Blizzard’s World of Warcraft: Forever Deep Dive described a cross-class design direction and several Paladin-specific mechanics. This page tracks what the official panel recap actually says, links to the class guides, and marks the details that remain open. Broad design intent should not be read as a promise about final balance.
Combat philosophy
Forever is intended to preserve the deliberate, tactical pace of Classic. Blizzard says classes should remain distinct, with their own strengths and weaknesses, rather than being homogenized. The panel described a combat environment where individual pulls matter, crowd control remains useful, Threat still needs attention, and careless area damage can create risk.
Talent-tree and class-buff direction
The announced cross-class updates retain familiar class identities while revising parts of talent trees and making selected class buffs baseline. Level 16 is a talent milestone, and Blizzard’s stated goal is for all 27 talent trees to be viable group options. That is a design target, not a guarantee that every tree will perform identically or be equally suited to every activity.
Specific Paladin updates
The Deep Dive gives the clearest named ability changes for Paladins: Holy Strike, Seal of Fury as a tanking direction, Judgment no longer consuming Seals, updated Consecration target behavior, and talent changes across Holy, Protection, and Retribution. Retribution examples include Vindication, Sacred Arbiter, Champion of the Light, Instrument of the Law, and Twist of Light; the recap also discusses Holy Shock as an alternate ranged, spell-powered path. Consult the Paladin guide for the detail and remaining trade-offs.
Individual class guides
The recap does not provide final talent trees, complete ability tooltips, damage rankings, or tested rotations for every class. Those should be added only when Blizzard releases reliable detail or players can verify them in game. For the complete class overview, visit the Classes hub; for race combinations, use the race and class compatibility guide.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft: Forever Deep Dive panel recap.
