Podcast episode 2 puts hybrids 5% below pure specs
Hybrid damage specs in World of Warcraft: Forever deal about 5% less damage than pure specs, says Principal Game Designer Kris Zierhut. He said it in the second developer podcast, about classes. Rogues are meant to deal the most single target damage.
The episode lasts 78 minutes and appeared on 1 October on the World of Warcraft channel. Josh Corbett of Countdown to Classic hosts, with streamer Sodapoppin as guest. Next to Zierhut sit Senior Game Designers Josh Greenfield, known as Aggrend, and Aidan Moon, known as Zirene.
The full episode is on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=uDRcv_w85j8. The first episode, about the start of the beta, appeared on 24 September: Podcast episode 1 promises fewer blue rewards.
Three or four buttons
A core rotation should hold three or four buttons for everything under 10 seconds, says Zierhut. Longer cooldowns come on top, spread over 15 seconds, 30 seconds, one minute and two minutes. The space in between is deliberate: time for an interrupt, a stun or a potion.
Blizzard knows that Mages fall short of that now. In the coming weeks it wants to give each Mage spec a little more to do.
A damage budget for every class
Each class gets a damage budget, so that a boss such as Baron Rivendare dies about as fast as in 2005. Every buff costs something elsewhere, says Zierhut. The 50% buff to 
Wrath raises Druid damage at level 60 by about 2%, so Druids will lose a little somewhere else.
Zierhut does not believe in the old hybrid tax, where hybrids dealt less damage but brought unique buffs. In Forever their damage, healing or tanking is competitive, but they miss tools that pure specs have. Everyone except Hunters, Mages, Rogues and Warlocks counts as a hybrid. Warriors too, because they can tank.
Rogues pay nothing and should deal the most single target damage in a standing fight. Warriors are meant to be the kings of cleave damage. Hybrid damage specs stay weak healers on purpose: Feral gets no bonus healing, and Maelstrom Weapon only affects 
Lightning Bolt.
Rage for Warriors
Warriors now get less Rage from damage taken than intended, because of a bug. An engineer is working on it, and Zierhut hopes for a fix next week. Extra Rage from critical strikes returns with this week’s build, at 75% more instead of double.
Recklessness keeps its 30 minute cooldown. With shorter cooldowns on it, Shield Wall and 
Retaliation, Warriors did far too much damage in tests. 
Slam has a cooldown because a swing timer asks too much of new players, says Moon. He is not entirely happy with that yet.
Druids, Paladins and Rogues
Power shifting is gone because it was unintuitive and filled every global cooldown, says Zierhut. In its place comes 
Shifting Power, a talent that costs as much Mana as 
Cat Form and gives 40 Energy. Its cooldown of 16 seconds drops to 8 with 
Improved Shifting Power, and it replaces 
Tiger’s Fury, says Moon.
Lay on Hands now has a cooldown of 20 minutes instead of an hour. 
Champion of the Light drops from 100% to 60% of Intellect in the coming patch and no longer adds healing. Otherwise Holy Paladins would reach deep into the Retribution tree for it.
Subtlety gets a new 31-point talent, Death Mark, in place of 
Thousand Cuts. It marks a target, stores the damage dealt to it for 6 seconds and then releases it in one hit, says Moon. The talent comes from the Titan Reforged realms in China. When it arrives, he does not say.
Shamans, Hunters, Warlocks, Mages and Priests
Totem twisting stays out. It was never intended and is hard for new players to understand, says Zierhut. Two totem buffs at once would also mean nerfs for Warriors and Rogues. 
Leader of the Pack and 
Moonkin Aura might become raid-wide, so that a raid needs fewer Druids and Shamans, but that is only an idea.
Hunters get more stable slots over time. The timing of 
Auto Shot is bugged and should be fixed in the next build. The dead zone stays.
The extra range of 
Fear from an Affliction talent disappeared by oversight. 
Master Demonologist now gives the opposite buffs of 
Demonic Sacrifice, so a new 31-point talent can combine both.
Mages lose some damage on 
Blizzard and a little snare time on 
Cone of Cold because of gold bots, says Zierhut. Most of them are Frost Mages who kite whole dungeons. 
Ice Block does not become baseline.
Discipline has the stronger shields and suits keeping a tank alive, while Holy is better at healing a whole group. 
Power Word: Shield does not block Rage from damage taken. A shorter cast for 
Holy Fire is possible, but not promised.
Darkspear Islands at level 30
The tier sets that briefly stood at a vendor on the beta were designed about eight months ago. Blizzard removed that vendor and reviews the sets before the beta ends.
At the end, Greenfield says that the new battleground Darkspear Islands is playable at level 30. Blizzard later wrote that only one battleground and one new dungeon open this week, the Excavation Site. The next episode is about dungeons and raids.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment