WoW SoD Phase 3: Class Tuning and Rune Changes (April 23, 2024)

With Season of Discovery Phase 3 now in full effect, players are quick to provide feedback to the devs regarding their favorite classes as it seems some much-needed changes need to be implemented to make the game more enjoyable.

With that being said, we will examine all of the upcoming buffs and adjustments to the power level of classes as Season of Discovery is proving rather difficult to balance given the massive amount of runes and new abilities that were added to WoW Vanilla. 

Although it can be easy to criticize the developers for their lack of testing and balancing, we do have to remember that the team responsible for Season of Discovery is rather small so changes might take some time to get implemented.

Class Tuning Season of Discovery Phase 3

Druid

• The Natural Weapons talents now increases all damage done by druids in Season of Discovery, instead of just physical damage.
• The Gale Winds rune now reduces the mana cost of Hurricane by 60%.
• Swiftmend no longer consumes a Rejuvenation or Regrowth effect on the target when used.

Developers' notes: Please note that it does still require Rejuvenation or Regrowth to be on the target to be used.

Paladin

• Seal of Righteousness damage can now be critical hits.
• Sacred Shield's duration is extended to 60 seconds (was 30 seconds).
• Crusader Strike has now gained an additional effect: Crusader strike now refreshes all judgement effects active on the target to a 30 second remaining duration.
• Seal of Martyrdom can now "twist" with other seals, including Seal of Command.

Developers' notes: Seal "twisting" was an interesting emergent effect that became popular during the original Burning Crusade, that utilized the slower server messaging system used in early versions of WoW to slightly extend the duration of the Paladin's active seal for a short time whenever a second seal was cast. This effectively allowed paladins to momentarily gain the benefit of two seals at once if they timed the application of a new seal to line up perfectly just before their weapon swing. This is something we would have considered a bug at the time, but for many players, it became a popular feature of the class, allowing skilled players to increase their output with precision gameplay.
We recreated this playstyle in Burning Crusade Classic and since then it's been a popular request in other versions of original WoW, including Season of Discovery.

We had concerns about allowing Seal of Martyrdom and Seal of Command specifically to be twisted together in Season of Discovery for a variety of reasons, including the fact that the playstyle is highly mana inefficient, it largely requires addons such as a weapon swing timer to function properly, and twisting can be unintuitive for less experienced players. As the game matures and we continue to listen to player feedback however, we recognize that for some, this is part of the charm and uniqueness of playing a paladin during those early eras of WoW's history. We consider this change to be experimental and we will watch the performance and behavior of Retribution closely after this change. Should it prove problematic, we may revert this change or apply additional adjustments later. We greatly appreciate the feedback we've received about this thus far.

With this change to allow twisting, we do not expect to see a major change in the "optimal" way to play Retribution right away. Due to the interaction between Art of War, Martyrdom, and Exorcism, we'll likely need a larger redesign and changes to that interaction to truly add more diversity to the Retribution playstyle. We're evaluating options here for potential changes we can make either via hotfix during Phase 3 or as part of a larger effort for Phase 4. 

Priest

• Shadowform now increases all shadow damage done by 25% (was 15%).

Rogue

• Saber Slash bleed now stacks up to 5 times.
• Saber Slash bleed now also increases the impact damage done by Sinister Strike and Saber Slash by 15% per stack for the rogue who applied the bleed.
• Saber Slash bleed now deals 3% of the rogue's Attack Power in damage per tick (was 5%).

Shaman

• Mental Dexterity now only triggers from dealing damage with Stormstrike and Lava Lash, and it now lasts 30 seconds (was 10 seconds).
• Burn now increases Flame Shock Damage by 100% and flame shock DoT duration by 6 seconds, and causes Flame Shock to strike up to 5 targets (was 3 targets).

And that covers all of the changes that will be added to Season of Discovery Phase 3. The devs will actively monitor the community for feedback as more changes are underway so we will be on the lookout for news.

Best of luck, Champions of Azeroth, and hopefully Shadow Priests and Boomkins do not dominate PvP after these changes.