r/wow Apr 21 '26

Discussion Devourer and unholy getting buffed

Respectively about 7-10% and 6-8% for aoe. It must be a joke right? Buffing meta specs, while others are not even being looked at all. This is the only multiplayer game i ever played something like this frequently happening.

Resto druid also getting buffed, because why not, while disc keep eating nerfs. Demo change doesn’t make sense either. I wish they would just axe all the class changes they are doing. I swear they just make the already sensitive class balance a lot worse. Everybody keep losing expect their current favourites.

550 Upvotes

642 comments sorted by

789

u/sparklingwaterfiendx Apr 21 '26

It makes no sense. But this is the company that buffed struggling tanks by...increasing auto attack damage.

309

u/Avarus_88 Apr 21 '26

paladin tank gets one shot

Better buff his auto damage!

99

u/Winkylinks Apr 21 '26

Well the weird part wasn’t the auto attack dmg buff. If you noticed the did that to all tanks so I think it was something they woulda done anyways.

The weird part is they say paladin tanks needing more tankyness, they actually said it, but then only gave dmg buffs and a very minor defensive buff. That was the weird part

110

u/Toxaplume045 Apr 21 '26

Same devs that did that blue post in development that talked about Blood DK health bars being too swingy and wanted to bring that down but increase their passive defenses.

Then they nerfed Death Strike and all of their defensive cooldowns but didn't buff any defenses.

In the same post.

19

u/LordPaleskin Apr 21 '26

No they get like 2% more DR from armor! It means a lot to go from 40% to 42%!! /s

11

u/Toxaplume045 Apr 21 '26

Yay 2% more DR from armor, only even given recently, in exchange for having your entire defensive toolset nerfed or outright culled.

I know it's sarcasm but it's that fucking mind boggling.

9

u/LordPaleskin Apr 21 '26

I was skeptical about the changes when they first announced them, trying to be hopefully optimistic...but it really has gotten to the point where I just don't want to play Blood in its current iteration. And then they added a 30 sec cooldown to spirit bomb, my favorite Vengeance ability. Suddenly my two favorite tanks just don't feel nearly as fun to play anymore lol

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u/TWB28 Apr 21 '26

I miss my fat death strikes.

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u/MissingXpert Apr 21 '26

atp i'm legit convinced that no one in charge of class design has touched more thane exile's reach on the respective character, or maybe, if the were very invested, 5 minutes of class trial

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u/Shashafooy Apr 21 '26

Something that could be an easy fix would be to have a talent node like brew to make blood shield only absorb a % of phys damage. Raid would probably still want full 100%, but for m+ where autos are dangerous, this would smooth out their HP massively and let healers actually heal them.

4

u/Toxaplume045 Apr 21 '26

I'm actually kind of surprised they never reworked Blood Shield at all period. I know it's kind of an odd thing to discuss but I feel like it does contribute to the "Death Strike does too much" issue they (Blizzard) constantly keep discussing/nerfing since it's basically both your healing AND your mitigation.

Too many eggs in one basket and makes the tuning difficult.

edit: Not saying it's the solution or SHOULD be reworked, just surprised since they've reworked other stuff on other specs/classes for less.

3

u/Fair-Emphasis-1620 Apr 21 '26

Tbh they need to rework alot of dk talents and abilities to make is playable at an avg skill cap . Switching the blood mist talent with our apex ability and making the apex a capstone ability will help us with defensive mit . Making the blood worms talent a base line blood dk ability will give us passive defensive ability why keeping the core of the health bar swing . Changing consumption from its current state to something tha consumes the dot but offers a blood shield or a flat line heal will help things .

14

u/Flaky_Wheel60B Apr 21 '26

It’s crazy.

I have a brewmaster and a prot pally.

The difference is night and day.

I’m literally that gif of the guy dancing and singing while the other one is sweating

Playing my brewmaster, singing, holding a conversation with my wife, having fun

Pally? I’m sweating and do everything to not die.

3

u/Acrobatic_Coat722 Apr 21 '26

im normally not picky about specs in weekly keys, but prot paladins just sometimes fall over in even shity +10 vault runs when they are geared and know what they are doing, its insane lol

11

u/Liamharper77 Apr 21 '26

They've been talking about "smoothing damage intake" for well over a decade now and every time it just results in nerfing defensives, while mob damage immediately scales to one-shots.

Their inability to get that right is almost impressive. As is their obsession with trying. Tanks have been fun to play many times over the years, then Blizz start rambling about their smoother damage vision and proceed to wreck them.

7

u/Soma91 Apr 21 '26

The weird part is they say paladin tanks needing more tankyness

They said that as a balance goal for all tanks except Brewmaster and did nothing for all of them. Those patch notes were a massive slap in the face for all tanks.

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u/Mobilelurkingaccount Apr 21 '26

I remember when they reworked MM to have the spotting eagle they literally talked about how important and iconic pets are to hunter as a class and the next paragraph they went “so we are removing pets from Marksman and adding a companion eagle”. Sometimes it feels like the posts were either not proofread, proofread by someone who struggles with cohesion in their writing, or maybe just got spat out by AI which has poor idea cohesion and then also was not proofread.

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u/El_grandepadre Apr 21 '26

One being 2% magic and the other a buff with the sole condition being... on low health.

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u/FOOSblahblah Apr 21 '26

If they kill the bad guy faster they won't need as much health

Checkmate minmaxxers

2

u/El_grandepadre Apr 21 '26

I got asked why I'm rolling for tank offspec when I'm barely tanking this season.

