With the Midnight expansion, a design goal for each specialization was simplification and pruning. Content creator Dvalin Gaming created handy charts for every specialization showing which abilities are sticking around in Midnight.
A “Cheat Sheet” for Each Specialization
Using the default builds, Dvalin has created a graphic for each specialization showing a breakdown of their active abilities. There may be more active abilities in your talent trees, so the graphics are not an exhaustive list for each specialization. They are meant as a quick visual reference point. Here’s the Demonology Warlock example, with the main post containing links to all specializations.
Summary of Removed Spells
Dvalin is also creating a graphic for each specialization, highlighting which abilities were reworked or removed. In a similar style, each graphic serves as a quick cheat sheet for each specialization. These are currently a work in progress, with no main post to link to all of them, but he has covered a few specializations already, such as Retribution Paladin and Enhancement Shaman.
Our Midnight class guides contain summaries if you’re looking for more detailed explanations. Several guide writers have also given their feedback, including Publik (Shadow Priest),and Stormy (Elemental Shaman).
Simplification Coming to Midnight
Blizzard’s central goal in Midnight was to simplify specializations and make the gameplay more clearer and approachable. Blizzard did this by removing abilities that weren’t meaningful, had too many modifiers, or required tracking through WeakAuras or addons. All specializations had their active abilities changed, either by being reworked into other abilities or removed altogether. The initial reaction from the community was that the game was going to become too simple and too basic, and Blizzard has continued to respond to feedback throughout the alpha and beta cycles.
Here are some additional reasons from Blizzard, along with a link to the original blue post.
Developer Insight: Combat for Everyone in Midnight
But Wait, There’s More!
In addition to the above, some other aspects of class design in review are:
- Gameplay with high actions per minute—this can be physically demanding and uncomfortable.
- Specs with a litany of ability buttons make it hard to set keybinds or keep track of them all in combat.
- Situations where lots of ability-modifying procs can be active at once, causing an array of buttons on your action bar to be highlighted, giving a sense that all of them are urgent.
- Specs that sometimes get flooded with so many resources that managing them becomes overwhelming or unimportant.
- Abilities that are very complex, such as Adaptive Swarm, Surge of Power, or Blackout Combo.
