Classic SoD Runes - Thoughts

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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In general I’m very excited about SoD but after seeing some of the runes that will be implemented I’m a bit concerned.

Some runes are way too strong and feel mandatory.
Others are way too one-spec oriented like “use this one is if you go feral, use this one is if you go resto, etc”.
While some of them, in my opinion, hit the spot.

This post aims at providing some feedback on which runes sound good and which ones don’t, following wowhead’s list of runes from the demo.

I invite you to do the same, in a constructive way.

---------------- Mage runes ----------------
Overall I dont mind the healer mage option. It can be interesting to fool around with. Hopefully the mana management will tune their effectiveness, otherwise they will be the only desirable healer out there.

Some offensive spell options sound too strong for a classic environment.

---------------- Druid runes ----------------
Overall I dislike the design of these runes as they are too static towards your role: one for balance, one for tanking, one for feral dps, one for resto. Although some very cool abilities are back like Lifebloom and Starsurge

Two examples I really like are Wild Strikes (windfury) and Fury of the Stormrage as they can be useful to more than one spec each.

---------------- Priest runes ----------------
Always disliked Mind Sear, I am not excited to see it in classic.
I love Shadow Word: Death. Its fun to use and useful for all specs. I can see myself using it as a healer to proc spirit tap as I did in TBC.

Twisted Faith sounds like bad design to me. It’s just a buff to your damage with very little depth and feels mandatory if you’re shadow spec’ed.

I really dislike Shared Pain. It dumbs down your rotation and resource management. It belongs to retail and not classic in my opinion.

Homunculi sounds and looks strange. I’m not sure what to think of it but it feels like a simple Cooldown that helps the party but has very little depth to it. Doesn’t look fun and something I can build around.

I would love to see some Smite priest options.

---------------- Warlock Runes ----------------
Master Channeler looks like its too powerful and dumbs down your rotation. Casting Drain Life was an option you would use for sustainability while sacrificing DPS. This way, you have it both ways.

Shadow bolt volley sounds like a oversimplified AoE rotation. Would look much nicer if it was something like: has a CD, strikes all targets with corruption on, for example.

I like the Incinerate option as it makes a “Fire build” more viable. Although it’s very “one-spec” oriented.

---------------- Warrior Runes ----------------
Overall extremely one-spec oriented options, making this class runes one of my least favorite.

Warbringer & Furious Thunder - Anything that removes the need for being in a specific stance sounds automatically bad to me. It dumbs down the warrior class which is extremely well designed in classic. It belongs to retail and not classic in my opinion.

Frenzied Assault & Single-Minded Fury - sounds extremely mandatory if you’re arms/fury spec’ed (respectively), which is very limiting. Bad design in my opinion. I have similar thoughts regarding Endless Rage - just a boring quality of life improvement that dumbs down the class and oversimplifies warrior specs.

Quick Strike - Sounds like Crusader strike which feels like just another button to press only for you not to stand still waiting for your next auto. It belongs to retail and not classic in my opinion.

Devastate dumbs down the use of sunder armor. It used to be a clear decision between doing upfront damage or sundering for threat and long term damage (with the reduced armor). Now you press one button and have it both ways. It belongs to retail and not classic in my opinion.

---------------- Hunter Runes ----------------
Expose Weakness & Master Marksman & Cobra Strikes sound plain and extremely strong. I dislike these passive buffs that have very little influence or are very little influenced by your talents. They belong to retail and not classic in my opinion.

Lone wolf - I always liked this option. Although I think pet management is one of the nicest classic hunter things. But it’s cool to have the option.

Sniper Training - I like this. It looks very strong but 6 seconds is quite a lot. Maybe when raiding it will be too strong and boring. But I see it being fun and engaging while leveling and doing dungeons.

I really dislike Serpent Spread. It dumbs down your rotation and resource management. It belongs to retail and not classic in my opinion.

Chimera Shot from Wotlk is great. I love abilities that have depth and can be used in different situations for different purposes.