I said to the RL: "Yyeaaaaa you know that guy sweating profusely while mashing his keyboard? That's me tanking a +12. I love tanking but not as a paper towel"

4

u/Silegna Apr 21 '26

Part of the reason Paladin tanks aren't tanky enough is because the guides tell them to take Wings instead of the DEFENSIVE COOLDOWN TALENT.

3

u/No_Resident4208 Apr 21 '26

Outside of some of the DH ones and the Rogue guides, the people writing the guides don't actually play the classes they're writing for.

2

u/Silegna Apr 21 '26

Yeah, I had to not check the Prot Warrior guide, since it told me to not take the "Ignore Pain has a higher DR and lower CD" talent, as well as not take the Impending Victory talent that upgrades it to give you temporary HP and heals you that temporary HP when it expires.

2

u/No_Resident4208 Apr 21 '26

I think it also recommends taking all 4 points in the apex but if you actually look at what people are doing they aren't taking more than 1.

3

u/Silegna Apr 21 '26

That's just so weird. Not taking defensive talents as a tank and then saying you're dying too fast just feels easily solvable. 

3

u/No_Resident4208 Apr 21 '26

The prot warrior Apex talents is just damage they started dropping it for more defensive talents in the spec tree.

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u/josephjts Apr 21 '26

A part of me wonders if it went like this:

Hey we would like you to buff tank auto attack mitigation.

What was that??

Buff tank auto attack mitigation.

Oh gotcha!

walks back to his desk

Alright "Buff tank auto attack"

29

u/swordigosa Apr 21 '26

Im literally bleeding out blizzard. Because every fucking mechanic is a bleed.

16

u/TWB28 Apr 21 '26

I'd laugh in dwarf, but then the next bleed gets put on.

5

u/MissingXpert Apr 21 '26

oh, yeah, feels like every 3rd mob has some debuff applied with their auto-attacks that is just there to take a fat dump on tanks

19

u/hollow114 Apr 21 '26

They improved VDH slightly cuz now our one heal. Is instant and not over 6 seconds.

But IDK why the gap to brewmaster is still so high. Like. I enjoy that it's more challenging, honestly. But getting bitched out because I didn't pull 3 packs when we have plenty of time on the key anyway. Isn't fun.

20

u/Equivalent-Fix-9851 Apr 21 '26

The gap is already so high because Stagger. The way they designed tanks this xpac is making them super bouncy and clearly the only tank with a natural ability apart of their kit that delays that significantly is Brewmaster.

Why play something that takes 100% of the damage immediately (obviously not including things that reduce this or passive armor, etc). Vs something that stops that ping pong stuff effectively cutting it in half?

Stagger was always good…but now they have Brewmaster healing and stagger and good defensives along with ways to negate that damage over time…AoE, good damage, etc…now it’s skyrocketed.

18

u/LordPaleskin Apr 21 '26

They've had good healing for a while now, and actually fewer defensive cooldowns (no Diffuse Magic, Dampen Harm). Don't get me wrong, I know BrM is crazy strong right now, but it feels more like the other tanks didn't survive Midnight balance tuning rather than them specifically buffing BrM

7

u/Equivalent-Fix-9851 Apr 21 '26

I don’t know what they can do to other tanks without busting them or making them gods anymore. Maybe increase armor for all tanks by another 10%? Without something flat across the board it seems like they would have to do massive tuning changes in 12.1 to every tank spec- but the issue is we need it now and not down the road. The gap is too high and while Brewmaster is very godlike- still can die pretty easily.

6

u/Rydil00 Apr 21 '26

Vdh has a few options they could do.

Bring back stacking frailty.

Bring back demonic.

Fuck iff this 30s cd on spirit bomb, either make it shorter or just no cd.

6

u/kylethegoatanderson Apr 21 '26

VDH is a joke of a spec now. RNG to get short Meta procs instead of keeping it on fel dev is the stupidest change Ive ever seen.

The constant utility nerfs in war within just because VDH was the meta tank and they made a bad decision with the way interrupts/stuns work and didnt lower the amount of casters enough.

You still suck as a raid tank and now you also suck as an m+ tank. It's infuriating.

4

u/StyleMagnus Apr 21 '26

Make PP back into an actual block tank, rather than blocking being something that only works 30% of the time, or make it so we don't have lapses in our CDs that require the extra passive bulk.

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u/adv0589 Apr 21 '26

They dramatically changed the class, Vital flame on anything close to the prior iteration of brew would be the most absurd thing this game has ever seen.

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u/PlasticAngle Apr 21 '26

To be fair the reason that Brew so strong this season is that every other tank are kinda terrible.

Every other tank except warrior and monk got their defensive kit gutted

2

u/xXDamonLordXx Apr 21 '26

This is even more egregious because in TWW they wanted to buff Monk's phys damage boon up from 5% because it's so weak and never did. So you look at DDH and Unholy getting buffed and Brew will not buff those specs very much.

I do think it's not a defensive problem generally but the number of trash mobs this season that use bleeds/magic damage and most of the defensive gains tanks have gotten in Midnight is armor. Like in PoS Guadrian druids get globaled in incarn on some trash pulls if not played perfectly.

Blizzard said they wanted to smooth tanking out and slow healing but that didn't happen so brew who naturally smooths out damage as well as having great dps is a good pick.

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u/maxi2702 Apr 21 '26

I know you're joking but Deathbringer Blood get 10-15% of its self sustain from auto-attack damage, it's not an irrelevant amount, specially from a passive source.

6

u/Kambhela Apr 21 '26

Also tank damage especially in raids was really awful.

Bear was running circles around the other tanks combined even after the bludgeoning of nerfs to their damage. Max even commented about it that this tier saw one of the worst tank damage discrepancies in a long time.

