{"id":1551,"date":"2026-11-04T00:00:59","date_gmt":"2026-11-04T00:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aimoneylab.ai\/?p=1551"},"modified":"2026-11-04T00:00:59","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T00:00:59","slug":"wow-forever-shamans-are-protesting-class-changes-after-being-completely-ignored","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aimoneylab.ai\/?p=1551","title":{"rendered":"WoW: Forever Shamans Are Protesting Class Changes After Being \u201cCompletely Ignored\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/games\/world-of-warcraft\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">World of Warcraft: Forever<\/a> just received a massive batch of class-balance updates ahead of launch that have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/articles\/wow-forever-is-giving-players-a-big-damage-boost-for-launch\/?_thumbnail_id=1947018\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">boosted power<\/a> across the board, but one group of players isn&#8217;t happy with the changes: Shamans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Developer Blizzard recently released Forever&#8217;s launch <a href=\"https:\/\/us.forums.blizzard.com\/en\/wow\/t\/wow-forever-beta-development-notes-%E2%80%93-updated-november-2\/2360696\/9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">patch notes<\/a> based on feedback and data accumulated during the beta, resulting in a power spike for all classes and major reworks for classes like Paladin and Rogue. Shamans, too, received some significant changes, most notably the removal of a key Elemental specialization ability, Lava Burst, along with any interactions other abilities had with it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s that change, and other changes to specialization-specific abilities like Restoration&#8217;s Riptide and Enhancement&#8217;s Maelstrom Weapon, that have resulted in the WoW Classic Shaman Discord going into lockdown in protest. The entire server, which has around 80,000 members, has been made read-only, with a message declaring the reason for why it took what it described as such a &#8220;drastic measure.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Community feedback gets completely ignored and class fantasies are getting destroyed,&#8221; the server declared. &#8220;With this we intend to give them [Blizzard] a sign and show them that the community is not [happy] with how they approached our beloved class. Give us back our class and spec identities and fantasies.&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-reddit wp-block-embed-reddit\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"reddit-embed-bq\" style=\"height:500px\" ><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/classicwow\/comments\/1xmovqz\/classic_shaman_discord_server_just_went_full_ret\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Classic Shaman discord server just went full ret pally mode.<\/a><br \/> by<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/user\/Kiazzara\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">u\/Kiazzara<\/a> in<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/classicwow\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">classicwow<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/embed.reddit.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"UTF-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While the protest is in regards to class changes in Forever specifically, the server is also home to Shaman discussions as they relate to other &#8220;classic&#8221; versions of the game as well, including WoW Classic and Mists of Pandaria Classic. As of writing, all of those channels are also locked and set to read-only.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a follow-up post, the server went into more detail about its complaints in regards to how Blizzard has approached Forever&#8217;s Shaman design. It stated its complaints aren&#8217;t about &#8220;damage output.&#8221; It also made clear the server will re-open &#8220;regardless of the outcome,&#8221; but that it felt like its feedback through &#8220;legitimate&#8221; channels were being ignored.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The server then proceeded to list what it viewed as wrong with various ability changes for each Shaman specialization. It additionally called attention to what it called the &#8220;hybrid spell power issue,&#8221; where spell power and intellect gear seems to be better for not only Elemental but also Enhancement, muddying the identity between the two specializations.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Class Highlights - Part 1: Warrior, Shaman, Rogue | World of Warcraft: Forever\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Cb8r05IXiyI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Blizzard has previously said it doesn&#8217;t want &#8220;hybrid&#8221; classes that can deal damage and heal, like Shamans, to deal more damage than dedicated DPS classes. Players in the WoW community refer to this idea as the &#8220;hybrid tax,&#8221; something those running the Shaman Discord said they are fine with if it means Shaman class design is improved.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Truthfully, hybrid tax us all you want if the result is a cohesive class with strong class fantasy elements that are actually represented in our playstyles,&#8221; it said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This isn&#8217;t the first time a WoW class Discord shut down in protest of how class changes. As pointed out by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wowhead.com\/news\/shaman-classic-discord-closed-in-protest-of-shaman-changes-in-wow-forever-383710\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wowhead<\/a>, back in August 2025, the modern WoW Paladin Discord was partially closed in protest of the Retribution specialization&#8217;s raid performance. In that case, only Retribution-specific channels were locked, and the entire protest lasted less than 24 hours. Blizzard did announce Retribution Paladin buffs shortly after, though it&#8217;s unclear if those changes came at least in part due to the server protest or not.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How long the WoW Classic Shaman Discord remains in lockdown remains to be seen, but Forever launches November 4. Blizzard recently said it doesn&#8217;t expect to make any more <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/articles\/wow-forever-wont-get-more-class-balance-changes-any-time-soon\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">major class changes for at least another month<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>World of Warcraft: Forever just received a massive batch of class-balance updates ahead of launch that have boosted power across the board, but one group of players isn&#8217;t happy with the changes: Shamans. Developer Blizzard recently released Forever&#8217;s launch patch notes based on feedback and data accumulated during the beta, resulting in a power spike [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gaming","category-news"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aimoneylab.ai\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aimoneylab.ai\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aimoneylab.ai\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aimoneylab.ai\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aimoneylab.ai\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aimoneylab.ai\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1551\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aimoneylab.ai\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aimoneylab.ai\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aimoneylab.ai\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}