Over the years, Blizzard’s World of Warcraft has added a few new classes to give players more options when they tackle raids or player-versus-player content, but some have them have begun to blend together — their unique features simply haven’t been made apparent enough. With the latest expansion, Battle for Azeroth, Blizzard is planning to make each class special.
“One area we’re trying to focus on across all classes is to better emphasize what makes each class unique and provide greater distinction among their various capabilities, especially when it comes to utility — tools that fall outside of core role functions like damage, healing, or mitigation,” Blizzard said in an update post. “That feeling is eroded when so many classes bring similar abilities, and you feel you’re rarely providing something distinctive.”
To distinguish mages, warlocks, and priests more clearly from each other in the future, Blizzard will be adding new abilities, and will also bring back older ones that had previously been removed. Other abilities, including area-of-effect stuns, could also be removed from certain classes in order to make other classes more useful.
Similar changes are being made to the overall roles the classes play. Though hunters, mages, and rogues can all deal damage on a target, Blizzard wants them to feel distinct, with certain classes focusing on bursts of damage instead of a sustained volley. New quests will be introduced with advantages given to these different archetypes, as well.
Changes are also coming to the Artifact items introduced in the previous Legion expansion. The team understood that classes would struggle once these were eventually removed, but the team is working new class bonuses in through the use of “Azerite Armor.”
“That said, various specs will likely see one or two familiar traits from Artifcats showing up in their talent trees in Battle for Azeroth,” Blizzard added.
World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth returns the game’s focus to the ongoing war between the Alliance and the Horde. The expansion features a new level cap of 120 as well as “allied races” and two new playable continents. A new cooperative “Waterfront mode” and a randomized “Uncharted Island” should help to keep players coming back until the inevitable release of the next expansion.
