Final Changelog for Class Changes coming in 1.16.1

[Linxoid]

Can administration provide information when class changes?

[Leokem]

Can administration provide information when class changes?

I join the question, it would be interesting to know

[Mrkrissatan]

While I don't personally play a druid I think they should be able to use polearms like it says in the manual

[Mekunekud]

Silly question but why keep Reckoning in its Vanilla form for the Paladin prot tree? Wouldn't it be better to just turn it into the TBC version since it's functionally useless for any spec as a crit response talent, especially once you actually start tanking and the defense cap is hit.

[Chnams]

Silly question but why keep Reckoning in its Vanilla form for the Paladin prot tree? Wouldn't it be better to just turn it into the TBC version since it's functionally useless for any spec as a crit response talent, especially once you actually start tanking and the defense cap is hit.

Agreed, it seems like a very unintuitive talent as it is right now. The better your gear, the less useful the talent is. Considering Redoubt is being changed to not work with crits anymore, I feel like Reckoning could be given the same treatment. The TBC version is nice and less counter-intuitive, why not give us that, or something similar at least? If not the actual TBC talent, maybe something based on blocking, since most of the prot paladin's kit is based around them blocking, something like "Gives X% chance to gain an extra attack after blocking a melee attack" (obviously has to be adjusted lower than 20/40/60/80/100 since paladins can get pretty high blocking chance with redoubt and holy shield, 100% would just turn it into a mini perma-Retaliation which would be busted)

[Dragunovi]

Feedback and Discussions made after the release of the final changelog start after this message.

[Brandedblade]

The new ret talent is definitely a welcome concept, giving the ret seal dispel resistance works well enough, and the extra mana, while not a lot, is technically extra raid utility and a bone for the ret paladins' mana sustain.

The big question is however, the fact that you are hinting at the concept of increasing the debuff limit with rogue but not giving a clear answer? If you are increasing the debuff cap then alot of my concerns are mitigated. However, if you are not doing so then that still has the issue of Crusader Strike not being worth stacking. The idea of using Crusader Strike to buff your damage + opening up your judgment slot for Light/Wisdom is definitely an idea I enjoy, but i'm concerned about the debuff slot economy in regards to this concept.

In addendum, a big discussion I'm currently seeing on our discord is concept of extending the seal talent to affect all seals, and possibly increasing the amount of mana the paladin, and the paladin alone, is receiving from the talent, akin to the tbc one.

Overall, I love the concept overall and I'm excited to try it once it's properly implemented, but my main concern is how crusader strike is going to be possibly catered too justify it's debuff slot and how one could use that to help ret paladin have a niche in a raid setting.

[Ramue]

On the Priest adjustments to the champion stuff, the fact Empower champion is both worse than consumes and doesn't stack with them renders the cast trash tier from the word go to be 100% honest.
They either need to stack or the spell needs a second rank that is stronger than the consumes.
(It won't ruin consume's value since the spell can only be cast on a single person in group.)

Also the fact that the champion's resolve only lasts 10 seconds on a 5 minute CD is just 100% too meager. Either the effect needs to last 2 min at a minimum or the CD needs to be like a minute at most.

Other than those two things I am very happy with the changes to priest overall!

EDIT: I do also want to add, if it is about keeping dwarf FW stronger it is already much more powerful by default because Champion's Resolve can only be cast on a single person in a given raid, FW can be cast on everyone as cool down allows.

[Geojak]

Hello, I and many paladins are concerned by the current crusader strike proposal.

For me, paladins are the one class, where you don't spamm on global cooldown something at all times. If crusader strike got no CD, then this heavily goes in contradiction to what makes a vanilla paladin for me atleast.

Secondly, in vanilla, paladins got judgment of the crusader to boost holy damage. Now crusader strike will compete with the vanilla design. Why mess with what's not broken?

Others have mentioned the problem of extra debuff slot taken and it not stacking with each other.

Can we pls just find a way to introdu e the spell without altering vanilla paladins in unecesary ways?

For example give the spell a 6 sec CD atleast, and have it give a stacking buff on the paladin instead.

