Class Tuning Incoming – 30 October

Community General Discussion
1

We regularly make combat design adjustments based on gameplay data and feedback from players on class performance. With scheduled weekly maintenance in each region (October 30 in this region), we’ll make the following changes to classes that are over- and under-performing in various areas:

Classes

  • Death Knight
    • Blood
      • Blood Boil damage increased by 15%.
      • Heart Strike damage increased by 20%.
      • Blood Plague damage increased by 10%.
      • Death Strike damage increased by 20%.
      • San’layn
        • Developers’ notes: We are looking to increase the effectiveness of the Gift of San’layn window due to the reduced uptime after the patch 11.0.5 changes.
        • Vampiric Strike proc chance increased to 35% (was 25%).
        • Essence of the Blood Queen duration increased to 25 seconds (was 20 seconds).
        • Gift of the San’layn increases the effectiveness of Essence of the Blood Queen by 200% (was 150%).
  • Druid
    • Balance
      • Developers’ notes: The goals of these changes are to increase single target damage and to even out the power of talents in Balance’s spec tree to provide as much build flexibility to players as possible. We want Power of Goldrinn to be an effective single target pick, and we’d like talents like Touch the Cosmos and Hail of Stars to be more competitive with other options.
      • Celestial Alignment and Incarnation: Chosen of Elune once again reset at the end of raid encounters.
      • Starfall damage increased by 6%.
      • Starsurge damage increased by 8%. Does not apply to PvP combat.
      • Starfire damage increased by 5%.
      • Wrath damage increased by 10%.
      • Shooting Stars and Crashing Stars damage increased by 20%.
      • Sunseeker Mushrooms grow 12% less often.
      • Touch the Cosmos chance to proc increased to 15% for Wrath and 22% for Starfire.
      • Power of Goldrinn’s damage increased by 25%. Does not apply to PvP combat.
      • Rattle the Stars increases Starfall and Starsurge damage by 8% (down from 10%).
      • New Moon and Half Moon damage reduced by 5%.
    • Restoration
      • Call of the Elder Druid’s duration increased to 15 seconds (was 10 seconds).
      • Dream of Cenarius now causes Wrath and Shred to transfer 100% (was 50%) of their damage done into healing and Starfire and Swipe to transfer 50% of their damage done into healing (was 33%).
      • Developers’ notes: We’re looking to increase the playability of Dream of Cenarius, as the window for Heart of the Wild is a bit too short to be meaningful and the upside of this talent has not yet been worth it.
  • Hunter
    • Beast Mastery
      • Developers’ notes: There were some niche situations where players might want to gain Trick Shots or Beast Cleave for more damage from Bleak Powder in single target. Bleak Powder is meant to complement AOE situations, not incentivize the usage of AOE in single target situations.
      • Dark Ranger: Bleak Powder no longer damages its primary target.
      • Pack Leader: Frenzied Tear proc chance reduced to 10% (was 20%).
      • Pack Leader: Vicious Hunt damage reduced by 10%.
      • Developers’ notes: Beast Mastery is overperforming in single target, and we’d like to reduce its single target while improving its lackluster AOE.
      • Barbed Shot damage reduced by 25%.
      • Stomp damage increased by 50%.
      • Multi-Shot damage increased by 100%.
      • Explosive Venom now procs at 3 stacks (was 5) and will appropriately apply Serpent Sting to enemies regardless of their distance to the caster.
    • Marksmanship
      • Developers’ notes: Dark Ranger is overperforming in single target and we’re looking to reduce it while compensating with some AOE buffs to keep the AOE performance roughly the same.
      • Dark Ranger: Black Arrow damage reduced by 10%.
      • Dark Ranger: Bleak Powder damage increased by 25%.
      • Dark Ranger: Shadow Surge damage increased by 25%.
      • Developers’ notes: Symphonic Arsenal lost more bite than intended from the removal of Eagletalon’s True Focus.
      • Sentinel: Symphonic Arsenal damage increased by 15%.
  • Monk
    • Mistweaver
      • All healing increased by 6%.
      • Awakened Jadefire now causes Spinning Crane Kick to transfer 110% of damage done (was 90%).
      • Jadefire Teachings now increases Ancient Teachings by an additional 160% (was 140%).
      • Rushing Wind Kick’s damage increased by 150% and Rushing Winds now increases Renewing Mist healing by 100% for its duration (was 50%).
      • Yu’lon’s Whisper healing increased by 400%.
      • Jade Bond now increases Mastery: Gust of Mist’s healing by 20% (was 60%).
      • Developers’ notes: We’re excited that the Chi-Ji Mastery build exists and is powerful in the right conditions, but numerically, its output has been above where we’re comfortable. We’re decreasing the effectiveness of this build without breaking the cooldown reduction gameplay to keep the feel the same and compensating baseline to shrink the difference between this high-end output and regular play.
  • Paladin
