Patch 1.17.2 — Class & Gameplay Changes

[Kerenis]

Will focus on shaman.
The enh changes are welcome, they touch a real problem and maybe they help enough.
Totem GCD is understandable.
Tank def CD is still missing but as far as I see enh's main focus is enabling DPS, tank option is just an extra, I can live with that.
Resto still feels way too strong, I'm surprised fast chain heal spam is not limited in a way.
For ele, what the players really want is a unique utility for casters, maybe in a form of an ele only totem (even if it has a price of lowered burst f.ex.). You gotta understand that most ele players can be made happy only if they feel they bring something useful for a caster group.

You mean the actual array of totems are useless? you can provide the same utility on any spec, that my friend, is quality of life

[Turbosaxophonic]

Excuse me but what does that Seal when judged have to do with melee critical strike? It's not a "physical thing" imho.
If I understand correctly, now the Judgement doesn't benefit of spell critical strike % anymore. Then I sure hope it still benefits from spell power.

I guess no biggie, we will see, I don't understand it though.

Why is there a need to unify the mechanics of Judgement of Commander and of Righteousness? Regarding "hybrid builds", only Ret-Palas have both at their avail. So I understand that they now don't need spell crit chance anymore but can make their melee crit chance benefit from judgement o.r. better besides judgement o.c.. What about prot-palas, they don't have both only righteousness, they don't have much melee crit chance, they suffer on their judgement o.r. output as they don't benefit from spell crit chance anymore.

I just don't understand it quite. My take is
* ret-palas benefit on the cost of prot-palas, only regarding crit chance of judgement of righteousness (I don't find this melee-dependency to be logical in game but ok)
* judgement of righteousness now benefits from spell damage (sure hope), melee crit chance, and melee hit chance.
* every build benefits from overall enhanced seal of righteousness elevated base spell (holy) damage.

Feels like another erosion of hybrid playstyles and spec crossover. Command was already the “melee seal”, all this does is disrupt the damage of Holy and Protection.

[Akos1896]

Will focus on shaman.
The enh changes are welcome, they touch a real problem and maybe they help enough.
Totem GCD is understandable.
Tank def CD is still missing but as far as I see enh's main focus is enabling DPS, tank option is just an extra, I can live with that.
Resto still feels way too strong, I'm surprised fast chain heal spam is not limited in a way.
For ele, what the players really want is a unique utility for casters, maybe in a form of an ele only totem (even if it has a price of lowered burst f.ex.). You gotta understand that most ele players can be made happy only if they feel they bring something useful for a caster group.

You mean the actual array of totems are useless? you can provide the same utility on any spec, that my friend, is quality of life

No, I mean the ele's relative utility compared to other shaman builds. I heard many eles complain that they bring nothing to the table a resto or an enh can't bring.

Problem is more complex, though. What ele ultimately wants is having a place in a caster group with moonkin aura etc.
Windfury prevents that most of the time, understandably.
The true problem is how WF restricts things like group placements or deciding between air totems to use but it's a sensitive topic - WF is super strong and every melee spec would riot if it had a serious revamp.
I'm not saying that giving ele something to grant them a place in caster groups is realistic in Vanilla+, all I say that I heard many eles complain about this before.

[Skattberg]

UPDATES | Dated: April 1th 2025






PRIEST

These changes primarily aim to improve Discipline Priest's personal damage and support capabilities and to improve Shadow Priest's Player versus Player environment power as the changes brought with the initial class changes release ended up being harsher than we've intended it to be.

Smite: Spellpower scaling increased by about 5% for all ranks.

Developer Comment: Discipline is slightly underperforming compared to Shadow, so we're slightly boosting its damage to match the performance of its fellow supporty-damage specialization.

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Chastise: Effect duration increased from 6 seconds (Non-critical) and 9 seconds (Critical) to 8 seconds (Non-critical) and 12 seconds (Critical), attack and casting speed boost increased from 10/13/15% to 13/17/20%, cooldown increased from 30 seconds to 40 seconds.

Developer Comment: Chastise ended up struggling to be worth its global cooldown.

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Pain Spike: Spellpower scaling increased from 25% to 43%.

Developer Comment: The earlier scaling reduction on Pain Spike ended up being more harsh than we've intended with it compounding with the cooldown increase, so we're increasing its spellpower scaling back up.

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Swapped the talent locations of Spell Warding and Blessed Concentration.

Developer Comment: Shadow Priests struggled quite a bit with build diversity since we've moved Blessed Concentration to the Holy talent tree. We've moved its location to make the latter talent more accessible and enable a wider variety builds in the Player versus Player environment.

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Enlighten: Chance to trigger from heals reduced from 15% to 10%.

Developer Comment: While Enlighten is a powerful option for Discipline Priests and their support capabilities, its usage by Holy Priests ended up heavily outweighing the usage of Holy Champion, so we're dialing back its proc chance to give the Holy Champion some time in the spotlight.

Glad you're concerned about SP PvP, too bad you didn't adress the one problem that makes them useless: the unecessary, stupid cast time on Vampiric Embrace
Cast time makes it super niche: where you really need it is in melee, when constant damage interrupts spell casts and forces you to react. And with few utility responses VE is just that; a defensive response. Trying to cast VE on a 1,5 sec cast time while already getting bombarded with arrows, stabs and thrusts is strategic suerside
Wasn't the number crunch enough?

[Akos1896]

I gotta admit, enh tank mana management feels way better now with these changes.
Tbh only did some dungeons, no test on anything else.

