WoW: Forever Official Development Notes and Class Tuning

Blizzard has posted the official development notes and class tuning changes for the WoW: Forever launch!.

Since the last full update to the Beta on October 15, we’ve continued to work to solve issues, refine classes, improve gameplay in all areas, and address feedback we received from Beta testers. What follows are the updates and changes that have been developed over those last 2.5 weeks.

We’ve included the previously-posted updates to racial talents and abilities for completeness here.

And once again, thank you so much to everyone who tested the Beta with us and provided so much feedback. Your efforts are greatly appreciated, and we can’t wait to see you on November 4!.

Throw will now correctly use the 0.5 second windup timer (was incorrectly using the throwing weapon’s attack speed).

Legacy Reward - Replica Ironforge Air Rifle can now correctly be used on allies that also have one equipped.

Duration of the quitter debuff reduced to 40 seconds (was 5 minutes).

Duration of the stun reduced to 2.5 seconds (was 3 seconds).

All Races now have the correct amount of base stats. For example, Tauren Warriors now start with the correct +5 strength relative to Human Warriors (was incorrectly +2). This fix was also applied to High Order and Windshaper Skyborne base stats. Roots that occur from Procs now correctly have Diminishing Returns. Includes Frostbite, Entrapment, Improved Wing Clip, Counterattack, and Improved Hamstring.

Developer’s notes: Over the course of Beta, we came to the realization that trying to hold ourselves roughly to Classic power budgets for each class meant that every new element we added needed to come at the expense of something else. Those reductions left some iconic abilities feeling lackluster, and closed the door to other potentially exciting design options. So over the last two weeks, we’ve raised damage on classes across the game, and have increased the health of higher level creatures to compensate. This additional “headroom” has allowed us to tune things to a place that we hope feels better overall. Beyond that, some of this round of changes reflects areas where we were likely hasty in turning to Burning Crusade- or Wrath-era solutions rather than carving out new ones that better fit into the Forever combat model. Our aim in class design is not perfect numerical equality, but rather for every class to feel valuable to the groups they join, with powerful, unforgettable moments brought on by mastering them. In Forever this is accomplished by doubling down on the strengths and differences that make each class unique, rather than overly unifying them.

Developers’ notes: We’ve used the data and feedback gathered during Beta testing to get everything tuned to a reasonable place. However, the only true test of that tuning is the game itself. With the exception of bugs and serious outliers, we don’t plan on making big tuning changes between now and the opening of the raids next month. Once we have sufficient data from players leveling past 30 and engaging in a wide range of content, we expect that we will do a large tuning pass based on our data. And this is all merely a starting point for the classes in Forever, which will continue to evolve over the course of the months and years ahead just as they did following the original launch in 2004.

Various talents no longer have a penalty to their chance to trigger when casting spells of a low rank.

This penalty does still apply to Blizzard. Blizzard continues to have a reduced chance to trigger Arcane Concentration, Frostbite, and Fingers of Frost when casting a rank learned more than 12 levels lower than the caster’s current level.

Learning new spells will no longer cause them to be automatically added to your action bars. Training costs on have been adjusted for all classes.

Most abilities learned at the same level have the same cost to train, with the exception of Priest race-specific abilities.

Total cost to train class abilities from 1-60 is now between 206 and 207 gold for all classes.

Warlocks costs are reduced by the expected costs of buying Grimoires for their pets.

Lacerate is now a Feral talent and not learned by all Druids.

Ferocious Bite has a new Rank 1 at level 24. All the existing ranks were re-labeled one rank higher.

Bear Form and Dire Bear Form: Threat bonus increased from 50% to 115%. This is to compensate for Blessing of Salvation being removed.

Poised: New passive ability learned at level 32. “When you are not in combat and have your maximum Energy, you will gain Poised. Poised reduces the Energy cost of your next Energy ability by 10.”.

Shred: Weapon damage percent increased to 200% from 155%.

Claw: Weapon damage percent increased to 140% from 110%.

Ravage: Weapon damage percent increased from 350% to 435%.

Rip: Base points and attack power scaling increased by about 25%.

Rake: Base points and attack power scaling increased by about 25%.

Ferocious Bite: Base points and attack power scaling increased by about 25%.

Pounce: Base points and attack power scaling increased by about 25%.

Starfire: Base damage points increased by about 40%.

Genesis: Now increases periodic damage and healing by 2/4/6/8/10%, up from 1/2/3/4/5%.