The next WoW Forever podcast is about class design, and Blizzard is taking topic requests

The WoW Forever podcast got off to a strong start, and Blizzard has already announced what episode two is about: class design, with special guests from the systems design team.

Why the timing matters

This is the best possible week for it. The first real patch notes landed on September 24 and touched every class:

• Paladin got the largest rework, with Holy Strike scaling properly at every rank and Improved Holy Strike folded into the baseline;
• Wrath gained about 50% base damage, a direct answer to Balance Druid being the weakest leveling spec;
• Shaman totems stopped stacking, even between different shamans in a group, which changes how raids will be built;
• heal-over-time spells across several classes can finally crit.

Every one of those changes came with a short developer note. An hour of the people who wrote them, talking about why, is the obvious follow-up.

Blizzard is asking what comes after

The more useful part for players is the second half of the post. The team opened a thread asking which topics you want developer insight on in future episodes, and said they are looking past episode two already.

If you want to put something on that list, the thread is here. Judging by the beta forums over the past week, these are the subjects with the most heat behind them:

• Mob tagging and respawn friction, where Blizzard has said it must hold the line but hinted at other fixes;
• the economy and gold buying, after the promise to punish buyers very aggressively;
• the Legacy System’s 16-point cap, now that the numbers are public;
• itemisation, including hidden item stats and the rule-breaking items testers keep finding.

Episode one

The first episode brought together senior game designer Josh “Aggrend” Greenfield, lead Classic designer Tim Jones, and content creators Countdown To Classic and Xaryu. Blizzard says the reception to it is why the series is already being planned out further.

We will cover the class design episode once it airs, and check what it says against the tier list and the level 20 builds in our talent calculator.