It would clearly differiate the two.
Judgment of crusader is on one target and immideitly St full strength.
Crusader strike buff would be on the paladin on Therefor not bound to one target, but it also needs time to ramp up 5 stacks with a 6 sec CD on the strike itself.

I would rather have no crusader strike at all than one that is in conflict with the vanilla paladins original way of playing

The current seal of crusader is only used ever for the judgment. Now with crusader strike, paladins might op to not even train the seal at all. Seal of crusader should give holy damage boost additionally to AP, then prots than use it to boost the consecration and holy to boost holy shock but cant use it to boost judgmenent damage of SoR or Soc.

[Geojak]

Does retaliation rly need a 20% parry boost. Its already one of the most insane abilities in the game thaz allows warriors to do dmasge like no other and solo stuff once very half an hour.

Why does it need a buff?

[Lancekot]

Give Warriors HIT

[Monmothma21]

It somehow made me almost feel like im back in TBC again, where every other class got cool new spells and ways to play but fury warriors got almost no changes at all. It already kinda hard to level alone as a warrior, especialy in early game, but it gonna stay as it is as far as i understand. I would be able to use Decisive Strike now but the only use for it i can come up with is beating mobs im trying to run away from. And i have to run away alot. Im doing slow and steady + the other one which makes me immune to rested XP and tents / lose xp on death, so dying is hurting my leveling alot. As a warrior i have nothing else to say, other then ill probably try roll a S.Priest. S.Priests sound like fun.

[Ingameacc12345]

I'm pretty underwhelmed by the overall hunter changes, but I won't complain as I don't play here for class changes.

[Allwynd01]

I'm pretty underwhelmed by the overall hunter changes, but I won't complain as I don't play here for class changes.

They feel underwhelming. But the purpose of this server is being Vanilla Plus and having changes not present in the original 1.12.1.

[Urimeli]

I would love to have crusader strike be a personal buff rather than a debuff so it can actually be used in raids, the way it is now it would not be allowed to be used

[Raukodor]

So melee hunter wont be really buffed? Not scaling melee skills no raptor reduced cd or traps in combat?

Inthink wolf aspect is much worse than monkey (mongoose needs to.dodge) and you cant shoot. For 155 ap dont worth it

[Geojak]

It somehow made me almost feel like im back in TBC again, where every other class got cool new spells and ways to play but fury warriors got almost no changes at all. It already kinda hard to level alone as a warrior, especialy in early game, but it gonna stay as it is as far as i understand. I would be able to use Decisive Strike now but the only use for it i can come up with is beating mobs im trying to run away from. And i have to run away alot. Im doing slow and steady + the other one which makes me immune to rested XP and tents / lose xp on death, so dying is hurting my leveling alot. As a warrior i have nothing else to say, other then ill probably try roll a S.Priest. S.Priests sound like fun.

Furry warriors are already broken in vanilla. Highest dps by a mile and can also tank as Firry prot.
I think you should be thankful devs do not nerf things so far, because warriors are the one thing that needs a nerf in endgame gear.

[Silnoir]

As has been said above for pala changes and debuff limit, same would be true for SPriests vamp embrace even tho its a very strong debuff with its 2% mana leech. Then again you are generating additional threat for the heal part so there is a downside in raid/dungeons for that. i would prefer it being a buff on the priest itself, allowing more flexiable target switching and not messing with the debuff limit, however i can see why you want to have it as a debuff aswell.

[Tilsair]

I like most changes to shaman, but as others said, the enhancement changes are pretty underwhelming. I think enha shaman desperately needs some mana sustain, does not necessarily need to be Shamanistic Rage like in TBC, but some new talent would be cool to have. I also think he should be given dual wield, to boost up his dps a fair bit. I don't want to sound like a TBC andy but my opinion is that TBC did a lot of things right regarding enhancement and it's playstyle.

[Geojak]

I am bit bit concerned shamans get overly tanky with these talent changes and ever more of a nightmare for alliance warriors

[Chnams]

Hello, I and many paladins are concerned by the current crusader strike proposal.

