WoW The War Within Pre-Patch 11.0: How your class is changing

All classes in World of Warcraft are changing. We reveal what new features are coming with the Pre-Patch 11.0.

The era of The War Within is about to begin in World of Warcraft. This brings not only major innovations like the Warbands system, but also a lot of adjustments to the existing classes, their talent trees, and abilities. To ensure you are not overwhelmed on July 24, 2024, when Patch 11.0 goes live, we have summarized all major changes to the classes so that you can get an overview.

The changes to all classes in Patch 11.0

On this page, we give you a brief overview of what will change for your class with the major Patch 11.0 on July 24, 2024. If you want to read all the details and specifics, also check page 2 for the complete patch notes in full length.

General Changes

Avoidance and life steal are reduced in effect by 50%. This means you now have to gather double the amount of these tertiary stats to achieve the same effect. Consequently, these stats will be more difficult to bring to a level where they have a significant impact on the course of fights.

Tanks are significantly weakened in their self-healing. One goal of Blizzard is to make tanks a bit more dependent on the healing of healers. Tanks should generally not die more often and still possess strong defensive abilities, but self-healing will be significantly restricted. So don’t be surprised if you have to rely on the healer to actually heal in dungeons in the future.

The Changes to Death Knights

Death Knights must adjust to reshuffled talent trees, many talents have swapped places, and there are numerous new talents. The Anti-Magic Shell can now affect multiple allies in a weaker form through a talent.

• Blood Death Knights have less self-healing but can regenerate their Bone Shield charges better, and more abilities benefit from their mastery.
• Frost Death Knights have improved area attacks, such as a chance to deal additional damage in a cone-shaped area with critical melee strikes. Additionally, the Dancing Rune Blade is now a Frost talent (and no longer a general talent).
• Unholy Death Knights can now use their major cooldowns significantly more often, as many cooldowns have been reduced. Furthermore, they can enhance their undead Mage, allowing it to cast Shadow Bolt salvos at multiple enemies.

The Changes to Demon Hunters

Demon Hunters have virtually no changes. One talent has been altered, allowing them to only have 2 charges of the Mark of Flame (instead of all marks), and the Mark of Torment now disorients enemies 25% shorter.

The Changes to Druids

Druids have extremely many changes, it’s worth taking a look at the details. New talents allow the use of shape-specific abilities, which immediately activate the corresponding form upon use.

• Balance Druids receive many new talents, and the damage of numerous abilities has been increased, but mastery has been weakened and the generation of Astral Energy has been decreased.
• Feral Druids get a new mastery that increases bleed damage and damage from other periodic effects.
• Restoration Druids can choose a talent that causes the damage from various attacks in Moonkin and Cat forms to heal nearby allies.

The Changes to the Evoker

Apart from starting their journey at level 10, Evokers also learn spells significantly earlier. Landslide now holds enemies captive for only half the time.

• Augmentation Evokers can increase the range of their helpful spells by 5 meters and can now see clearly which allies have just activated a strong cooldown.
• Devastation Evokers can further enhance their Fire Breath and enjoy a significant reduction in their threat.
• Preservation Evokers benefit from a better Dream Flight in groups and somewhat reduced mana costs.

The Changes to the Hunter

Hunters should take a look at the full patch notes. A huge number of talents are disappearing or being replaced with entirely new ones. The playstyle of all specializations is affected.

• Beast Mastery Hunters gain new bleed effects for their companions, and bleed effects also increase the damage taken by enemies.
• Marksmanship Hunters can hit enemies regardless of line of sight, as long as they are within a volley. Additionally, there is increased critical strike damage.
• Survival Hunters fire explosive shots “on the side” more frequently, and many of the previous 2-point talents now require only 1 point.

The Changes to the Mage

Mages receive a few new options, such as reducing the cooldown of their barriers or further increasing their own intelligence. Many talents have also been moved around.

