Upcoming Class Tuning for Dragonflight, Dec 13th: Tank Nerfs

With the launch of Dragonflight Season 1, we’re making some tuning adjustments to classes during scheduled weekly maintenance on December 13.

Tank Specializations

We’ve been taking a long look at Tank survivability as we prepare for the beginning of Dragonflight Season 1. In general, we’ve found that the new talent trees have introduced a lot of power across all classes and specializations. Talents that were once exclusive through systems like the Talent Rows, Legendaries, or Covenants can now be equipped at the same time. Through our recent testing, we’ve determined that the damage done to tanks needs to be increased. While we’re thrilled that players are enjoying playing tanks in Dragonflight and want the role to be healthy, there are some negative effects that can come from tanks being too strong, that we want to avoid. We want healers to play a key role in keeping tanks alive, and tanks shouldn’t be able to easily solo large portions of encounters after the rest of their group have died.

We’re adjusting the damage reduction passives on all of the tanks, effectively increasing the damage tanks take by 10%. We think tanks will still feel powerful after this change, and it will result in a more balanced gameplay experience for all players.

Death Knight

• Blood
  • Blood Fortification no longer reduces damage taken (was 10% damage reduction).

Demon Hunter

• Vengeance
  • Demonic Wards Rank 1 and Rank 2 passives have been removed, reducing Demonic Wards total damage reduction to 10% (was 20% damage reduction).

Druid

• Guardian
  • Ursine Adept no longer reduces damage taken (was 10% damage reduction).

Monk

• Brewmaster
  • Brewmaster’s Balance no longer reduces damage taken (was 10% damage reduction)

Paladin

• Protection
  • Aegis of Light no longer reduces damage taken (was 10% damage reduction).

Warrior

• Protection
  • Vanguard no longer reduces damage taken (was 5% damage reduction).
  • Defensive Stance now reduces damage taken by 15% (was 20%). Damage reduction remains unchanged at 10% effectiveness in PVP.

Damage Specializations

A number of changes below are targeted at reducing the passive healing provided to several DPS specs. While some amount of passive healing can be a perk for some specializations, we think these particular abilities are providing too much benefit, particularly compared to more active options.

Demon Hunter

• The Hunt now heals for 10%/20% (as Havoc/Vengeance) of damage dealt to the marked target for 20 sec (was 25%/50% for 30 seconds).
• Charred Warblades now heals for 3% of Fire damage dealt (was 5%).
• Fixed an issue that unintentionally permitted Fodder to the Flame’s heal effect to crit.
• Havoc
  • Essence Break damage reduced by 8%.

Priest

• Shadow
  • Vampiric Touch healing reduced to 30% of damage dealt (was 50%).
  • Devouring Plague healing reduced to 30% of damage dealt (was 50%).

Rogue

• Leeching Poison’s leech bonus reduced to 5% (was 10%).
• Assassination
  • Poison Bomb’s chance to trigger reduced to 4/8% per combo point (was 5/10%).
• Outlaw
  • Dispatch damage increased by 5%.
  • Pistol Shot damage reduced by 6%.
• Subtlety
  • Black Powder damage reduced by 5%.
  • Fixed a bug that caused Secret Technique to interact incorrectly with Cold Blood.

Warlock

• Fel Synergy now causes Soul Leech to heal you for 15% of the absorption it grants (was 25%).
• Soul Leech now grants shields up to 5% of maximum health (was 10%).
• Demon Skin now increases Soul Leech’s absorption up to 10% of maximum health (was 15%).

Warrior

• Fury
  • Gushing Wound damage and healing reduced by 10%.
  • Bloodthirst damage increased by 1%.
  • Bloodbath damage increased by 1%.
    • Developers’ notes: Bloodthirst and Bloodbath damage has been increased to compensate for the Gushing Wound damage reduction.

Player versus Player

In addition to the above game-wide Tank changes, we felt that certain tank specializations have been over performing in PvP. Alongside this, there were several DPS specializations that had self-healing higher than we were comfortable with. Most of the listed changes listed below are meant to make adjustments to address these concerns.

Demon Hunter

Developers’ notes: With the new talent trees, Demon Hunter Sigils have become stronger than we’d like in PvP, specifically the duration Sigil of Misery, so we are targeting talents that were contributing to that. Additionally, Demon Hunters’ damage in PvP is higher than we have been comfortable with so we are reducing the damage from Essence Break, in addition to last week’s reduction for The Hunt.

• Sigil of Misery PvP duration reduced to 4 seconds (was 5 seconds).
• Concentrated Sigils duration increase value reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
• Precise Sigils duration increase value reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
• Extended Sigils duration increase value reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
  • Developers’ notes: In order to display correct PvP values, the tooltip for Extended Sigils will be changed in a future update.
• Fodder to the Flame heal effect reduced by 40% in PvP combat.
• Havoc
  • Consume Soul heal effect when consuming a Demon Soul reduced by 60% in PvP combat.
  • Essence Break damage reduced by 20% in PvP combat.

Death Knight

• Blood
  • Blood for Blood increases the damage of Heart Strike by 30% (was 60%).
  • Shattering Bone damage reduced by 25% in PvP combat.

Druid

• Guardian
  • Moonfire damage reduced by 20% for Guardian Druids in PvP combat.
  • Thrash damage reduced by 20% for Guardian Druids in PvP combat.
  • Brambles damage reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
  • Rage of the Sleeper reflect damage reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
  • After the Wildfire healing reduced by 40% in PvP combat.
  • Sharpened Claws increases the damage of Thrash and Swipe by 10% (was 25%) in PvP combat.
  • Tooth and Claw increases the damage of Maul by 20% (was 40%) in PvP combat .

Paladin

• Protection
  • Word of Glory healing reduced by 30% in PvP combat (Protection Paladin only).
  • Light of the Titans healing reduced by 40% in PvP combat.
  • Guardian of the Forgotten Queen cooldown increased to 5 minutes.

Mage

• Fire
  • Combustion can no longer be dispelled.
    • Developers’ notes: We feel that the counterplay to Combustion, a major self-cast offensive cooldown, did not feel appropriate as it was easily dispelled. We are hoping with this change that it will prompt more creative solutions to counterplay the ability. We didn’t want to make this change previously, due to balance concerns, but now feel it is an appropriate time to bring it in line with other major cooldowns.

Rogue

• Soothing Darkness heal effect reduced by 50% in PvP Combat.
• Assassination
• Hemotoxin (PvP Talent) healing reduction effect reduced to 35% (was 40%).
• Subtlety
  • The Rotten damage bonus for Backstab and Shadowstrike reduced to 30% (was 50%) in PvP combat.
    • Developers’ notes: Shadowstrike was hitting too hard, leaving minimum room for counterplay for opponents and taking too much damage in a single stun.

Warrior

• Fury
  • Bloodthirst now restores 2% of your health in PvP combat (was 3%).
  • Slaughterhouse now decreases healing taken by 3% per stack (was 5% per stack).
  • Slaughterhouse now stacks up to 12 times (was 8 times).
  • Slaughterhouse duration increased to 9 seconds (was 6 seconds).
  • Slaughterhouse duration is no longer refreshed when adding stacks.
• Protection
  • Shield Charge damage reduced by 25% in PvP combat.
  • Booming Voice now increases the damage you deal by 10% (was 20%) in PvP combat.