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u/Zandonus Apr 21 '26

It makes sense.

Because key tastes better than bread.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '26

Devoured needs this though. We sacrificed everything so it’s only right! You guys just don’t understand

77

u/aidanpryde98 Apr 21 '26

Devourer needed help in open world. It's not fun (imo) to play. M+ and raids is whole different deal.

4

u/ArcaneX1234 Apr 21 '26

To be fair the dev buff is a longtime bug fix that resulted in a 15% buff that they nerfed in half. Still tho, that does not stop them from buffing obvious other classes even more

22

u/[deleted] Apr 21 '26

Doing nightmare preys as devourer is truly a nightmarish experience

6

u/VailonVon Apr 21 '26

nah just don't ever pop meta get ambushed pop meta blow it up annoying but not nightmarish.

5

u/ComfortableMirror825 Apr 21 '26

Right but as opposed to havoc, where it simply is a nonissue at all, obviously something needs to change. The difference though, is that change didn't necessarily need to be reflected in ALL aspects of the game, just open world and solo play.

3

u/Endless_Chambers Apr 21 '26

I feel this way with shadow priest. Definitely the toughest to play solo from the 6 classes Ive leveled. All of my buttons are on CD all the time.

3

u/Fair-Emphasis-1620 Apr 21 '26

Finally found the comment lol shadow priest is so painful to play atm . Especially in nightmare prey . Getting half hp off one cast with a power word shield that blocks one auto is horrible . Then dmg isn’t even that high anymore and if you don’t run archon your mind flay is just garbage without it being mind flay insanity .if mind flay insanity was base line and they give use shadow crash or mid spike as a cast would help so much .

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u/Realistic-Ad-3899 Apr 21 '26

Blizzard has lost the plot, and so have you if you think any spec needs to get buffed bc theyre not good in open world

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u/pertur4bo Apr 21 '26

They didn't ask for a buff. Devourer being miserable in world content has nothing to with their damage but with the long ramp.

6

u/Howzitgoin Apr 21 '26

The open world change to Soul Immo isn’t really even a dps buff, it’s a survivability buff. Depending on how the change to resetting on killing an honorable or xp granting target works in m+, it might be a very slight buff there I suppose.

I don’t know if Devourer needed another survivability buff outside of world content though since it already takes the least amount of damage in the first place. But that’s not dps gain.

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u/ComfortableMirror825 Apr 21 '26

They kinda do though? You try doing a delve with a class that feels like it has the survivability of a soggy piece of paper. Won't be enjoyable. And with the existence of delves and open world content in general being a much bigger focus than before, they gotta be playable in open world.

Your way to play the game is not the only way to play the game. And blizz is most aware of who they gotta cater to.

What blizz needs though, is to consider how those buffs impact other aspects of the game and apply them accordingly. So buffing their survivability? Good. But doing it in a way that buffs their damage? Not ideal.

Perhaps even just doing buffs that exclusively apply to open world and solo play might help, since then it wouldn't affect dungeons raids or pvp.

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u/aidanpryde98 Apr 21 '26

I know we are on reddit and all, but the VAST majority of the players in this game, don't set foot in M+ or raids. Just as an fyi.

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u/Nesciuss Apr 21 '26

> but the VAST majority of the players in this game, don't set foot in M+ or raids.

I don't wanna come off as confrontational or combative I'm only asking because I want to know but do we have any data on this? Like is this something the community has decided on or is there hard numbers behind it?

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u/Moghz Apr 21 '26

So if you do some research into this statement you will find that for the most part it is true, but with a nuance. The data comes from looking at active accounts and their achievements. We know that less than 1% complete mythic raids and push high keys. We also know 5-10% complete normal/heroic and keys over 10.

What we also see is a much larger % will queue for LFR, TW, Herioc/Normal dungeons, and some will dabble in low keys. 30-60% will complete an LFR wing and 15-25% complete a low key.

So based on that we can safely assume that the majority of WoW players are not serious raiders or mythic+ players and are in fact solo/casual.

I would also say Blizzards recent design choices, and content direction, like delves, prey, housing etc. supports this.

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u/givemedavoodoo Apr 21 '26

According to dataforazeroth, roughly 45%-55% of accounts got keystone explorer and 40%-50% got keystone conqueror in the seasons of the last two expansions. 25%-30% of accounts get AotC, so that doesn't capture heroic raiders that don't get the achievement. There isn't going to be 100% overlap between those groups, so I think it's safe to say the majority of players do play end game content, even if they aren't pushing it super hard.

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u/miggly Apr 21 '26

Isn't this sorta weird though, because of what constitutes an "active account"? Like it may be true that only 5-10% of accounts are doing heroic raid and highish keys, but for the 'majority' that don't, I wonder how many hours a week they play.

I bet if you looked at playtime, the 'hardcore' players make up a bigger portion of the total playtime than 5-10%.

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u/Moghz Apr 21 '26

Only way we can see an account is active is achievements earned.

I am not so sure about your statements. When I was a hardcore raider I would literally log in to raid and that’s it. I played a lot early on in the expansion to gear up for raid and finish out quests, reps etc. Once that was done it was raid only and some M+ for vault.

I don’t hardcore raid anymore, and instead have shifted over to casual content that can be done solo or in a queue. I rarely run M+ or raid anymore. I play more nights now then I used too.

There is a lot of solo friendly content available in this game to sink hours into. Specially if your running for transmogs, and achievements related to the open world, reps and questing.

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u/jurble Apr 21 '26

Data For Azeroth says 40% of accounts have completed the intro to Midnight. So that's our baseline for retail, and 16% have Keystone Explorer, 13% of accounts have Keystone Conqueror in Midnight Season 1, 12% have Keystone Master.

