Blizzard has been releasing a massive number of insights into the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, Shadowlands. With so much coming out, there’s a lot to keep up with, but we’ve got you covered!
A good bit of what they’ve been doing in terms of changes has been kept close to classes. Blizzard seems to be working towards undoing some of the pruning they did in previous expansions, giving a larger number of abilities and choices to anyone who may want them.
Good examples of this are the announcements they made that Frost Death Knights and Brewmaster Monks would have the ability to wield a single two-handed weapon instead of being forced to stick to dual-wielding as the specializations were forcing them to do. Warlocks have also been given back their curses, while Hunters are being given more spots for pets.
Finally some official Shadowlands news! The closed alpha starts THIS WEEK!https://t.co/1hfbAsBlDc pic.twitter.com/8u81ln8I2j
— Wowhead💙 (@Wowhead) April 6, 2020
“While earning new powers is exciting and a natural part of growth in a role-playing game, eventually we began to butt up against the limits of action bar and accessible keybind space, and many of the tools and perks that had once defined certain classes became increasingly widespread, diminishing class uniqueness,” Blizzard writes in their blog. “In Shadowlands, we want to return to the idea that a specialization is about powering up a specific part of a class’s kit, not narrowing down their toolset.”
Blizzard wants to make sure that players have the choice to do what they want to do rather than forcing players to restrict themselves to a specific playstyle when they pick a spec. It’s fantastic to know this, as previous endgame phases have forced players into specific spec trees to fill endgame roles. Death Knights pretty much have to be Unholy, for example, if they intend to do much damage in a raid.
Each class has a great amount of changes coming to them for the most part, working to restore class fantasy and keep classes unique without making one dominant over another. Much of this is aimed at making it so that players are able to play what they want to play instead of having to stick to a meta.
One of the ways this is being done is the upcoming Covenant abilities, which will be given to anyone who joins the Covenant regardless of class. In the same vein, players will also be given different abilities depending on their class when they join a Covenant that fit with the theme and feel of their class, further contributing to class uniqueness.
There’s plenty more coming down the pipeline for this expansion, so keep your eyes peeled to see what changes are coming to your class!