For me, paladins are the one class, where you don't spamm on global cooldown something at all times. If crusader strike got no CD, then this heavily goes in contradiction to what makes a vanilla paladin for me atleast.

Secondly, in vanilla, paladins got judgment of the crusader to boost holy damage. Now crusader strike will compete with the vanilla design. Why mess with what's not broken?

Others have mentioned the problem of extra debuff slot taken and it not stacking with each other.

Can we pls just find a way to introdu e the spell without altering vanilla paladins in unecesary ways?

For example give the spell a 6 sec CD atleast, and have it give a stacking buff on the paladin instead.

It would clearly differiate the two.
Judgment of crusader is on one target and immideitly St full strength.
Crusader strike buff would be on the paladin on Therefor not bound to one target, but it also needs time to ramp up 5 stacks with a 6 sec CD on the strike itself.

I would rather have no crusader strike at all than one that is in conflict with the vanilla paladins original way of playing

The current seal of crusader is only used ever for the judgment. Now with crusader strike, paladins might op to not even train the seal at all. Seal of crusader should give holy damage boost additionally to AP, then prots than use it to boost the consecration and holy to boost holy shock but cant use it to boost judgmenent damage of SoR or Soc.

I'm also concerned by the viability of crusader strike with the current debuff cap, and it'll make seal of the crusader, an already underused spell, even more redundant.I really like this idea of giving it a cd and making it a stackable buff instead of a debuff on the target. Imo it's much better than mindless spamming, which is not what Paladin is about anyway.

[Daindain]

Hello,

Forgive me if this is the wrong place to post this.

I would like to see more class quests or racial quests for each class to further distinguish races within their classes.

With regards to talents, I might consider certain talents changing depending on race? Or something like that.

Thanks again for all the work you do. I love the server

[Overi]

Warlock
Pyroclasm (Row 5). Gives your Rain of Fire, Hellfire, *Conflagrate*, and Soul Fire spells a 25% chance to stun the target for 3 sec.

Please, don't! It's too imba in PvP to give Conflagrate 25% stun for 3 sec.
Warlock has a lot of control tools already (seduct, fear, mass fear, death coil), adding stun to Conflag-lock adds too much power, considering stun does not suffer diminishing returns since it's the only stun in warlock arsenal.

I'm not pro-gamer, but I played many BGs as 60 conflag warlock on another private server and class seams very strong already. Just check out my default setup 1v1 vs Warrior if I attack first:
Seduction
Curse of Elements
Soul Fire
Immolate, start casting Seduction - here warrior can intercept me, or somewhat break the combo, it's fine.
CONFLAGRATE - Seduction lands and we continue
Shadowbolt
Death Coil (Succubus starts attacking in melee)
Immolate
Searing Pain
Shadowburn (Conflage still has 4sec CD)
Searing Pain + run away jumping ;)
Conflagrate.

If crits land well, warrior will be dead before the end, if no crits - he will be alive and will kick your ass. Whole chain takes ~18 seconds. Now imagine if one of those Conflagrates will also stun, it's madness! Even simplest combo Seduction + COE + Soulfire + Immolate + Conflagrate + 3_SEC_STUN sounds too strong, especially with 2 attemps to stun (43.75% combined chance).

Just by itself 25% on 3sec stun to 10sec CD spell sounds strong, it's not reliable, but will proc quite often.
Also in the warlock's summary you've said "PvE is the only area where Warlock has an issue" then why give them PvP-buff that has little to no impact on PvE?

[Sharilyn]

Rogue, Warrior and Warlock changes look good to me. (Didn't read all classes tho). Would be nice to give mages 1 more arcane dmg spell for people who wanna play full arcane mage... only arcane missiles and arcane explosion is not enough in my opinion.

[Mekunekud]

I'm also concerned by the viability of crusader strike with the current debuff cap, and it'll make seal of the crusader, an already underused spell, even more redundant.I really like this idea of giving it a cd and making it a stackable buff instead of a debuff on the target. Imo it's much better than mindless spamming, which is not what Paladin is about anyway.