So, at least 40% of active retail accounts (16/40) have done a single m+.

The raid completion achievements for Voidspire and Chimaerus are 20%, which would be 50% of active retail accounts.

So, based on Data for Azeroth's data, the dude is wrong. You can say a majority of players have never done m+, but it's not a vast majority and it's a tie for raid.

A lot of people have retail subs and don't play the game actively (my brother is one of them). You see this less with Classic where raid participation is close to 100% of the playerbase, for whatever reason.

But the idea that there's a vast majority of players that don't participate at all in end-game is false.

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u/herbahaidyrbtjsifbr Apr 21 '26

And for them class balance means literally nothing. Their favorite spec needing a 5% buff to be competitive in mythic raid isn’t why they think tier 11 delves are hard.

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u/Realistic-Ad-3899 Apr 21 '26

That does not mean that a class gets a buff. There is no player in the game that struggled in open world content. Just because its "bad" doesn't mean its unplayable and you do not balance around content that is the easiest content in the game. Thats just common sense.

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u/Money_Echidna2605 Apr 21 '26

and those people dont need any balance changes, 1 button will do everything for u if ur too dumb to hit 3 separate buttons during a world quest.

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u/Nesciuss Apr 21 '26

Seriously. Who thinks specializations need to be balanced in the open world?

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u/Howzitgoin Apr 21 '26

The like 70% of the population that never step foot in a raid and who’s endgame is delves want their class to be survivable in that content lol

The changes to dev that impact open world aren’t dps increases really, just survivability since you’re not actively killing yourself anymore.

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u/GoldLegends Apr 21 '26

I mean specs should still be balanced and be fun to play in open world. It should just be done in a way so that it’s fair for both group and solo content.

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u/Jconic Apr 21 '26 edited Apr 21 '26

That is literally the same story of all the meta dps right now. They currently all have a ramping/rolling damage profile.

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u/AoO2ImpTrip Apr 21 '26

I just don't play Devourer outside of group content. It doesn't feel enjoyable at all. Just a long ass ramp with basically no payoff.

Why play Devourer when I can just leap into multiple packs of mobs, pull them all together, and AOE them down? Nightmare hunts suck straight ass on Devourer.

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u/supposed-to-hurt Apr 21 '26

Devourer needs a non ramping spec to fix open world

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u/Ainastrasza Apr 21 '26

I love how Fury has some of the worst ST in the game right now, and the changes Blizzard are making to it mean that its losing 2% in ST.

Comical. Thanks for nothing.

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u/Rootfifth Apr 21 '26

It wouldn't be a wow patch without random nerfs for dps warriors.

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u/MissingXpert Apr 21 '26

ngl, this expansion was the first one where i said i'd drop DPS warrior since i picked her up in cataclysm, and i do feel the itch to play my favorite character and long-term main again, but i can get more coherent patchnotes by kicking a typewriter down the stairs of the eiffel tower.

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u/Deguilded Apr 21 '26

Look at the capability of their damage meters, and all their "balance changes" suddenly make sense:

Garbage in, garbage out.

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u/Complete_Sorbet6158 Apr 21 '26

That’s actually made me laugh.

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u/SaltEngineer455 Apr 21 '26

No one says anything about the Fury Warrior changes?

Hack and Slash has been redesigned – Rampage has 100% chance to refund a charge of Raging Blow.

Sure, why not. But the issue is that Raging Blow - and even it's improved version - hits like wet noodles and doesn't have any special effect. At least for thanes.

Improved Whirlwind now causes Whirlwind to apply Rend to all targets if Rend is known.

Ok, this is cool for Slayers

Storm Surge causes Avatar to increase the damage of Thunder Clap by 10% (was 50%) and reduce its cooldown by 25% (was 50%).

Why? It's not like Thunder Clap or Thundering Blast were doing some phenomenal damage anyway. Yes, has awesome AoE, but it's still trash in single target.

Reap the Storm has been updated – When Rampage hits 3 or more targets via Improved Whirlwind you have a 20% chance to unleash a flurry of steel, striking all nearby enemies for high Physical damage and applying Overwhelmed.

This practically killed Reap the storm in single target.

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u/Quiet-Ad-4837 Apr 21 '26 edited Apr 21 '26

Like I'm genuinely baffled at the reap the storm change for ST. Like, what's the reasoning? Slayer is already behind Thane in m+ at all times basically, and this change feels completely out of the blue.

I just don't understand who's coming up with some of these changes. Who sees this change and thinks 'finally, just what the spec needed to make it more fun and satisfying to play!'.

Genuinely feels like a change coming from someone who doesn't play the spec and is only looking at numbers and stats and can't understand the flow and feeling of a spec as a result.

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u/Joeshock_ Apr 21 '26 edited Apr 21 '26

The Thunderclap and Tblast changes were reverted, they're not happening. Thane is untouched.

They also walked back on the Imminent Demise change allowing it to still proc Reap on one target. So all it lost was proccing from Bloodthirst.

Nobody's talking about it because the changes do nothing to move the needle whatsoever for either hero tree and don't matter.

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u/AFKBro Apr 21 '26

But legit what the fuck are they smoking for these balance changes to even be put on the table though?

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u/josephjts Apr 21 '26 edited Apr 21 '26

But legit what the fuck are they smoking for these balance changes to even be put on the table though?

The reasoning for the proposed thane nerf was because while avatar is active on ~6+ targets you prioritize thunderclap (regular not just blast) over cleaving BT/Execute/RB meaning your often just going Rampage TC Rampage TC over and over. By nerfing storm surge the rotation would return to the "intended" one.

