Recently, players observed that Vengeance Demon Hunters seemed to be receiving up to 15% less magic damage than expected. We have investigated and found the bug causing this.
When a specialization is overperforming in raid and dungeon content, we prefer to wait to rein them in until the next major patch that brings with it all-new challenges, different gear, and other changes that shake up balance. This is because even if we’re improving overall balance, mid-tier nerfs can cause entire groups to potentially struggle with raid or dungeon content they could previously complete without issue, and this is especially true for the tank role.
However, because of the magnitude of the bug, combined with extensive feedback about the current strength of Vengeance relative to other tank classes, we feel that we need to act quickly. We therefore plan to fix this bug during scheduled weekly maintenance next week (31 March in this region). To reduce the impact to Vengeance tanks and their groups, we plan to make an additional change to offset the bug fix. We also want to address feedback that we’ve heard about overall tank survivability in Shadowlands, especially in Mythic Keystone dungeons.
With the fix to the Vengeance Demon Hunter bug, we will increase the Vengeance Demon Hunter passive, Demonic Wards, by 5%. In most situations, Physical damage constitutes most of the damage suffered by tanks, so the result should be a manageable increase in the total damage taken by Vengeance tanks. We will also adjust all other tank specializations’ passives (such as Veteran of the Third War for Blood Death Knights) to add an effect that reduces overall damage taken by 10%. Our aim is to improve tank durability for all tanks.
We appreciate the community bringing this issue to our attention, and thank you in advance for your feedback on these changes.
“we plan to make an additional change to offset the bug fix”
Wait, you are implementing a change to offset the bug fix? So it wasn’t a bug but a feature and you’re announcing it as a bug? Why else would an offset be necessary.
This bug has been around since the beta of shadowland and this data has been used for the balancing of not only Vengeance but also Havoc demon hunter. During beta you have nerfed hard the survibility and healing of demon hunters to compensate for the data you were seing. Data that is now proven as false.
I think it is high due that someone at blizzard takes a look at what you have done to the demon hunter class and rethink decisions taken: were the nerfs justified?
This massive bug also highlight another more important issue, that of what we the players tell you about how a class performs, backed by the thousand of warcraftlogs and what you as a company decide to act upon or not or even believe.
Since the begining of shadowlands, the havoc community has been vocal about the lack of single target damage of the class and the impact this has for earning places in any mythic progressing guild. We have been met by a both a wall of silence from your part and continueous strange buffs to our AOE, which the class does not need.
I am hoping that this sorry episode has shown that you cannot rely only on your data, and that community feedback, however crafty feely it might seem, might be putting into light issues of balance you are not aware of and that have a negative effect on players, their enjoyment of the game and ultimately their retention.
+15% base magic resist base would some tanks broken.
Like Prot War and Druid who are pretty good with physical damage but have a big weakness with magic damage.
Usually we save this sort of fix for the next major content patch… but wait aint got one coming this year… so better buff tanks a little and hope everyone stays quiet a few weeks longer whilst they run a slightly easier M+.
Tanks already do a crazy amount of dmg. And I think they might even need a dmg nerf. I do think they need a threat increase to help with the agro and als remove target cap for atleast 1 aoe on each tank
I mainly play furry and I always get aggro not mater how long the tank is on mobs. Sometimes one whirlwind is enough to get agro from 4 mobs even if I wait for 10 seconds.
