WoW Forever podcast: Wrath, Rage and Totems for 9 Classes

A streamer invited to talk classes with the developers, and the first question is how many buttons you press per minute. The second episode of the WoW Forever podcast, Blizzard’s official show, “Speed Running Classes”, runs 78 minutes. Around host Josh Corbett (Countdown to Classic): Josh “Aggrend” Greenfield, Kris Zierhut, Aidan Moon and Sodapoppin. We already covered the first episode here. This one opens on the week’s beta, with the move to level 30.

Beta this week: level 30, 21-point talents, class blogs

Aggrend confirms the lineup: “We’re going to be raising the level cap to 30”, the 21-point talents, nicknamed “gold star”, become available, and a blog goes up for every class. Whatever this WoW Forever podcast episode leaves out should be found there.

On content, the YouTube description carries an official correction: only one battleground and one new dungeon are playable this week. In the audio, Aggrend mentions two, including the Excavation Site in the Wetlands. The name of the second is unclear when listening, and the written correction is what counts.

Aggrend also touches on feedback about character models and some druid forms. He announces nothing, but the topic is heavily discussed internally.

Rotations: the WoW Forever podcast defends few actions per minute

On the WoW Forever podcast, Kris Zierhut explains that each class starts from its fantasy (the idea of how it should feel to play), before rotations. He keeps the number of actions per minute modest: if the bar is saturated, a proc (a randomly triggered effect) that grants one more action falls flat, with no time to press it. He also doesn’t want a mage who repeats Frostbolt while ignoring dispels.

His rule of thumb covers abilities used in under 10 seconds: “three or four buttons ideally”. Longer cooldowns, like Icy Veins, are spread across varied intervals: 15 seconds, 30 seconds, one minute, two minutes.

Aidan Moon describes a fallback button interrupted by procs or by an ability like Fire Blast, hence sequences like A-A-B-A-A-C. The team wants to keep gaps for consumables, a stun or an interrupt, and wants white attacks (auto-attacks) to matter.

Druid: Wrath +50%, the end of powershifting and Shifting Power

This week’s patch gives Wrath a 50% bonus to its base damage. According to a developer on the WoW Forever podcast, it is fully felt at levels 1 to 10, where the character has no spell power.

Wrath was first meant to work like the wand, to regulate the druid’s mana: very low damage and no cost. That zero cost was “way too good”, and mana never ran out. A small cost came back. The developer sums it up: “That’s what beta is for, right? To figure out these things.”

At level 60, the gain amounts to no more than about 2% damage. Still, the developer plans to trim the druid “a notch” later: every class has a damage budget calibrated so that Baron Rivendare doesn’t die in 15 seconds, and every buff gets offset. The druid and hunter changes detailed by Blizzard cover the talents in detail.

The general drop in damage spells has another cause. The developer wanted casters to care about their gear like a rogue does, with spell power from level 10, first on weapons. He estimated the spell power you would get with green quest gear and a suitable weapon at each level from 10 to 60. He then lowered each spell’s base points. This is not, he says, the main source of the nerf some people talk about.

Sodapoppin asks the team about powershifting, which druids miss. Two reasons are given, presented as decided. This emergent behavior confused new players (wearing a level 40 helmet in a Burning Crusade raid, for example), while the game has to stay accessible. It also saturated every global cooldown, leaving no room for anything new.

Aidan Moon introduces the replacement, like Twist of Light on the paladin: keep the entry and exit of the old mechanic. The talent is called Shifting Power, a deliberate nod to the old name. It costs the mana of a shift into Cat Form (cost reductions included) and restores 40 energy. The cooldown is 16 seconds, cut to 8 by Improved Shifting Power. Tiger’s Fury disappears and makes way for it.

The figure is 40 rather than 60 because energy regenerates during the cooldown, which avoids capping. Innervate on yourself and intellect become useful again for ferals. Aidan Moon expects trade-offs, such as empty mana ruling out combat resurrection, and wants to see how players adapt.

Will ferals get the healing bonus the other melee hybrids have? No. Hybrids already heal through their mana, and the developer says: “We want you to need other players.” Same logic for Maelstrom Weapon, limited to Lightning Bolt, and for Retribution paladins, who get no equivalent talents.

Hybrid tax: roughly 5% less damage

The question comes from the host of the WoW Forever podcast, and a developer’s answer is blunt: “I’m not a believer in the hybrid tax.” His reasoning rests on the experience of 2004 to 2008. Back then, hybrids did less damage but brought exclusive utility and bonuses. Players stayed unhappy and damage was raised. Hybrids became the best classes, to the great dismay of rogues, hunters and mages.