It's redundant from the get go aside from allowing you a stopgap if you judge wisdom instead of Crusader. Mainly because https://database.turtle-wow.org/?item=23203 means SotC gives some 173 holy damage, without counting the 15% from the early ret talent, meaning that the 5 x 30 is worthless if it doesnt stack since it's competing with nearly 200 holy damage from a single libram and basic talent set up.
I like the idea of Crusader Strike but it's a major oversight to the ability unless your intent is to have ret paladins use TWO debuff slots in a raid by judging Light/Wisdom and have them use Crusader Strike to replace SotC.
OFC raids aren't the only situation it can be used but 103 damage and less than stellar buff over an existing talent you'll be taking means it'll be unused. Holy Strike was a nice addition. Crusader Strike not so much.

Edit: Oh and not the mention the 20 JotC holy spell damage boost from the paladin PvP gauntlets.

[Mekunekud]

I like most changes to shaman, but as others said, the enhancement changes are pretty underwhelming. I think enha shaman desperately needs some mana sustain, does not necessarily need to be Shamanistic Rage like in TBC, but some new talent would be cool to have. I also think he should be given dual wield, to boost up his dps a fair bit. I don't want to sound like a TBC andy but my opinion is that TBC did a lot of things right regarding enhancement and it's playstyle.

Shamans are getting Water Shield. The only problem is it'll be the mob version with no Mp/5 so there's no chance of it being worth it on bosses without a pulsing aura or soloing. Shamans should get a crit = shield proc talent instead of what Thunderhead is. Something like "melee crits cause you to activate your current shield effect and also restores a charge". Can also change the improved LS talent to improved shields to give more mana restore/healing as a tank.
Would provide a purgeable buff that gives some decent sustain to DPSing shamans, some survivability to tanking shamans and I can't see being too damaging to balance in any situation.

[Garish]

So melee hunter wont be really buffed? Not scaling melee skills no raptor reduced cd or traps in combat?

Inthink wolf aspect is much worse than monkey (mongoose needs to.dodge) and you cant shoot. For 155 ap dont worth it

!!!!! and where is lacerate?? just buff Wolf aspect melee AP and make mongoose bite active on parrys, this solves all problems for melee skills, and pls add lacerate, is a dream for every enthusiastic melee hunter.
melee skills being a % of the weapon damage is nice too.

[Garish]

Feedback and Discussions made after the release of the final changelog start after this message.

lacerate was taken out of the question?

[Allwynd01]

Feedback and Discussions made after the release of the final changelog start after this message.

lacerate was taken out of the question?

Looks like it was removed altogether from the list of changes.

[Geojak]

1. Make new Soc mana reg tied to the Soc damage proc, like 7. 5/15% of the damage.
After all Spriest mana reg also scales with dmasge done. The mana should come from the proc not the judgment to really fit paladin playstyle.

2. Make exocism usable against all targets and increased crit against undead/demons with a deep ret (atleast row 21 so you can't get holy shock too) talent instead of 2h specc or as new 31 talent.

3. Make crusader strike not a spamm spell ment for prots, they are already fine with the talent changes and spam spells are very unpaladinish.
Instead give it a 6 sec CD, allow it to proc stuff and do weapon dmasge, and change the holy damage debuff to a buff on the paladin instead.
Could also be considered as 31 ret talent.


And that's mostly it.

Lastly make the seal of crusader 3 talent points also affect crusader strike and consider introducing a talent or librsm that lowers holy strikes cd back to 8.

Soc and bok could Also become baseline if more space is needed in the ret talent tree. The current 31 stun talent in ret could be moved to protection like it was in early vanilla.

Oh and seal of crusader should give holy spellpower in addition to attackpower
This way it might finally find some usage for buffed aoe damage and holy shock, which will give paladins an interesting new rotation that wont be op as it can not boost other seals and judgements by design. An alternative idea would be making seal of crusader a cleave seal so paladin get a weapon based aoe capability besides consecration.

