Blizzard has just dropped some bulky World of Warcraft Forever patch notes on our heads, and there are a whole heap of class tuning balance changes to dig through. We’re now one week into the WoW Forever beta, and things are being shaken up pretty dramatically. Alongside the list of class buffs and nerfs, there are also some welcome improvements to campfires, a first rollout of the cooldown manager, updated controller support, and some more “aesthetically pleasing” audio design.
Let’s get the general changes out of the way before we dig through all the class adjustments in the new World of Warcraft Forever update. When at a campfire, you’ll be able to gain the campfire buffs while performing a wider range of resting actions, and you can also use buffs, casts, and crafts without interrupting the process. Both the water splash effect and Human death sounds have been adjusted, missing fog has been resolved, and the occasionally blinding ooze in the Undercity Canal has been toned down.
You’re can now enable the first version of WoW Forever’s cooldown manager, although for the moment it only works for Druids, Mages, Priests, Warriors, and Warlocks, and doesn’t currently support spell ranks. Blizzard notes that it’s designed “to enhance gameplay by pulling critical information from the buff bar or action bar and placing it in a fully customizable location.” To start with, the team wants feedback on “spells that you wish were tracked by default.”
One of the biggest additions in Forever is gamepad support, and Blizzard is continuing to make rapid changes to improve its implementation. There are new class-specific flyouts for Druids, Hunters, Warlocks, Paladins, and Warriors, which additionally stops pet bars from replacing your bottom action bar. The settings now offer a ‘compact’ layout, fixed party targeting for small groups, and the ability to swap certain functionality between opposite sides of your controller.
Moving onto the balance changes, Blizzard notes up-front that it’s introduced a temporary cheap respec option during the beta. If you haven’t changed talents recently, you’ll only have to pay one silver; this cost will become ‘much higher’ immediately after using it to dissuade constant fiddling, but will drop back down again after an hour.
Race-wise, Gnome’s Eureka now offers a 10% discount on Mana, Rage, or energy abilities across every class. Tauren’s Cultivation now has a player-level requirement for every herb, equal to one-fifth of the skill level required to pick it (but capped at 60). Tauren’s Touch of the Grave, meanwhile, no longer breaks CC or activates from spells and abilities without a damage component. This means you can’t pull characters out of stealth with Distract, for example, while Shadow Word: Pain will trigger it on initial cast but not the subsequent ticks.
As usual, I’ll run down the class tuning summaries alphabetically. Druids can now land crits with Rejuvenation, Tranquility, and Restoration’s Wild Growth. Wrath gets a huge 50% damage buff, and Thorns will dynamically update based on the caster’s spell power. Feral’s Mangle is now ‘Primal Bite,’ because the removal of its signature debuff meant “the former name no longer accurately represented the ability.” All associated talents have been adjusted to match.
Hunters can no longer use Tame Beast on targets higher than their level. Furious Howl’s attack power bonus drops 40%, while Survival’s Strider Kick gains a three-second 30% buff to movement speed. For Mages, Arcane Missile only checks line of sight once when you begin channeling, meaning it won’t be blocked if your targets hide partway through. Fire Mages get duration buffs on both Wake of Fire and Hot Streak to smooth out their use while leveling, but Ignite no longer double-dips on damage modifiers.
Paladins’ Retribution Aura now updates with the caster’s spell power. Holy Strike’s damage is buffed to increase at all ranks, instead of just every two, and ends up at 50% instead of 40%. Consecration now works more consistently. For Holy specs, Holy Strike has had its ‘improved’ talent integrated into the base skill, as it felt “required,” and Holy Power additionally increases the critical strike chance of Holy Strike by 15% on top of its existing effects. Retribution Paladins get fewer stacks of Vengeance and less damage from two-handed specs, but a bigger buff from Sacred Arbiter and extra mana-cost reduction from Twist of Light.
Priests can now crit with Renew, and Power Word: Shield can overwrite an existing instance if the target doesn’t have Weakened Soul. Using Sap as a Rogue will now correctly flag you for PvP (if the target is PvP-flagged). Shamans gain more damage from ranks three and four of Lightning Bolt, and you can no longer stack Flametongue Totem with itself or Windfury Totem. In similar fashion, the Tranquil Air, Windfury, and Grace of Air Totems don’t stack, even if used by different Shamans in the same group.
Elemental Shamans get “about 10%” more damage from ranks one and two of Lava Burst, and Blizzard has swapped the positions of its Elemental Fury and Elemental Alacrity talents. It notes this is to create more exciting early upgrades and “allow them to feel like they’re hitting important progression moments.” Enhancement Shamans no longer get spellcasting speed from Rage of the Far Seer, while Restoration Shamans can now crit with Riptide.
Warlocks get just an updated tooltip for Life Tap and fixed scaling on Sacrifice. For Protection Warriors, the Bastion and Focused Rage talents have been swapped “to smooth out progression” while leveling. Lastly, Arms Warriors get double the chance to proc Bloodthrill at all ranks, but only off main-hand melee attacks. Slam’s base cooldown goes up from 15 to 18 seconds, but Improved Slam reduces that by 1.5 and then 3 seconds.
This World of Warcraft Forever beta class tuning patch is live now. Blizzard has stated it plans to increase the beta level cap to 30 two weeks in, so expect that around Thursday October 1. It’ll also be introducing new abilities, talents, and profession items, along with the Excavation Site dungeon.
