To start, Blizzard goes over its philosophy for Shadowlands’ class design, describing the state of classes as of Battle for Azeroth. In this expansion, “specializations have unique and flashy abilities,” but Blizzard recognizes that players think some specializations have moved too far away from their class identity. Shadowlands will focus on this idea, making specializations feel more like “powering up a specific part of a class’s kit” while reintroducing some specialization-specific abilities back into a class’ core abilities.
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Specific examples of Blizzard’s new class design philosophy include every Death Knight soon being able to once again Raise Dead or turn undead with Lichborne, or Priests being able to all use Shadow Word: Pain and Mind Blast even if they follow the Light.
Even the Demon Hunter, which was only introduced in Legion, isn’t escaping from Blizzard’s new goals for Shadowlands. Blizzard is creating some “common ground” for Demon Hunters’ two specializations by giving them each a single Fury resource. Immolation Aura will also be available to Havoc specializations rather than just Vengeance. All Demon Hunters should be able to engulf themselves in demonic flames, after all.
For players hoping for more of a class reset in Shadowlands, that’s unfortunately not the case. While the changes Blizzard is making are undoubtedly significant, World of Warcraft will still largely play the same. On a class by class, specialization by specialization basis, things will be shaken up, but Shadowlands won’t change WoW to WoW Classic or anything like that.
Class changes are just one aspect of the many plans Blizzard has for World of Warcraft’s next expansion. With World of Warcraft growing somewhat old in the tooth, Blizzard has to be building toward something. The full list of class changes can be viewed here.
World of Warcraft is available now on PC. Shadowlands is planned for release in 2020.
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