Final Changelog for Class Changes coming in 1.16.1

[Valadorn]

One cannot forget past experiences. For me TBC is an overall failure in design. I've been betrayed day 1 the first team passed the game to a new one. And then classic debacle, SoM shitfest, half the p-serv devolving into hubris changefest... one can't just forget this history.

So when I see this much core changes at the same time in so much places from a team I like but can't call professionnal level, I buckle up with low expectation. If you read my first post, you'll see it's not entirely negative, and I'm open to try the changes. But I'm not hyped, or even benevolant toward them, because all my past experiences scream I shouldn't be.

Please let me point out that those failures were not Turtle Teams fault, I think they are just trying to make more builds viable, give them a chance, and I promise if things will turn out to be terrible we will cry together for a revert. Dont get me wrong, I also want a good game, im just trying to stay positive and just because soemthing is new, it doesnt mean that its bad :)

[Lahire]

Perhaps it will be marvellous.

I recon there are some minor decisions which can be immediatly seen as wrong though, because they are contrary to vanilla principles. The 2hand weapons to all shamans is actually the item I find the most problematic. Because it goes against fantasy specificity, and the satisfaction of buying this talent, which are a core aim of vanilla design.

[Mac]

I guess my suggestion to the Turtle WoW team is to maybe open a public test realm for like three days or so and let people test these things out for themselves and provide feedback before the changes are "official." Not sure if it's possible/feasible to run two servers like that concurrently, but I think a public test would be a good thing.

Whatever you guys wind up doing, though, I've had fun playing on your server in the past and probably will into the future, so thanks for that.

[Valadorn]

Lahire, I totally agree with this statement tho.

[Sonpansatan]

I think making bad specs playable is always a good thing. It's not like the devs were like "We designed this spec bad, as a joke." They were trying to make things balanced, but they didn't have the knowledge that we have now. That said, Holy Priest was already in a good place, so not sure what the new abilities are for. A burning need to replace Lightwell?

As for people leaving, all other private servers are PvP, so not sure they'd like that type of game more.

[Mrkrissatan]

Changes look good to me but can we test them out on a ptr or something before they go live?

[Chlo]

Claw now also deals 100% of weapon damage in addition to its current damage.
Note: This value is calculated on the invisible Claw weapon druid forms get when shapeshifting and does not correspond with your normal weapon.

Please could this be clarified a little more? What is 100% of my invisible Claw weapon? An auto-attack? I'm reading this as Claw now gives it's normal damage plus that of a white auto-attack but could be wildly wrong.

Edit: I'm now thinking this means New Claw = Claw + The damage an auto would do wearing no gear

[Rafale]

Perhaps it will be marvellous.

I recon there are some minor decisions which can be immediatly seen as wrong though, because they are contrary to vanilla principles. The 2hand weapons to all shamans is actually the item I find the most problematic. Because it goes against fantasy specificity, and the satisfaction of buying this talent, which are a core aim of vanilla design.

I understand your point but :

1) the 2H talent was accessible with only 11 pts in enhancement
2) No elemental / resto shamans took it. Every enhance shaman took it.
3) Even baseline,no elemental / resto shamans will use 2h, because 1h with spell are just better for them
4) If some of them do so to be unique, they will just be like a shaman with a weird 0/11/40 or 40/11/0 spec (which is possible today).
5) Conclusion : This change is nothing more than 1 more talent point for enhancement shamans.

[Bayanni]

The thing to keep in mind is that this wouldn't be the first time that vanilla classes got revamps. From 1.1 to 1.12, classes went through a bunch of revamps to their talents and spells/abilities.

Yeah but it was done by professional old blizz designers who managed to produce the best mmorpg of all times and looked at the game with an all-encompassing eye, not just from the raider point of view. They proved by their design they had the skill, restraint and philosophies to do it right, on a world scale (and not just on a raid scale).

With respect to the hard working and valiant turtle team, who delivered great content to this day ; can you trust players made into amateur designers to evolve something as complex and precise as vanilla's class design ?

The developers of vanilla were not faultless, and even with how good vanilla was overall no one could argue it was perfect. There are a long list of flaws and many things were done better by other MMOs in their own ways. Just look at guild banks, the token system of later vanilla raids not present in MC or BWL, some of the complete failures of itemization like Lion Horn of Stormwind that we don't see again (or at least not to THAT degree), and so on. There's a number of things the developers of vanilla could have done much better, some of which was addressed in later patches and expansions.

If they weren't constantly taking more steps backwards then forwards we'd be playing retail but that doesn't mean everything they did later on to fix problems that were present in vanilla was somehow worse for being in those later expansions.

The team thinks they can do a better job to fix original vanilla than those expansions did, and honestly the fixes they propose seem to largely just help with class variety in the raiding and 60-dungeon experience. I'm ok with that. If you're not that's fine too, but I'd give these un-paid developers a bit more credit than they're getting.

[Raukodor]

Inlove it! My thoughts about the class i inow better

I play some weird specs like melee hunter and 2 handed fury warrior

ABOUT MELEE HUNTER
We love lt but lets admite it. It sucks compared with other melee classes. Need a BIG upgrade
lacerate. Awesome idea bringing it back. But this time would be good making it viable if scales with ap
Wolf aspect. Good idea but very weak. As a melee.hunter most of my damage still.comes.from.ranged/shots. and dodge is very important stat to stack. So losing all ranged damage and dodge bonus for only 120 ap is pretty weak. Maybe is good if instead 120 ap it gives a bonus of your agility. You are unable to shoot but your agility ls increased by X%. So scales well with gear. How much is enough? Dont know. 50%bonus? 100%bonus? Should be a big bonus because you lose ranged damage. And hunter only gains 1 melee ap per agility

And another thought. Make all melee hunter skills (raptor/mongoose/counterattack/wingclip) scale with ap so make them useful in high level


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?

