WoW ClassicApr 30, 2021 10:00 am CT

Leatherworking drums will get a Tinnitus debuff in Burning Crusade Classic, continuing the trend of Some Changes

By Matthew Rossi

Before we talk about the intent behind the change to Leatherworking drums in Burning Crusade Classic, I have to say up front that I think it’s a good idea. As Kaivax points out in the post, it’s a change they made after the Sunwell dropped anyway — it’s clearly an issue that they addressed as soon as they could when this was current content, so it makes sense that they’d want to get out ahead of it this time around. Raid composition was so important in BC, especially while trying to navigate the 10/25 player raid size transition. Going from Karazhan to Gruul and Magtheridon — much less Tempest Keep and Serpentshrine once they came out — was a fair task on its own, and trying to make sure you had some form of crucial buffs for every party became a somewhat onerous task. Making sure you don’t have to try and stack the raid with Leatherworkers to boot is probably just a good idea overall.

Originally Posted by Kaivax (Official Post)

Over the first few weeks of testing in the Burning Crusade Beta, we’ve found it useful to elaborate on and bolster the “some changes” philosophy that we expressed at BlizzConline (and in posts like this one 78). As we’ve said, we’re open to making further alterations to Burning Crusade Classic, and we’re guided by the goal of authenticity in how the game plays, especially given how players in 2021 approach a game that was designed in 2007.

We’ve decided make the following updates to Burning Crusade Classic:

“Lesser” versions of Leatherworking drums will be available from the beginning of the expansion, and will approximate how drums operated in the first few patches of original Burning Crusade.
“Greater” versions of the drums will become available with the phase that includes the Zul’Aman raid.
Throughout Burning Crusade Classic, using Leatherworking drums will invoke the Tinnitus debuff, preventing reuse for two minutes.

I realize that the Tinnitus debuff wasn’t in the game when The Burning Crusade launched, but I think the overall approach to how the drums are going to work is based on trying to keep modern players from stacking the system in a way that became a problem during the original expansion. It wasn’t as big a problem as it would be on BCC servers, if the pattern we saw on live WoW Classic servers continues to hold, with players applying almost two decades of experience to that older content and utterly annihilating bosses that used to be somewhat hard. Keeping Leatherworking from becoming a “must stack” profession seems like a pretty solid design goal from my perspective, and I’m glad they’re getting out ahead of the potential problem this time around.

I understand if you were planning on doing exactly that, this might be a disappointment, but in terms of their stated “some changes” doctrine for BCC, I think it’s both in keeping and a solid idea. The Tinnitus debuff should be in place on the BCC beta in time for Karazhan raid testing to start up, according to Kaivax.

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