Since Blizzard hinted at the slight possibility of PvP Balancing changes on next Wednesday, I thought I’d use this opportunity to write out my predictions for what I think could be realistic balancing changes:
Paladin
Holy
- All healing increased by 10%
Developer’s Notes: We noticed that sometimes, people’s hp bars would move down when a holy paladin was busy feeding their dogs. We’ve made some adjustments here
Druid
Restoration
- Mastery has been reduced to 60% effectiveness in PvP
- Frenzied Regeneration now heals for 3% health over 3 seconds (down from 10%)
- Regrowth healing reduced by 20%
- All damage done reduced by 50%
Developer’s Notes: We noticed that sometimes resto druids overperformed in level 50 world pvp so we tuned their mastery a bit to make up for the disparity in power. Furthermore, we noticed that sometimes, Frenzied Regeneration actually healed for more than what was intended, so we reduced this a bit too. We also observed some occasions where people’s hp would go up when you spam regrowth with full hots which seemed unfair and unrewarding to the enemy team. Lastly, we sometimes noticed that resto druids could sometimes kill low level players, so we brought their damage in check
Feral
- Frenzied regeneration now heals you for 50% of your hp, 2 charges.
- Rake and Rip can now be applied in Bear form and deal 50% increased damage
Developer’s Notes: We noticed that feral damage could sometimes be healed through, and sometimes feral would even die. Dying doesn’t feel very rewarding, so we made adjustments to make up for this.*
Monk
Mistweaver
- Transcendance: Transfer now has a 5 second cooldown and can be used in any sort of cc
- Revival cooldown reduced to 1 minute and it immediately disconnects all dot classes from the enemy team
Developer’s Notes: We found out that mistweaver monk didn’t have enough mobility yet and also that it seemed to be underperforming against dot classes, so adjustments have been made that should make it more playable against dot classes and less overpowered against other classes.
Priest
Discipline
- All absorbs have been increased by an additional 30%
- Atonement healing has been increased by 55%
- Penance and Flash heal healing have been reduced by 30%
Developer’s Notes: We found out that sometimes, people could go through the absorb shields of discipline priest which wasn’t our intended design. Instead we intended that the shields are purged instead so those changes should allow for the intended design to take effect and allow for priest to be countered by purges more.*
Evoker
Preservation
- Nullifying shroud cooldown reduced to 1 minute, duration increased to 59 seconds and it now has 10 stacks instead of 3.
- Using fire breath now automatically grants you a victory if a resto druid is in the enemy team
- All damage and healing done increased by another 50%
Developer’s Notes: We noticed that sometimes in some rare occasions, people were able to land a cc on preservation evokers which was not the intended design. Nullifying shroud can be interrupted so it is difficult to get off with 5 spell schools, so we made it more rewarding when the evoker actually manages to get it off. Furthermore, we noticed that sometimes, removing the hots from a resto druid through fire breath wouldn’t automatically win you the match which wasn’t intended. Lastly, we wanted to prepare our evokers for the expansion after the last titan, so we gave them a bit of a boost to their damage and healing.*
Mage
Frost
- Flurry now has 10 stacks and slow increased to 120%
- When you get slowed by flurry and press your forward movement key (e.g. W), you now walk backwards at 20% movement speed.
Developer’s Notes: We noticed that sometimes, frost mages got hit by melees which isn’t the intended design either. We opted for some adjustments here.*
Warrior
Fury
- All abilities removed
- New ability: “Furious Strike”. “Furious Strike” deals 15% of the enemy’s health in physical damage and heals you for the same amount. It also increases your movement speed by 100% for 3 seconds. 0s cooldown.
Developer’s Notes: We found that sometimes fury warriors damage wasn’t oppressing enough, so we made some adjustments here and there
Death Knight:
- Anti Magic Shell Cooldown reduced to 30 seconds, duration increased to 29 seconds and it now reduces all magic taken by 90%.
- Icebound Fortitude Cooldown increased to 5 minutes, now reduces all damage taken by 10%
- Chains of Ice and Death and Decay slow increasted to 120% (same functionality as mage flurry slow)
- All damage done reduced by 30%
Developer’s Notes: We noticed that DK took too much damage from casters and too little damage from melees, so we made adjustments there. Furthermore, we noticed that DK wasn’t annoying enough to play against, so we made further adjustments there. Also screw DKS, so we just reduced their damage again when other classes are way stronger.
Rogue
Assassination
- Garrote Silence increased to 5 seconds and is no longer affected by diminishing returns.
Developer’s Notes: We noticed that the silence from garrote was underperforming sometimes, so we adjusted some numbers there
Hunter
- Your pet now automatically attacks the target furthest away from you in any form of pvp
Developer’s Notes: We noticed that sometimes, your pet would only run over most of the map instead of the intended full map, so we adjusted the pet functionality
Warlock
Affliction
- Putting up all of your dots on 1 target and no other target applies a new buff called “Endless Misery”. “Endless Misery” increases damage taken from the warlock by 100%.
Developer’s Notes: We noticed that sometimes affliction warlocks would apply their dots to multiple targets which wasn’t our intended design as we intended the spec to be single target focused. These adjustments should bring the spec more in line with our intended design philosophy*
We hope that those changes will make the game more balanced and fun for everyone, and we will continue to make similar changes in the future. Expect the next tuning changes somewhere between now and 2026