[Moon]

[aka, "and we're gonna leave it that way, peeps..."]

Good lord. So then why did you not do something about that? Instead you do something even more for combat. The talent change is about the only thing that is anything for assass or sub. It's also the best thing in your changes.

As far as rogues, it looks like there was just not much creative juice flowing for balance. Even the presentation yawned that.

This is an ongoing process and I don't see this being the end of class changes/additions/balancing at all. Each of those blurbs I wrote are in the context of the timeframe I had to make the release deadline. There are a lot of ways to improve the other Rogue trees and new ideas to bring to the table but there are factors to why that did not make the cut this time. Most important reason to me was that I have a great deal of respect for the Rogue community and how knowledgeable they are about the game and their own class which carries over to every iteration of WoW and I did not want to introduce any major changes until I was sure I could do it justice, as they deserve.

That said, I do hope Flourish will be a new toy for rogue players to mess around with and find creative ways to use to to achieve things others wouldn't think is possible, which they have always done.

[Darreno]

If you're going to buff Paladin that much, then you need to spend more time on making Shaman viable as a tank and also make more improvements to Prot Warrior (and nerf fury and remove the fury prot meta).

If not, well, incoming massive increase in the already overpopulated Paladin population in 3..2..1..

Shaman Tank is Viable, I believe you intended to say better.

[Andima]

Thank you Turtle, this server is awesome and those changes are sweet. I think that this will turn a lot of spec/classes to a more viable and enjoyable options.

About the pala stuff, that class was begging for a rework. Too OP you think? well, who knows, lets see. It took a several years to figure out de current vanilla meta, any how, what is done can be undone so why so serious?

What i see reading all the coments is that most of those who are against these changes, express themselves in a rudish/childish way. Please, you can make your point better than threatening with a ragequit.

[Reploidrocsa]

I ABSOLUTELLY love those changes!

Druid claw scaling from wep seems way too much for me, but as every changes anounced, it can be tweaked after a few months, so i'm not worried at all.

Can't wait to dive into the vanilla world we all know but with some tweaks, making rotations and group comps uncharted territory once more. How exciting!

[Evillord]

Which I don't think paladins are going to lose any of their flavor by giving them a taunt. When in the lore we had many famous charisma holy warriors. Since I think it easy to picture a paladin going into a room and making some sort of speech or taunt. Evil doer, by the light come forth and face your punishment! For logically speaking, anyone who has the ability to speak can make up some sort of taunt or challenge, which fits the bill for every single race that can be a paladin currently. Which this taunt is being given to a ability I rarely see used. Since seal of judgement has a very inconsistence stun you can't really relay on. Sometimes it will stun a foe just in time, to stop them from casting that spell, other times it just seems worthless and not worth the mana to use, due to how few times you got a stun off. Now the judgement version of it, did have it uses, to stop certain annoying foes from fleeing and getting help, if anyone remember to use it. Now with the changes to it, it going to have a clear use. That will make it use by prot paladins if no one else. Which I think the whole worry over paladins in general, is misplaced. Since they are not going to be able to do all three roles at once. Even in the burning crusade where ret paladins got major buffs to their kits, they didn't replace all other dps. Which a prot paladin tanking, is not really going to be healing, maybe dps but than again all tanks are doing some dps since they have to hit the mobs to build up threat in some way. For if a prot paladin tries to heal themselves, they can't block, which leads to taking way more damage. Along with spending mana healing rather than using that same limited mana on building up threat. Which well limited mana and limited ways to get mana back, even with the changes in place. Makes me doubt paladins are suddenly going to become the meta tanks here. More like I think the changes will make them better but far from being the best. That and depending on build, prot paladin might lack some of the nice healing talents from the holy tree or gave up some prot talents to get more stuff from the holy tree. that and still to be the most effective healer possible, they would need a second set of healing gear. Even then, someone who is pure holy paladin or is very deep in the holy tree, is most likely just going be able to do the job way better, due to having stuff like improve blessing of wisdom, stronger oh no button with improvement lay on hands, divine favor for free crit heal. Holy power for improved crit chance on holy spells. For well holy paladins any time they crit, they get all their mana back. Oh yeah and that healing gear, is most likely not going to be suitable for tanking with, since it focus on boosting your ability to heal well, not on taking a hit. Which is a big important thing to note, since you can't swap armor during the middle of combat, only weapons and shields. While ret paladins, normally lack the same ability to take a hit like a prot paladin, depending on how they gear themselves, they might not have the mana pool a prot or holy paladin would when it comes to healing. With ret paladins main issue being, long fights, is normally when they drop off. Ok during shorter fights but than drop off during the longer ones, simply due to running out of steam. Like being able to focus and do maybe one thing good and two things surpar or not at all, doesn't make them able to do everything well. In theory, they might be able to do everything at once but in reality, a paladin is normally focus on one role, otherwise you would see nothing but paladins if the idea they could do everything well and do it all at once was true. Now All I hope is we all get a free respect, due to all of these massive changes. That and thanks dev team for making a fun server to play on.

