With the upcoming expansion “Legion”, Blizzard is finally taking action against the homogenization of classes in World of Warcraft. To avoid making players wait until the summer of next year, they are already unveiling initial plans on how the various specializations should feel. The conclusion is now the presentation of the Druid and Rogue, and we take a look at the most important changes.
Rogues – Lawless Pirates or Shadowy Slayers?
Those who have dedicated themselves to assassination will be the only Rogues still able to use poisons and bleeds. This means that the assassin does not focus on particularly high damage numbers, but there are plenty of smaller numbers simultaneously. As the combo point generation for this specialization was somewhat lacking, the assassination Rogue will receive improvements to ensure a more consistent flow of finishers.
Combat Rogues will no longer exist with Legion. Before players faint in droves at their PCs, here’s the explanation: the specialization will be renamed to “Outlaw“, because “fighting” is something all Rogues do, and that wasn’t descriptive enough. Outlaws primarily fight with swords and occasionally even shoot with pistols. This leaves a lot of room for exciting themes, such as a pirate – and who hasn’t always wanted to be a pirate?
Subtlety Rogues are to be true masters of stealth. They move in the shadows, strike quickly and hard before disappearing, then strike again moments later from another location. To emphasize this, they receive a talent that allows finishers to have a 20% chance to re-enter stealth in combat! At the same time, some abilities deal shadow damage to underline the connection to these very powers.
Druids – Lucky Bears and Laser Owls
Balance Druids are saying goodbye to the darkness resource. It was too strict and forced players to always meticulously adhere to a fixed rotation to be truly effective. The resource will be replaced by Astral Power, which will be gained from certain abilities and spent by others. This should give spellcasting owls more freedom in their magical use.
Feral Druids are already fulfilling their purpose according to Blizzard. The playstyle of a wild, druidic form is coming across well, so there’s hardly any reason for changes. However, they want to create more variety in talents and offer exciting alternatives, which is why all cat fans can look forward to a wide range of new skills.
All Druids of the Guardian specialization have been in a strange position since Cataclysm. More than any other tank, they rely on dodging, when they should actually be sturdy bears that should be hard to overcome rather than agile and fleeting. Blizzard wants to improve this; tanking Druids will soon sustain themselves through their self-healing. At the same time, talents will ensure that enemies deal less damage to the Druid when under the effect of their DoTs.
Farming Druids will change comparatively little. The playstyle is coherent and fitting, so the developers only want to make minimal changes in the talent area. However, one new talent is interesting: “Blooming” increases the duration of all HoTs cast by the Druid within 60 yards by 10 seconds when used.