[Tasman]

1)I think crusader strike debuff on target should be replaced with buff for paladin. Something like stackable spell power buff, maybe 5% increased spell power that will last 10 seconds , after crusader strike was used, whitch can be stacked up to 5 times, resulting in 25% of spell power bonus (as an example). Also as stated in previous post, the idea of 6 sec cooldown with ability to deal weapon damage and proc seals will be good combination with spell power stackable buff.

2)Also ret have talent called «‎Pursuit of justice» on row 3. It looks pretty weak so I suggest to buff it a bit. Atleast up to 10% of movement speed and add some extra bonus to it, maybe +2% of chance to hit with melee weapons and spells or as an alternative 4% for dodge (with 2 talent points spent in it).

[Reploidrocsa]

2)Also ret have talent called «‎Pursuit of justice» on row 3. It looks pretty weak so I suggest to buff it a bit. Atleast up to 10% of movement speed and add some extra bonus to it, maybe +2% of chance to hit with melee weapons and spells or as an alternative 4% for dodge (with 2 talent points spent in it).

Prot paladins would LOVE 4% extra dodge

[Mikeloss]

Hello there! Once again big thanks to the developers for making this server a UNIQUE experience. I have no technical depth on the Talents/Spells mechanics and therefor can not say too much about how these changes affect the balance of the game and so on. What I can say is this:
Not even Blizzard could please all its player base. They could not make a perfect game and they have been at it for almost 20 years. People come and go as they please and so should they. I believe all these changes show how much love you have for the game and your passion for continuing to tell stories of Azeroth while making the game feel fresh, new and exiting. Those of us who support this vision will carry on and make sure you have the needed feedback to make this possible.

With that said a big thanks and round of applause for those who DO HAVE the technical depth on the Talents/Spells mechanics and therefor can say much about how these changes affect the balance of the game and help the developers achieve their goals.

Much Love,

Mikeloss

[Gattare]

Hot bloody damn! And here I thought we'd be lucky to have enhance shamans get two new keystone talents rather than 2H Axes/Maces and prot paladins get a proper taunt.

Paladin Changes

Most of these changes as a paladin main are YES. OH MY LORD YES.
Consecration being baseline was desperately needed for talent diversity; Prot Paladins and Ret Paladins can actually justify going deeper into Ret and Prot, respectively. Crusader Strike's...interesting, I remember that being from the beta like Holy Strike. Seems like it'd be pretty nice to have a filler spell while leveling, though I wonder how much it'd come into use in raids, especially if the debuff limit isn't high on the priority list for getting lifted anytime soon.

Holy Shock's neat, the cooldown being reduced to 20 seconds like in TBC, damage being increased by 35% is nice (can't believe it couldn't have just be rounded from 496 to 500 though smh ) and the healing being increased by...90? Damn, that's a lot, albeit justified considering how little it was used in raids. Now it could be a proper healing cooldown, though maybe the healing would be a bit much in PvP?

I'm really thankful that Redoubt and Reckoning aren't based off of critical strikes anymore, Defense is actually gonna be useful again, Shield Specialization regenerating mana is a great change, I wouldn't have done it any differently, Blessing of Sanctuary / Holy Shield being 2 rows higher is great for leveling tanks and hybrid builds alike, and holy Jesus, we actually have a proper Taunt now.
However...I think it's really weird to have the taunt be locked behind a talent, for such an essential ability for Prot Paladins. Not to mention that having only 1/3 or 2/3 points in the talent meaning that your Taunt working is literally up to random chance just sounds really bad. Maybe at least the talent could instead influence the length of the Taunt, so that if baseline it's 0 seconds, each rank of the talent increases the Taunt length by 1 second up to 3 seconds. Or baseline it could be 1 second and then the talent increases it to up to 4 seconds. And Ardent Defender...I get that it's a talent from TBC, but it doesn't really make sense as a rank 7 talent in my opinion; here the health and damage values are twisted; in TBC it's 20% damage reduction while under 35% health, but here it's 35% damage reduction when under 20% health. I don't know about you, but if you're getting under 20% health, that sounds like a death sentence. If it weren't for the fact that the other 21-point talents aren't that good, it sounds like a talent that I wouldn't hesitate to skip, but maybe Laughadin has a different perspective on that.