The developers of vanilla were not faultless, and even with how good vanilla was overall no one could argue it was perfect. There are a long list of flaws and many things were done better by other MMOs in their own ways. Just look at guild banks, the token system of later vanilla raids not present in MC or BWL, some of the complete failures of itemization like Lion Horn of Stormwind that we don't see again (or at least not to THAT degree), and so on. There's a number of things the developers of vanilla could have done much better, some of which was addressed in later patches and expansions.

If they weren't constantly taking more steps backwards then forwards we'd be playing retail but that doesn't mean everything they did later on to fix problems that were present in vanilla was somehow worse for being in those later expansions.

The team thinks they can do a better job to fix original vanilla than those expansions did, and honestly the fixes they propose seem to largely just help with class variety in the raiding and 60-dungeon experience. I'm ok with that. If you're not that's fine too, but I'd give these un-paid developers a bit more credit than they're getting.

Yeah I have to agree with you. For at this point. the original world of warcraft is over a dozen years old. you don't need to be someone who care about the meta, to notice the game or certain classes or well talent trees have some issue or flaws with their design. It's a good game but it has it's flaws. Just like warcraft orcs vs humans, would have many flaws by todays standards of rts, due to how much the genre has advance since then with basic features and quality of life improvements. To bring up Kevin Jordan, he when talking about questionable choices made by companies. He talk about how he was able to figure out game design and how systems work by simply playing mmos, long before he became a professional. While pointing out how companies will try to figure out what is the most fun, by gathering data and notice players are doing x alot, so that must be the most fun thing. While forgetting that x might simply have good loot and that is the reason players do it, over it being fun. With the man just pointing out how just looking at data to judge fun is rather dumb, since you can't judge what is fun using that method. Which I bring that up, for it brings up two important points. You don't need to be a pro, to understand what [or how something] works or what doesn't work in a video game. That and pros don't always know what they are doing, which is why we have retail wow. So many people have pointed out the pros and cons of wow all through out it's life span, for countless different eras, burning crusade, wraith of the lich king, ect ect. So all it would really take is someone just studying these pros and cons to the point they fully understand them like the back of their own hand, making it easy for them to know which ideas are good and which ideas to stay far far away from. I would say with all the information out there, it easier today to figure out how to improve on the original world of warcraft than it would be back in say 2004. Which all of these class changes I see so far, are just trying to make things more balance, not trying to make everyone same. Since warlocks are still the only ones that can summon others from across the world. mages still has their teleporting to major cities. Hunters still have to feed their pets. paladins still have their seals and judgements. I don't see any flavor being removed from the classes. Just making them better balance so far. So everyone can have fun with their favorite spec and class, without feeling like they are dead weight to the party. Which if they can pull that off successfully, make everything more balance while keeping that class flavor intact. That seems like a win win.

[Gnatz]

Great work but I am also not sure if this is what i would like classic to became. Vanilla is what it is thanks to its past. Changing to much on the classes will break the feeling. This can shift things in the right way but more likely will break the feel.
Introducing the schockadin to turtle wow while also able to be tanky... i dont think i have to go into detail. This will make the Paladin imbalanced.
Yes, giving the Rouge more dodge mechanics would be nice, but not usable in pve if this is the main argument of the devs.
Druids are fine!
Warlocks make so much fun and have to have some downsides.
Hunters can do fine in Raid dps if played properly, you just have to farm all the trinkets and feigndeathswap them in Boss fights

But there are some neat things that i would like to see like the Shaman race abilitys. Those are more for the feel and wont break the game.

[Jcarrill0]

Let’s be frank - the only good thing a paladin can do in vanilla is heal. Sure, with the right setup you can do decent tanking or decent dps, but it still doesn’t all quite come together. A lot of the potential and uniqueness to the class has always attracted people to it, but that was progressively lost over time in retail post-vanilla. We believe there is a lot of opportunity to help the Paladin perform more than just healing adequately without making them too powerful or “warrior-lite.”

Changes to Baseline Spells

Consecration is no longer a talent and is now available to all Paladins starting at level 20, its scaling coefficient has been increased (0.042 -> 0.119) and mana cost for all ranks has been reduced. Example: Rank 5 Mana Cost 565 -> 505

Judgement of Righteousness scaling coefficient has been increased: (0.5 -> 0.728)

Retribution Aura scaling coefficient has been added: (0.033)

Holy Strike cooldown increased from 8 seconds to 10 seconds.

New Abilities

Crusader Strike
A strike that causes X damage and increases the holy damage taken by the target by up to Y per Crusader Strike. Can be applied up to 5 times. Lasts 30 seconds.
Rank 1: 25 Mana, 12 Damage, 6 Bonus Holy damage per stack
Rank 2: 40 Mana, 27 Damage, 10 Bonus Holy damage per stack
Rank 3: 55 Mana, 46 Damage, 15 Bonus Holy damage per stack
Rank 4: 70 Mana, 69 Damage, 22 Bonus Holy damage per stack
Rank 5: 90 Mana, 103 Damage, 30 Bonus Holy damage per stack
Crusader Strike is not able to proc seals, damage-based procs, or refresh judgements.

Talent Changes

Holy

Healing Light (Row 3)
Increases the amount healed by your Holy Light, Flash of Light, and the effectiveness Holy Shock spells by 4/8/12%.

Holy Shock | Rework: (Values are for Rank 3):
Cooldown reduced from 30 seconds to 20 seconds.
Mana cost increased from 325 to 485.
Healing Increased from 365 to 628.
Damage increased from 365 to 496.