So the philosophy confirmed on the WoW Forever podcast is different: damage, healing and tanking stay competitive for everyone, but hybrids lack some of the tools and bonuses that “pure” specializations have. Aidan Moon points out that a hybrid class is not the same as a hybrid specialization. A Shadow priest who heals while dealing damage can’t also top the charts. His healing output counts toward the assessment of his power, even if the player never uses it.

The figure is stated explicitly: “the right numbers around 5% less damage on our hybrid DPS specs”. It applies to everyone who is not a hunter, mage, rogue or warlock. Warriors are included, since they can switch to Defensive Stance with a shield. The Feral druid illustrates the mechanic: its healing was slightly reduced, and it shifts into bear form to tank.

Warrior: rage, Recklessness and Slam

Warriors dominated the week’s discussions, between worries about rage and a demand for a Bloodthirst with no cooldown. Kris Zierhut starts with a confirmed point: warriors are not getting as much rage from taking damage as intended, and it is a bug. An engineer is due to handle it next. The fix isn’t in this week’s version, but it is hoped for the following one.

Another confirmation: the rage bonus on critical hits returns in this week’s version. The article on warrior rage reported no such bonus, so that is no longer accurate. Aidan Moon gives the size of it: “it won’t be double rage on crits. It’s 75% increase”. Rage normalization had been tested to avoid a loop where more damage gives more rage, hence more damage. The developers do keep the idea of an uneven rage bar, with spikes on crits, though. For them it is part of the warrior’s identity. The downside, acknowledged by Kris Zierhut, is that the class scales with crit, which will have to be balanced elsewhere. The change reportedly was made before the community raised the issue.

On role, the warrior should become the king of area damage and cleave. Retribution paladins only have Consecration, Ferals don’t have Swipe, and the shaman holds up only if he spends his mana. Against several targets, the warrior will be the strongest.

Sodapoppin, guest of the WoW Forever podcast, notes that Recklessness stays at a 30-minute cooldown. The developers had shortened it, along with Shield Wall and Retaliation, so they could be used on every boss. Tests showed damage well above 2005 levels. Recklessness would be the best personal cooldown in the game, especially with rage on crit. The deliberate choice: a long delay, more fun than a few seconds of glory in every fight. The developers add that all classes had to be toned down after a first pass. Half of the damage increase in the early expansions came from talents, not gear. Later in the episode, a developer jokes that the delay is “not final”, and that it would go to “29 and a half”.

Bloodthrill saw its proc chance increase in the patch. The effect works on procs per minute and only triggers on main-hand attacks. A fast weapon triggers it often for small damage, a slow weapon rarely for big damage. It recalls Taste for Blood, without a button to press every 6 seconds. The randomness is intentional: lucky streaks and dry spells, embraced as such.

Slam became a cooldown, because requiring spells to be lined up with the swing timer seemed too demanding for the accessibility being aimed for. Aidan Moon says he is “not entirely happy with where it’s landing”. He would prefer a low-damage spell pressed continuously, but rage economy is a problem. The tuning can still shift, as the beta remains an open workshop.

Paladin: Lay on Hands at 20 minutes, Champion of the Light toned down

Confirmed on the WoW Forever podcast: the cooldown of Lay on Hands goes from one hour to 20 minutes. One developer finds that an hour was “just excessive”. Twenty minutes prevents using it in every encounter and forces a choice. The spell also consumes all mana, which another developer sums up as “a Hail Mary”.

On the Retribution side (see also the paladin’s modified spells and talents), a community question finds Twist of Light, the talent that replaces seal twisting, too rigid. The answer: you need one button per hit, roughly half of the global cooldowns, and the paladin has plenty free. Holy Strike has a long cooldown to avoid alternating between two keys. The developers also defend the “auto-attack robot” reputation, intended from the start. It is a reactive class that keeps room for Lay on Hands, Blessing of Protection or Freedom. A Retribution build around Holy Shock would be “potentially” competitive in PvE, provided no obvious mathematical answer imposes itself.

What follows is just an idea. Aidan Moon suggests keeping the twist, with a damage bonus if the key is pressed 0.5 to 1 second before the next white hit. A colleague answers that it would penalize beginners, and the host asks the audience for its opinion. Another avenue mentioned, without commitment: two seals active at the same time, as in Season of Discovery.

For Champion of the Light, the talent that converts Intelligence into spell power, the next patch confirms 60% instead of 100%, and the healing bonus disappears: that healing was judged excessive. The developers cite a BlizzCon precedent, where the 31-point Enhancement talent gave spell haste to a healing shaman. The haste was removed, because Enhancement already casts instant Lightning Bolts. They admit these reactions can be excessive.

