Class Tuning Incoming – 15 November

Community General Discussion
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As a result of recent testing and analysis of class performance now that the Guardians of the Dream patch is live, we’re going to make a few adjustments to over- and under-performing specs just before the beginning of Dragonflight Season 3 on Wednesday. Please note that changes to tier sets are listed below for reference, and their differentials are in comparison to the last public build of the PTR.

Again, we’d like to thank everyone who tested classes on the Guardians of the Dream PTR. Your feedback was very helpful!

Classes

Death Knight

  • Unholy
    • Death Coil damage increased by 10%.
    • Scourge Strike/Clawing Shadows damage increased by 10%.
    • Ghoul damage increased by 8%.
    • Virulent Plague damage increased by 20%.
    • Apocalypse ghoul damage increased by 5%.

Demon Hunter

  • Vengeance
    • Amirdrassil Tier Set: Bonus Sigil of Flame damage granted reduced by 20%.
    • Illuminated Sigils now increases Parry chance against affected targets by 15% (was 20%)

Druid

  • Guardian
    • Mangle now grants 12 Rage (was 10).
    • Cat Form energy regeneration increased by 50% (was 35%).
  • Balance
    • Cat Form energy regeneration increased by 50% (was 35%).
  • Restoration
    • Rip damage increased by 140%. Does not apply in PvP Combat.
    • Rake damage increased by 60%.
    • Shred damage increased by 140%.
    • Ferocious Bite damage increased by 200%. Does not apply in PvP Combat.
    • Cat Form energy regeneration increased by 50% (was 35%).

Evoker

  • Augmentation
  • Developers’ notes: The amount of utility that Augmentation Evoker brings on top of its high damage has proven to be too powerful despite recent changes. Therefore we are further reducing their damage contributions to the group in order to balance them against other specializations.
    • Ebon Might grants 6.5% of the Evoker’s primary stat (was 8%).
    • Close as Clutchmates increases the effectiveness of Ebon Might and Breath of Eons by 10% (was 20%).
    • The amount of Versatility granted by Shifting Sands has been reduced by 15%.

Mage

  • Frost
    • Amirdrassil Tier Set – 2-piece: Increases Glacial Spike damage by 16% (was 10%).
    • Amirdrassil Tier Set – 2-piece: The damage from the explosion now deals 15% of the damage dealt by Glacial Spike (was 20%).

Monk

  • Brewmaster
    • Amirdrassil Tier Set 2-piece: Breath of Fire’s bonus damage increased to 40% (was 20%).
    • Amirdrassil Tier Set 4-piece: Bonus damage to targets afflicted by Breath of Fire increased to 15% (was 10%).
  • Windwalker
    • Amirdrassil Tier Set: Blackout Reinforcement granted by melee abilities now occurs 66% more often and increases Blackout Kick damage by 200% (was 150%).

Paladin

  • Retribution
    • All ability damage increased by 3%.

Priest

  • Discipline
  • Developers’ notes: Discipline healing throughput (particularly in raids) is slightly higher than we would like, given their damage and utility contributions to the group. To balance them, we’re reducing some talents that are giving a lot of power for only 1 talent point. The goal is to improve talent balance while also bringing them in line with other healers.
    • Divine Aegis absorption reduced to 5% of healing done (was 10%).
    • Inescapable Torment damage reduced by approximately 19%.

Rogue

  • Assassination
  • Amirdrassil Tier Set: 4-piece set bonus tooltip should now accurately reflect its actual output.
  • Amirdrassil Tier Set: 4-piece set single target damage increased by 4%.

Warlock

  • Destruction
    • Amirdrassil Tier Set: Flame Rift damage increased 50%.
    • Unstable Tear damage increased 5%.
    • Shadowy Tear damage increased 5%.
    • Chaos Tear damage increased 30%.
  • Demonology
    • Amirdrassil Tier Set: Doom Brand single-target damage increased 50%.
    • Amirdrassil Tier Set: Doomfiend single-target damage increased 40%.
    • Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible 2-piece Set Bonus now reduces the cooldown of Grimoire: Felguard by 0.5 second (was 1 second).
  • Developers’ notes: We’re reducing the power of Demonology’s previous set bonus to bring it in line with other set bonuses from Aberrus. Additionally, we’re increasing the throughput of both Destruction and Demonology’s set bonuses from Amirdrassil while also increasing the power of Dimensional Rift baseline.
7 Likes
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what you doing up this late o.o

1 Like
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Where is shadow changes? This is unbelievable how shadow looks like this now! I expected some changes before reset.

3 Likes
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Please hire some competent people, your balancing team of interns is totally incompetent.

6 Likes
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I’m looking forward to reading the tears :smiley:

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No hunters :partying_face::partying_face::partying_face: happy days

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where the sub rogue nerfs?

1 Like
8

Warriors buff when?

3 Likes
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Any plans for warrior something ?

1 Like
10

Screw priests, you had your patch. Time to wait for invites like the rest of us hehe

2 Likes
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Monks have been incredibly helpful, too bad you completely ignore us.

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Druid

  • Guardian
    • Mangle now grants 12 Rage (was 10).
    • Cat Form energy regeneration increased by 50% (was 35%).