Lasting Judgements (Row 5) removed.

Protection

Redoubt and now has a 2/4/6/8/10% chance to activate off of any direct attack instead of being the victim of a critical strike.

Precision. Increases your chance to hit with melee weapons and spells by 1/2/3%.

Blessing of Kings has been moved from the Row 3] of the Protection talent tree to the Row 3 of the Retribution talent tree.

Shield Specialization. Increases the amount of damage absorbed by your shield by 10/20/30% and has a 33/66/100% chance to restore 1% mana when a block occurs. This effect cannot occur more than once every second.

Improved Consecration Aura has been moved from the Row 4 of the Protection talent tree to the Row 5 of the Holy talent tree.

New Talent: Improved Seal of Justice (Row 4). Increases the chance your Seal of Justice will stun the opponent by 22/33/67% and your Judgement of Justice has a 33/66/100% chance to taunt your target to attack you, but has no effect if the target is already attacking you.

Blessing of Sanctuary has been moved from Row 5 to Row 3 in the Protection tree.

Holy Shield moved from Row 7 to Row 5.

New Talent: Ardent Defender (Row 7). When you have less than 20% health, all damage taken is reduced by 35%.

Retribution

Seal of Command moved from Row 3 to Row 5.
Sanctity Aura has been moved from the Row 5 of the Retribution talent tree to the Row 3 of the Holy talent tree.
Greater Blessing of Kings' Mana Cost has been adjusted: (150 Mana -> 15% Base Mana)

Let’s be frank - the only good thing a paladin can do in vanilla is heal. Sure, with the right setup you can do decent tanking or decent dps, but it still doesn’t all quite come together. A lot of the potential and uniqueness to the class has always attracted people to it, but that was progressively lost over time in retail post-vanilla. We believe there is a lot of opportunity to help the Paladin perform more than just healing adequately without making them too powerful or “warrior-lite.”

I would disagree with this since Ret paladins and Reck Bomb Paladins did amazing in PvP. Not to mention Ret Paladins really started to show player in classic and right before classic what your investments in your dedication can really do.
I can post some videos if you really need proof on this, but I'm keeping things Civil.

Changes to Baseline Spells

Consecration is no longer a talent and is now available to all Paladins starting at level 20, its scaling coefficient has been increased (0.042 -> 0.119) and mana cost for all ranks has been reduced. Example: Rank 5 Mana Cost 565 -> 505

Judgement of Righteousness scaling coefficient has been increased: (0.5 -> 0.728)

Retribution Aura scaling coefficient has been added: (0.033)

New Abilities

Crusader Strike
A strike that causes X damage and increases the holy damage taken by the target by up to Y per Crusader Strike. Can be applied up to 5 times. Lasts 30 seconds.
Rank 1: 25 Mana, 12 Damage, 6 Bonus Holy damage per stack
Rank 2: 40 Mana, 27 Damage, 10 Bonus Holy damage per stack
Rank 3: 55 Mana, 46 Damage, 15 Bonus Holy damage per stack
Rank 4: 70 Mana, 69 Damage, 22 Bonus Holy damage per stack
Rank 5: 90 Mana, 103 Damage, 30 Bonus Holy damage per stack
Crusader Strike is not able to proc seals, damage-based procs, or refresh judgements.

I like this change, even though it feels much like a TBC enhancement.

Holy Strike cooldown increased from 8 seconds to 10 seconds.

I feel like the increase is only due to adding Crusader strike. Perhaps I could have some insight on why this is going to change?

Talent Changes

Holy

Healing Light (Row 3)
Increases the amount healed by your Holy Light, Flash of Light, and the effectiveness Holy Shock spells by 4/8/12%.

Holy Shock | Rework: (Values are for Rank 3):
Cooldown reduced from 30 seconds to 20 seconds.
Mana cost increased from 325 to 485.
Healing Increased from 365 to 628.
Damage increased from 365 to 496.

Lasting Judgements (Row 5) removed.

While I like certain changes, I have to ask why would you remove Lasting Judgements unless its like TBC where the judgements last 30 secs for JoL/JoW

Protection

Redoubt and now has a 2/4/6/8/10% chance to activate off of any direct attack instead of being the victim of a critical strike.

Precision. Increases your chance to hit with melee weapons and spells by 1/2/3%.

Blessing of Kings has been moved from the Row 3] of the Protection talent tree to the Row 3 of the Retribution talent tree.

Shield Specialization. Increases the amount of damage absorbed by your shield by 10/20/30% and has a 33/66/100% chance to restore 1% mana when a block occurs. This effect cannot occur more than once every second.

Improved Consecration Aura has been moved from the Row 4 of the Protection talent tree to the Row 5 of the Holy talent tree.

New Talent: Improved Seal of Justice (Row 4). Increases the chance your Seal of Justice will stun the opponent by 22/33/67% and your Judgement of Justice has a 33/66/100% chance to taunt your target to attack you, but has no effect if the target is already attacking you.

Blessing of Sanctuary has been moved from Row 5 to Row 3 in the Protection tree.

Holy Shield moved from Row 7 to Row 5.

New Talent: Ardent Defender (Row 7). When you have less than 20% health, all damage taken is reduced by 35%.

Again I feel like most of these changes are from TBC, I remember in Vanilla when BoK was in the Ret Tree, but why not just remove it from talents and let every Paladin have it like you did with Consecration?
Wasn't Imp Con Aura a WOTLK Talent change?
Improved Seal of Justice - I feel like stun & taunt would be counter intuitive, could you explain hoe they wouldn't if the mob is currently stunned when its taunted but doesn't gain any threat due to mob being stunned, the debuff wears off and goes back to previous threat.

