World of Warcraft: Forever just dropped it's latest class video on druids, warlocks, and priests. Blizzard's pitch is the same one it used for the earlier classes: more tools for them to play with, still recognizable and within flavor of their classes and playstyles. The full game arrives on November 4th with the beta currently running. Check out the video from the devs down in the article.
Bears were the tank that lost half their gear when they shifted. Forever fixes that first. The weapon you have equipped now adds to melee damage in Bear Form. Enchantments and combat procs stay on through the shift, including Crusader and a shaman's Windfury Totem. Lacerate stacks raise attack damage as the bleeds build. Consumables work in form, so a bear can drink a rage potion or a free action potion without dropping to caster and eating a hit. Taunt was already there. The new piece is staying a bear while the gear actually counts.
Cats get the damage pass. Shred, Rake, and Claw hit harder. Berserk adds 100 percent crit chance to combo abilities in Cat Form. Feral Charge works in cat, so the gap-closer is not a bear-only button. Feral Swiftness works indoors. The outdoor-only speed that made cats feel stuck in a dungeon is gone. Same as bears, cats keep consumables and enchants in form. Crusader, weight stones, potions, then the rotation.
Restoration gets mana back and a group heal. Wrath's mana cost drops hard enough that a resto druid can cast it without spending the bar they need for heals. Wild Growth is the emergency: a party-wide heal over time, and it can land on another party if they are the same faction. Balance gets a smaller Eclipse. Wrath builds stacks that cut the cast time of the next two Starfires. Nature's Splendor, available at 20, extends Rejuvenation, Regrowth, and Insect Swarm. Nature's Grasp and Entangling Roots work indoors. Overgrowth lets Balance hold three targets in roots at once.
Warlocks are the bigger rewrite. Affliction is supposed to stop being a shadow-bolt class with dots on the side. Load the target, then drain. Improved drains are the rhythm. Wrack, the new 31-point talent, is a channeled drain that also makes the target take more damage from your other shadow spells. You move, you stack pressure, you plant and channel when you have the room.
Destruction is being rebuilt so fire and shadow are one tree instead of two buttons that happen to share a spec. Incinerate sits at the bottom. It is a fire spell that hits harder if Immolate is already on the target. The loop Blizzard described is immolate, keep the dots up, incinerate as the finisher.
Demonology loses the old sacrifice tax. Demonic Sacrifice used to kill your pet for a buff and wipe that buff if you summoned another. Master Summoner and Demonic Sacrifice are reworked so that trade is gone. The capstone, Demonic Pact, sacrifices one pet and summons another immediately. You keep the sacrifice bonus and you still have a pet to fight with and Soul Link. The bonus depends on what you killed: fire, shadow, mana, or survivability. Decimation is the execute. Land Shadow Bolt or Searing Pain on a low-health target and Soul Fire loses its shard cost and most of its cast time.
Priests split three ways, and each one gets a spell that used to belong to a later expansion or a single race. Discipline is a shield healer. Penance is halfway down the tree: a volley of holy light that heals an ally over time, or damages an enemy if you cast it on one. Holy gets Prayer of Mending. It heals the next time that ally takes damage, then jumps. Cast it on someone in another group and it bounces inside their party, not yours. Shadow is the spec Blizzard says it wants competitive. Devouring Plague is no longer an undead-only spell. Every priest gets the dot that also heals the caster. Vampiric Embrace can proc Spirit Tap. Devouring Contagion cuts the plague's mana cost in half and lets it spread. A hybrid dip into Discipline reaches Meditation, so mana comes back while you cast.
Here is the full video so you can see what we are talking about:
WoW Forever will bring us many pieces of content such as new dungeons, 10- and 20-player raids, the Skyborne race, new and expanded zones, account-wide perks, and more than a thousand new quests. Campfires and profession gear have been the open-world half of the beta. This video is the class half. Bears that keep their weapon, affliction that drains instead of bolt-weaving, and a plague every priest can cast are the three that will show up on the first dungeon reset after November 4.
Are you leveling a bear that keeps all of it's buffs, or a shadow priest now that the devouring plague is not undead-only? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.