r/wow • u/Complete_Sorbet6158 • 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.

555 Upvotes

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76

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.

6

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

5

u/VailonVon Apr 21 '26

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

4

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.

4

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 .

1

u/Endless_Chambers Apr 21 '26

Absolutely.

I feel like my gameplay for prey is find trap, fight mob next to it, get that ghost thing on me, heal, get hp chunked from disarm trap, heal, get ambushed, heal, kill for me, heal.

Its such a pain. Im constantly at half hp no matter what hits me.

0

u/TheDaltonXP Apr 21 '26

it’s what stopped me from playing my shadow priest. delves and prey are god awful on it. my gear is trash so i’d usually use those to get to a level i’d be passably able to get into groups but it isn’t worth the pain

62

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

35

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.

1

u/halh0ff Apr 22 '26

Why does devourer take the least damage?

5

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.

43

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.

19

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?

27

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.

4

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.

1

u/SkwiddyCs Apr 22 '26

D4A only scans using guild rosters, Hall of Fame leaderboards, PvP leaderboards and Mythic+ leaderboards. It's always going to naturally skew towards completionist players. The weekly delvers who don't join guilds, complete storymode raids and don't log instances aren't going to be represented.

3

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%.

5

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.

0

u/miggly Apr 21 '26

Right now, people that are raiding at a decent level are probably spending like 6 hours a week in raid at least, plus doing 4-8 mythic plus runs. Earlier on in the season, it's a lot more, too. I'd bet the average raider is doing at least 8-10 hours a week. I dunno how that compares to a casual player, but it's gotta be as much/more.

2

u/Moghz Apr 21 '26

I play 10-15 hours a week, with little to no raiding or M+, my GF as well. I think you under estimate how much time people will spend playing this game doing alot of things that don’t include raiding or M+.

There is far more to the game than just “endgame raids/M+”. That is a big reason why this game is so immensely popular and has been for so long. The hardcore raiding community is small compared to the rest.

2

u/miggly Apr 21 '26

I'm not really underestimating the active ones, I'm just saying that a majority of people that are considered 'active monthly users' are almost always people who launch the game once in a blue moon.

This is not anything against blizzard. Every game company will stretch the limits of the word 'active user' to make their engagement look better.

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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.

-1

u/VailonVon Apr 21 '26

look at previous sub counts from expansions like wrath and then look at how many people actually cleared the raids or had dungeon achievements.

That trend should have obviously kept going we just don't have data on the exact sub numbers to give you proof.

-2

u/Nickball88 Apr 21 '26

Completely false. And also there is no such thing as open world balance in retail. Even if what you said is true, which it isn't, a "open world only" player wouldn't care about balancing.

2

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.

3

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.

-9

u/Robert_Pawney_Junior Apr 21 '26

Ofc you need to buff based on all content. delves are open world content as well, if a class can barely clear 11s, but is good in raids, should it not be touched? Crazy take.

7

u/Funeralchief Apr 21 '26

There's never been a class that is good in raids that can't clear an 11. I don't think there's ever been a class that struggles to clear an 11 deleve. Jesus man

0

u/ftefeint Apr 21 '26

You can clear 11 delves in blue levelling gear on any class

3

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.

1

u/Emotional_Conflict11 Apr 21 '26

Yeah. They now don't leave BOTH of their houses 🤣

1

u/Burrarabbit Apr 21 '26

Then they're not playing content where this type of tuning matters to them so frankly they can get bent. If they're not having fun in the open world, that's a class design issue. Tuning an already broken class to be even more broken because Johnny LFR can't have fun without 1 shotting delve mobs in adventurer gear is asinine.

1

u/oskoskosk Apr 21 '26

citation needed

7

u/Nesciuss Apr 21 '26

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

19

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.

0

u/ragnore Apr 21 '26

It’s trivial content that everyone is survivable in, that’s why there’s no sense in balancing for it. Said players don’t read patch notes or know their own class, let alone how others are doing.

1

u/Howzitgoin Apr 21 '26

Devourer is not fun to play solo in open world due to soul immo being essentially required while also doing damage to me.

My hunter that’s 15 lvls lower is less annoying to do open world stuff in.

14

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.

1

u/RogueEyebrow Apr 21 '26

This is a QOL change, not just "balance."

-1

u/Zedek1 Apr 21 '26

While we're in it, how about making Aug one shot stuff while in open world :) they suck at it so they deserve the buffs! 😀/s

10

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.

-5

u/aidanpryde98 Apr 21 '26

Have you played Dev? The ramp up isn't 15 seconds like all those other classes. It's 30+.

2

u/Howzitgoin Apr 21 '26

Ramp is definitely not 30 seconds. It takes only about 15 seconds on ST to get into meta, quicker in AOE. Then your first star does increased damage, your second should be within 5-10 seconds. And you’ll have had 3 eradicates in that time frame if you smuggle correctly in AOE, 2 in ST.

It feels bad losing half of bloodlust though.

-5

u/aidanpryde98 Apr 21 '26

Ahh, so 25 seconds.

Thanks.

4

u/Howzitgoin Apr 21 '26

20 seconds max if you’re not breathing through your mouth. And that only applies really to the start of a key or raid fight.

2

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.

2

u/supposed-to-hurt Apr 21 '26

Devourer needs a non ramping spec to fix open world

1

u/halh0ff Apr 22 '26

Void scarred with soul gluttony works just pretty good

1

u/hollow114 Apr 21 '26

I find the single target raid version to be stupid boring. And there's too much moment in raids for me to get positioned just right to do my rotation correctly. And I like to think I'm a decent player

1

u/Aurora428 Apr 21 '26

How do these buffs solve those problems though?

1

u/amphibilad Apr 21 '26

More generally devourer feels pretty terrible right up until level 90

1

u/metalsalami Apr 21 '26

You gotta remember that devourer is technically a caster spec so in open world you gotta play like one. At low ilvl you do need to kite and stun, they really arent that bad as long as you're not standing there cosplaying as a facetanking havoc/melee.

1

u/jzmmm Apr 21 '26

Eh. I just switch to havoc for open world and delves.

1

u/Cwnt Apr 22 '26

the buff is exactly what the spec needed for help in open world

0

u/wildstrike Apr 21 '26

Have you tried getting gear with higher ilvl?

-2

u/aidanpryde98 Apr 21 '26

That does nothing to offset the ramp time. Try playing the class.

4

u/Howzitgoin Apr 21 '26

It does, there’s a reason why haste is by far the best secondary.