Retribution

Seal of Command moved from Row 3 to Row 5.
Sanctity Aura has been moved from the Row 5 of the Retribution talent tree to the Row 3 of the Holy talent tree.
Greater Blessing of Kings' Mana Cost has been adjusted: (150 Mana -> 15% Base Mana)

I feel like we should get Improved Sancity Aura, increased 1%/2%/3% since everything is like TBC enhancements. discuss?

[Aeliren]

The additional priest Holy Champion abilities seem a bit overly complicated. That is a whopping six additional separate abilities tied to one talent/buff/concept.

I would honestly consider condensing them into one ability like this:

Holy Champion | 250 Mana Cost | 10 Second Cast | 2 Hour Cooldown
Proclaim the friendly target as your champion for 2 hrs. Increases armor by 230, all resistances by 10, all healing done by the priest by 10%, all healing and spell damage done by up to 25 and attack power by 30, and when the priest takes damage up to 20 will be taken by the Champion instead.
Note: Persists through death and continues its duration and cooldown countdowns while offline.
Note: Armor buff does not stack with Scroll of Protection IV
Note: Does not stack effects with Greater Arcane Elixir or Juju Power/Elixir of Giants

I'd scrap "Summon Champion" and "Revive Champion". Leave the summoning to the warlocks, and priests already have a resurrection ability, so a second one seems kinda redundant.

[Darreno]

wait... um the new rogue spell "Flourish (20% Parry)" is almost the exact amount of avoidance needed to reach a 100% avoidance Rogue tank.

This would now mean a Rogue Tank can now focus more on threat from Buffs/Debuffs/gear, etc...

This is HUGE for rogue tanking!

[Goodwater]

Most of these changes would be very cool and help to buff up some severely underused specs like Arcane and Balance! I also think that some changes to the debuff limit would increase raid diversity, which should make things more interesting.

I especially like the racial spells for Shaman, and it would be really neat to get some more of those for other classes like Rogue or Warrior or something. It would have to be a small bonus so we don't encourage even more Human and Orc Warriors, for example :)

However, I would really like a chance for the community to test these and submit some concrete feedback before the changes ever go live. Maybe allowing two test weekends on a separate realm or something.

Thank you to the team for all your hard work and sharing these changes with us! Please keep it up.

[Jcarrill0]

wait... um the rogue spell "Flourish (20% Parry)" is almost the exact amount of avoidance needed to reach a 100% avoidance Rogue tank.

This would now mean a Rogue Tank can now focus more on threat from Buffs/Debuffs/gear, etc...

This is HUGE for rogue tanking!

Wait, you mean Rogues Bucklers from the Beta?

During the early beta days of World of Warcraft there were two shield types: normal shields and bucklers, which were lighter and could be equipped by shamans, rogues and hunters. Patch 0.8 turned all bucklers into shields and gave shamans the ability to use shields but rogues and hunters could no longer use them.

[Darreno]

Wait, you mean Rogues Bucklers from the Beta?

During the early beta days of World of Warcraft there were two shield types: normal shields and bucklers, which were lighter and could be equipped by shamans, rogues and hunters. Patch 0.8 turned all bucklers into shields and gave shamans the ability to use shields but rogues and hunters could no longer use them.

I'm afraid I don't understand. I am talking about the World of Warcraft patch we're all playing on currently and this upcoming 1.15 patch.

[Lonjo]

Y’all talkin about Rogues Bucklers?

[Velite]

While I like certain changes, I have to ask why would you remove Lasting Judgements unless its like TBC where the judgements last 30 secs for JoL/JoW

The purpose of this is so that non-holy paladins are the ones that manage judgements, hence giving them a utility over holy paladins. It was not necessary for holy paladin to be the superior one to maintain judgements with no effort, while also being the healer spec. It did not justify having ret/prot in raids, now by removing the talent it does.

Lasting judgements was added in patch 1.9 because since only holy paladins were invited to serious raids, they complained that it was difficult to actually maintain judgements, without realising it was supposed to be that way to justify having a paladin in melee with the boss. So blizzard caved in and added it, only to remove the talent in TBC.

Also in tbc, judgements lasted 20 seconds baseline, not 30. They will still last 10 seconds.

[Velite]

wait... um the rogue spell "Flourish (20% Parry)" is almost the exact amount of avoidance needed to reach a 100% avoidance Rogue tank.

This would now mean a Rogue Tank can now focus more on threat from Buffs/Debuffs/gear, etc...

This is HUGE for rogue tanking!

Wait, you mean Rogues Bucklers from the Beta?

During the early beta days of World of Warcraft there were two shield types: normal shields and bucklers, which were lighter and could be equipped by shamans, rogues and hunters. Patch 0.8 turned all bucklers into shields and gave shamans the ability to use shields but rogues and hunters could no longer use them.

Rogues are getting a new ability that gives them 20% parry, read the rogue section.

[Uswer]

Invisibility for mages is it possible?

[Camanchaca]

First, thanks to the Turtle WoW team for their hard work and for continuing the development of vanilla wow.

I main druid and shaman, so my comments will be on these 2 classes:

Druid: Most changes are indeed aimed at fixing the class. They are very welcome and should make the viable a more fun and less punishing class choice. Being that said, I'm worried that the resto tree may become overpowered with the new tree of life form, and Swiftmend at row 3.