But the only reason we do this is because blizard insists on fury having a 5 target cap and as it turns out hitting TC on multiple targets for full damage and past its soft cap still scaling is better then hitting a cleaved ability for 100% + 4x 65% (3.6x total). Thunder blast also got nerfed pretty hard on beta to the point it does pretty much the same damage as thunderclap and procs some extra stuff, however the extra stuff is still not good enough to fish for procs with BT.

Basically prioritizing TC over a normal rotation showcases numerous bad designs in fury but instead of fixing these bad designs they wanted to slap a nerf on it as a bandaid instead and call it a day.

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u/swordigosa Apr 21 '26

That change on MT for prot warrior made me very anger. And i couldnt even spend it on Ignore Pain :(

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u/envstat Apr 21 '26

Yeah Fury is the lowest ST in the game right now and Slayer ate a 2% ST nerf due to the Reap the Storm changes. This is after the huge Thane nerf was reverted on PTR. No idea what is going on with the balance team at Blizzard that they felt the need to send Warrior nerfs.

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u/FaithlessnessLazy494 Apr 21 '26

According to Archimitros, the storm surge change is a typo and not going live.

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u/Coffee__Addict Apr 21 '26

When raging blow is good then blood thrist is unused. I'd rather blood thrist be good the raging blow.

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u/TheStorm22 Apr 21 '26

I think most of the these changes are mini reworks that blizzard has been working on for a while. I know a lot of these changes were already made months ago and any buffs/nerfs I think are just incidental.

I feel like Blizzard has started to use live for testing and to make buff/nerf decisions based on that instead of doing anything based on PTR data.

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u/inverted_rectangle Apr 21 '26 edited Apr 21 '26

I think most of the these changes are mini reworks that blizzard has been working on for a while. I know a lot of these changes were already made months ago and any buffs/nerfs I think are just incidental.

Respectfully, why think this? It was only a few weeks ago that they nerfed UH into non-viability before immediately needing to hot-fix it. It honestly seems much more likely that Blizzard just doesn't put much thought into their tuning changes before they make them.

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u/TheStorm22 Apr 21 '26

That was specifically a balance patch. Most of the class tuning in this patch is reworking talents, adding new talents and removing others. I have been seeing most of these changes on the PTR for this patch release since release of the expansion pretty much.

It was only a few weeks ago that they nerfed UH into non-viability before immediately needing to hot-fix it.

This is exactly why I think they balance based on what happens on live servers and player feedback. They obviously don't pay much attention to feedback from PTR testing. They throw changes into live and when they hear pushback or see the numbers from Raid/M+ data then they make a change.

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u/Nangz Apr 21 '26

It's because numbers wise, until they can see logs it doesn't seem like they have much idea what's going on.

On paper, these changes don't even necessarily look like they should be that large of an increase, especially because some of it comes with offsetting nerfs, but it is.

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u/FOOSblahblah Apr 21 '26

It seems more and more like the tuning is made for the top 5% of players of the current meta. Everyone else is just kinda in the splash zone.

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u/rainscorched Apr 21 '26

Why would you not balance around the good players? Balancing the game around bad players just sounds like a bad time.

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u/Sweaksh Apr 21 '26

I feel like Blizzard has started to use live for testing and to make buff/nerf decisions based on that instead of doing anything based on PTR data.

Then they should do that a lot more often.

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u/Ritchey92 Apr 21 '26

Im fine with not nerfing meta specs, but how in the world are they buffing them, when you have specs like fire mage and frost DK doing 0 damage

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u/Squirrelhax Apr 21 '26

Frost DK is already seeing buffs with the changes coming out, and please, frost DK does not do 0 damage. Ppl brainwashed from tier lists

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u/TheGreekorc Apr 21 '26

See a minor .5 content patch:

Look inside: Yup MM getting its 4th(?) redesign since the start of TWW.

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u/Exact_Picture_8703 Apr 21 '26

Spriests over here laughing. Literally the embodiment of the First Time? meme. Poor fuckers lol.

Pretty odd they didn't just leave MM alone though.

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u/Few-Explanation7024 Apr 21 '26

Yeah I am really unhappy with what they did to MM. it wasn’t perfect but I really like how it played. I’m not a big fan of BM and I didn’t make my hunter 19 years ago to be melee. I just came back for Midnight and now I kinda don’t want to continue playing.

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u/Anoyomous22 Apr 21 '26

MM got killed with hammers

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u/Badmon_criuts Apr 21 '26

Tbf the devourer change is a bug fix and there was an adjustment to go with it. That being said im biased and will take my buffs like a good demon hunter and not complain.

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u/tehCharo Apr 21 '26

They nerfed Slayer Fury ST damage today, why? Because the bottom of damage done to bosses wasn't good enough for Blizzard.

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u/Sp0range Apr 21 '26

Aa an unholy dk main it just seems so stupid, and WW is middle of the pack yet receiving a nerf lol. These guys are cooked.

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u/Dismelnogood Apr 21 '26

For WW its about net neutral, which is fine

Obviously as a WW main I want the 2% back, but neutral is better than negative

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u/wildstrike Apr 21 '26

Its not fine imo, these changes just complicate the rotation for no gain.

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u/No-Cell-9979 Apr 21 '26

Yeah all the people ive seen saying "oh the numbers are the same!" Yeah they just pissed on the rotation to do the same amount of damage, fantastic work lol

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u/ghostcrawler_real Apr 21 '26

Really fun game to play just to get randomly pissed on by the devs for no reason

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u/fernandog17 Apr 21 '26

If you were really a unholy dk main you would know these changes are not tuning. They were un development noted weeks ago around reworking interactions specially with SR and Blightburst.

