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The WoW Classic patch on April 23, 2024, brings one particularly massive change for Paladin players. While the maintenance time won’t be long, and the patch isn’t an especially big one, what it offers in terms of classic rotations and abilities is major. Players will once again have the option to “twist” one of their seals; that wasn’t possible on the Season of Discovery servers.
For those who do not have context, “twisting” was a method by which players could gain the effect of two of their Seal abilities at the same time. It required precise timing, and success gained significant DPS improvements.
Let’s dive into the April 23, 2024, patch notes for WoW Classic.
Biggest changes in latest WoW Classic patch (April 23)
- Paladin: Crusader Strike now refreshes all Judgement effects to a 30s duration.
- Paladin: Seal of Martyrdom can now “twist” with other seals
- Druid: Swiftmend no longer consumes a Rejuvenation or Regrowth effect when used (still requires one of them to be on the target).
- Shaman: Burn now increases Flame Shock Damage by 100%, increases DOT duration by 6s, and makes Flame Shock strike up to 5 targets (was 3).
After the maintenance (7 am PST - 8 am PST), WoW Classic SoD Paladin players will be able to “twist” Seal of the Martyr with other Seals, including the powerful Seal of Command, which is used in both Protection and Retribution single-target builds.
Twisting Seals was not something every Paladin player was capable of. It takes precise timing, and even having an add-on doesn’t guarantee you’ll master it. This gameplay style became popular in the Burning Crusade expansion. The developers have decided to give this power back to WoW Classic Paladin players, but do not think it will cause a huge meta shift at this time.
With perfect melee swing timing, you could have two seals going at once due to the slower messaging system used in the early forms of World of Warcraft. It became a popular way for players to show just how skilled they were. This was brought back in BC’s WoW Classic, and it’s now available again.
The WoW Classic developers also point out that they may have to make changes due to interactions between abilities like Art of War, Martyrdom and Exorcism, which can be further modified with the Exorcist rune. These changes may happen as a hotfix or something in Phase 4 of WoW Classic - that will be determined later.
WoW Classic patch notes (April 23, 2024)
Druid
- The Natural Weapons talents now increases all damage done by druids in Season of Discovery, instead of just physical damage.
- The Gale Winds rune now reduces the mana cost of Hurricane by 60%.
- Swiftmend no longer consumes a Rejuvenation or Regrowth effect on the target when used.
Developers’ notes: Please note that it does still require Rejuvenation or Regrowth to be on the target to be used.
Paladin
- Seal of Righteousness damage can now be critical hits.
- Sacred Shield’s duration is extended to 60 seconds (was 30 seconds).
- Crusader Strike has now gained an additional effect: Crusader strike now refreshes all judgement effects active on the target to a 30 second remaining duration.
- Seal of Martyrdom can now “twist” with other seals, including Seal of Command.
Developers’ notes: Seal “twisting” was an interesting emergent effect that became popular during the original Burning Crusade that utilized the slower server messaging system used in early versions of WoW to slightly extend the duration of the Paladin’s active seal for a short time whenever a second seal was cast. This effectively allowed Paladins to momentarily gain the benefit of two seals at once if they timed the application of a new seal to line up perfectly just before their weapon swing.
This is something we would have considered a bug at the time, but for many players, it became a popular feature of the class, allowing skilled players to increase their output with precision gameplay.
We recreated this playstyle in Burning Crusade Classic and since then it’s been a popular request in other versions of original WoW, including Season of Discovery. We had concerns about allowing Martyrdom and Command specifically to be twisted together in Season of Discovery for a variety of reasons, including the fact that the playstyle is highly mana inefficient, it largely requires addons such as a weapon swing timer to function properly, and twisting can be unintuitive for less experienced players.
As the game matures and we continue to listen to player feedback however, we recognize that for some, this is part of the charm and uniqueness of playing a paladin during those early eras of WoW’s history.
We consider this change to be experimental and we will watch the performance and behavior of Retribution closely after this change. Should it prove problematic, we may revert this change or apply additional adjustments later. We greatly appreciate the feedback we’ve received about this thus far.
With this change to allow twisting, we do not expect to see a major change in the “optimal” way to play Retribution right away. Due to the interaction between Art of War, Martyrdom, and Exorcism, we’ll likely need a larger redesign and changes to that interaction to truly add more diversity to the Retribution playstyle.
We’re evaluating options here for potential changes we can make either via hotfix during Phase 3 or as part of a larger effort for Phase 4.
Priest
- Shadowform now increases all shadow damage done by 25% (was 15%).
Rogue
- Saber Slash bleed now stacks up to 5 times.
- Saber Slash bleed now also increases the impact damage done by Sinister Strike and Saber Slash by 15% per stack for the rogue who applied the bleed.
- Saber Slash bleed now deals 3% of the rogue’s Attack Power in damage per tick (was 5%).
Shaman
- Mental Dexterity now only triggers from dealing damage with Stormstrike and Lava Lash, and it now lasts 30 seconds (was 10 seconds).
- Burn now increases Flame Shock Damage by 100% and flame shock DoT duration by 6 seconds, and causes Flame Shock to strike up to 5 targets (was 3 targets).
Developers’ notes: We’ve received a lot of feedback about the overall usability of mental dexterity, particularly for Elemental Shamans. This ability was not intended to be used by elemental, so the adjustments we’ve made are to help ensure its usage is a bit more enhancement-centric.
To compensate, we’ve increased the output and usability of the Burn rune, with a slight quality-of-life improvement in the form of a Flame Shock duration increase, which allows two Lava Burst casts to be used within a single Flame Shock duration.
This is likely not going to be enough to overall bring elemental up to the level we want, so we intend to continue to make other tactical adjustments in future class adjustment updates as needed.
In the weeks to come
- We’re carefully planning for more adjustments to Hunters, Mages, Shamans, and Warlocks in future updates. We really appreciate the feedback we’ve received since the start of Phase 3 and look forward to sharing more about our next round of adjustments with you soon.
WoW Classic’s patch will release on April 23, 2024, at 7 am PDT, and the developers expect it to wrap up around 8 am PDT, though it could be earlier/later, depending on how things go on the server side.
