Blizzard and Blizzard only.

I will not comment on the professionalism of Blizzard in the Vanilla days as there's some things to be said about that, you can check old interviews and see for yourself. I will only say that while the overwhelmingy majority of their decisions were sound and made sense, some abilities,talents or class niches felt overlooked or abandoned which is something we're trying to revitalise with most of these changes.

I will say however, that people that are fundamentally against us changing things because "you don't know what you're doing & it will go wrong" are fundamentally against the spirit of experimentation and emulation. As a team we are trying to extend the Vanilla experience, this is mostly done by translating Vanilla lore into extra gameplay but classes should not be exempt from this.

While these changes may look like a big list that will drastically change things most changes or additions are minor, with the intend of making cumbersome parts of some classes feel less so.

Some of the comments on this thread portray Vanilla classes made by Blizzard as perfect completed classes, yet back in the day with every minor Vanilla patch that brought spell changes Blizzard had to deal with their version of nay and doom-sayers. Still, Vanilla thrived.



Speaking on #1 & #2, we very much appreciate all the feedback going in and will continue to closely monitor people's opinions on things that we might have overlooked with some implied changes.

This is a new chapter for us too and we're as excited as most of you are to see what the community will come up with, with these changes.


Maybe classes are indeed, like Lahire said, Pandora's box. We as a team could've gone the easy route and just kept Vanilla as it is, with some classes / specs in an unfinished state and point to Blizzard who to blame for that, deflecting any negativity to "It's blizzlike". Instead, we've undergone a very challenging task of trying to finish up these underwhelming aspects. While it saddens me that some response to that is "You don't know what you're doing" I think the overwhelming majority of the community welcomes these changes which is refreshing to see.

I think an open mind and a helpful community that's willing to provide feedback the team can use coming up with changes is the best way forward and will result in a memorable experience everyone can enjoy.

[Warmane]

online player numbers wont lie.
Atm the sarver avarages 450 online players each night. If 2 months after 1.16 is released that number stays the same or is increased, than this is a win. If it will go down i'm sure the devs will have a backup copy of 1.16 without the class changes saved somewhere.

Also my 2 cents on pvp (yes yes i know this is not a pvp server, but still, i see at lest 1 wsg pop every hour, so SOME people must be playing it i guess)
With every class getting their dmg inscreased so exponentially, pvp is going to become a oneshot-fest since there's no resilience in game.
There will be absulutely no incentive to play even remotely with any form of strategy or cc or even defensive abilities. Just unload your new enhanced rotation an the target and it's gone.

[Mac]

Glad to hear you're keeping a positive attitude about this. Best of luck on the patch!

[Rafale]

online player numbers wont lie.
Atm the sarver avarages 450 online players each night. If 2 months after 1.16 is released that number stays the same or is increased, than this is a win. If it will go down i'm sure the devs will have a backup copy of 1.16 without the class changes saved somewhere.

Also my 2 cents on pvp (yes yes i know this is not a pvp server, but still, i see at lest 1 wsg pop every hour, so SOME people must be playing it i guess)
With every class getting their dmg inscreased so exponentially, pvp is going to become a oneshot-fest since there's no resilience in game.
There will be absulutely no incentive to play even remotely with any form of strategy or cc or even defensive abilities. Just unload your new enhanced rotation an the target and it's gone.

I really hope more and more players will play here. I try to advertise for the server as much as I can on Youtube so people can hear about Turtle Wow. This is our job too. If you like it, talk to people about Turtle Wow and you will have more people in game.