Carve - Very boring ability (as it is in retail). And too much one-spec melee hunter oriented.

---------------- Rogue Runes ----------------
I love the Rogue tanking option and its very well sustained by some talent options.
Overall I like all Rogue’s Runes, although they are also very spec’ed oriented, which narrows down options and creates the feeling of scripted options instead of a sand-box. But the abilities are interesting, in my opinion, except Deadly Brew.

---------------- Shaman Runes ----------------
Overall, although some cool abilities are coming back like Lava Burst and Earth Shield, I feel, just like Druid, Shaman options are way too much role-oriented.
I like the shaman tanking options. Particularly Shield Mastery - as I can see it being useful while leveling for example, even if you’re not tank spec’ed.

I love 2handed Enhancement shaman and the Runes available “force” me to go dual wield. I don’t like that.

I’m not super excited about Overload as it feels mandatory for Elemental spec. However, I like the addition of Healing Wave to the list of spells that can be overloaded. And I can see the extra burst of an overload Chain Lightning feeling very strong. Maybe too strong.

I like the new version of Ancestral Guidance and how it increases Flame Shock damage. Sounds like an interesting option regardless of your spec.

Molten blast could easily be designed to be good to be used by any spec. The fact that it “generates a high amount of threat” makes it only tank viable maybe. The increased threat is already batched into the Way of Earth Rockbiter weapon tanking option.

I hope “Shield” options (Earth, Water, Lightning) can all be spec’ed simultaneously. I can see it being a cool mechanic for a tanking shaman (or any other spec while leveling). Manage your active shield according to the situation.

---------------- Paladin Runes ----------------
Seal of Martyrdom looks very interesting. A mix of Wotlk SoC and TBC SoB. I really hope it can be “twisted”.

Divine Storm & Crusader Strike are, in my honest opinion, spells with very little depth. Just something that you are forced to press on cooldown, particularly if you’re Retri. I don’t mind them being back, better than not having them, but I think they could do better.
However, I can see these abilities being interesting to use with a Holy spec (shockadin like), particularly with a 2h weapon. Giving that CS gives mana now and Divine Storm heals.

Horn of Lordaeron feels like a mandatory raid buff. I dont like it.
I would much prefer much an option that would reduce you blessings duration while increasing their effectiveness by a lot. A true buffing paladin would be very nice to experiment with and useable with any spec.

Inspiration Exemplar sounds a bit boring in my opinion. And probably too strong in some situations. Would be much nicer as an active ability and could instead be named Horn of Lordaeron (you bring your allies back to their senses with the blow of your horn).

Exorcist Shockadin and Retri Rune. I like it.

Aegis seems unnecessary for prot paladins which already have a lot of block value and chance. Other much more interesting options could be explored like doubling down on seal and judgement effects. Improved seal of wisdom or seal of light for stronger effects for example.

Hand of Reckoning, although I’m all in favor of having a taunt. I would remove the Righteous Fury modifications and just add the “get mana back when healed” as a general buff. This way, this talent could maybe be useful for other specs. I’m sure prot paladins will not have a problem with threat anyway.

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Well yeah they were implemented to make those specs better or even viable. Crusader Strike? You’re not gonna use that unless you’re a ret pala. Circle of Healing? Not as shadow priest obv. It’s their way to ‘balance specs’ not classes.

It’s gonna be very interesting to see how this will play out in raids at max level.

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You are right, some specs needed something to be viable.

However, the new version of crusader strike is a great example of what I generally mean in this post. This version of Crusader Strike restores mana, so I actually think it can be interesting to use even if you’re a healer or a tank.
Automatically, it’s not a “retri” only option
That’s the type of options I think are good.

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Hmm I haven’t looked at it like this. In a sense you could be a battle healer Hpala that stands at the front lines.

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It’s going to be interesting, even if it’s not the classic+ people had in mind, having specs like enhance, feral, ret, etc or making other worse performing specs viable for endgame is a huge step in making the game more approachable long term i think, more fun too not having one cut in stone set of specs that only do one thing

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Everyone have their own idea of how a Classic+ should be. Blizzard’s suggestion is far from Classic so to call it Classic+ would be wrong. But also most of the suggestions made by other players (to me, at least) are not Classic+.