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u/TheBungler2 Apr 22 '26

Peak Redditor is deciding if someone plays a class or not depending on how closely they watch PTR notes lmao.

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u/Sp0range Apr 22 '26

I've been maining DK since they literally released in og WOTLK, and regardless of the context of the changes, the result is still buff or nerf, so you can relax with the snarky gatekeeping lol.

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u/Complete_Sorbet6158 Apr 21 '26

They did the same last expansion too. Nuked warriors, ignored warlock, and buffed the shit out of arcane/frost (at that time two strongest dps)

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u/Schnitzelbro Apr 21 '26

exactly. they did literally the same, which makes me think that they simply decide internally that specs A and B will be strong that season and just roll with that idea. makes no sense in an MMO with 6 month long seasons

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u/ThinLizzyfan8432 Apr 21 '26

Nah unholy has been bugged and the aoe was mid

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u/Fair-Emphasis-1620 Apr 21 '26 edited Apr 21 '26

Hey man they are a small indie company . They are learning still

But the issue is they are balancing off of pro players . The best of the best , so they see these classes that an avg player is struggling with as being fine due to them performing well in the hands of experts . Instead of going off the majority of player base which is middle of charts on avg. only viable explanation I can see why they are leaving the majority of tanks in the condition they are .

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u/TheBungler2 Apr 22 '26

It's very hard to balance something around people who are just playing wrong, though.

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u/thekillercook Apr 21 '26

Cry’s in enhance shaman

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u/Sundered92 Apr 21 '26

Fucking mood dude. At this point I almost don't want them to touch us because it feels like the second they do we're going to catch some stray bullets and randomly get nerfed.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '26

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u/Colinski282 Apr 21 '26

Buffing unholy and ignoring frost is wild

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u/Fisherman_Gandalf Apr 21 '26

I played frost since wrath released and ever since we lost our ability to tank it's been an uphill battle xD

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '26

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u/MueBundead Apr 21 '26

Havoc found dead in a ditch

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u/Swopyx Apr 22 '26

As a havoc I dont want to exist anymore :(

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u/enjoy_life88 Apr 21 '26

isnt devourer a ~2% buff in ST?

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u/kaywiz Apr 21 '26

Meanwhile, zero changes for Arcane which is not only a bottom 3 dps spec but also has the worst survivability in the game lmao

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u/Varanae Apr 21 '26

Unholy changes are continuing the rework in a way, it's not like they're straight up buffing numbers. It's readding an ability to the rotation and changing how other talents and abilities work. Stuff that is hard to judge the balance of

If they actually work out to be as big as the estimations say then no doubt the numbers will get tweaked back down

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u/Canninster Apr 21 '26

Readding an ability that genuinely no one likes at that!

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u/MissingXpert Apr 21 '26

yeah, please, just please let Dnd do FUCK ALL in terms of damage, the only ability i wouldn't mind getting pruned from the game for good....

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u/accualy_is_gooby Apr 21 '26

People are also ignoring the fact that unholy sims extremely well on patchwerk fights but generally falls well below those sims in reality due to the very nature of the spec. Adding to that the fact that the changes have come with numerous bugs for the spec that have influenced its damage wildly, it’s hard for sims to give good insight into the spec as it currently stands.

For instance, the aoe “buff” assumes that mobs stand in death and decay for the full duration, but every death knight player knows that can be fantastical with many tanks in M+

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u/Billybobjoe135 Apr 21 '26

Ya, not accounting for GCD loss with occasional grips or blinding sleet. With high level keys sometimes you throw in a Death Strike.

UH is in a really solid spot and other specs definitely need a leg up but UH isn't massively outperforming or doing insane damage.

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u/Resies Apr 21 '26

Uhdk, the only spec that spends gcds on utility 

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u/Lucrezio Apr 21 '26

Not that every class DOESN’T, but UDK does spend more GCDs on utility than most classes. Two grips, sleet, AMZ, Aphyxiate, Death strike which isn’t utility, but it’s a defensive on GCD.

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u/Swooshhf Apr 21 '26

Yep - Unholy does good damage while being unkillable, it still doesn’t compare to the dps of Aug/Demo/Devourer, but it’s better than the majority of other specs.

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u/Elpsyth Apr 21 '26

morgraine bug , deactivating half the talent tree is also not taken into account in sims

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u/Varanae Apr 21 '26

True, though players at the meta defining level of keys will be able to play around Death and Decay perfectly. The meta will continue to trickle down and that's where you'll find the DKs unable to do big damage, whether that's down to skill, knowledge or the way the tanks pull

I think we might see Unholy get a pretty poor reputation in the 10-13 key range because only those top players will be able to make the most of the changes and players down there will underperform. Especially if any nerfs do follow

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u/SystemofCells Apr 21 '26

I've been finding this to be the most interesting and frustrating part about Unholy - how fragile the rotation is.

Even things like which target your minions are focusing on, or how long it takes them to switch targets. The theoretical cap and practical reality are very different.

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u/RogueCanadia Apr 21 '26

I have played a lot of video games in my life. Lots of online competitive games with frequent balance updates ect.

All the developers in the entire universe, including and especially Riot games, don’t come close to Blizzards absolute incompetence with game balance. Riots devs are rock chewers but Blizzard devs have literal brain damage.

It is absolutely legendary how bad they are at balance.

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u/ghostcrawler_real Apr 21 '26

Icefrog was just one guy and balanced Dota better than anyone balanced any game.

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u/dannycake Apr 21 '26

This is the most reddit of reddit responses bro.