Rogue: Death Mark gets ready for Subtlety

On the WoW Forever podcast, Sodapoppin relayed the question from his rogue friends, all PvP players. The new talents revolve heavily around damage over time, like Rupture, which drifts away from the control-based playstyle. A developer explains that Subtlety already supports Ambush and Hemorrhage, with a few Rupture talents. Garrote got a boost so one-handed weapons have a place too: without it, the rogue’s three trees would favor daggers, and only Combat would handle one-handed weapons. Rupture became the finisher of the tree, and the developer admits he doesn’t like that outcome.

What follows is billed as a small spoiler. Death Mark, a talent from the Chinese “Titan Reforged” realms, is coming to WoW Forever. The rogue marks a target, the mark accumulates the damage dealt, then explodes after 6 seconds. It will be the 31st Subtlety talent, in place of Thousand Cuts. None of this has shipped: everything is in preparation. Details of the other rogue changes are in what Blizzard is changing for the warrior, shaman and rogue.

The idea is to store up energy, place the mark, then dump everything on the target. In PvP, the victim sees the mark and can react: pop a cooldown or run. Eviscerate then remains a faster option for killing, with Death Mark serving in certain situations.

On energy, the question was about a single Backstab every six seconds and the absence of the usual proc talents. The answer fits in a few words: “not at this time”. Rogues already deal plenty of damage with white attacks, Slice and Dice and poisons, so overshooting is easy. A developer promises PvE rogues will be the best single-target damage dealers in static fights. An earlier version of the tree contained energy and the Combat Potency talent: Sinister Strike had to be cut to 12 damage at max rank and Backstab halved. Leveling up without those talents became painful.

Shaman: the end of totem twisting, Maelstrom Weapon and raid auras

Totem twisting is a trick from the Burning Crusade era. Some totems don’t produce an instant effect: they put a short bonus on the player, renewed every few seconds. A shaman who chained placements at the right moment could therefore benefit from two totems at once, for example Windfury Totem and Grace of Air Totem.

This technique is confirmed as removed. According to a developer interviewed on the WoW Forever podcast, the original creators never planned it, and a new player has a hard time understanding it. His first Burning Crusade raid guild didn’t even know it existed. The other argument is numerical: every bonus has a cost. If the shaman stacked these totems, warriors and rogues would have to lose damage to stay within the budget mentioned earlier.

Sodapoppin then pointed out a side effect: in 20-player raids, compositions call for four shamans and four druids, feral or balance, for two group auras. The developers were discussing it before the recording. Nothing is promised and it all remains at the idea stage, but making some auras apply to the whole raid, and not just the group, would reduce that need. Leader of the Pack and the crit aura of Moonkin Form are cited as good candidates.

On Enhancement, the host wondered: with Maelstrom Weapon limited to Lightning Bolt and spell power valued less, are those spells worth casting in combat? The developers want this shaman to care about spell power on his gear. Each class should favor its own stats. He already has shocks, and the Stormstrike debuff boosts Nature damage, and so his Lightning Bolts.

Two removals are confirmed: healing spells and Chain Lightning no longer go through Maelstrom Weapon. Too much healing mid-fight, and the warrior must remain the king of area damage.

The current flaw is acknowledged by Aidan: without five points in the talent, there is no instant spell, so little point until you get there. A change is under discussion, with no decision. Among the avenues cited: +10 to 20% Lightning Bolt damage per charge, or more frequent procs. Kris points out that a talent point is worth about 1% damage in Classic. The Wrath of the Lich King version, very generous, stays out of reach: “we can’t deliver that because it’s too strong”.

Hunter: a bigger stable, a bugged shot and a dead zone that stays

Players ask whether the stable will grow. The answer, confirmed on the WoW Forever podcast: yes. The team started with a deliberately modest number of slots, and the number will go up, with new ways to unlock more. Another speaker joked: “It’ll never be enough.” Collecting the beast you need for a specific fight is part of the journey.

Next comes “melee weaving”, that is, alternating between ranged attacks and melee strikes. Players notice that hitting in melee before backing off entirely delays the next Auto Shot. The confirmed verdict: all Auto Shot timers are currently bugged, the code is complex and someone is working on it. That includes the 0.5 second of shot preparation. The behavior will stay odd this week, with the fix aimed at the next version. The Auto Shot bug is detailed on the site.

On the design side, one developer imagines two ways to play Survival. The first stays in melee, a bit lazy but well stocked: Mongoose Bite, Strider Kick, Raptor Strike, traps. The second stays at range, waits for Mongoose Bite to proc from shots, then rushes in to dump its hits before backing off. The team doesn’t know which will win out. Strider Kick was added to strengthen melee weaving. Raptor Strike was pushed back in the Survival tree: instant at the start, it was too strong in the hands of Marksmanship hunters. Melee weaving will exist, but you will have to invest talents to benefit, a confirmed point.