    • Developers’ notes: Holy Paladins’ mana has been plentiful enough to use Beacon of Virtue more often than we would like throughout a raid encounter. We would like the use of Beacon of Virtue to influence mana decisions more heavily.
    • Beacon of Virtue now costs 5% base mana (was 4%).
    • Holy Shock now costs 2.8% base mana (was 2.6%).
  • Priest
    • Discipline
      • Developers’ notes: We’re increasing Discipline’s direct healing throughput to help in situations where no enemy target is present to trigger Atonement. We would also like to nudge Discipline’s performance up in raid, particularly for Oracle.
      • Power Word: Radiance healing increased by 20%.
      • Flash Heal healing increased by 15%.
      • Premonition of Piety increases healing done by 20% (was 15%).
      • Preemptive Care increases Atonement duration by 4 seconds (was 3 seconds).
    • Shadow
      • Psychic Link now causes direct damage to inflict 30% of damage dealt to targets afflicted by Vampiric Touch (was 25%).
  • Rogue
    • Assassination
      • Master Assassin - Critical Strike Chance granted during effect reduced to 20% (was 25%).
  • Shaman
    • Elemental
      • Developers’ notes: With all of the changes to Elemental and Enhancement Shaman in patch 11.0.5, some changes were performing beyond our tuning goals. We’re adjusting several talents and abilities to reduce their overall power.
      • Farseer: Ancestor Chain Lightning damage increased by 40%. Not applied to PvP combat.
      • Farseer: Ancestor Lava Burst damage increased by 15%. Not applied to PvP combat.
      • Farseer: Ancestor Elemental Blast damage increased by 15%. Not applied to PvP combat.
      • Stormbringer: Arc Discharge now grants 1 instant cast Chain Lightning or Lightning Bolt (was 2).
      • Stormbringer: Voltaic Surge now increases Earthquake and Chain Lightning damage by 5% (was 15%).
      • Echo Chamber now increases the damage of Elemental Overloads by 20% (was 40%).
      • Ascendance now increases the damage of Elemental Overloads by 100% while active (was 150%).
      • Preeminence now increases haste by 20% while Ascendance is active (was 25%).
      • Icefury now increases Frost Shock damage by 200% (was 150%).
    • Enhancement
      • Developers’ notes: With all of the changes to Elemental and Enhancement Shaman in patch 11.0.5, some changes were performing beyond our tuning goals. We’re adjusting several talents and abilities to reduce their overall power.
      • Lightning Bolt damage reduced by 10%. Not applied to PvP combat.
      • Chain Lightning damage reduced by 10%. Not applied to PvP combat.
      • Stormbringer: Tempest damage reduced by 15%. Not applied to PvP combat.
    • Restoration
      • Farseer: Ancestor Chain Lightning damage increased by 40%. Not applied to PvP combat.
      • Farseer: Ancestor Lava Burst damage increased by 15%. Not applied to PvP combat.
  • Warlock
    • Developers’ notes: We are increasing the throughput of all Warlock specializations to make each more competitive with other classes in both single-target and multi-target situations. In particular, for Demonology this means reverting the reduction in Demonic Core generation to help with their overall mobility. We will continue to monitor the performance of each specialization and make further adjustments where needed.
    • Affliction
      • Hellcaller: Wither damage increased by 25%. This change does not affect PvP combat.
      • Agony damage increased by 15%. This change does not affect PvP combat.
        Corruption damage increased by 25%. This change does not affect PvP combat.
        Unstable Affliction damage increased by 20%. This change does not affect PvP combat.
    • Demonology
      • Dreadstalkers now have a 100% chance to generate a Demonic Core (was 50%).
      • Grimoire: Felguard damage is now increased by 125% (was 60%).
      • Hand of Gul’dan damage increased by 25%.
      • Call Dreadstalkers damage increased by 20%.
    • Destruction
      • Hellcaller: Wither damage increased by 25%. This change does not affect PvP combat.
      • Chaos Bolt damage increased by 10%.
      • Immolate damage increased by 25%.
      • Incinerate damage increased by 20%.
      • Conflagrate damage increased by 25%. This change does not affect PvP combat.
      • Rain of Fire damage increased by 20%.
  • Warrior
    • Arms
      • Execute damage increased by 10%.
      • Colossus: Demolish single-target damage increased by 15%.
      • Slayer: Reap the Storm damage increased by 25%. This change does not affect PvP combat.
      • Slayer: Slayer’s Strike damage increased by 15%.
      • Mortal Strike damage increased by 15%.
      • Overpower damage increased by 15%.
      • Dreadnaught damage increased by 15%.
      • Cleave damage increased by 20%.
    • Fury
      • Execute damage increased by 7%.
      • Slayer: Reap the Storm damage increased by 25%. This change does not affect PvP combat.
      • Slayer: Slayer’s Strike damage increased by 15%.
      • Mountain Thane: Lightning Strike damage increased by 30%.
      • Bloodthirst damage increased by 20%.
      • Bloodbath damage increased by 20%.
      • Rampage damage increased by 10%.
    • Protection
      • Execute damage increased by 10%.
      • Colossus: Demolish single-target damage increased by 15%.

