Upcoming Changes: Class Tuning & BFA Dungeon Tuning 8 February, Cross Realm Mythic Raiding & Valor/Conquest Uncapped 15 February

With scheduled weekly maintenance on February 8, we intend to deploy a number of tuning adjustments to specializations based on their performance in endgame content.

Due to the nature of our internal testing, some of these changes will also appear in the 10.0.7 PTR between now and February 8. This thread is for changes that will go into the live game on version 10.0.5 next week.

Classes

Death Knight

• Blood
  • Heart Strike damage increased by 15%.
  • Blood Plague damage increased by 15%.
  • Blood Boil damage increased by 15%.
  • Death and Decay damage increased by 20%.
  • Shattering Bone damage increased by 5%.
  • Sanguine Ground damage while inside Death and Decay increased to 6% (was 5%).
• Frost
  • Unleashed Frenzy duration increased to 10 seconds (was 6 seconds).
  • Cleaving Strikes Obliterate now hits 2 additional targets (was 1).
  • Frost Fever damage increased by 15%.
  • Glacial Advance damage increased by 20%.
  • Frost Strike damage increased by 10%.
  • Frostwhelp’s Aid damage increased by 100%.
  • Frostscythe damage increased by 35%

Druid

• Guardian
  • Armor from Ironfur increased by 20%.
  • Reinforced Fur now increases Armor from Ironfur by 15% (was 8%) and Barkskin’s damage reduction by 10% (was 5%).
  • Ursoc’s Fury now grants an absorb shield based on 50% of damage dealt by Thrash and Maul (was 30%).
  • Reinvigoration’s Frenzied Regeneration cooldown reduction increased to 20/40% (was 15/30%).
  • Layered Mane chance to proc increased to 10/20% (was 5/10%).
  • Lunar Beam healing increased by 130% and cooldown reduced to 1 minute.
• Developers’ notes: We are keeping a close eye on variances in survivability across tank specializations. These changes are intended to alleviate some difficulties Guardian Druids have been experiencing with certain damage types, as well as targeting some underperforming talents which were not delivering meaningful survivability improvements.
• Restoration
  • All healing reduced by 3%. This does not apply to PvP combat.

Evoker

• Preservation
  • All healing reduced by 5%.

Hunter

• Beast Mastery
  • Damage dealt by Hunter and pet abilities increased by 5%.
• Marksmanship
  • Damage dealt by Hunter and pet abilities increased by 5%.
• Survival
  • Damage dealt by Hunter and pet abilities increased by 5%.

Monk

• Mistweaver
  • All healing increased by 3%.
  • Vivify healing increased by 5%.
  • Clouded Focus now increases healing and decreases mana cost by 20% (was 15%) for Enveloping Mist and Vivify.
  • Peaceful Mending now increases the healing of Enveloping Mist and Renewing Mist by 25/50% (was 15/30%).
  • Spinning Crane Kick Damage increased by 15%.
  • Ancient Concordance increases the chance for Rising Sun Kick to reset by 5/10% (was 3/6%).
  • Lesson of Doubt increases healing and damage by up to 40% (was 35%).

Paladin

• Protection
  • Avenger’s Shield damage increased by 10%.
  • Blessed Hammer/Hammer of the Righteous/Crusader Strike damage increased by 30%.
  • Hammer of Wrath damage increased by 15%.

Priest

• Holy
  • All healing increased by 3%.

Shaman

• Healing Surge healing increased by 10%.
• Chain Heal healing increased by 10%.
• Restoration
  • Healing Wave healing increased by 10%.
  • Healing Rain healing increased by 10%.
  • Overflowing Shores healing increased by 10%.

Warlock

• Inquisitor’s Gaze Fel Barrage damage increased 35%.
• Inquisitor’s Gaze no longer casts Fel Blast.
• Summon Soulkeeper damage increased 35%.
• Developers’ notes: Inquisitor’s Gaze and Summon Soulkeeper are not contributing to the Warlock damage profile as much as we’d like. After this adjustment, we’ll continue to watch Warlocks’ overall performance and we will make further adjustments if needed.
• Destruction
  • Soul Fire damage increased 20%.
  • Incinerate damage increased 5%.
• Demonology
  • Wild Imp damage increased 15%.
  • Vilefiend damage increased 30%.
• Developers’ notes: We feel that both Destruction and Demonology could use some improvements to their overall contribution in single-target situations. These adjustments are specifically targeting talents that we feel could be more competitive, while also putting additional power into rotational spells.

Player versus Player

Items

• Neltharax, Enemy of the Sky now grants 1% attack speed in PvP Combat (was 5%).

Demon Hunter

• Havoc
  • Restless Hunter (Talent) damage bonus for next Blade Dance/Death Sweep reduced by 40% in PvP Combat.
• Developers’ notes: We’ve continued to see the potential burst provided by Restless Hunter much higher than we would like, especially in combination with Essence Break and The Hunt.

Druid

• Guardian
  • Frenzied Regeneration is now 50% effective in PvP Combat (was 62%).
• Developers’ note: This is intended to offset Reinvigoration’s buff noted above.

Evoker

• Living Flame healing increased by 30% in PvP Combat.
• Verdant Embrace healing increased by 20% in PvP Combat.
• Oppressing Roar increases the duration of incoming crowd control by 30% (was 20%) in PvP Combat.
• Developers’ notes: This is intended to offset the above noted game-wide 5% healing reduction by targeting abilities that we would like to see more prominent in a Preservation Evoker’s PvP healing profile. Additionally, Oppressing Roar has not been as valuable a talent point as we’d hoped, so we are slightly increasing its effectiveness.