I remember doing off-healing in battlegrounds as balance and as resto druid, and Swiftmend made a huge different in the life-saving potential. A Balance druid with Swiftmend could become a nightmare in pvp. Even if this update is not pvp oriented, I see no reason from a PVE point of view to put that spell in row 3. It may be better to just put another talent improving barkskin armor or enabling/improving the Tranquility spell (I think it would be nice to have this spell as resto only).

The tree must be tested extensively to check that its bonuses do not make druid healing overpowered.

Shaman: I also don't like the idea of enabling two handed weapons for all specs. It does remove some class fantasy (big strong shaman). Mixing the parry and 2 handed weapon specialization talents for 1 talent point at row 3 may be a simpler solution.

Another alternative to your proposed change may be just to enable Fist Dual wielding for all specs, following WC3 class fantasy, leaving two handed weapons for Enhancement only.

Also, casting lighting shield on allies sounds like a nightmare for the enhancement shaman rotation. If you want to add this, it may be better to do so in the Resto tree.

Finally, I agree with other users in that Bloodlust should affect both the caster and the target to make it more rewarding.

And thank you again for the incredible work you are doing with this game. Cheers!

[Saltwater]

I appreciate the devs hard work, but I DO NOT LIKE ANY OF THESE CHANGES b/c IT IS NOT VANILLA CLASSES ANYMORE.

[Phoenixphire]

I have a lot to say about changes as someone very into classic plus but I will keep it as brief as I can and try to only talk about the classes that I know the best.

First Paladin:

As a vanilla paladin main for years I like a lot of these changes. The changes to consecrate being baseline is a good no brainer change and the mana cost reduction is a great change. The scaling added to ret aura is a needed buff for prot threat and a welcome change. Here is where I get confused.

The crusader strike ability seems okay, it very weak dmg wise and the bonus dmg is cool but the reason ret does no dmg (Besides its pretty bad scaling) is its massive mana issues. Not to mention most of ret's dmg is from physical damage which makes this spell not synergize well at all. To stack it up two five costs 450 mana just by it self which is pretty big for a ret's mana bar, though not as bad for prot depending on the gear. Even with this spell ret still has horrible mana problems and low scaling. So this is basically another prot buff and like a cool little dmg buff for ret in longer pvp fights, but I don't really see what problem it is addressing besides more single target threat for prot or a buff to shockadin. Also the ability has no listed scaling so if it doesn't scale with ap or sp its gonna be even more useless for ret later in the game and basically will just be a raid debuff for prot threat. I like the idea of giving more dmging buttons for pallys to press but I think it could be done a little better. Just seems a little out of place and boring compared to stuff lets say that shamans are getting. I think the shaman changes are a great group of fun and interesting changes that really make the class feel like it has more flavor and leans more into the class fantasy.

So I can't just give constructive criticism without offering solutions, so these are some of the changes I personally would add as a long time paladin player in vanilla.

-Either reduce mana costs for dmging abilities or give paladins more options to regain mana (outside of being holy)

-Lean more into paladin's support role, instead of making ret just a crappy dmg dealer with a new button to run out of mana with, give them offensive debuffs or an attack that buffs his party. (Like the lawbringer 8 piece) a kinda can hit hard when he needs to for a short time (which ret already does) but also brings some cool utility to the table that can't be gotten just by bringing a holy paladin.

Example: Strike of Judgement
Lash out at the target dealing a moderate amount of damage and having an effect based on your current seal.
(such as)

Seal of Command causes your strike to debuff the target making them take more damage for a short period of time.
Seal of Justice causes your strike to slow the target by a moderate amount for a short time
Seal of light causes your strike to heal your party for a % of the dmg dealt

(Just an idea idk how balanced it would be but I feel like leaning into the support dmg dealer role and the seal system is a great way to buff ret as it will never be a competitive dmg dealer without HEAVY changes.)

-Really besides that I think the prot and holy changes are fantastic, I just think ret got a very short end of the stick with the changes, and seeing enhance get some amazing changes gives me hope for ret, I just think it needs to be done in a way that isn't just gonna make them end up as just a little less crappy dmg dealers.

Next Class!

Hunter:

I Like the hunter changes if they work how I think they do, like the ability basically being an extra shot you can pop off after autos and weave it into your rotation without messing anything up... but if have to play with it, hunter rotations are a tricky thing and adding another ability to it may throw the whole thing out of wack with the way the rotation works with shots and clipping with different weapons. So I hope you guys test it with the hunter rotation to make sure its even usable.

Also I think there is a missed opportunity to mess a little more with survival, making wyvern sting usable in combat for melee hunters or an end talent that lets you use traps in combat would be awesome for the survival class fantasy and not at all game breaking. Seeing as survival has never in wow's life span really gotten its core fantasy ironed out you guys could give it some love. :) Also a small buff to mongoose bite would go a long way to help the melee hunter dream.

All in all, good changes. (Though maybe add some abilities or buffs to the lesser used pets. ;) )

Rogue:

Rogue doesn't have many issues in vanilla that need addressing but a little more flavor could always be added.

I think maybe something to do with thrown weapons since they get little to no use would be cool for leveling or messing around at 60. Maybe a meme talent for increased thrown weapon speed or make it baseline. But either way the changes seem cool and not much is needed in the first place.