Last topic, the dead zone, the minimum distance below which the hunter can’t shoot. It stays: “dead zone’s not going anywhere”. The argument: every strength has its weakness, and in PvP you counter a hunter by getting in his face. For anyone who hates it, the answer (given with a laugh): play Survival. Another developer brought up Dhalsim and Zangief, fighting-game characters. See also the hunter and druid deep dive.

Warlock: Fear forgotten and two pets for the price of one

In the original Classic, a talent increased the range of Affliction spells by 20%. Forever’s version now targets “damage spells”, and Fear fell out of it. The developer concerned admits it on the WoW Forever podcast: “That was an oversight.” Players are there to catch these, he adds.

Two options are under discussion, nothing is settled. A Fear with a base 30-yard range, perhaps too strong in PvP, or another Affliction talent that would give back that range. One of the developers said he likes the 20-yard value, a simple personal taste.

Nobody had asked the team about Master Demonologist, yet it was flipped. Its bonuses are now the opposite of those of Demonic Sacrifice, so the two talents no longer get in each other’s way in the Demonology tree. The new 31-point talent lets you sacrifice a demon and then summon another. Example: sacrifice a succubus, summon an imp, and stack the imp’s bonuses (Master Demonologist) with the succubus’s (sacrifice). The announced result: a double fire or shadow bonus. Only one pet can be sacrificed at a time.

Mage: the Blizzard nerf targets farming bots

PvP player Venruki asked why Blizzard had been weakened, then Cone of Cold. A developer’s answer: dungeon kiting (pulling groups of monsters while slowing them, to kill them without ever being hit). Gold bots, automated accounts that produce gold for resale, are almost all Frost mages and damage the economy. See also the fight against gold buying.

After the first nerf, testers checked whether the technique still held up. It did, thanks to Cone of Cold, whose duration therefore lost a few seconds. So there is always a moment when the group is no longer slowed. The mage then takes hits. The goal: stop a mage from clearing twenty monsters alone, while keeping good area damage in raids. A tank holds threat on only three to five targets, and mages cast everything constantly.

On Burning Crusade Classic Anniversary, the going method mixed several Frost mages and area casters, with no tank, to kill everything and go from level 60 to level 70. For this developer, it was “the final straw”.

Venruki fears kiting in duels. One idea circulated this week: 8 seconds of slow for the first target, 6 for the others. It is only an example, nothing is announced. Details of the changes are in the mage’s modified spells and talents.

Sodapoppin then asked for baseline Ice Block, Frost being the PvP build. The gut reaction: “No, too strong”. The developer qualified it: it could work, but would dilute Frost’s identity. No plan, and opinions can change. Sodapoppin also feels Fire mage suffers against everything: a player’s opinion, not a finding from the team.

Mages also feel they lack buttons, especially in Arcane and Frost. The team is looking into it, with no precise plan, and maybe something new within a few weeks.

Priest: Shadow without a mana battery, then the rest of the beta

Shadow priests gained power but lost part of their raid utility. The question put to the studio: should a specialist serve any purpose beyond supporting the group? The developer’s answer: you recruit him first for his damage, and utility comes on top. He can heal the group with his vampiric abilities (now subject to a cooldown), silence an enemy if he invests in that talent, and bring Power Word: Fortitude. He will not hand out mana, however: the team didn’t want a mana battery like in the Burning Crusade era. So it deliberately removed that ability from him. It is confirmed.

Another topic: access to the two damage-over-time effects, reserved for a five-piece set bonus. The tier sets were designed about eight months ago, before the classes changed much. At the end of the beta, the team will reexamine them to see whether they still hold up. The NPC that sold them was removed on purpose.

On the Holy side, the developer says his tests with Judgement of the Crusader active put the priest above some damage specialists. So it was pulled back. The Smite path remains intended, with a heavy hybrid tax. For Holy Fire, whose cast takes 3.5 seconds, the answer to a question about cutting it to 2 seconds is “Yeah, there’s a chance”. Nothing is promised, and every improvement has its price.

Discipline and Holy differ in this way: Discipline’s shields are stronger, and only priests have them. Holy heals a whole group better, Discipline keeps a tank alive better. The devs also noted that Power Word: Shield doesn’t stop the warrior from gaining rage. For more on the priest, see the priest and warrior put under the microscope.

At the end of the episode, the Darkspear Isles battleground is confirmed, playable at level 30: the question got a “Yes” live. A single new dungeon comes with it, according to the correction posted under the video. The next WoW Forever podcast will be devoted to dungeons and raids.