Most baseline skills have been modified, and most talents are changed. Our goal is to bring more diversity to the Vanilla class system. You no longer need to follow the established builds from 2004 to get your place in the raid.
Face the need to re-think your usual specs: much of the power in base skills has been moved to powerful new talents, so you’ll need to make big decisions about what skills to focus on.
Enjoy re-balanced classes: many specs that weren’t viable in basic vanilla WoW have been extensively reworked. Balance Druids, Elemental Shaman, melee Survival Hunters, and more are now viable and cohesive specs in their own right.
Try new builds: talent trees were shuffled around enough to disrupt existing cookie-cutter builds. Work with other players to craft the best builds in this new world. Be creative, explore new possibilities and experiment!
Classes
- Major changes to all 9 classes.
- Non-healer hybrid specs brought up to par.
- Many talent skills made baseline, e.g. Dark Pact, Shield Slam.
- More variety in talents, and more hard decisions between strong talents.
- Many base skills nerfed to allow for stronger talents without imbalance:
- Astral Recall: CD raised from 15m to 30, but can be 0 with talents!
Racials
- Racials are more impactful across the board.
- Many new racials have been added and old ones reworked.
- Alliance examples:
- Perseverance (Human): Remove stun, silence, and slows.
- Quickness (Night Elf): Passive, increased move and cast speed, agility.
- Thirst for Adventure (Gnome): Fist & dagger skill, damage vs Giants.
- Horde examples:
- Plainsrunning (Tauren): Gain growing movement buff out of combat.
- Fake Death (Undead): Drop aggro temporarily, restored on cancel.
- Thirst for Adventure (Gnome): Fist & dagger skill, damage vs Giants.
- Many other racials saw numerical or power changes:
- Shadowmeld (Night Elf) increases regeneration.
- Regeneration (Troll) is much more powerful.
- Escape Artist (Gnome) is instant.
Mage
- Major changes to Arcane and Fire talents.
- Core spells weaker, talents stronger.
- New talents:
- Spell Twisting: Fire spells give Frost crit and vice-versa.
- Brilliance Aura: Mana regen aura for party members.
- Chain Reaction: Fireballs cleave, but apply DoT to you.
- Ice Mirror: Friendly target reflects spells for a duration.
Warlock
- Generally similar overall playstyle.
- Demon improvements: Imp regenerates mana, Felhunter mana burns.
- Better support for Fire spells in Destruction.
- Drain Soul now a pseudo-execute on low-HP targets.
- New talents:
- Death & Decay: AoE DoT, reduces healing taken.
- Defiler: Accelerates all DoT ticks.
- Shock & Awe: Stuns & blocks healing on target.
Priest
- Shadow sustain and threat management improved.
- Smite DPS builds now competitive.
- Buffs to most priest racials except Fear Ward.
- Wand buffs make leveling much smoother.
- New talents:
- Power Word: Requital: Deal Holy damage, more if target CC’d.
- Sacrifice: Sacrifice your life to massively heal whole party.
Rogue
- Generally similar overall playstyle.
- Unusual talent effects: boosts to resists, reputation gains.
- Longer CDs but even more CC tools than before.
- Souped-up Premeditation baseline w/long CD.
- New talents:
- Cloak of Shadows: Avoid all spells for a duration.
- Brigandage: Burn mana with each autoattack.
- Battle Rush: Regain energy on hit.
Druid
- Major buffs to Balance tree, viable as primary caster.
- Feral buffed but differentiated between cat/bear.
- Resto similar but with more varied talent choices.
- Shapeshifting on separate, shorter GCD.
- Powershifting effectively removed.
- New talents:
- Revive: Non-combat rez for Resto.
- Leap: Jump forward, traveling a terrain-dependent distance.
Hunter
- New pet abilities for all families that lacked one.
- Survival reworked as primary melee DPS.
- Beast Mastery gains better scaling.
- Marks similar core but more options.
- New talents:
- Savage Blow: Deal weapon damage and trigger Aspect-based effect.
- Spirit Bond (reworked): Grant % of your Str/Agi/Stam to pet.
- Reconnaissance: Gain damage boost when standing still.
Shaman
- Both Elemental and Enhancement heavily reworked.
- Enhancement now has true tank tools.
- Healers choose between single-target and Chain Heal.
- Can use 2H Mace, 2H Axe, and dual-wield w/Fist in off-hand.
- New talents:
- Earthquake: Deal AoE damage; secondary AoEs per hit.
- Rocky Bash: Slam multiple targets with shield.
- Tidal Shield: Reduce physical, prevent fire damage.
Paladin
- Much more offense in Holy, including Shockadin support.
- Damage and sustain buffs for Retribution.
- Taunt, AoE cleave seal for Protection.
- Very impactful talent decisions.
- New talents:
- Inner Light: Blind nearby enemies and cast spells for free briefly.
- Seal of Fury: Attacks cleave nearby enemies for % of wep damage.
- Crusader Strike: Deal weapon damage, stack attack speed buff.
Warrior
- Melee skill range slightly increased across the board.
- Rend scales with AP, Revenge deals weapon dmg.
- In-combat health regeneration!
- New talents:
- Parabellum: Reduce the cooldown of all your skills.
- Berserker’s Blood: Gain major bonuses as your health declines.
- Constitution: % of HP as Strength, Poison/Disease immunity.