Class Tuning Incoming - 11 April

We continue to monitor the performance of classes across various content including Raids, Mythic+ dungeons and PvP. Below, you will find a number of changes meant to balance classes against each other in healing, tanking, and damage in various content.

DEATH KNIGHT

  • Unholy
    • Developers’ notes: At high haste levels it was possible for Summon Gargoyle to lose casts of Gargoyle Strike. To help remedy that we are reducing the cast speed of Gargoyle Strike to 2.5 seconds (up from 2 seconds) while increasing the damage done to compensate for the slower cast time. We are also making some targeted tuning adjustments to Unholy to increase their damage outside of their 3-minute cooldowns.
    • Raise Dead damage increased by 10%.
    • Army of the Dead damage increased by 10%.
    • Scourge Strike damage increased by 20%.
    • Clawing Shadows damage increased by 20%.
    • Death Coil damage increased by 10%. This does not affect PvP combat.
    • Soul Reaper damage increased by 15% Unholy specialization only.
    • Gargoyle Strike cast speed increased to 2.5 seconds, up from 2.0 seconds and Gargoyle Strike damage increased by 25%.

DRUID

  • Balance
    • Starsurge damage increased by 10%. This does not affect PvP combat.
    • Denizen of the Dream damage increased by 20%.
  • Guardian
    • Health and healing received gain from Mastery: Nature’s Guardian increased to 70% (was 50%).
    • Barkskin cooldown reduced to 45 seconds (was 1 minute).

EVOKER

  • Preservation
    • Developers’ notes: Preservation’s overall throughput is lower than we’d like since the Lifebind and Temporal Anomaly reductions. We’re compensating for this adjustment in other areas, particularly Living Flame where its healing component can sometimes feel lackluster.
    • All healing increased by 3%.
    • Living Flame’s healing increased by 15%.
    • Resonating Sphere now applies Echo to the first 5 allies it passes through (was 4 allies).

HUNTER

  • Beast Mastery
    • All damage dealt by you and your pet’s abilities reduced by 3%.
  • Survival
    • Developer’s notes: This change was intended to have gone live in prior tuning changes, but a data error was made and we are now correcting that. The damage dealt by Mongoose Bite in PvP will be unchanged by this adjustment.
    • Mongoose Bite damage reduced by 10%.

PALADIN

  • Protection
    • Hand of the Protector now increases Word of Glory’s healing by up to 100% when cast on allies (was 250%).

PRIEST

  • Holy Nova damage increased by 30%.
  • Discipline
    • Developers’ notes: We are aiming to bring Discipline’s mana consumption in line with other healers, as we’ve observed the spec consistently running out of resources before other healers throughout Dragonflight. Separately, Power Word: Shield has been weaker than intended relative to other Atonement appliers, so we’re increasing its power.
    • Power Word: Shield now costs 2.4% of base mana for Discipline (was 3.1%).
    • Power Word: Shield now absorbs 25% more damage for Discipline.
    • Renew now costs 2.4% of base mana for Discipline (was 2.7%).
    • Fixed a bug causing Renew to not have its healing increased by 25% for Discipline as intended.
    • Power Word: Radiance now costs 4.5% of base mana (was 5.5%).
  • Holy
    • Developers’ notes: Holy’s damage profile is behind other healers in dungeon and raid content, so we are targeting buffs to their overall damage kit.
    • Holy Fire damage increased by 15%.
    • Smite damage increased by 30%.

SHAMAN

  • Restoration
    • Developers’ notes: We are happy with the reception of Restoration in 10.0.7. The specialization’s healing power is above our target in all content, so we’re adjusting it in line with our expectations.
    • All healing done reduced by 5.5%.

PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER

DRUID

  • Developers’ note: This is primarily targeted at improving Cyclone’s usability for Druids in PvP, particularly for Restoration Druid as Cyclone’s short range requires them to get close to their enemies.
  • Cyclone’s mana cost has been decreased by 40%.

MONK

  • Mistweaver
    • Developers’ notes: We are specifically targeting Blackout Kick’s AoE damage potential as we feel Mistweaver’s healing becomes overwhelming when it can cleave its damage. We also feel Mistweaver’s mana regeneration has been too powerful, so we are adjusting Spirit of the Crane heavily.
    • Rising Sun Kick no longer deals increased damage in PvP (was 12.5%).
    • Blackout Kick copies from Teachings of the Monastery no longer deal increased damage in PvP (was 15%).
    • Spirit of the Crane now restores 0.18% mana in PvP Combat (was 0.45%).
  • Windwalker
    • Fixed an issue that caused the copied Blackout Kicks from Teachings of the Monastery to deal 15% increased damage in PvP combat instead of the intended 30%.