Player versus Player

  • Druid

    • Balance
      • Fixed an issue where Frenzied Regeneration was being reduced more than intended. It should now correctly heal for 5% health every second (was 3% health every second).
      • Rejuvenation and Wild Growth healing increased by 20%.
    • Feral
      • Berserk and Incarnation: Avatar of Ashamane now increase damage by 10% in PvP combat (was 15%).
      • King of the Jungle increases healing received and movement speed by 3% per stack (was 5%). Stacks up to 3 times (was 4 times).

  • Hunter

    • Beast Mastery
      • Dark Ranger: Bleak Powder’s damage reduced by 30% in PvP combat.
      • Dark Ranger: Withering Fire’s additional Black Arrows are now cast at 25% effectiveness (was 50%).
    • Marksmanship
      • Dark Ranger: Bleak Powder’s damage reduced by 30% in PvP combat.
      • Dark Ranger: Withering Fire’s additional Black Arrows are now cast at 25% effectiveness (was 50%).

  • Monk

    • Mistweaver
      • Rushing Wind Kick’s damage increase does not apply to PvP combat.
      • Jade Empowerment now causes Crackling Jade Lightning to chain to 2 additional enemies (was 4) in PvP combat.

  • Paladin

    • Lightsmith: Divine Guidance now deals 60% less damage in PvP combat.
    • Holy
      • Herald of the Sun: Blessing of An’she now increases the healing of Holy Shock by 150% (was 200%).
      • Herald of the Sun: Eternal Flame healing decreased by 10% in PvP combat.
      • Lightsmith: Blessed Assurance now increases Crusader Strike’s damage by 40% in PvP combat (was 120%).
      • Word of Glory healing decreased by 10% in PvP combat.
      • Mana regeneration decreased by 25% in PvP combat (was 20%).
      • Blessing of Summer now transfers 12% of healing into damage in PvP combat (was 18%).
      • Hammer of Wrath damage increased 30%. Judgment damage increased 30%.
      • Crusader Strike damage increased 30%.
      • Avenging Crusader now transfers 200% of damage into healing (was 260%) in PvP combat.

  • Priest

    • Discipline
      • We would like to make some adjustments to Discipline’s hero talents to make Voidweaver slightly more rewarding since it requires a lot of cast time spells to dish out healing. Oracle’s single target healing is also being slightly reduced.
      • Voidheart increases Atonement healing by 30% (was 20%) in PvP combat.
      • Premonition of Solace reduces damage taken by 10% in PvP combat (was 15%).
      • Premonition of Solace absorption decreased by 15% in PvP combat.
    • Holy
      • Renew healing increased by 20% in PvP combat.
      • Prayer of Mending healing increased by 10% in PvP combat.
    • Shadow
      • Developers’ notes: The following changes result in Void Leech healing for a significantly reduced amount in PvP, but for a similar amount as before outside of PvP.
      • Void Leech heals every 3 seconds (was 2 seconds). Healing increased to 4% of max health (was 3%).
      • Void Leech healing reduced to 2% of max health in PvP combat.
      • Collapsing Void damage reduced by 10% in PvP combat.

