A new World of Warcraft Classic Season of Discovery update is being pushed out later today as soon as the servers come back up and balance changes are coming to a number of classes.
Phase three has been one of the tougher phases to balance, especially considering how many new runes and talents there are to work with and how all of them interact with things that existed in the previous phases of the season. With today’s update, though, Blizzard is aiming to bring some of the game’s struggling classes back to relevance, and the devs laid out all of their intentions in a blue post.
The common trend across the board in this update is wide-sweeping buffs as all five classes that are being adjusted with balance updates today are receiving power increases. Here are all of the balance updates coming in today’s WoW SoD patch notes.
WoW SoD patch notes and class balance updates for April 23
Paladin
- Seal of Righteousness can now register critical strikes.
- Duration of Sacred Shield increased by 30 seconds.
- Crusader Strike now refreshed all Judgment effects on a target (up to a duration of 30 seconds).
- The Seal of Martyrdom rune will now benefit from the seal twisting mechanic.
Shaman
- Mental Dexterity now only works with Stormstrike and Lava Lash, but its duration has been increased by 20 seconds.
- Burn now doubles Flame Shock’s damage, increases Flame Shock’s damage-over-time effect by six seconds, and causes Flame Shock to hit two more targets.
Druid
- Natural Weapons will now increase all damage that Druids deal by 10 percent, instead of just physical damage.
- Gale Winds will now reduce the mana cost of Hurricane by 60 percent.
Priest
- All damage dealt in Shadowform increased by 10 percent.
Rogue
- Saber Slash’s bleed effect now stacks up to five but deals two percent less damage via Attack Power per tick.
- Saber Slash will now increase the damage of Sinister Strike, as well as future casts of Saber Slash.
Biggest takeaways from WoW SoD’s April 23 patch notes
The most notable changes in this round of balancing updates are definitely coming to Paladins, who have been struggling exceptionally at the start of SoD phase three. It’s no secret among the player base that Retribution (DPS) Paladins have fallen off a cliff in terms of throughput this phase, so these buffs should bring them back into the mix—even if it’s just a little bit. The introduction of seal twisting—which is a mechanic that “utilizes the slower server messaging system used in early versions of WoW to slightly extend the duration of the Paladin’s active seal for a short time whenever a second seal was cast,” according to Blizzard—should make Seal of Martyrdom, and Paladins, more valuable overall.
While Paladin DPS isn’t as strong at the later stages of the game as it is during the midsection of the leveling process, we expect these tuning changes to bring them back up to the curve. Additionally, phase four runes, which Blizzard is also keeping an eye on, should bring more diversity and skill expression to Retribution Paladins.
We’re also intrigued by the Rogue changes to Saber Slash in this update as the increased damage from Saber Slash on both the DoT and instant effect fronts is very strong. The combo point builder should have an even higher place in your ration moving forward.
Additionally, Blizzard shared plans to make future adjustments to Hunters, Mages, Shamans, and Warlocks in a future phase three balance update, although no specific details were revealed.