• Arcane Mages can now enhance their arcane familiar and strengthen Arcane Missiles, allowing them to deal much more damage and hit 4 additional enemies. Free casting will be even stronger.
• Fire Mages now more frequently apply a Living Bomb to enemies and can enhance it to jump to more enemies.
• Frost Mages have only minor changes. Ice Lances increases spell damage by 2% with each spell cast.

The Changes to the Monk

Monks have long awaited a rework and now it is here. The changes are quite extensive for all specializations, so feel free to check out the full patch notes.

• Brewmaster Monks benefit from over-healing, as it now grants them healing over time. New talents protect the monk once their health drops below 40%.
• Mistweaver Monks increase their healing to all allies in Renewing Mist and Revival is now much stronger in smaller groups.
• Windwalker receive more than 20 new talents and can adjust their playstyle much more broadly than before.

The Changes to the Paladin

Paladins have somewhat fewer changes, as they had a rework recently. Multiple Judgment effects can now overlap.

• Holy Paladins can heal themselves with Judgment and further enhance Word of Glory.
• Protection Paladins can increase their parry chance against multiple enemies, and the benefits of Sanctity last for several seconds after leaving the consecration.
• Retribution Paladins receive a revamped Divine Hammer, which consumes Holy Power every few seconds but reduces the cooldown of abilities that generate Holy Power.

The Changes to the Priest

Priests have only a few and also the least significant changes in The War Within. Their changes are just a few lines long and mostly consist of details. The most noticeable impact is probably that priests can increase the range of their spells by 15% with a new talent and the spell “Mind Games” has been removed from the talents – it is now a PvP talent.

• Discipline Priests receive a better Atonement that now lasts longer and significantly enhances Power Word: Shield.
• Holy Priests rejoice over a buff to their Divine Hymn.
• Shadow Priests receive an option to have their Shadow Bolt hit the target immediately instead of having to fire it manually.

Overall, the changes are very minor, and the playstyle of the class remains nearly unchanged.

The Changes to Rogues

Rogues have received relatively few changes, although many talents have changed their positions in the talent tree. Generally, all rogues now have increased life steal in Stealth.

• Assassination rogues can further enhance Poisoning, making it deal more damage when the target is still affected by Poisoning.
• Outlaw rogues benefit from enhanced mastery and Blade Flurry now hits enemies in a larger radius.
• Subtlety rogues can now fill all combo points with the first attack using Concentration and Shadow Dance is now exclusive to them.

The Changes to Shamans

Shamans receive many new talents and even a new raid buff that makes them even more important, increases the mastery of allies, and gives them additional automatic attacks.

• Elemental shamans receive over 10 new talents and can now summon powerful Storm Elementals when activating Stormkeeper.
• Enhancement shamans have few changes. They lose some talents, but Stormstrike is now in their specialization talent tree.
• Restoration shamans benefit from stronger, critical healing spells and the Healing Tide Totem is now much more effective in small groups.

The Changes to Warlocks

Warlocks can now craft health stones that can be used multiple times per fight. Additionally, casting soul stones in combat is now faster.

• Affliction warlocks receive 18 new talents that affect almost all abilities. Details in the patch notes.
• Demonology warlocks can now summon the Fel Hounds from Antorus and Damnation is now a passive effect that automatically applies to enemies.
• Destruction warlocks also receive many new talents. They can further increase their critical strike chance and Dimensional Rift can now be chosen as a passive effect.

The Changes to Warriors

Warriors now drastically change how they generate rage. Several abilities now generate more rage, while others generate none (such as Thunderclap).

• Arms Warriors must now choose between Colossus Smash and Whirlwind, and can use these abilities more frequently for free.
• Fury Warriors now always learn Defensive Stance, and damage during the rage effect is further increased.
• Protection Warriors take less magic damage, and Defensive Stance no longer reduces damage dealt.

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On the next page, you will find the very extensive patch notes for Patch 11.0, the launch of The War Within. If instead you want to know what new features are coming in The War Within, we have a comprehensive overview of The War Within.