I think bigger improvements will be needed in order to enjoy guardian. Either something needs to be done with the set bonuses or with the rage generation of the guardian base. Just to make it at least viable.

I like the guardian class fantasy part. Because of this, I don’t want to switch to another one. However, I want to enjoy the game itself and push the keys with my friends. A little love for the bear would go a long way. The rework did him a lot of good. With the season 2 set item, he became too strong and got nerfs because of that. But with these nerfs and the new set, it unfortunately seems unviable for bigger keys or raids.

Thank you for taking care of us.

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I am still amazed that you have not figured out the problem with Aug… And it absolutely has nothing to do with utility or the % value of Ebon Might and Shifting Sands.

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In mythic + content:

Im sick of repeating that Aug is a MUST pick in dungeons because:

  • NEWS FLASH: Ebon Might / shifting sands buffs the HEALER and the TANK.

If the Aug is of a decent quality, I have those buffs anywhere from 70% to 90% of the time. So we can consider that a perma buff. In numbers: Me (the healer) has +6.5% intelect and +3% vers almost 100% uptime. That is anywhere between 10-20% extra healing.

So in a world where the limiting factor for dungeons (S1, S2, and apparently S3 as well) is survivability, the value of Aug is just WAY too much.

Its like going with 3 dps worth of damage, 1.2% worth of healing and 1.2% worth of “tankiness”. So, in total: instead of a 5 man dungeon, its a 5.4 man dungeon.

And this is AFTER 10000 nerfs to Aug. At launch, Ebon Might was 30% intelect. So it was the equivalent of going with 4 dps, 2 healers and 2 tanks to a 5 man dungeon.

You INSIST on balancing Aug as if it was a DPS. But its not. All that “utility” you talk about boils down to the fact that Aug buffs healers and tanks.

So you have a CHOICE here:

A) You insist on making Aug a DPS. Then balance it as such and REMOVE the possibility to buff healers/tanks. Because right now, Aug is 100% DPS + 20% of a healer +20% of a tank.

B) You leave things as they are and embrace the “support role” and you design/balance dungeons with 1-1-1-3 setup in mind. Not now, but in 11.0 by giving the new “stone dwarfs” a support role like Aug and work your way up from there.

Problem is: Right now, whatever option you take (A or B) the spec is either OP or dead. No in between. So atleast be honest about your mistake it and kill the spec, or admit that it will be OP untill 11.0 by design.

Either way: No other spec does what Aug does. And historically (S1 with SP, Enha, Balance as the most recent example) any class that could participate in healing significantly was swiftly nerfed. So what is taking you so long to do the same with Aug?

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In raid content:

  • Some specs are affected a lot more by CD stacking with the Aug than others. Which means that Aug is a must pick for RTWF pro teams (regardless of the nerfs). But is a net DPS loss for uncoordinated groups (99% of your playerbase).

As long as there is a 4 people cap on Ebon Might, Aug will always be a problem. Tune the % gain of primary stat such that it buffs ALL raid members (except healers and tanks).

To prove my point: You have BL and PI. BL is not an issue. It buffs the whole raid. PI there are a TON of balancing issues because it only buffs 1 person. And its the SAME %haste buff as BL.

And then hard cap the buff to ONLY 1. The benefit of stacking Aug in a raid is in extending the uptime of that 1 buff. PERIOD.

So do the logical thing here.

2 Likes
14

FROST DK changes when ?
you keep buffing and changing unholy which is good…

but FROST IS TERRIBLE … seriously when was the last time you saw a frost dk

REWORK FROST DK

1 Like
15

Hunter is obviously perfect

1 Like
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The tears, so tasty & good! MmmHmmmm

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That moment of panic when you see Paladin but it turns out to be a buff

3 Likes
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Mass Dispel becoming a 2 minute CD is a joke… at least raise or remove the 5 target limit.

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any changes for shadow priest, I am literally gonna abandon ship if we are still stuck with the MD 2 minutes.

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From a healer perspective: Mass Dispel was just too OP because it allowed you to cheese a ton of mechanics. Both bosses and trash. So giving it a 2 min CD is warrented.

However, I see the bigger picture. There is a problem with dispell types in general.

All debuffs have a “type”. And that is a problem because some classes can dispell them and others cannot.

The real change that is needed is twofold:

  • Blizz needs to add another category: “Undispellable”. These are mechanics where the dot is supposed to do damage as part of the encounter. So nobody can dispell it. For example Bursting.

  • Blizz needs to add another category: “dispellable by any healer”. From a healer perspective, its UNFAIR that I can dispell certain things and cant others. If dungeon design is done (like BH for example) where the debuffs are majority 1 type then thats unfair. The ONLY limiting factor to type should be the DPS. Not the healers.

  • MD specifically dispells Magic. Which is the “default” dispell type of healers. So DPS paladin cant dispell “Magic”. But a Holy Pala can. So, SP should only be able to MD diseases, while a Disc/Holy should be able to MD magic and disease (or, instead of Magic the “dispellable by any healer” debuff).

And if you do all that, then maybe Mass Dispell can go back to having its 20s CD. But untill those changes are done then MD must have a 2 min CD. Otherwise it would be unfair for everyone else.