That sounded wonky - what I am trying to say is that there’s no common understanding what “Classic+” is, and therefore Blizzard can only fail if they indeed attempted to do such an expansion.

Instead they made Season of Discovery, which is also weird because that abbreviation is already - unofficially at least - taken by Hardcore: Season of Disconnects

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Exactly! It opens up new playstyles

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I think it will be fun. Classic with WOTLK skills? Sure, why not.

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Reck pala with Divine Storm and Crusader strike incoming.

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Shaman tanks finally. I hope they put in retail too soon.

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Honestly i feel bad for Hunters.

They are now the only class that only has one role.

How about:
Soulbind - merges a part of your soul into your pet, giving you a combined health pool that you both share. All your agro is increased and transferred to your pet.

Then have certain abilities modified to make it more tanky

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I actually think they intend for hunter pets to actually tank with:
“Beast Mastery - Your pet’s damage and health are increased by 30% and its Focus regeneration by 80%. In addition, your pet’s Growl now also Taunts the target to attack it for 3 sec”

To some extent at least.

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The Raging Blow thing for Fury Warrior I really dislike, it’s basically a Cataclysm Warrior mechanic, and you’d have an addon/weakaura to track your enrage since the instant it dropped off you couldn’t use Raging Blow anymore, a mechanic they eventually got rid of because it was clunky.

To think they introduced one of the changes that makes Cataclysm Fury different to and worse than Classic (Vanilla - WOLTK) Fury is worrying. I know it’s only a test season, but taking inspiration from Cataclysm on so many aspects is worrying.

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Honestly I think it’s pretty lame that it was announced yesterday and there’s already a wowhead article showing every time available. So much for the “discovery” part.

On the Runes themselves, kind of cool, sure. But most of these are realistically just spells from later expacs thrown in as enchants. Some of them seem very powerful and others quite underwhelming.

One thing I’m curious about is the warlocks soul siphon. If the vanilla talents remain unchanged and a warlock can use siphon life + soul siphon that’s going to be very powerful in PvP when the level cap is raised. Master channeler seems quite op.

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Ye I agree. One other fear I have is that, regardless of the runes’ design, because we know those runes are out there, gathering them might become a “shore” instead of a happy discovery.

On the other hand it might be a cool thing in classic. As everything is much slower paced, aiming at discovering a specific rune that’s inside a chest in some random cave, might be just a different way to push us and farm some more mobs without having a quest to tell us to. It might just work.

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True, the problem with doing stuff like this is it will definitely become a “must” to run certain runes as you say.

I like a lot of what they have proposed, I think the staggered level caps to “test” Classic+ on a seasonal server and give people time to catch up is a good idea. I also think the idea of the 10 man raids and some additional content throughout the world is a good idea foo, this is quite in like with classic +.

The Rune system though…I don’t know. Especially reading through the list you posted, I don’t want to be negative but I feel that considering this is only runes we’ve been shown for the first 25 levels. They are really retail esque and it makes me wonder what the runes for 25+ will be?

This may be a silly complaint, but one thing I hated about later expansions was having access to super powerful spells at a low level.

I may be totally wrong, but it seems to me that in SoD we will have level 25 warlocks casting chaos bolts when they do not even have access to spells like conflag or siphon life or even death cool. Rogues who could be level 15, casting mutilate but cannot even use ambush.

To me, it feels “wrong”. Not only not like classic, but just wrong for the class fantasy. A level 25 warlock is supposed to be quite weak, not capable for turning into demons or casting chaos bolts.

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Absolutely agree. Sounded to me like a very smart way to have content as you level up. I was afraid they were just going to increase level cap and add more high level things. I really liked this approach. Doing dungeons while leveling are some of my favorite, relaxing activities.