[Taralej90]

Please just nerf shamans, I have absolutely no idea how you can think they are balanced right now, you literally buffed them? That is insane. Giving grounding totem and fire nova totem a GCD is not a nerf since its actually just insane that they didnt use to have one.

What the fuck are you smoking, my dude???

Both Enh and Ele are nowhere near the top of the charts. Flurry now gives only 20% AS, Ele got gutted. If you're still having trouble with shaman, maybe you should start using your other hand too. Meanwhile, the server's obvious favourite - paladin - is getting yet another buff that it didn't need.

[DemoSV]

New Talent: Aessina’s Bloom (Row 5) (2 Ranks)
Your Healing Touch spells have a 30/60% chance to instantly heal a friendly target an amount equal to 6 sec of Regrowth if the target is affected by Regrowth.
Any Druid's Regrowth is applicable for this effect.

Guys, sure, the item is cool—but what’s the point if Healing Touch doesn’t work in Tree of Life Form? Do I really have to shift out to cast it, losing all my buffs and wasting extra mana? That’s some terrible design!

[Batkan]

Please swap back Paladin's Eye for an Eye with 2Handed Specialization talents in Retri tree. I don't know what was point of this switch? Prot can't do anything against casters in PvP and Eye for an Eye was his only defense and it was very very fun. Now he can't do literally anything against casters. With Eye for an Eye it was very fun to play and enemy casters couldn't burst Pala when they have 5% hp from far away (if they are smart) or they will kill them self which was hilarious. They had to think more which is generally good approach and it was very fun. Now it is totally ruined. Please turn it back so that Prot can reach Eye for an Eye talent in Retri tree. Please

[Gurkh]

rogue poison buffs are not going to do anything because consecrated stones exist

[Dalijon]

Please rework OPEN WOUNDS and ANCIENT BRUTALITY for druids facing mobs that can't bleed. At least allow the debuff to appear, triggering increased claw damage, and have it tick for zero, still allowing energy regen from Ancient Brutality. Otherwise, NO ONE will spec open wounds for raiding any raid with mobs that can't bleed. You know, the whole point of speccing to not powershift but use claw instead of shred?

[Forumdweller]

Please revert the change to warlock spellstones or add back another spell ID which seperates the old version and the new one.

[estebanmgn]

Good morning! I've noticed the shaman has definitely received some improvements.
It has shifted from being mainly a "support" class to focusing more on personal DPS. That’s a good change—I prefer it that way, as it better fits each player's individual playstyle. And with totems, it still brings and provides support.

In my opinion, though, it still needs a bit of fine-tuning. Its damage doesn't scale that well, and if I compare it directly to its most obvious counterpart—the paladin—it falls quite a bit behind. (I say "direct" counterpart since they're the only ones of their kind on each faction.)

The damage gap—not just compared to paladins—is quite noticeable. I think the shaman still needs some adjustments, although it's heading in the right direction. (Will dual wielding actually help?? )

"While its true potential isn't confirmed yet, dual wielding could open up a new path for enhancement shamans, giving them that extra push they need to compete on equal footing."

On the other hand, based on the tests I've been running from lower levels up to level 50...

Paladin only struggled against shaman around level 30. After that, it comfortably regains the upper hand.

The shaman's burst damage can be very high, that's true—but the paladin isn't far behind, and adds strong absorption, mitigation, and sustain to the mix. Over time, the shaman runs out of resources or becomes heavily reliant on RNG, while the paladin can keep going: tanking, healing, and steadily dealing damage.

I'm also still waiting to see some improvements to the troll enhancement shaman. The racial differences are clear (first orc, then tauren). In both melee DPS and tanking, troll falls short. I think only resto is doing well as troll...

"It would be interesting to see a slight racial tweak for troll shamans—at least to bring them closer to orcs, who currently have a clear edge in both DPS and combat utility."

I hope the balance team keeps listening to the community, because it's clear there's an effort to improve the shaman, and the direction is promising.

[estebanmgn]

On another note, I had an idea to give more space in the Enhancement talent tree for DPS (with more room to choose between PvE or PvP paths).
The idea would be to shift and adjust some talents, moving them into Resto and Elemental:

To Elemental:
Calming Winds:
"Reduces threat generated by your physical attacks, weapon imbue effects, and your Lightning Strike and Stormstrike abilities by XX%."
(And I would add):
Also increases your dodge chance by 2/4/6%.

To Restoration:
Totemic Alignment (currently):
"% of the threat generated by your totems is transferred to you."
Change it to:
Increases the defense of your chest, feet, and hands by 1/2/3/4/5%, and your passive health regeneration in combat is increased by 50%.

Also, merge "Spirit Armor" and "Totemic Alignment" into a single talent called:

Spirit Armor:
"Increases the armor gained from Shields by X/X%, and X/X% of the threat generated by your totems is transferred to you."

This would free up space to introduce new DPS-related talents in the Enhancement tree. Here are a couple of ideas:

Shaman Strike:
Every successful hit restores 0.5/1% of your total mana. If it's a critical hit from any source, the mana restored is doubled. (Passive)

Dual Wield:
Allows the use of two one-handed weapons, but the main-hand weapon cannot be imbued with Windfury (for now). However, it can still benefit from the Windfury Totem aura.
Also increases off-hand weapon damage by 5/10/15%.

These are just ideas—I'm not saying this would be the perfect solution—but it would be nice to see more versatility when playing shaman, both in talent trees and playstyles, and even across races.

With this, we could potentially see:

Two-handed shamans

Tank-oriented Enhancement builds

Dual-wield Enhancement builds