Upcoming class balance hotfixes
by Alex Ziebart 
Feb 11th 2011 at 9:30PM
- Shadow Power (shadow priest passive) is being changed from 25% to 15% of shadow damage.
- Moonfury (balance druid mastery) is being changed from 15% to 6% arcane and nature damage.
- Raging Blow reduced from 120% to 100% weapon damage at max level.
Bashiok -- Incoming HotfixesWe're in the process of planning for a number of hotfixes that are intended to be implemented within the next day or two. To help give some heads up notice we're currently looking to make the following changes:
We are also looking at nerfing Aimed Shot, but compensating hunters through Aspect of the Hawk. We are also likely to lower Arcane mage mana cost in some way, which will in turn buff their dps. These don't have those specifics just yet, but do keep an eye on the 4.0.6 hotfix blog for these and other changes as they come through.
- Shadow Power (Shadow priest passive) is being changed from 25% to 15% of Shadow damage.
- Moonfury (Balance druid mastery) is being changed from 15% to 6% Arcane and Nature damage.
- Raging Blow reduced from 120% to 100% weapon damage at max level.
We are also looking at nerfing Aimed Shot, but compensating hunters through Aspect of the Hawk. We are also likely to lower Arcane mage mana cost in some way, which will in turn buff their dps. These don't have those specifics just yet, but do keep an eye on the 4.0.6 hotfix blog for these and other changes as they come through.
Filed under: News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Twill Feb 11th 2011 9:35PM
Fun while it lasted ^.^
Time to go back to being a critchicken
Salubrious Feb 12th 2011 12:00AM
Well, Blizz just said they nerfed us too hard, and that it's going to be 10% (instead of 6%) for Moonfury because the Starfall bug was pushing up our dps. I was upset with the original, but I can live with 10%. They say it'll be hotfixed soon.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2065568025?page=7#137
Sterb Feb 12th 2011 10:45AM
I don't get your comment. This doesn't alter the relative weights of the stats. Mastery will still be better than crit.
Twill Feb 12th 2011 4:28PM
1- Critchicken sounds better than Masterchicken.
Wait... No.. it does not. This is terrible! The MasterChicken shall reign supreme!
*Goes nuts rambling about the future invasion plans of my brethren and the large side-track that the invasion force went on to Denny's.*
2- I forgot my other point.
Moucalgeon Feb 11th 2011 9:47PM
Thank you for the 'deftails' =) and for being human =D
Alex Ziebart Feb 11th 2011 9:49PM
beep boop beep does not compute
boop boop beep you never saw a typo beep bloop
Basil Berntsen Feb 11th 2011 10:15PM
Ex-ter-min-ate!
Neirin Feb 11th 2011 11:43PM
I now fully expect a Dalek to make an appearance in the next Queue.
TheTraveler12 Feb 11th 2011 9:48PM
thanks blizz.. was fun to have raging blow actually do decent damage.. now.. it wont.. god i hate you blizz.. i REALLY do.. god forbid we actually.. GASP!!! do high damage in pve for a change.. like the high ass hit cap wasnt enough of a goddamn hit to dps... not happy about having to gear for hit when i dont have raid gear.. reforging helps.. but i like to gen rage.. cant do that if i keep missing normal attacks..
SR Feb 12th 2011 3:35AM
Bad writing is bad.
So is mine. But I felt that a statement was needed.
Yitzak Feb 12th 2011 1:21PM
Right, but you're a hybrid class which is right on top of the dps charts (http://stateofdps.com/) right now in at least 3 fights - a full 7% above the next class on one of them (Twilight Ascendant Council). Does that seem entirely reasonable to you?
Neuropox Feb 11th 2011 9:55PM
ooowww..... that moonkin nerf looked like it hurt....
Kendro Feb 11th 2011 9:56PM
So when they buff starfall and wild mushrooms through the roof, they discover that balance druids do more damage...I often wonder if the staff at Blizzard believes that 2+2=1. Their ability to comprehend a lot of changes they make in patches, and the long term ramifications is often missing, or severely lacking.
Kendro Feb 11th 2011 10:33PM
So I read further through the thread for these hot fixes. These changes really aren't well thought out at all, and no real data was collected to support these changes. Starfall was bugged for most of this week, where the maximum number of stars was exceeded whenever there was more than one target, which meant the spell just kept doing damage until the duration for the buff wore off.
Apparently that was a major reason behind the balance druid nerf to moonfury, because when several well respected theorycrafters punched out the math, and also made note of the bugged starfall issues this week, the moonfury nerf went from 15 -> 6 to 15 -> 10.
This just proves that a good number of damage nerfs in the past week aren't sit on long at all, or given time to get good data sets. These changes are all knee jerk reactions. This also means that Balance druids are having their damage being balanced around having more than one target at their disposal to do appropriate dps. All of this information is very troubling when brought to light. It just screams of gross incompetence and future damage buffs in content patches, or more ability tweaks.
Deathgodryuk Feb 12th 2011 2:30AM
/gasp
They change the mechanics of their game when things aren't working correctly and sometimes go too far?! They should stop caring about their game so much and just let it remain broken in the first place!!1!!ONE!!1!!
lazymangaka Feb 12th 2011 10:40AM
@Ryuk: maybe you didn't read what Kendro actually wrote, but he/she is totally right. It's like Blizzard sees that something is OP then just throws a number on the table without any further data. It seems like the nerf to 6% was only lessened when the community brought the problem to light. If the theorycrafters hadn't been around to do Blizzard's math for them, it almost certainly would have gone live that way.
A "knee-jerk" reaction is absolutely the best possible way to describe it.
Deathgodryuk Feb 12th 2011 3:36PM
They're trying to fix things quickly. Sometimes they go too far but when they do they always fix it again. It's a give and take kind of thing and they'll fine-tune it until it's right. They don't always have time to do thorough research to make sure that a class is perfectly balanced, but the fact that they are willing to look at the research that theorycrafters do and change what they do accordingly isn't a sign that they don't know what they're doing. It means that they're trying to get the class balanced as quickly as they can by whatever means necessary.
TonyKP Feb 14th 2011 9:48AM
We're still in Beta for all intents and purposes, albeit it one you're paying for. They're going to keep throwing things at the wall to see what sticks for the foreseeable future since they didn't have time to do so in the real Beta (due to the "have to get it out in time for Christmas no matter what" dictate).
Heroblade13 Feb 11th 2011 9:59PM
And nothing on undoing shifting changes =\
Manadar Feb 11th 2011 10:27PM
Nah didn't you hear? We could reach a mage every now and then, which made us a hard counter. Much more balanced now when the mage is untouchable (lol).