PALADIN

  • Holy
    • Developers’ notes: We are targeting buffs to Holy Paladin’s Word of Glory and Holy Shock healing to increase their instant-cast healing.
    • Word of Glory healing increased by 15% in PvP Combat.
    • Holy Shock healing increased by 30% in PvP Combat (was 15%).
  • Retribution
    • Developers’ notes: Retribution Paladin has remained more powerful than we would like in PvP. With this pass we are targeting its burst damage, allied support, and personal survivability.
    • Avenging Wrath now increases damage and healing by 10% in PvP Combat (was 15%).
    • Avenging Wrath: Might now increases critical strike by 10% in PvP Combat (was 15%).
    • Divine Protection now reduces damage taken by 10% in PvP Combat (was 20%).
    • Light’s Celerity now increases the healing of Flash of Light by 20% in PvP Combat (was 50%).
    • Sanctified Plates now grants 50% less Stamina and Avoidance in PvP Combat.
    • Blessing of Sacrifice now transfers 20% of damage taken in PvP Combat (was 30%).

WARLOCK

  • Demonology
    • Developers’ notes: We’re toning down the value of Immutable Hatred as it’s providing a significant boost to single target damage in PvP while being difficult to avoid.
    • Immutable Hatred now increases your primary Felguard’s Legion Strike damage by 60% when it damages 1 target in PvP Combat (down from 120%).
1 Like

THat’ll do it.

A buff to unholy ??, and a blanket nerf to all BM abilities ? If it is was just single target could be understandable, does the team responsible for tuning even play M+ ???

PS - Saw the new logs ? Wonderful job completely unexpected…

7 Likes

It’s actually insane how out of touch the DK dev is with these changes, you want to increase Unholy’s damage out of CDs while simultaneously buffing Army & making the spec even more reliant on PI with the Gargoyle change?

I guess it’s not surprising considering the Breath changes in the patch we just had similarly did not fix what you were trying to achieve lmao.

4 Likes

Can you make guardian not require as much APM now? It’s ridiculous how you hurt your fingers if you play guardian. Legit RSI-inducing spec.

1 Like

I non-crit healed a guy for 540k without wings up.

I agree it needs a nerf, but man, why the hell did they make it so stupidly strong in the first place. Whoever works these numbers out must just be throwing darts at a dartboard while high.

1 Like

enh untouched
come on its beyond lazy

For the love of Talos, please buff Single-Minded Fury talent : it’s not baseline and costs talent points.

Either :

  • buff it properly,
  • buff it and make it baseline,
  • if you can’t tweak numbers just allow Fury warriors to transmog 1handed weapons on 2handed.
3 Likes

Sad resro shaman noices.

Well it was fun, till it lasted.

1 Like

ah well no changes to my spec destro lock, glad for that but once upon a time i was a really hardcore demo player but how it is now nah not my thing, to slow way to slow.

  • Survival
    • Mongoose Bite damage reduced by 10%.

Yeah ofc. Its not like surv is that popular anyways. Why just give him a bit more aoe dmg if u can also nerf his ST ?

2 Likes

Where’s the love for fury war?

2 Likes

Unholy Single target buffed? do dev plays their own game? its already the top 2 classe ST of the game. Wape up blizzard. Where are mage Single target (arcane and fire) buffs too?

So 4weeks before the season ends 5weeks before the new raid comes out you are tuning specs ok well are you going to tune them often when the new raid comes out or is it just a show?

1 Like

This nerf tells me you do not actually know what those people are doing it also tells me you are trying to balancing the spec for the TOP 0.01% of the playerbase

1 Like

Stop Nert Ret in PVE or we will go on a holy crusade!

3 Likes

You do know this has been 250% for literal expansions right?
I can explain it if you want also i think you might have overcapped holy power and therefor have gotten a 60% bonus on the healing it does via blessing of dawn

2 Likes

Whilst you are correct that they are responding to how the top 0.01% are playing. But that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t take it seriously.

That play style will only become more emphasised as the expansion moves on and players become more power.

It is a quick fix, to an issue that really does need alot more attention.

This does not fix anything the problem is not prot paladin healing being the only thing this has the potential to do is make it even more of a niche way of playing as it require more off healing from other people.

Not really because the playstyle requires people to be fully geared not to take any avoidable damage and have insane offhealing on almost all of the players before it is even something you can do and even the top players in the world that is doing it mainly Nerf can do the same dungeons Faster with a healer and he has yet to try a dungeon that is not something he has not done with a healer before trying this.

if you actually want to fix it lower the off healing of Druid Shaman Shadow priest and Monk as the second step here those are the classes that makes this possible after having the prot paladin

1 Like

Hey, well I guess they have made the change now, so I guess we’ll never see how it would have gone.

But it will still be interesting to see what the future holds.