Hunter

• Beast Mastery
  • Stormwing Harrier’s Camouflage 4-piece now increases the damage of your next Kill Command by 10% in PvP (was 20%).
• Marksmanship
  • Rapid Fire damage increased by 15% in PvP Combat.
  • Aimed Shot damage increased by 15% in PvP Combat.
  • Chimaera Shot damage increased by 30% in PvP Combat.
  • Unerring Vision critical strike damage bonus effectiveness reduced by 50% in PvP Combat.
• Developers’ notes: With the removal of Double Tap, Marksmanship Hunter damage has been lower than we would like to see, so we are increasing several main rotation abilities while decreasing Unerring Vision, with the goal of higher sustained damage.

Monk

• Mistweaver
  • Healing Sphere (PvP Talent) – Now triggers the dispel backlash effects from Unstable Affliction and Vampiric Touch. Healing increased by 320%.
• Developers note: This change is to have more consistency among dispel effects that are intended to require careful consideration of the risks and benefits of dispelling it. Additionally, we felt that the healing on Healing Sphere has been too weak.

Priest

• Shadow
  • Psyfiend (PvP Talent) healing reduction no longer stacks with similar effects.
• Developers’ notes: Psyfiend’s healing reduction effects appear mechanically similar to many others, but were stacking with other such effects and each other in a way that was not clearly communicated to players, and yet was having a significant impact on which specializations were being favored and often overperforming in PvP. We are standardizing their behavior to follow the same rules as similar effects.

Rogue

• Assassination
  • Vault Delver’s Toolkit 4-piece set bonus Bleed damage bonus reduced by 50% in PvP Combat.
• Developers’ notes: The 4-piece set bonus for Assassination has been more significant in their damage profile than we would like.
  • Wound Poison (Deathmark version) healing reduction no longer stacks with similar effects.
• Developer’s note: The Wound Poison (from Deathmark) healing reduction effects appear mechanically similar to many others, but were stacking with other such effects and each other in a way that was not clearly communicated to players, and yet was having a significant impact on which specializations were being favored and often overperforming in PvP. We are standardizing their behavior to follow the same rules as similar effects.

Shaman

• Restoration
  • Damage dealt to Earthen Wall Totem caused by damage absorbed by pets is reduced by 90%.
• Developers’ notes: The intent for this adjustment is to make Earthen Wall Totem feel more impactful as a defensive ability. As we noted, it was being destroyed too quickly in scenarios where teammates have pets.

Warlock

• Affliction
  • Unstable Affliction backlash damage increased by 35%.
• Developers’ notes: After our recent changes to normalize Unstable Affliction’s backlash damage, we’re seeing it get dispelled frequently. Our intent is for dispelling Unstable Affliction to require careful consideration of the risks and benefits and its damage was not fulfilling that.
• Destruction
  • Chaos Bolt damage increased by 40% in PvP Combat (was 15%).
  • Resolved an issue that caused Bane of Havoc (PvP Talent) to deal more damage than intended to targets.
• Developers’ notes: We’re addressing a bug with Bane of Havoc that was causing Havoc to deal full damage instead of the intended 60%, which is a significant nerf to the spec in PvP. Chaos Bolt has not been as threatening as intended in Dragonflight, so we’re increasing its damage to compensate for the bug fix.
  • Fel Fissure (PvP Talent) healing reduction no longer stacks with similar effects.
• Developers’ notes: Fel Fissure’s healing reduction effects appear mechanically similar to many others, but were stacking with other such effects and each other in a way that was not clearly communicated to players, and yet was having a significant impact on which specializations were being favored and often overperforming in PvP. We are standardizing their behavior to follow the same rules as similar effects.

Warrior

• Arms
  • Executioner’s Precision is now 30% effective in PvP Combat (was 50%).
  • Martial Prowess is now 33% effective in PvP Combat (was 50%).
  • Overpower damage increased by 20% in PvP Combat.
  • Slam damage increased by 40% in PvP Combat.
• Developers’ notes: We’ve seen Mortal Strike come to represent too much of Arms Warriors’ total damage in PvP. Additionally, it often results in spikier damage than we’re comfortable with, so we’re moving toward an overall rebalance across several abilities.

Along with the players who reported this, we found a bug causing enemies in Battle for Azeroth dungeons to scale well beyond their intended difficulty.

With scheduled realm maintenance on Wednesday, we will deploy a fix for the bug and the difficulty of the affected dungeons should become very similar to that of Chromie Time leveling dungeons.

To everyone who reported the state of BFA dungeons: thank you very much.

With the weekly reset in each region the week of February 15, we will enable cross-realm groups in Mythic difficulty Vault of the Incarnates.

This represents a shift in philosophy that has evolved over the last few raid tiers, where we’ve seen the pace at which the Hall of Fame filled up for both factions become unaligned with the timing that we would have chosen for players at large.

We will still maintain a Hall of Fame for this and future raids. To qualify for it in cross-realm groups, you must simply have at least 16 players from the same guild taking part in the raid.

With future raids, we’re looking into a more-scheduled approach for when cross-realm Mythic difficulty becomes available. We want to keep our options open for the timing to vary, since we yet don’t know the circumstances we might observe in the future, but we intend to provide further announcements like this one to give players time to reorganize.

With weekly resets the week of February 15, we will remove the caps on the amounts of Conquest and Valor that can be earned and held by players. They will remain uncapped for the rest of Dragonflight Season 1.

As before, we like how in the early season, these caps reduce the feeling of being left behind for many players when it comes to PvP and Mythic+ gear. However, once several weeks have passed, we want to see players feel free to quickly gear up alts or return to the game after an absence and feel as though they can catch up quickly without hitting caps.
Thank you!