WoW Season of Discovery Phase 4 PTR: Druid and Shaman Changes

The devs at Blizzard are working hard on the last phase of Season of Discovery as many players were somewhat disappointed by the previous two phases. Not only were the new events, class balance updates, items, and runes met with harsh criticism, but it seems the community was hellbent on providing feedback for everything that went wrong.

Having that in mind, the WoW Classic team launched the first World of Warcraft Season of Discovery PTR to allow players to test new changes and content as well as provide adequate resources to the devs so they can adjust as needed. Given the very experimental nature of SoD, it can be quite difficult to hit the sweet spot both in terms of balance and fun, so that is why we are seeing constant updates to the PTR.

This time around, Druids and Shamans are being targeted to ensure that not only the players have a good time playing their characters, but also get to experience a new way of playing their favorite class.

WoW SoD Phase 4 PTR Druid Changes

Survival Instincts: Now also increases healing done by your spells by 20% while active.

Developer’s Notes: Pure healing druids have correctly pointed out that they are without a compelling rune option for the Boots slot. Allowing Survival Instincts to act as an on-demand healing cooldown helps fill this gap and provide Druids with another powerful healing tool.

WoW SoD Phase 4 PTR Shaman Changes

Earth Shield is no longer exclusive with Lightning Shield.

Developer’s Notes: Earth Shield has seen its value increase with Shamanistic Rage becoming a baseline ability. While this is a great improvement, tank shamans now often feel like they at a disadvantage when playing with a Restoration Shaman and vice versa, because of how a Tank wants their Lightning Shield active for their wrist rune, which makes them ineligible Earth Shield targets. We’re reducing the friction here by allowing Earth Shield to be active at the same time as Lightning Shield.

Riptide healing can now trigger the Power Surge rune when used.

Developer’s Notes: In the Waist slot, Restoration has typically been taking Power Surge, standing within 20 yards of the boss to Flame Shock, and then look for procs to cast an instant Chain Heal. We think reimagining power surge as a more generalist rune and enabling its usage for Restoration shamans to use using their normal toolkit while also playing at a standard healer range of 30+ yards away is a great way to increase quality of life for healing Shamans that select this rune.

The chance for Static Shock to trigger when using a two-handed weapon is now 12% and the chance to trigger with one-handed weapons remains 6%.
The Shield Mastery additional benefit from Defense now triggers off an any shock spell and not just Flame Shock.
The Shield MasteryDefense benefit changed from Attack Power to Spell Power:

Developer’s Note Even with Mental Dexterity in the mix, Spell Power over Attack Power feels like a more thematic conversion for Tank Shamans. Most of a Shaman’s threat is also not in things that benefit from Attack Power directly, so this change helps the shaman tanking kit operate more synergistically.

The additional threat caused by Way of Earth has been increased to 65% (up from 50%).

And that covers all of the notable class changes to Druids and Shaman in the World of Warcraft Season of Discovery Phase 4 PTR. Although more updates are likely to come before the official launch of the final phase, we can see that devs are working hard on making sure that they do not miss the mark this time. You can review the patch notes, here.