WoW Forever: Blizzard's deep dive on hunter and druid changes

Blizzard published an article on 30 September titled World of Warcraft: Forever Class Deep Dives — Hunter and Druid. In it the development team sets out its notes on the 2 classes, ability by ability and talent by talent, and Blizzard calls the article the start of its class deep dives for Forever, with more to follow as the beta goes on. It came out the same day as Blizzard's first class video, on warriors, shamans and rogues. What follows is a selection of the larger changes; the full list is on Blizzard's site.

For hunters, Aimed Shot becomes a baseline ability for every hunter at level 20, Arcane Shot no longer shares a cooldown with it, and Multi-Shot now does. Traps can be used in combat, but their cooldown rises to 30 seconds, and frost-based and fire-based traps run on separate cooldowns. Pets now gain extra stats from their hunter's gear and can no longer receive player buffs that raise their stats. Foxes arrive as a new pet family, with Trickster's Dance, which increases a pet's dodge chance and attack speed for 12 seconds.

3 talents stand out. Lone Wolf, an 11-point talent in Marksmanship, gives the hunter 20% more damage with all attacks while it has no active pet. Sniper Shot, in the 31-point slot of the same tree, has a 4 second cast time and a 15 second cooldown, deals more damage than Aimed Shot, has a base range of 45 yards and adds 10 yards to the range of the next 3 Shots. In Survival, the 31-point talent Lacerating Strikes makes Mongoose Bite leave a Bleed on the target over 21 seconds, with damage based on how hard the bite landed. Blizzard also notes that hunters can place traps only at their own position and still cannot stun or interrupt.

For druids the list of shapeshifting changes is long. All potions and almost all similar consumables can now be used while shapeshifted without cancelling the form, and Rage potions and Thistletea become usable by druids at all; that puts in writing what beta testers had reported about Bear Form. Weapon enchantments and procs all work while shapeshifted, including weightstones, the Crusader enchant and Windfury Totem, most doors and objects can be used without leaving form, and racial abilities such as Shadowmeld, War Stomp and Walk on Air work in form as well. Faerie Fire becomes castable in Bear Form, Cat Form and Dire Bear Form at no resource cost, with a 6 second cooldown. Lacerate joins the Feral toolkit as a baseline ability at level 42: it applies a Bleed over 15 seconds that stacks up to 5 times and generates high threat. Revive, a new out-of-combat resurrection spell, arrives at level 12.

In the talent trees, Tiger's Fury is removed and replaced by a Feral talent called Shifting Power, a 16-point talent that instantly grants the druid 40 Energy at a significant Mana cost, on a 16 second cooldown that a further talent cuts to 8 seconds. Blizzard says a redesigned Furor lets druids regenerate Energy outside Cat Form but wipes that Energy if they shift to Bear Form, to prevent bear-weaving, and that Shifting Power brings back the power shifting this removed. The 31-point Feral talent is Berserk: it lasts 15 seconds on a 3-minute cooldown, works in Bear Form, Cat Form and Dire Bear Form, clears and grants immunity to Fear, removes the cooldown on Primal Bite so that it strikes up to 3 nearby targets, and raises the critical strike chance of all Cat Form combo abilities by 100%. Restoration's 31-point talent, Wild Growth, places a heal over time on every member of the target's party, pets included, healing once every second for 7 seconds and getting weaker each second, on a 6 second cooldown. Blizzard says Shifting Power and some of the talent moves are not in the beta yet and arrive with next week's build. The beta runs until 21 October, and WoW Forever launches at 23:00 UK time on 4 November, which is midnight on 5 November in Central Europe.