November class tuning in WoW: Forever: Enhancement, Affliction and pets

On November 10 and 12, Blizzard rolled out the first big round of class changes since WoW: Forever launched. Enhancement shamans are back on strength and Windfury instead of caster stats, Wrack now makes Affliction warlocks' DoTs faster rather than stronger, and hunter pets lose a health bonus they were never meant to have. Warlock demons get tougher in return. Every single change is listed in the patch notes.

Enhancement shaman: back to strength and Windfury

After the beta changes, Enhancement in Forever got more out of intellect and spell power than out of strength, and plenty of shamans ended up wearing gear meant for mages and warlocks. Blizzard wants Windfury back at the heart of the spec and made the change on purpose before raids open on December 9: nobody should win hotly contested raid loot that a later fix would turn into junk.

Since November 12:

Two more points matter a lot. Weapon imbues and weapon totems now work at the same time, so you can run Windfury Weapon and still benefit from Windfury Totem, and both can proc on the same swing. The Maelstrom Weapon tooltip also shows your chance per swing for your main hand: with 5 points, a 3.6 speed weapon gets exactly 60%, a 2.0 speed weapon only 33%. A slow weapon procs Maelstrom far more often per hit.

The quest reward Rage of the Storm finally fits too: 16 strength instead of 16 intellect, and a speed of 3.6 instead of 3.2. For gear, that means strength and attack power with a little intellect or spell power on top. Plan your tree in the shaman talent calculator; the playstyle is covered in the Enhancement guide.

Affliction warlock: Wrack as an accelerator

Until November 10, Wrack raised the damage of your DoTs by a percentage. The highest damage came from channelling Wrack on its own and skipping Corruption, Siphon Life and Bane of Agony altogether. And if you stopped channelling just before a tick, the DoT got nothing out of it.

Now Wrack speeds up the ticks. While you channel, Siphon Life, Corruption and Bane of Agony on the target deal their damage twice as often. Their duration doesn't change: Bane of Agony still lasts 24 seconds, it just ticks faster during that time. The time they skip ahead stays with them after the channel ends. Channel Wrack for one second during a three-second Corruption tick and Corruption moves forward two seconds, so its next tick lands one second later instead of two.

In exchange, Wrack itself deals 30% less damage and no longer amplifies your DoTs. The Soul Siphon talent now only counts your own Corruption, Siphon Life and Bane of Agony: each one boosts Drain Life, Drain Soul and Wrack by 4, 8 or 12%, up to 36%. Before, any Affliction spell counted.

That makes the rotation simple: all three DoTs on the target, then channel Wrack and refresh the DoTs before they fall off. Affliction isn't supposed to deal more damage overall; Blizzard just wanted the DoTs to be worth casting next to Wrack again. Plan your tree in the warlock talent calculator, and the Affliction guide covers the playstyle.

Demons and hunter pets

Blizzard had announced that hunter pets and Voidwalkers would be brought back to roughly their Classic Era durability as tanks. For the two classes, that went in opposite directions.

Warlocks: the Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus and Incubus have about 15% more base health. The first four ranks of the Imp's Firebolt deal more base damage, which you'll notice most while levelling. The Voidwalker had already picked up about 40 extra health per level on November 6.

Hunters: a bug gave pets 150% of their normal health; it's now 115%. If your pet tanks for you while levelling, you'll feel it right away. Arcane Shot costs 11% of base mana at every rank. At levels 6 and 60 the price barely moves, and it gets a little cheaper in between. For Beast Mastery, Summon Hawk also costs 11% of base mana, and the Hawk deals about 80% more melee damage. On November 11 two Volley fixes followed: it no longer triggers procs, and it stops channelling as soon as you move.

What changed for the other classes

The remaining classes mostly got bug fixes:

• Druid: Omen of Clarity procs again after a spec swap. For Restoration, Nature's Swiftness now also makes Wild Growth instant. For Feral, Rend and Tear has worked on the Pounce bleed since November 11.
• Paladin: since November 11, Judgement counts as a ranged attack. It uses your ranged hit chance and no longer triggers melee effects. Unsealed Fury no longer creates echoes from Windfury Totem attacks.
• Priest: the Revelation enchant no longer procs from Vampiric Embrace healing. The Gnome racial Confounding Flash and the Twilight Focus talent now work in Shadowform.
• Warrior: Sweeping Strikes no longer loses charges when no second target is hit.
• Mage: back on November 9, Blizzard fixed Arcane Concentration. Its chance is now split across the cast and every bolt instead of granting 10% on each.

What comes next

Blizzard plans to ship further class changes on Tuesdays when needed. Before launch, the line was that there would be no big tuning before raids open, only fixes for bugs and clear outliers, with a larger pass based on real raid data after December 9. Blizzard pulled the Enhancement rework forward because it affects gear in the first raid.

The rankings show which specs are considered strong. For raid planning, the raid setup planner shows which buffs and totems your group covers.