The War Within > WoWMar 15, 2024 5:00 pm CT

Every Hero Specialization coming to WoW in The War Within

By Allison Robert

World of Warcraft‘s next expansion The War Within introduces the Hero Talents system, which permits players to specialize further within their chosen role by picking a Hero Specialization. With the beta test now live, we’ve seen all of these specializations in action (though nothing in the expansion is finalized yet).

Here’s what we know about Hero Specializations so far.

How do Hero Talents work?

Instead of gaining ordinary talents from level 71-80, you’ll gain one Hero Talent per level. These will provide additional specialization options within your role, and each spec will have access to two possible specializations. For example, if you play a Havoc Demon Hunter, you’ll be able to choose between the Aldrachi Reaver or Fel-Scarred specializations. If you play an Arms Warrior, you can choose between the Colossus and Slayer specializations.

The Hero Talent system will immediately provide classes with a Keystone ability which may be an active ability or a passive that modifies existing spells. After that, players will advance through the tree collecting passives that provide buffs to their Keystone ability or other class skills. The last Hero Talent is a Capstone talent, providing a new active ability or a significant buff.

You can think of these talents as an extension of the existing talent trees, allowing you to lean into one type of gameplay or another, building on your strengths or shoring up weaknesses. For example, if you play a Guardian Druid, you already have the option of going down the left side of your spec tree for more physical damage and shielding, the right side for more arcane damage and self-healing, or a hybrid build. With Hero Talents, an arcane-oriented bear can strengthen their already-formidable arcane damage with Elune’s Chosen, whereas a more physically-oriented bear will want Druid of the Claw. As always, the kind of content you’re doing will be its own variable, and you can swap Hero Talents around for questing, raids, and Mythic+ the same way you swap regular talents.

The preview of the Mountain Thane Warrior suggests that some Hero Talents will grant different cosmetic effects to your spells and abilities too. There’s a lot of opportunity for Blizzard to do some cool things here, and plenty of room for Blizzard to add extra flavor.

Will Hero Talents provide new abilities?

Some classes are getting new active abilities, but most Hero Talents appear to be passive. Ion Hazzikostas said that Blizzard is concerned about button bloat on a lot of specs, and they don’t want Hero Talents to make that worse.

Will Hero Talents change my rotation?

We expect new active abilities Hero Talents introduce will be rotational, and you’ll want to play around them for best effect — but not all specializations have new active abilities. You probably won’t completely upend your rotation to make use of these skills, and some specs primarily have passives that improve different aspects of the class. Some specs will be weaving in new abilities, others will mostly have passive buffs that will cause some skills to gain or lose priority.

Which Hero Talents will be available to my spec?

We’ve linked to all of the Blizzard previews for these new talents, but not all classes had previews — for those without, we’ve linked Wowhead. Check the Wowhead talent calculator, which now includes The War Within talents, to see all of the talents and play with new builds.

Death Knight

Rider of the Apocalypse: Unholy, Frost — see Rider of the Apocalypse preview

San’layn: Blood, Unholy — see San’layn preview
Deathbringer: Blood, Frost — see Deathbringer preview

Demon Hunter

As there are only two Demon Hunter specs to begin with, this one isn’t tough.

Aldrachi Reaver: Havoc, Vengeance — see Aldrachi Reaver preview
Fel-Scarred: Havoc, Vengeance — see Fel-Scarred preview

Druid

Some fans have complained that the names seem a little too Night Elf-centric.

Keeper of the Grove: Balance, Restoration — see Keeper of the Grove preview
Elune’s Chosen: Balance, Guardian — see Elune’s Chosen preview
Wildstalker: Feral, Restoration — see Wildstalker preview

Druid of the Claw: Feral, Guardian — see Druid of the Claw preview

Evoker

Chronowarden: Augmentation, Preservation — see Chronowarden preview
Flameshaper: Devastation, Preservation — see Flameshaper preview

Scalecommander: Augmentation, Devastation — see Scalecommander preview

Hunter

Sentinel: Survival, Marksmanship — see Sentinel preview
Pack Leader: Beast Mastery, Survival — see Pack Leader preview

Dark Ranger: Beast Mastery, Marksmanship — see Dark Ranger preview

Mage

Sunfury: Arcane, Fire — see Sunfury preview
Frostfire: Fire, Frost — see Frostfire preview

Spellslinger: Arcane, Frost — see Spellsinger preview

Monk

As with Druids, players are disappointed that these seem a little too racially centric to Pandaren. I’m curious to see whether Blizzard uses Hero Talents to distinguish between a ranged and melee Mistweaver.

Master of Harmony: Brewmaster, Mistweaver — see Master of Harmony preview

Shado-Pan: Brewmaster, Windwalker — see Shadow-Pan preview
Conduit of the Celestials: Mistweaver, Windwalker — see Conduit of the Celestials preview

Paladin

Lightsmith: Holy, Protection — see Lightsmith preview

Herald of the Sun: Holy, Retribution — see Herald of the Sun preview
Templar: Retribution, Protection — see Templar preview

Priest

Players are hoping that Voidweaver will allow for a fully dark-themed healer.

Voidweaver: Discipline, Shadow — see Voidweaver preview
Oracle: Discipline, Holy — see Oracle preview
Archon: Holy, Shadow — see Archon preview

Rogue

Deathstalker: Assassination, Subtlety — see Deathstalker preview
Trickster: Subtlety, Outlaw — see Trickster preview
Fatebound: Assassination, Outlaw — see Fatebound preview

Shaman

A lot of players were hoping that Witch Doctor or Shadow Hunter would be options here. (Admittedly, Shadow Hunter could conceivably have been one of several different classes.)