I don’t think it’s silly at all. One thing I really like about classic talents is that they do not feel overpowered or really mandatory. Your class is what it really is all about. From WotLK on too many talents became mandatory and too strong. There was no other way around them for your class to be viable.

Maybe they can prevent some of this by making some of those runes to only be accessible at level 25 and not sooner.
The class I feel that suffers the most from this are Mages. So many strong choices: living bomb, living flame, arcane surge, etc.

I have some hope, however, that these strong spells, if tuned correctly, can still be fun to use considering classic’s combat difficulty as you level. Hopefully you can still only fight one-two mobs at a time, but instead of only using 1 spell, you use 3. I fear, however, that you will just pull a pack of 5 murlocs and turn out alright. That would be sad.

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I think you’re overestimating how easy it is to find these runes.
They were there and unlocked for the demo so that players could see anything different, but I’m sure outside of the first free rune you’ll get at the class trainer the others will be more hidden.
It’s true that Blizzard also often underestimates how quickly players can figure out secrets, but if y’all look at the success that the easter egg hunts have been in Retail you can see that there actually are people at Blizzard who can design good riddles. It took a lot of people to figure out how to get the Hivemind mount for example. And in their “What’s Next” presentation they did say that at least some runes will require teams of secret hunters to be found. I’m not gonna take their word for it, but I’m cautiously optimistic.

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Just to talk a bit about the hunter runes:
-I like the addition of Chimaera, but I am admittedly concerned that Explo will outclass it in 99% of situations. Historically, Chimaera has been weaker than Explo and as they’re both a rune to gloves, it’s very likely it ends up being garbo.
-I think that Carve will actually be fine, due to the existence of Flanking Strike. It supports the melee playstyle in aoe. However, melee hunter really lacks a strong chest rune currently, as Flanking Strike is reliant on the pet afaik, which leads to Lone Wolf being useless for melee. I will personally be trying a melee-weave type aoe build with Serpent Spread, Carve & Lone Wolf.
-Hunter can actually tank. You take the Beast Mastery, Cobra Strikes & Kill Command runes, as the Beast Mastery rune turns the pet’s Growl to a taunt. However, this build lacks any form of aoe threat generation, so it would need some support in future phases at least. At least the BM talents give decent chonk to the pet. shrug
I don’t think there’s much else to say yet, overall I really enjoy the different glyphs they have put out, and I think this can be a very enjoyable season. The potential is there at least!

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I think SoD is a horrible prospect from a Classic point of view.

If I oversee that and strictly think class balance and how this will effect the game then it largely boils down to this from a strictly PvP point of view:

Many of these abilities will SIGNIFICANTLY up the damage output of several Classes. Notably Mages, Elemental Shamans and Paladins. Yet, unless all itemization is rebalanced defensive stats will remain the same. Players are gonna die FAST, the only current counter to this is how some healing abilities have been boosted. Priests will be VERY strong.

I also dare say some classes got the bigger guns. Warriors will rejoice at being able to break root with charge/intervene/intercept and charge in combat but I fear that happiness will be short lives when mages delete them when that Fingers of Frost procs for a double ice lance in the face, or when they see how a a Paladin can deal silly DPS with Crusader Strike and Divine Storm, not to mention what happens if they’ve specced into Reckoning. -20 energy on ambush and backstab seems great and so does a ranged CP-generating snare ability, until you realize that you have to choose one or the other and when you realize that other classes like Mage and Shaman don’t really have to make that same choice.

Alliance will now have access to Windfury through Druids, yet Horde will not have access to Paladin abilities. I don’t see this being any less relevant in SoD, so why should any dedicated raider play Horde? As for organized PvP Alliance was already the better pick for BGs and shamans, unlike Paladins, haven’t gotten any team boosting skills. Even if Shamans were powerful enough to bridge the divide in PvP and PvE, that wouldn’t be desirable as they’d have to be gods to make up for the divide.

Overall this just seems like poorly thought out and lazily implemented. It will be downright comical and that’s about the only value I put to these abilities, entertainment value.

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