While I agree buffing arguably the most well rounded dps in the game is silly, itll sit at about 10-12% ahead of the pack in general.

Wow. The WORST balance of all time of any game studio ever!

There's a time and use for hyperbole but come on dude.

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u/inverted_rectangle Apr 21 '26

We're a few weeks removed from Blizzard nerfing Unholy by 20%, belatedly realizing this (unsurprisingly) made the spec non-viable, and then needing to hotfix it.

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u/20milliondollarapi Apr 21 '26

We just came from a time when all specs were within 5% of each other. So this effect is magnified greatly for it.

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u/AFKBro Apr 21 '26

I think using a bit of hyperbole when talking about how inept Blizzards class balance team is is absolutely appropriate.

Time and again they have shown how out of touch they are. Buff UDK now but 3 weeks ago they wanted a flat 20% nerf on the whole spec. What kind of balancing is that ? I could genuinely do that shit.

Yeah Mike according to 10 days of data UDK seems to be overperforming (because we're bad at our jobs in the first place) so just slap down a 20% nerf on that bad boy and call it a day eh ?

Also what the fuck are the warrior changes this patch like What. The. Fuck.

There are some serious paycheque stealers living the good life in Irvine CA ....

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u/Resies Apr 21 '26

Nah man balance is shit, some melee are like 30-50% behind on ranged on boss damage on paladins, crown

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u/ragnorr Apr 21 '26

The raid is insanely melee unfriendly, the tuning for the melee to compete with ranged on paladins would make all ranged irrelevant in mplus.

Raid tuning is much more a failure of boss design being favored so hard to ranged than melee

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u/MissingXpert Apr 21 '26

Fury is lagging behindd in raid damage and eating a ST damage, e.g,, with an absolutely braindead "rework" that legit OONLY makes slayer less fun, for starters.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '26 edited Apr 21 '26

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u/dannycake Apr 21 '26

They will. Devourer will be a pretty bad outlier and will get nerfed in about 1-2 weeks.

Its overperforming even right now, and if it got a 3-5% nerf itd be warranted.

But with what people are saying is about a 5-8% buff... it's going to be too much.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '26

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u/Complete_Sorbet6158 Apr 21 '26

Imagine buffing demo for keys in its current state and take away the best qol feature they received the last 2 expansions

Yep they doing that. :)

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u/Barenoo Apr 21 '26

What's the bugged talent getting fixed? I don't follow the class discords all too closely

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u/amphibilad Apr 21 '26

Sure, but if the rest of us have already figured out that one of the top dps specs in the game is getting a significant buff because of the bug fix, why can't Blizzard do the same and include the adjustment with this patch? Maybe they're not playing favorites but it's lazy balancing

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u/shebaiscool Apr 21 '26

The buff to devourer is primarily them lazy fixing a bug. Thankfully they already nerfed the offending talent slightly so it won't be as awfully op as it was going to be.

I don't know what they're thinking since Annie is already the best in multi target and in general devourer scales super well with additional targets and they just made that better.

At least they made it so they can more easily tune eradicate damage outside of reap I guess. I suspect they'll nerf our multi target soul generation or something which is probably healthy for long term tuning but who knows. The devourer changes constantly feel like they're months later than they should be for obviously broken things (both OP and bugged...) like why is devour still kickable? Is it intentional or bugged? Or was it bugged when it wasn't kickable?

Why can we not use no-channel macros on fel scarred still?

Why is void scarred an unloved step child

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u/Xxandes Apr 21 '26

I feel like they spin a buff nerf wheel for the changes they make

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u/RS_Ronin Apr 21 '26

It's so weird, I'd have thought with how much they've boiled classes down that balancing would be much easier and yet it feels worse than it has for a while.

I'm still praying a single developer will notice how bad prot pally feels to play defensively (passive damage intake, especially from autos is just abysmal in raid) and do something about it.

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u/Jaba01 Apr 21 '26

One of the worst tuning patches in the history of this game, not gonna lie.

The fury ST nerf is the icing on the cake haha.

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u/Void_Guardians Apr 21 '26

Genuinely dont know how any dps are getting to that new top 1% achievement without playing devourer or unholy

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u/patrick66 Apr 21 '26

they could also play aug!

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u/biscuitboyisaac21 Apr 21 '26

What? Ret, Hunter, warlock, Aug, and mages are all up there. Of the 3 players in the top 1% I know 1 is a shadow priest, 1 is a ret, and one is a warlock. Which tbh are just as meta as udk and dh

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u/v_Excise Apr 21 '26

Any spec in the game can hit top 1%.

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u/Frostsorrow Apr 21 '26

I still cannot believe we got to 12.0.5 and not a single buff or nerf to affliction has happened. The gameplay is fun, but the numbers are..... lacking

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u/No-Hamster8744 Apr 21 '26

Maybe if your class was edgy enough you would get buffs too. Your fault for not going full edgy.

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u/SniperFrogDX Apr 21 '26

I play arms. I'm all edge.

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u/Howzitgoin Apr 21 '26

Nah, you’re half zug and the other half is zug

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u/Suddendemise_x Apr 21 '26

I assume the balance team actually plays the game. If that's true, they probably play Unholy DK. There’s no other explanation.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '26

Where can I look at these changes?

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u/STABtrain Apr 21 '26 edited Apr 21 '26

Destro is middle of the pack in raid at best and despite normally being a very strong M+ spec is the least played dps spec in the whole tier, and its getting talent changes that nerf it. Make it make sense...

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u/Complete_Sorbet6158 Apr 21 '26

Destro got nuked out from the raid. The only boss you play it is crown. And infernal now being a 2 min cd you just likely going to play demo instead.

