WithWrath of the Lich King Classicset to launch on September 26th, Blizzard is prepping players for what to expect. Blizzard announced several changes earlier today that are coming withWrath of the Lich King Classic.
After introducingWorld of Warcraft Classicwith a “no changes” mentality, Blizzard has introduced several changes forWrath of the Lich King. The most infamous is theremoval of the random dungeon finder. Feedback from theWrath of the Lich Kingbeta has led to another change prior to release.
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Aggrend,World of Warcraft ClassicGame Producer, details that a buff “audit” system is being put into place. This prevents certain classes from obtaining buffs in one spec, snapshotting it to keep the buff, and then swapping to another spec. This is something that existed in 2009 during the originalWrath of the Lich King.Aggrend, however, mentions it is something the development team would have changed. Aggrend continues to say that this fix will not alter the in-game scenarios when players give each other buffs as they walk by in the open world. The change is solely intended for the raiding experience.
WithWrath of the Lich King Classic, Blizzard has not been shy about making changes they deem necessary for the health of the game. These are changes that didn’t take place in the originalClassic WoWrelease, even if they hadbenefited the health ofWoW.
Updates for cooldowns inWrath of the Lich King Classicwere also discussed. One change for Heroism/Bloodlust is similar to the current practice in retailWorld of Warcraft. Players would purposely take breaks and not engage in boss fights to ensure these beneficial buffs could be used. Blizzard recognizes that this does not make for the best in-game experience. As a result, when an encounter ends, players can use Heroism/Bloodlust without cooldown restrictions.
Additional long cooldowns will be seeing a similar change for the same reason. It’s not fun having the entire raid wait for a handful of players to have their beneficial cooldowns reset. ForWrath of the Lich King Classic, Blizzard is specifically targeting any ability with a base cooldown of longer than two minutes. There are some exceptions for specific abilities.
The community has been mixed onWrath Classicnot having the random dungeon finder in place. Conversely, there is praise and agreement that the upcoming raid buff/debuff changes forWrath of the Lich King Classiccould be good for the game. This echoes the positive reaction from fans with thefresh start realmsthat will launch within the coming weeks.
Wrath of the Lich King Classicisn’t the onlyWorld of Warcraftrelease for 2022. The upcoming retail expansion,World of Warcraft: Dragonflight, is also due to release this year.
Wrath of the Lich King Classiclaunches on September 26th for PC and Mac.
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