After last week’s nerf-happy World of Warcraft Midnight patch, it’s time for Blizzard to swing the pendulum in the other direction. Community Manager Randy ‘Kaivax’ Jordan explained at the launch of WoW 12.1 that the balance team is closely watching how classes are performing in Curse of Ula’tek, given the more broad class updates and the introduction of the Coiled Isle and Venomous Abyss raid. The new WoW Midnight patch notes are almost universally good news, with Death Knights, Druids, Evokers, Monks, Paladins, and Warlocks among those coming out with a smile on their face.
“As we previously indicated, we’re doing broad class tuning each week for the first three weeks of Curse of Ula’tek,” Kaivax remarks. The Season 2 launch saw quite a few nerfs, with a particular focus on set bonuses from Venomous Abyss gear, but this time the World of Warcraft developer is concentrating on lifting underperformers up to match their peers. The Race to World First has been heating up – Heroic Ula’tek has now gone down following some slight nerfs, and teams are starting to defeat Mythic bosses as well – and this latest round of class tuning should help make more specs feel viable in the MMORPG’s new endgame.
As usual, I’ll work in alphabetical class order for simplicity, starting with Death Knights. Blizzard notes Frost DK has been performing “under our expectations, especially in the Venomous Abyss raid.” It’s getting a 6% buff to all ability and melee damage, along with a special 15% boost to Obliterate. For Demon Hunters, Havoc specs get a 3% damage increase across the board, while Vengeance gets a 24% raise to the effectiveness of Mastery: Fel Blood.
Restoration Druids have been struggling in dungeons, so Blizzard is implementing buffs to double the Genesis duration provided by the four-piece class set bonus, increase Wild Growth healing by 10%, and Rejuvenation and Germination healing by 15%. In order to keep the spec from feeling too strong in the raid, this is accompanied by some small nerfs. Nature’s Bounty now only replicates 10% of Regrowth’s healing (down from 20%), while Everbloom now heals 5 targets instead of 6, but for a slightly larger amount.
Also falling behind in dungeons are Preservation Evokers, who get some bonuses to their triage heals “to help them keep up with other healers.” Verdant Embrace gets 25% stronger in PvE as standard, and Dream Simulacrum now increases that by 40% instead of 30%. Living Flame, meanwhile, receives a 20% increase to its PvE healing.
To help BM Hunters deal with larger groups, Blizzard has raised the Wild Thrash damage bonus when hitting more than two targets from 200% to 300%. Additionally, Beast Cleave gives your pets a 70% damage spread to all nearby enemies, up from 55%. Alongside this, Survival Hunters have been slightly nudged upwards with a class-wide 4% damage increase to all output from both the Hunter and their pets.
Blizzard has been watching Frost Mage’s performance in Mythic Keystone dungeons, and determined that removing the health boost from Improved Ice Barrier “had a greater effect on Frost’s overall survivability than intended.” The team likes “the symmetry” of the three ‘Improved Barrier’ talents each having just a single extra effect, however, so it’s instead plugging that increase back into the baseline skill, raising the Ice Barrier absorb amount to 35% of your maximum health instead of 30%.
This increase reflects that Frost “has historically had a slightly larger absorb than Arcane and Fire,” Kaivax notes. Alongside this, Frost Mages’ area-of-effect power has been boosted slightly. Blizzard damage is increased by 10%, the Frostbite talent now buffs Shatter damage to nearby enemies by 10%, and Isothermic Core’s Meteor damage has gone up 25%.
Brewmaster Monks get a class-wide 3% damage increase, and the absorption of both Celestial Brew and Celestial Infusion has been raised by 20% “to help address pain points players are experiencing in some encounters.” Retribution Paladins are being handed a massive increase to the new four-piece set bonus “to make sure its rotational ask is worth executing.” The damage to your main target goes up by 150%, and the splash to other nearby foes by 75%.
Warlocks get the longest list of adjustments. To start with, the Imp, Voidwalker, Sayaa, and Felhunter demons are all being given a whopping 350% damage increase, in order to both improve their contribution and help with aggro while running solo. Destruction specs get just one other change – a 30% buff to Rain of Fire’s damage – but both Affliction and Demonology Warlocks are having the impact of multiple skills boosted, with a primary focus on single-target tools.
The damage increases for Affliction Warlocks are 15% on Unstable Affliction, 20% from Hellcaller’s Blackened Soul, 35% on Wrath of Nathreza, 25% on Shadow of Nathreza, 20% on Agony, 15% on Corruption, and 10% for Hellcaller’s Wither. Comparatively, the boosts for Demonology Warlocks are 35% to Shadow Bolt, 30% to Demonbolt, 20% to Wild Imp, 20% for Summon Felguard, 30% to Call Dreadstalkers, and 20% for demons summoned by Dominion of Argus.
Last (and actually least this time, at least in terms of number of changes) is Warriors. Protection Warrior’s Fight Through the Flames has had its magic damage reduction upped from 6% to 8%, and that’s it. There are quite a few more PvP-specific changes to dig through if you’re looking to get competitive, however, so keep that in mind.
This round of World of Warcraft Midnight class tuning will go live with the weekly maintenance update on Tuesday August 23. That means you’ve got a couple of days to decide if you need to change your plans for next week, or whether you’re set to go as things stand. Based on Kaivax’s comments, we can expect at least one more round of notable tuning to follow next week, although it’ll likely be impacted somewhat by how the Mythic raid progression goes.