Shaman Changes

2H Weapons and Parry being made baseline, like Consecration, was something that was very much overdue and fantastic. But the 11-point keystone talent in Enhancement is kinda baffling. Lightning Shield being able to be cast on allies is an interesting concept on paper, but to me it sounds like A) that would really clutter up Shaman's rotation if they have to constantly cast it on allies, and B) it just really does not seem like it has the impact that all the other keystone talents have. Many classes get a whole new ability, the other shamans get Clearcasting or a much wider totem radius, and Enhancement Shamans...can cast (or maybe have to cast) Lightning Shield on other folks. Wooo. The way I see it, keep Lightning Shield exclusive to Shamans, and have something else made specifically for shaman tanks as the 11-point keystone talent. Could be cool if maybe the 11-point talent unlocked some shield enhancements, like Rockbiter Shield, Flametongue Shield, etc. that have some special benefits for tanks that could be chosen from, like increased armor and block, flame resist and a Thorns effect, maybe even getting an extra attack upon a successful block for Windfury Shield, stuff like that.

Bloodlust sounds pretty neat, I think Enhancement having a support buff like that is great, especially since it ties in with what Shamans in Warcraft 3 could do. Though I think it'd feel pretty bittersweet in its current state, as it shares the same setting as Power Infusion and Innervate in a group setting the Shaman themselves is never really gonna be able to benefit from it; there's other classes that just flat-out do much more DPS and it's best to buff them rather than being able to lift your own DPS up. I think it'd be cool if targeting a friendly target with the buff applied Bloodlust to both them as well as yourself, so that both you and the other person can revel in that fun frenzy.

Shaman racial spells is an absolutely awesome concept. I feel conflicted as to how many caveats Hex has; a long cooldown, only being a partial CC (in that enemies can still attack under it), and a very short duration. If the duration were raised to at least 15 seconds, and maybe the cooldown lowered to 2 minutes or so, I think it'd be super rad. And since Spirit Link already sounds kinda niche, I don't think it has to have a 10-minute cooldown to make it even more niche; maybe 5 minutes or so. However, nitpicks aside, this is really bloody neat to see as someone who used to main Shaman for 12 years.

Mage Changes

Personally, I think a wee bit more should've been done for Arcane Missiles; the current effect for 5/5 Imp Arcane Missiles should be made baseline so that Arcane Missiles serves an actual purpose for non-Arcane Mages, with something else instead for the Arcane Missiles talent; it could be a simple damage buff, but a neat twist might be to have the Arcane Missiles spell increase its damage for every missiles that lands on the target, so each missile could do 5% more damage (additively) than the last. And it'd be neat if each missile had a separate chance to proc chance-on-spell effects like Clearcasting rather than the whole spell having one chance, because that could actually make actual Arcane have a real purpose for mana efficiency. And Brilliance Aura seems like a weird inclusion; it's cool that it'd be bringing something in from Warcraft 3 for mages, and if Brilliance Aura could be used only by mages that are going the Arcane Missiles route, that'd be one thing. But the Arcane tree is mainly designed in Vanilla as a general utility tree for the other two specs of Fire and Frost, and those frost mages who already use 31/0/20 as their ideal talent build could just pick up Brilliance Aura and provide even more power to the group for just doing what they already do.

Other Changes

There's not quite as much for me to say about the other classes. Druid's changes all sound pretty fine to me; I kinda wonder if there will be a glyph for those who don't necessarily want to have to use Tree of Life, maybe a green equivalent of the Glyph of Stars with leaves and such surrounding the player (not to say I don't like the cool little giving tree though )

Everything else looks pretty decent at a first glance; the only part I find questionable is why a lot of these new abilities are only available starting at level 56-60. Why not have these introduced earlier into the leveling experience like every other ability in the game is?

Reckoning aren't based off of critical strikes anymore? I don't think they ever mentioned that.

[Garish]

Feedback and Discussions made after the release of the final changelog start after this message.

lacerate was taken out of the question?

Looks like it was removed altogether from the list of changes.

my melee orc hunter dream is dead, and im in mourning...