World of Warcraft: Forever just received a massive batch of class-balance updates ahead of launch that have boosted power across the board, but one group of players isn’t happy with the changes: Shamans.
Developer Blizzard recently released Forever’s launch patch notes based on feedback and data accumulated during the beta, resulting in a power spike for all classes and major reworks for classes like Paladin and Rogue. Shamans, too, received some significant changes, most notably the removal of a key Elemental specialization ability, Lava Burst, along with any interactions other abilities had with it.
It’s that change, and other changes to specialization-specific abilities like Restoration’s Riptide and Enhancement’s Maelstrom Weapon, that have resulted in the WoW Classic Shaman Discord going into lockdown in protest. The entire server, which has around 80,000 members, has been made read-only, with a message declaring the reason for why it took what it described as such a “drastic measure.”
“Community feedback gets completely ignored and class fantasies are getting destroyed,” the server declared. “With this we intend to give them [Blizzard] a sign and show them that the community is not [happy] with how they approached our beloved class. Give us back our class and spec identities and fantasies.”
While the protest is in regards to class changes in Forever specifically, the server is also home to Shaman discussions as they relate to other “classic” versions of the game as well, including WoW Classic and Mists of Pandaria Classic. As of writing, all of those channels are also locked and set to read-only.
In a follow-up post, the server went into more detail about its complaints in regards to how Blizzard has approached Forever’s Shaman design. It stated its complaints aren’t about “damage output.” It also made clear the server will re-open “regardless of the outcome,” but that it felt like its feedback through “legitimate” channels were being ignored.
The server then proceeded to list what it viewed as wrong with various ability changes for each Shaman specialization. It additionally called attention to what it called the “hybrid spell power issue,” where spell power and intellect gear seems to be better for not only Elemental but also Enhancement, muddying the identity between the two specializations.
Blizzard has previously said it doesn’t want “hybrid” classes that can deal damage and heal, like Shamans, to deal more damage than dedicated DPS classes. Players in the WoW community refer to this idea as the “hybrid tax,” something those running the Shaman Discord said they are fine with if it means Shaman class design is improved.
“Truthfully, hybrid tax us all you want if the result is a cohesive class with strong class fantasy elements that are actually represented in our playstyles,” it said.
This isn’t the first time a WoW class Discord shut down in protest of how class changes. As pointed out by Wowhead, back in August 2025, the modern WoW Paladin Discord was partially closed in protest of the Retribution specialization’s raid performance. In that case, only Retribution-specific channels were locked, and the entire protest lasted less than 24 hours. Blizzard did announce Retribution Paladin buffs shortly after, though it’s unclear if those changes came at least in part due to the server protest or not.
How long the WoW Classic Shaman Discord remains in lockdown remains to be seen, but Forever launches November 4. Blizzard recently said it doesn’t expect to make any more major class changes for at least another month.