That's all I got for now! I would love to chat about some of these suggestions or my thoughts on some of these changes further, I have a lot of possible improvements but I don't wanna make this post too long. My name in the discord is the same as my forum feel free to contact me. :) Thank you for all the hard work you guys do on this project, I love the look of the changes and can't wait to see what else you all have in store for us. Cheers!

[Merikkinon]

Yeah but it was done by professionnal old blizz designers who managed to produce the best mmorpg of all times and looked at the game with an all-encompassing eye, not just from the raider point of view. They proved by their design they had the skill, restraint and philosophies to do it right, on a world scale (and not just on a raid scale).

100% behind this comment. It mirrors my concern.

With respect to the hard working and valiant turtle team, who delivered great content to this day ; can you trust players made into amateur designers to evolve something as complex and precise as vanilla's class design ? Even raiders made into professional designers, like Ion, failed utterly at this task.

I have chagrin that there is such a raid/endgame focus to these changes. Very little to supplement the journey to 60. I think that is a big error. It's where all your players will start their intro journey with TWoW. Is it refreshing as I level, and do I want to build mastery of this new ability as I go forward, seeing how it can boost my endgame capacities?

IDK... I cringe when raiders are in the driver's seat, or calling out the directions from the front. Ion pushed the boundaries of raiding, true, but the rest of the game became flaccid, stale, uninspiring. The world outside raid instances? Here's what people say, "yeah, but the art is amazing."

Wow...

[Suwuxiv]

The tree must be tested extensively to check that its bonuses do not make druid healing overpowered.

Treeform actually buffs other healers more than it does itself. You see, generally if you are going to make use of the Regrowth spell (one of the two healing spells that Treeform can use) you take Nature's Grace (21 points deep into the Balance Tree) with it. And with Treeform 31 points deep into Restoration tree, you can't do that because not enough talent points. And Nature's Grace is a very powerful talent, too. One that synergizes incredibly well with Improved Regrowth.

Now, in a min-max scenario for Resto Druid that spams Regrowth, you are actually better off foregoing Treeform entirely. The only real benefit that it has going for it is the aura and prolonged use of expensive spells because of cost reduction. Spells that I personally can use for long periods without it already and an aura all healers benefit from.

And let's not forget Treeform can't use Healing Touch either which is just juicy if you got the ZG Trinket for Druid.

That aside, I have made a suggestion to one of the developers to adjust the aura slightly. The % was a tad too high comparatively to something else in game. Assuming they accept my suggestion, it'll still be an okay aura. Can't nerf it too hard though because one must consider to make use of the aura, you have to put the Treeform Druid into a given group for the people there to benefit from it.

And moving them to say.. a Tank or melee group in a raid setting potentially means someone loses out on Windfury. So there is indeed a trade off here, and in World of Warcraft - DPS > All.

[Suwuxiv]

I have chagrin that there is such a raid/endgame focus to these changes. Very little to supplement the journey to 60. I think that is a big error. It's where all your players will start their intro journey with TWoW. Is it refreshing as I level, and do I want to build mastery of this new ability as I go forward, seeing how it can boost my endgame capacities?

There's plenty of new content coming for people that are either leveling now or just enjoy doing that with alt after alt. In fact, that's probably going to be the bulk of the upcoming patch. Be it new dungeons for people to play in, new quests, new towns, taxi nodes... Yeah.

Honestly, I see nothing wrong whatsoever if this caters to endgame players. Some of us already have multiple alts at 60 and what we enjoy doing past that is raiding because that's all that is really left for us. You do not see us complain when there is a new dungeon released or new questing content for low levels. No, in fact most of us go and try to experience those too.

[Gnatz]

I had some time to go more into detail concerning the Paladin. So here are my summeries added to my last post.

Prot-Paladin:

New Talent: Improved Seal of Justice (Row 4). Increases the chance your Seal of Justice will stun the opponent by 22/33/67% and your Judgement of Justice has a 33/66/100% chance to taunt your target to attack you, but has no effect if the target is already attacking you.

This is a great change. Getting a taunt through Judgements sounds great... BUT aggro for paladins is mostly accumulated through holy dmg and seal of justice doesnt provide that. Switching through seals and waiting for the gcd to finish may take too long to use the seal in emergency.

Blessing of Kings has been moved from the Row 3] of the Protection talent tree to the Row 3 of the Retribution talent tree.

The only explanation for this change coming to my mind would be to make the Ret-Pala needed in raids. But I am not sure if the other changes will make the ret pala more sought after then any other additional DD. So I would leave it where it is.

Improved Consecration Aura has been moved from the Row 4 of the Protection talent tree to the Row 5 of the Holy talent tree.

As stated above removing holy dmg from prot tree will remove aggro for the Tankadin.

New Talent: Ardent Defender (Row 7). When you have less than 20% health, all damage taken is reduced by 35%.

This one should be amended to change the function of the bubble if specced into.

Ret-Paladin:
In my opinion the Ret-Pala got its dmg boost in the past through holy strike. If something really should change then it would be the immens consumption of mana.

Holy-Pala
I really really like those changes... BUT as mentioned in my post before the shockadin will be overly overpowered with the addition of all the changes in the prot tree.

Proclaim Champion | 250 Mana Cost | 10 Second Cast | 2 Hour Cooldown
Proclaim the friendly target as your champion for 2 hrs. Increases armor by 230, all resistances by 10 and allows the use of various Champion spells on that target.
Note: Persists through death and continues its duration and cooldown countdowns while offline.
Note: Armor buff does not stack with Scroll of Protection IV

Above change is something i would like to see, since the holypal is spamming only one button in raids. Maybe this will be some fun stuff to keep track off in raids in addition to serve some bubbles and dispels.

@Dev-Team: Dont get me wrong you are doing marvelous things with this server and its development but pls have a look into the connection of different trees and their possibilites if changed. Thank you ;)

[Sedreth]

Love what you guys are doing here, Most of these changes are awesome and I'm excited to try them out.

Most of my experience is with Warlock / Priest and shaman so I'll give feedback on those three classes

Warlock:
pretty happy overall, I think letting pets take a bigger role in dungeons and raids will certainly help make things a bit more interesting.

Suggestions:
1. would love to see the talent Suppression, be extended to ALL shadow spells. as warlocks really struggle with spell hit and partial resists for shadow bolts
2. would love to see something like Incinerate from TBC be added so you could spec a more FIRE warlock build, as there are many talents in the deep destruction tree that buff fire spells but without a spell like incinerate you really can't do much of a fire rotation.
3. I've always thought Dark pact was strange in the affliction tree instead of the Demonology tree, Also would love to see something like a reverse health funnel to drain your minion of their HP

Priest:
overall some really cool stuff here, out of the classes I play Priest seems to be getting the most work so I've got the most to say about it lol.
First, I want to say I think the "Holy Champion" talent is a bit much for a talent, it risks overcomplicating a spec with many new spells that don't do much to change how you play, as most are just the typical healing spells you'd normally cast but slightly better with buffs to one player (probably the tank) they also step on the toes of other classes and specs with their theme. for example, if ANYONE should get a 2hr CD player summon it should be warlocks not priests.

Suggestions for row 7 Holy:
1. Mass resurrection: in early builds of WoW row 7 of holy was a resurrection spell that didn't grant Ressurection sickness (as all resurrection spells did under normal circumstances ) I think adding a Mass res would be very flavorful and wouldn't become a Raid requirement while still having a lot of use.
2. "Redemption": As row 7 is attached to Spirit of redemption I think something themed around it or something that directly interacts or improves it makes a lot of sense. my first idea is what retail did in legion where priests with a certain legendary could self-revive after the effect wore off on a 2hr CD similar to reincarnate.
3. Circle of Healing: a powerful but simple spell added in TBC, and one many are familiar with. I think this is probably the easiest and most obvious option, it stays in theme with the Holy priest talent tree while staying true to what players are familiar with. it also stays in theme with many of these changes being similar to what TBC brought with it class changes-wise.

Shadow:
Overall very happy with the changes to the shadow tree, shadow nova seems like it will be fun to use, and many of the changes add unique utility and extra sustain in areas that were lacking with the spec

suggestions: would love a talent to extend the duration of mindfaly ( ideally up to 5 or 6 seconds so that you can weave in mana ticks) something like a 0/3 "improved mindflay" talent like the Improved Shadow word: pain talent.

Discipline:
so not much has changed with this tree besides divine spirit becoming baseline, and reflective shields taking its place. overall i think this is fine and will work decently well.

Suggestions: I would love to see something like "Surge of Light" (tbc) added to the Disc tree as there are talents that add spell dmg and crit, so adding talents like surge of light will help the niche playstyle of holy DPS a lot (which is something I personally LOVE about priest)

Shaman:
Overall I love what you guys are doing with the racial spells, and I am very much looking forward to them. its something I've talked about with friends ever since Kevin Jordan talked about the canceled "hero class" system where each race/class combination got unique spells to better fit their theme, so seeing this makes me so happy.

most of these changes I'm happy with however I worry with Bloodlust becoming a talent that it will create a lot of social pressure on players to take it, and many raiders may feel "forced" to take a shaman just for this talent, i would rather see it become a lv 60 baseline spell.
Row 7 enhancement suggestions:
1. Shamanistic Rage (TBC) I think this is probably the safest option you could take as it's what players are familiar with and it fits the enhancement kit well.
2. A talent to increase the duration of weapon enhancement totems, to make "totem twisting" easier
3. Winfury aura: basically YOU become the windfury totem lol. freeing up the wind totem slot for other totems

Elemental:
Overall i like the changes made to elemental the change to elemental focus does mean that mana reduction will scale well with gear more so than the baseline version in Vanilla.

Suggestions:
1. Would love to see a talent in the elemental tree to grant spell penetration, as elemental shaman struggles really hard until AQ adds spell pen items (sense nature dmg is not covered by any warlock curse [that reduces spell resistances by 75, and shaman must gear spell pen to overcome this burden, so any talents to add some baseline like how arcane mages have 10 spell pen built into their talents via "Arcane Subtlety" I could see something like "Convection" or "Concussion" adding some spell pen as part of their effect
2. Lightning Overload: (tbc) I just LOVE this talent from TBC, it makes ele so much fun, and it has a lot of synergy with Elemental focus as overloads can proc it. I think this effect could be rolled into the "Lightning Mastery" talent as spending 5 points 25points in feels bad imo for simple cast time reduction, and the added effect of lightning overload would be great
3. would love to see Water shield (tbc) i just think thematically its really cool and it helps ele and resto so much.

Overall Love what yall are doing in Turtle keep up the amazing work!

[Darreno]

Yes, giving the Rouge more dodge mechanics would be nice, but not usable in pve if this is the main argument of the devs.

The new rogue parry ability gives a comfortable amount of avoidance for the average rogue to reliably tank dungeons.

Speaking as a rogue tank
of many years with a lot of experience, this is a welcoming change.

If you have questions, let me know.