With shaman and warlocks losing a core identity class spell (Soul stone & Ankh) while being the two hardest classes to 60 on HC Era (according to the data collected by the deathlog addon), could we consider rebalancing their leveling experience?
In the case of shamans we see them drop like flies above level 30, and continuing to be the worst class to 60 by a mile. One way to improve that would be to move their mail armor skill to level 30. It would not change the balance of the class, and overall won’t make huge difference but it can make up for some lost performance. Another option would be to either implement the TBC skill Ancestral Recall, or a way to despawn your totems willingly. Though this might change the level 60 gameplay.
For warlocks on the other hand I find it hard to come up with a compensation for their lost soulstone. They have the hardest 1 - 30 of any class and only reach an average of level 12.4 before eventually sealing their fate. (A whole level below second place) moving skills down the line might also be the play here, but it is not as easy as the shaman has it look. Curse of Reck at level 10 or 8 might help. Or buffing health funnel on early ranks. But ultimately a change that I d love to see, is to have the warlock gain the soulshatter skill from TBC (maybe on a 10min CD). It would streamline the leveling experience by making it possible to multidot on some occasional multipulls while your Voidwalker can actually hold aggro in tight situations. It would also help out with warlocks in raid being the last to join the meters out of fear of critting early on big shadow bolts.
I know rebalancing the game is not true to vanilla, but it might seem frustrating to some players to have skills that are simply worthless.
Btw: Show some love to night elves; their racials are by far the worst in classic and now one of them is nonfunctional. Might change that into with fun like 2-4% move speed at night that does not stack with any other move speed increase. It would create some fun RP early while having no influence after you get any form of speed buff like Minor Run speed.
Would be great to here any feedback on this
Best regards
Izzi (SoM multi level 60 HC)