  • Rogue

    • Subtlety
      • Flagellation’s mastery bonus decreased by 50% in PvP combat.

  • Shaman

    • Elemental
      • Ascendance now increases the damage of Elemental Overloads by 25% while active in PvP combat (was 75%).
      • Lightning Bolt damage increased by 10% in PvP combat.
    • Enhancement
      • Totemic: Whirling Earth now increases Flame Shock direct damage by 150% in PvP combat (was 300%).
    • Restoration
      • Healing Wave healing increased by 15% in PvP combat.
      • Healing Surge healing increased by 15% in PvP combat.

  • Warrior

    • Arms
      • Slayer: Culling Cyclone now increases Bladestorm’s damage done by 20% (was 10%) per stack in PvP combat.
      • Slam damage increased by 40% in PvP combat.
      • Colossus Smash damage increased by 60% in PvP combat.
    • Fury
      • Slayer: Culling Cyclone now increases Bladestorm’s damage done by 20% (was 10%) per stack in PvP combat.
6 Likes
2

Hello to Blizzard,

so what about arcane mage? That build got completly destroyed by you and no tunning for it? So sadge actually…such a fun build to play and now its licking bottom of DPS meter everywhere…

Hope you will reconsider this and do some tunning so its playable again…

6 Likes
3

So just gonna leave holy priest in the state they are at in m+?

What a joke. Guess I just get the tier 2 remastered sets and then I pack it up for the rest of the expansion since you’re not even attempting to fix holy.

11 Likes
4

Don’t kill the BM Hunter ! Why you are buff a skill that nobody uses all the time ? do you play your own class ? Multishot we only use for the proc. for multi-target.

that’s just going crazy

12 Likes
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Hey, I’ve been playing arcane mage for years. At the beginning of this expansion the arcane mage was extremely fun in terms of game style and he was balanced but now the arcane mage is completely useless and is at the bottom.

Sunfury was nerfed to the core just to be able to play spellsinger, even though this hero tree is simply too weak and sunfury is no longer an option.

At the beginning of this expansion the classes were more balanced than they are after these 100 class changes.

THIS IS THE ULTIMATE DOGSHI*T!

2 Likes
6

Don’t get excited about the Warrior buffs, these are just for next week and then the following reset we will get more nerfs, we haven’t been nerfed in like 2 days so it’s about time.

6 Likes
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buff unholy plz

2 Likes
8

Ples can you buff Pyre damage for devastation by 50-100% to make them vaguely competitve in keys?
Thank you kindly. This would tie us over nicely for now but in all honesty, the entire tree needs to be redesigned.

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" * Developers’ notes: Dark Ranger is overperforming in single target and we’re looking to reduce it while compensating with some AOE buffs to keep the AOE performance roughly the same.

  • Dark Ranger: Black Arrow damage reduced by 10%."

You guys know that you already bug fixed what was causing Dark Ranger to overperform right?
You know it’s already been nerfed ~40% from the numbers you’re basing this nerf on?
And that Dark Ranger single-target is already 15-20% worse than Sentinel currently?

Why even bother redesigning Dark Ranger if you then release it as a buggy mess, and then don’t actually look at the numbers AFTER you’ve fixed some of the bugs with it.

18 Likes
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Thank you!

11

Im gonna assume your mage guy is still crying at the ending on Netflix

The arcane rework worked out so fine, ppl gonna play frost cuz im sorry to say this but it’s a spec with no niche and now it does less ST damage than a boomkin. like huh

you buffed warrior and moonkin which was above both fire and arcane, buffed demo which was around/below fire and arcane. i really dont get where you think these specs are sufficient

2 Likes
12

You forgot to nerf Fury^^

4 Likes
13

On the topic of Elemental shaman.

