Upcoming Class Tuning Changes - 6 April

Classes

Druid

  • Guardian
    • (4) Set Bonus: Architect’s Aligner damage and healing reduced by 35%.
    • Developer note: The performance of Architect’s Aligner has become an outlier amongst other tank tier set bonuses in both single- and multi-target situations. Due to this, with weekly maintenance we will be adjusting Architect’s Aligner to bring its performance closer to other bonuses. Thank you for the feedback and we will continue to watch the ongoing discussions across the community.

Mage

  • Fire
    • (2) Set Bonus: Increases the duration of Combustion by 4 sec, up from 2 sec.
      • This change does not apply to PvP combat.
    • Fireball damage increased by 20%.
      • This change does not apply to PvP combat.
    • Fire Blast damage increased by 10%.
      • This change does not apply to PvP combat.
    • Pyroblast damage increased by 6%.
      • This change does not apply to PvP combat.

Monk

  • Windwalker
    • Rising Sun Kick damage increased by 10%.
      • This change does not apply to PvP combat.
    • Blackout Kick damage increased by 10%.
    • Tiger Palm damage increased by 10%.
    • Fist of the White Tiger damage increased by 10%.
    • Developer note: While Windwalker Monks shine in multitarget situations, we’re seeing their performance fall behind in single target scenarios, even after acquiring endgame gear. As a result, we’re targeting specific abilities with the goal of improving their single target output.

Paladin

  • Retribution
    • (2) Set Bonus: When you benefit from Art of War, you gain Seraphim for 4 sec, up from 3 sec
    • Divine Storm damage increased by 10%.
      • This change does not apply to PvP combat.
    • Wake of Ashes damage increased by 10%.
      • This change does not apply to PvP combat.

Rogue

  • Assassination
    • Fan of Knives damage increased by 30%.

Warlock

  • Demonology
    • Demonic Consumption’s now causes your Demon Commander to drain 12% of the life from your other demons (was 15%).

PvP

  • Items
    • Cosmic Gladiator’s Eternal Aegis
      • The value of the Magic shield provided by Cosmic Gladiator’s Eternal Aegis has been reduced by 33%.
      • Developer note: We’ve been monitoring the performance of our newly introduced PvP trinkets during Season 3 and their effect on the length of matches, and have decided to adjust the effectiveness of the Cosmic Gladiator’s Eternal Aegis to bring it in line with other defensive trinket options. With weekly maintenance we’ll be reducing the Magic absorption provided by the trinket by 33%.

Druid

  • Guardian
    • (4) Set Bonus: Architect’s Aligner damage and healing reduced by 25% in PvP combat (was 50%).

Priest

  • Holy
    • Holy Ward’s (PvP Talent) cooldown increased to 45 seconds (was 30 seconds) and duration decreased to 15 seconds (was 30 seconds).
    • (4) Set Bonus: Divine Conversation’s effectiveness reduced by 40% in PvP combat.
    • Developer note: We have been monitoring Holy Priest performance in rated PvP and will be adjusting the cooldown and duration of Holy Ward to increase interactivity with the talent while providing more counterplay opportunity for opponents. We will also be reducing the effectiveness of Divine Conversation while in PvP combat, as the throughput increase provided by the set bonus is more substantial than we would like. With weekly maintenance, we will be increasing Holy Ward’s cooldown to 45 seconds and decreasing its duration to 15 seconds and we will also be reducing the effectiveness of Divine Conversation by 40% in PvP Combat.
5 Likes

I think 1m cd for holy ward should’ve been more appropiate

1 Like

Blizzard scared of the Fire mage community? Ofc they get buff and becomes the best dps again.

What about other classes in m+ ?
Feral druid?
Shadow priest?
Retri Pala?

Why is it always buffs to Mages and Rogues?

51 Likes

I like these “bringing the damage in line with other set bonuses” nerfs while some set bonuses are still insane. /ironieoff

The whole tier set design and balance are awful.

1 Like

where shadow priest

42 Likes

Fire Mages thank you. But can you do anything to increase outside of Combustion AOE, especially for M+.

Pretty sure Ret Paladins are also getting a buff in this update.

But Fire Mages REALLY needed it. Still need more imo.