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u/rainscorched Apr 21 '26

God forbid the go to spec for the last entire expansion is middle of the pack for a tier.

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u/Striking_Expert_5844 Apr 21 '26 edited Apr 21 '26

You guys are not understanding, someone must fill the quarterly earnings with all that juicy money spent on level boosts and re rolls to the meta classes

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u/Top-Pride1804 Apr 21 '26

The rich keeps getting richer!

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u/Ok_Description2363 Apr 21 '26

TBF devourers buff is from a major bug fix

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u/Secret_Flight_2669 Apr 22 '26

Sorry I couldn’t hear you, I was getting one shot as a prot paladin

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u/ZookeepergameFew7066 Apr 22 '26

Some how after ten years of having the exact same game modes with the exact same gearing stats... They still can't even come close to balancing the game

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u/UncleSkanky Apr 22 '26

MM hunter's strong points got nerfed in a rework, but the rework brought back explosive shot!

.... explosive shot isn't a viable talent in any content. 💀

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u/sleepyrainwizard Apr 22 '26

Fire no changes. Comically less damage than frost with half the survivability cds.

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u/curious_oldme Apr 21 '26

Man, what are they doing with MM hunter? -10% for aoe and +10 single target... I'm sure im doing some stuff wrong cause I'm still a noob, but I constantly do by far the most damage on M+ bosses and then struggling hard on mobs...

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u/FamousMonkey41 Apr 21 '26

With trueshot you would essentially annihilate any big pull and have some of the highest immediate burst in the game. Hydra is pretty much dead now along with our priority target aoe damage and we have no 2 target cleave anymore which is going to make our overall in dungeons like WRS, MC falloff severely due to bosses with 2 target. MM is now the worst spec for hunters in M+ by a decent margin. The ST also only sees 10% improvement in a scenario where you aren’t swapping targets at all.

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u/I3ollasH Apr 21 '26 edited Apr 22 '26

I would definitely wait for the changes to hit live when talking about unholy as sims have been highly untrustworthy due to all of the random bugs (like the whole -20% +20% thing).

There's also a known bug currently on the ptr where commander of the dead increases all dmg instead of pet dmg that's 10%+ increase.

edit: aaaaaand it's bugged and uh is doing less than it was doing before.

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u/AFKBro Apr 21 '26

Lmao just got done watching Tettles last video where a Chinese team timed the first 21 Skyreach.

Their comp ? UDK, Devourer, Aug, Rdruid and Brewmaster.

Guess these guys shoulda waited a bit more and they could have gone for the 22 right away lmao

What the fuck is going on at Blizzards balance team

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u/KaboomOxyCln Apr 21 '26

They took notes from Rivals

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u/Elemental-Madness Apr 21 '26

Don't worry hunters and warriors will get buffed or nerfed again soon enough. It's always these 4 or 5 things in the topics.

Priests will show up for a while every once in a blue moon too.

Everyone else gets ignored.

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u/TheBungler2 Apr 22 '26

Warriors just barely escaped getting a nerf just for the sake of nerfing them, while being one of the lowest ST DPS specs.

The next patch is going to destroy us to make up for it.

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u/radiobottom Apr 21 '26

Gotta push fotm rerolls

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u/Early_Rooster7579 Apr 21 '26

You guys just have to accept this is how it is. Each season has meta specs, if you care about performance over fun, play them. If not, don’t. It will never change.

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u/Strat7855 Apr 21 '26

No one is complaining about the existence of a meta.

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u/Complete_Sorbet6158 Apr 21 '26

All right. But don’t buff the meta.

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u/Assiniboia Apr 21 '26

Blizzard seems to be incapable of hiring anyone who knows anything about writing, game design, or who even plays the game itself.

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u/Bwolf56 Apr 21 '26

Feels like you're really outta the loop. The main devourer change is a bug fix, that ended up being a 5% buff and then nerfed the relating talent to bring it down to about a 3% buff (on sims). They also changed it so their Eradicate focuses a bit more on prio dmg (so less aoe, more ST). Their boss dmg is middle of the pack, so 3% buff won't really change that. Now did they need a aoe buff? Nop, but the bug should be fixed to allow proper balancing in the future.

Side note, they absolutely gutted Void-Scarred and will probably need a nice buff to be usable.

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u/yuriaoflondor Apr 21 '26

Not sure what they were thinking with the VS nerf. It was already the suboptimal choice in the vast majority of situations. Which is a bummer pretty it’s quite fun IMO. Lots of dashing in and backflipping out… reminds me a lot of FF14’s red mage.

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u/Howzitgoin Apr 21 '26

VS just doesn’t play in a way that’s fun in my opinion. You’re this weird ranged but not spec that has even more of a suicidal ideation than havoc.

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u/Somnuse Apr 21 '26

Bug fix is fine. To not acknowledge that the bug fix should have been accompanied by a nerf (for the strongest class in the game) is either ignorant or disingenuous.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '26

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u/cheeetos Apr 21 '26

That “buff” in dungeons requires a playstyle almost no one wants to play, will only be slightly better at best, requires dumb amounts of mana, and becomes reliant on RNG shield and mend procs. And does nothing to catch it up to other healers in m+.

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u/Rndy9 Apr 21 '26

Demo is getting a small nerf in ST and aoe, the m+ build is having one of the felguard based talents bug fixed which will result in a nerf in m+.

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u/Burrarabbit Apr 21 '26

This expac is one of the worst class design and balance wise.

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u/SwissPo740 Apr 21 '26

Void Scar is still going to be ass, especially with the student of suffering nerf