- Author: Passion
- Date: February 23, 2024
- Updated: February 28, 2024
- Expansion: WoW Classic
Another week, another round of class tuning. This time it looks like it is almost exclusively buffs, except for one or two little tweaks we’ll get to later.
First up, Restoration and Balance Druids have gotten some fairly major buffs. Lifebloom has had its mana cost cut in half. Living Seed now heals for 50% of the original heal, raised from 30%. Living Seed will also bloom from any non-periodic healing received, instead of only on damage taken. Finally for Restoration, Nourish has had its mana cost reduced by 27%.
Over to Balance Druids, Moonkin Form will now reduce the mana cost of Moonfire and Sunfire by 50%, and increase their periodic damage (not the initial cast damage) by 50%. This should be a solid DPS boost for Balance Druids that were hit a little bit too hard with the previous Starsurge nerf. Moonkins can now also cast non-healing Restoration spells in form, meaning they can dispel curses and poisons, innervate, combat res, and buff without cancelling their form. Hoorah for massive quality of life! Finally, when Fury of Stormrage gives an instant Healing Touch, you will be able to cast that Healing Touch while in any shapeshift form.
Onto a fairly reasonable nerf, Dual Wield Specialization for Hunters will no longer grant a 30% damage boost to Raptor Strike when wielding two weapons of the same type. This means you will no longer be locked into using two fists, two swords, or two axes for optimal DPS, but it will be an overall loss in DPS.
For Paladins, Crusader Strike now deals Holy damage, not Physical damage. This means that it goes through armor, which will likely be a very big buff in Gnomeregan, where bosses have unreasonably high armor. Also a decent PvP buff against beefier classes. It is still considered a melee attack, and will react appropriately to any effect that nullifies or lowers Holy damage. On the flip side, Seal of Martyrdom will no longer be able to trigger Art of War, or be triggered by weapon procs such as Frost Oil.
A later bluepost has confirmed that Seal of Martyrdom will still be able to trigger Art of War, and will continue to do so.
Rogues, particularly Tank Rogues, have received some very welcome buffs. Redirect is no longer on the global cooldown, and has a 10 second cooldown. This should hopefully stop Redirect from being quite as useless. The patch does mention to not use Redirect in macros as it is currently not functioning correctly when combined with abilities that interact with Combo Points. In a surprising and huge buff, Main Gauche will now generate 3 Combo Points and cost 15 Energy, instead of the previous 1 Combo Point and 35 Energy cost. This should give Tank Rogues a great way to open the fight and get Just a Flesh Wound up and running ASAP. Speaking of, Just a Flesh Wound will now grant 30% more threat than previous.
Shamans got a big ol’ wall of improvements, primarily focused around Enhancement DPS. Two-Handed Mastery now grants 10% increased Attack Power and 10% increased chance to hit with Spells, alongside the previous Attack Speed buff. Shamanistic Rage now grants 5% maximum mana per second, instead of scaling with your stats. This should amount to a total of 75% mana regained over 15 seconds, with your party or raid regaining the equivalent to 15% of your maximum mana. Spirit of the Alpha will now give the Shaman an Attack Power buff if they cast it on someone else. This is a solid buff for Melee DPS Shamans without necessarily buffing Tank Shamans too much. Earth Shield has finally been fixed, appropriately scaling with level, along with a reduced mana cost, and the charges tripled from 3 to 9. Ancestral Guidance has had its cooldown cut in half, down to 1 minute. Last and also least, the Power Surge tooltip has been revised for clarity, but the effect itself has been left mostly unchanged.
In a change likely to make the Fight Club Discord collectively weep happy tears, the Armor values of Crowd Pummeler 9-60 and Mekingeer Thermaplugg have been adjusted, causing them to take roughly 10% more Physical damage.
As we continue to monitor class performance and player feedback in Season of Discovery, we’ve designed the following tuning adjustments, which we intend to implement with scheduled weekly maintenance:
Druid
- Lifebloom mana cost reduced by 50%.
- Developers’ notes: Lifebloom refunds half its new base mana cost per stack when it expires or is dispelled. This part has always functioned in this way, and we’ve seen a bit of confusion around how the mana return portion of Lifebloom functions.
- Living Seed now heals for 50% of the critical heal that planted the seed (was 30%). This heal now blooms from non-periodic healing received, in addition to any damage taken.
- Nourish mana cost reduced by 27%.
- Moonkin Form now also reduces the mana cost of Moonfire by 50% and increases Moonfire periodic damage by 50%. Sunfire also benefits from this change.
- Moonkins can now cast non-healing Restoration spells without cancelling their shapeshift. This includes: Remove Curse, Remove Poison, Abolish Poison, Innervate, Rebirth, Revive, Mark of the Wild, and Gift of the Wild.
- Fury of Stormrage improved: when this rune makes Healing Touch instant, it now also makes it castable in all shapeshift forms.
Hunter
- Dual Wield Specialization no longer grants a 30% damage bonus to Raptor Strike for wielding two weapons of the same type.
Paladin
- Crusader Strike now deals Holy damage instead of Physical damage, ignoring armor, and is now affected by Holy damage prevention. Crusader Strike is still considered a melee attack, and not a spell.
- Seal of Martyrdom can no longer trigger Art of War, and will no longer be triggered by Frost Oil or other weapon procs.
Rogue
- Redirect no longer triggers or is affected by the global cooldown, and its own cooldown has been reduced to 10 seconds.
- Developers’ notes: when Redirect is combined in a macro with other Combo Point related abilities, it often does not function as expected. We recommend not including it in such macros.
- Main Gauche now generates 3 combo points on your target and base Energy cost reduced to 15.
- Just a Flesh Wound threat bonus increased such that Rogue tanks will generate approximately 30% more threat.
Shaman
- Two-Handed Mastery rune now also provides 10% increased Attack Power and 10% increased chance to hit with spells after hitting a target with a two-handed weapon.
- Shamanistic Rage rune now grants 5% of the Shaman’s maximum mana per
second, instead of a value scaling from Attack Power, Spell Power, or Healing Power. - Spirit of the Alpha rune now grants the casting Shaman 20% increased Attack Power if they cast the spell on a target other than themselves.
- Earth Shield mana cost reduced by 67%, and charges increased from 3 to 9. The base amount healed now properly scales with level and is about 50% higher than previously at level 40.
- Power Surge tooltip revised to clarify functionality. This rune periodically grants mana every 5 seconds, equal to 15% of the Shaman’s intellect. Some potential timing issues that could have sometimes made it give less mana than intended have been fixed.
- Ancestral Guidance cooldown reduced to 1 minute (was 2 minutes).
Gnomeregan
- The increased armor value of certain mechanical bosses in Gnomeregan has been reduced slightly.
- Developers’ notes: The higher armor values on certain mechanical enemies in Gnomeregan was correct and intended, but we will adjust the armor on Crowd Pummeler 9-60 and Mekingeer Thermaplugg slightly to provide up to a 10% increase in physical damage received, depending on modifiers present. We also checked the Mechanical Managerie, and it is using the correct armor values.
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