When u look at tanks tier sets this one was realy ahead dps wise . Both in ST and AoE , comparing tanks tier dps tier is kinda weird

So are the other tanks that have a better defensive kit and are doing the same dmg overall as guardian druids pre this nerf going to get looked at? Guardian bursts every 3 mins, Blood DK, ret pally have consistent dmg. Are you going to give Guardian something uselfull as a 4 set defensivly/aggro generating, or are you just going to look at 3 min burst and over react and keep nerfing till everyone quits tanking content on bear tanks.

1 Like

No UH DK 2/4P rework :neutral_face:

Why does fire mages need buffs?
for real?
Frost mages are insane in M+ and fire does great to.
same in raids.
Arcane is good to.

And they got invis, BL, and buffs that makes then importent. Mages are all the packet.
and still they get more and more buffs. its just sad.

Mages are the only class that are viable in all 3 speccs in both raid and m+.
and they outdps alot of other classes that need buffs more.

BM hunters, Outlaw rouges, DH, and so on…
and DH only have 2 specc to, all other classes got atleas 3 speccs and still they are in the middle. and they got the worst Tiers to. in dps increese. we cant even mix it up to get 1 great specc.

Warriors and mages are allways imba

2 Likes

I think you aren’t really considering the real side effect of what you just did to Demonology warlock.

  1. Player power has now peaked, and it was yesterday. That isn’t a good feeling for anyone playing the class.

  2. 3% may seem like a tiny nerf, but it’s a 20% reduction to our #1 damage ability, which was the only reason we were getting power infusion in raids. So not only is 20% of our #1 ability gone, but realistically we’re now losing power infusion to other classes, so a 3% reduction to a single talent ends up being closer to a 30% TOTAL DPS reduction for the class.

  3. Demo was really fun, was enjoying retail for the first time in a while, guess I’ll hope that we’re doing okay in 10.0, and to anyone saying “try a different spec”, sorry we’re not mages, aff/destro are 100% garbage, and we don’t have the community outcry that mages do, so now we’ll just sit with 2 specs in the bottom 4, and the best spec being top 15 for DPS, for a class that is DPS only.

Fire has felt horrible for a long time. It took big nerfs going into my 9.1, and to be completely honestly it has really been underperforming this patch as well. It’s just not been cutting the cookie where it needs to be.

These buffs will certain help a lot. There is more that needs to be done to it though.

I can’t really speak to the other changes, as I do not play every single class and spec in the game, and while I think all Windwalkers appreciate the buffs (which we desperately need, seeing as we’re behind a tank spec in single target), these numbers are not enough. People doing theorycrafting say this amounts to a roughly 3.5% increase in single-target, which takes our single-target damage to…right above Blood Death Knights, but still the lowest single-target DPS spec in the game. I don’t even think it’s reasonable to expect actual thorough buffs (such as a Hit Combo buff, or aura buffs or something), but I think slightly higher percentage increases to the ones coming would be warranted. All of the numbers could be doubled, and Windwalker would still be below middle-of-the-pack.

Oh nice. Second wave of tuning. Finaly some shadow priest tun…wait what. Maan…

atleast nerf enha and demo .

50 Likes

Y i get it. Fire is lower then other speccs. but hey its how the game is. every patch there is 1 dps specc that is better then the other for all classes.
its the same for hunters, locks and rouges and so on.
same as for multi classes. there is allways speccs that ppl dont play. but for mages there is ppl that play all speccs. cause its viable still.

Why should Mages have the best dps in all speccs? play Frost as it was intended this Tier. Learn to play all the speccs like all other classes.

Well that’s the beauty of playing Mage. You get people who specialise in each Spec. I played fire in 9.0 (as you say it was “Intended” for that patch), and I’ve been feeling quite disappointed ever since.

Why should I have to re-roll a different class or spec just because the spec I played was undeservedly nerfed?

I’m not going to play Frost, I don’t really enjoy Frost. I invested all my time into learning and mastering fire. I don’t push the top end of keys, so at the very least I want it to feel viable in content I do participate in, and at the moment, it feels like a Mechnagnomes sloppy wet nappy.

Also, maybe you should have a chat to some Arcane Mages if you think they have the best DPS spec. Because Arcane has been ignored for a long time.

Ret buffs only happen once in a blue moon. I’m so excited for this change!

3 Likes

Shame its nothing huge, next ret buff will happen in 10.1.5 , at best