I get it Blizzard. We weren’t using Ascendance and it felt silly on how all our power was loaded into flash of lightning. I respect the idea of a rework to make an iconic spell more useful but the entire elemental shaman playerbase just had to pivot from haste/crit to mastery, spent dozens of hours and tons of gold to facilitate the new spec and obviously we anticipated the nerfs because it was overtuned.

But when you go in this heavy handed and there is even a hint of secondary priorities changing again people aren’t going to keep engaging with the game. They’ll just quit. You can’t tinker with a live version of the game like this and then REQUIRE massive 20-40% sweeping changes on a week by week basis. We’re trying to do various forms of content that require consistency. I can’t be expected to play a new spec every week. The game didn’t end for me after the race to world first ended, I need more time with more consistency to clear the content.

Please reconsider how hasty you are to make these kneejerk changes that will end up demoralizing people from even playing the class anymore because you’re not making changes thinking about how people will FEEL about them.

Also I do not know what the internal sentiment is around Icefury but for whatever reason there are designers within Blizzard that think that hardcasting frost shocks adds fun to the rotation and it simply does not. I have never enjoyed casting empowered frost shocks and community sentiment just considers the whole talent a meme at this stage. Either delete Icefury entirely or make it something fun that flows well into the rotation. Currently it just feels like it is implemented by someone who either doesn’t play elemental or is flat out not competent at designing classes.

These changes are simply too impactful. We can’t revert vault choices, we can’t revert item changes through the catalizer. Just revert some of these ideas and tune them around what people are actually doing right now instead of thinking we can just adjust on the fly.

19 Likes
14

Gonna park my 622ele next to 628fire mage and roll something new for the next week :joy:
Hopefully my next choice will last at least 2 weeks​:rofl::rofl:
Such a meme company

3 Likes
15

This is the fun part. Things like “Multishot damage increased by 100%” should not happen after the expac is launched. That means balance is severely out of whack. And that basically that ability was absolutely useless or (as is the case of Multishot) used only to facilitate another ability, which is bad design - just combine the two if that is the case.

If anything, balancing after launch should be in the ± 10% range to bring classes closer together in performance.

Now imagine how warriors felt after several consistent -20% nerfs week after week… This is how you destroy classes and make people quit or reroll, IN THE MIDDLE OF AN EXPANSION. It’s so silly it’s not even funny.

9 Likes
16

you destroyed Subtlety rogue and make re3 to do damage like they are +20ilvl. You are a joke.

3 Likes
17

Where is buff for Unholy San’layn (for both ST and AoE) and fix for Horesemen?
Why do they keep attacking targets other than my primary target?
Why do they still attack e.g. the last boss in Siege of Boralus instead of the tentacle which is my main target?
Within a few days you have released hotfixes to improve class performance, but since the beginning of the expansion you have not improved the behavior of DK “pets”. Their behavior causes a lot of wasted damage

WTF BLIZZ

1 Like
18

I’ve hated this week as ELE shaman. I liked the build I had and was having fun. Then the patch hit and they tottaly changed the way my Shaman played.

My Shaman got more powerful and it defo needs nerfed. however I don’t care about that. I picked my Shaman because of the playstyle not based on numbers. Changing the playstyle of a class after an expansion has started isn’t right imo, Especially mid season!

There is vault items I’ve passed on that I now want. I’ve spent crazy amount of gold this week fixing my character and I still don’t like it. I want my old talent tree back. I picked it for a reason? This is honestly the worst balance I’ve ever seen and I’ve played the game for nearly 2 decades. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong.

I’m just waiting on wednesday to find out that I once again need to change my playstyle and stats in the middle of a season.

16 Likes
19

Hey blizz

Could you maybe take a look at frost rider hero talents? think it needs alittle tuning as not all like the breath play stile. Would be cool if we had a hero talent with Frost strike doing something else.

In the Arms hero tree colossus under Martial expert where it gives 10% crit dmg and 20% critical block chance? I dont know if its for pvp or not but to me it dosent make sense for arms. Would be nice if you could change it to something else that would benefit arms more.

20

No hotfixes for prot paladin feels abselutly awful to play right now getting 1 shot almost and word of glory healing for almost nothing, or you run out of mana i was hoping to see more tuning, this is disappointing actually considering giving up and taking a break until its addressed, i do not want to make my party suffer for my weakness.

2 Likes