In Shadowlands, we will be receiving not only another stat squish, not only another item level squish, but also, for the first time, a level squish. Seeing as all of our numbers are about to be altered for the (hopefully) long-term, I worked on a mini project to look back at health values across expansions and their raid tiers. I chose to focus on a tank, as they normally have the highest health, and I chose warrior specifically as they’ve been a standard tank going all the way back to vanilla.
To look back at health values on warrior tanks, I looked through videos of raid fights; When possible, I chose the final boss of the highest difficulty of each raid. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to do that for every raid in Wrath of the Lich King, and also unfortunately, I could not find any video of TBC fights. I used Classic videos to look at warrior tank health values, and as such, I have excluded Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj, Temple of Ahn’Qiraj, and Classic Naxxramas.
With all that said, let’s get right into looking back at health values:
Classic:
- Onyxia’s Lair: Roughly 5.5K
- Molten Core: Roughly 6K
- Zul’Gurub: Roughly 7.5K
- Blackwing Lair: Roughly 9K
Wrath of the Lich King:
- Obsidian Sanctum: Roughly 28K
- Eye of Eternity: Roughly 35K
- Naxxramas: Roughly 35K
- Ulduar: Roughly 38K
- Trial of the Grand Crusader: Roughly 44K
- Icecrown Citadel: Roughly 69K
Cataclysm:
- Blackwing Descent: Roughly 185K
- Bastion of Twilight: Roughly 190K
- Throne of the Four Winds: Roughly 195K
- Firelands: Roughly 200K
- Dragon Soul: Roughly 290K
Mists of Pandaria:
- Mogu’shan Vaults: Roughly 620K
- Heart of Fear: Roughly 640K
- Terrace of Endless Spring: Roughly 660K
- Throne of Thunder: Roughly 910K
- Siege of Orgrimmar: Roughly 1.1M
Prelude to WoD: Warlords of Draenor was the first expansion where we saw a stat squish occur. Blizzard recognized that numbers were beginning to become significantly high, and decided to act on an idea they’d originally had before they launched Mists of Pandaria, and performed WoW’s first ever stat squish. With that, let’s move onto…
Warlords of Draenor:
- Highmaul: Roughly 485K
- Blackrock Foundry: Roughly 520K
- Hellfire Citadel: Roughly 630K
Legion:
- Emerald Nightmare: Roughly 4.2M
- Trial of Valor: Roughly 5.8M
- Nighthold: Roughly 6.5M
- Tomb of Sargeras: Roughly 7.9M
- Antorus, the Burning Throne: Roughly 9.5M
Prelude to BFA: It’s puzzling why Blizzard allowed stat numbers to get so out-of-hand in Legion; The health values at the end of Mists of Pandaria when they were soon to enact the first stat squish were only roughly one ninth of the health values at the end of Legion, which was merely two expansions later. Whatever the case, Blizzard recognized that it was once more, time for another stat squish, and we received one going into…
Battle for Azeroth:
- Uldir: Roughly 250K
- Battle of Dazar’alor: Roughly 380K
- Crucible of Storms: Roughly 400K
- Eternal Palace: Roughly 590K
- Ny’alotha, the Waking City: Roughly 910K
Afterword on BFA: While the numbers are certainly smaller than even Mists of Pandaria, BFA has had an even worse stat scaling throughout it’s lifespan than even Legion did. In Legion, the typical health values for a warrior tank roughly doubled from beginning to end, while in BFA, the health values nearly quadrupled. It seems that, although numbers are most definitely smaller, power scaling quickly got out of hand.
Closing Thoughts: I believe if there’s one thing I can say I’ve learned from this small project of mine, it’s that, while Blizzard has twice recognized instances where numbers got out of hand, they seem to have not understood how to properly fix the issue for the long-term. Only roughly two years after they enacted their first stat squish, players not only reached, but far surpassed typical health values - In the very first raid of Legion!
While they managed to keep numbers in BFA lower than MoP or Legion, we can be fairly sure that, were they not doing a stat squish in Shadowlands, we would likely see health values reach - if not surpass - Legion values. However, I believe they are making a step in the right direction by squishing everything in Shadowlands; Perhaps with everything drastically lowered all at once, they will have an easier time making sure stat increases do not become so drastic that we will need another stat squish four years from now… or worse, two years from now!
We will see what happens throughout Shadowlands’ lifespan. Personally, I’m very interested to see where health values stand by the time footage of mythic Sire Denathrius kills start showing up after Castle Nathria is released, and I’m curious to see if Blizzard will manage to avoid their most recent mistake in BFA and not allow numbers to increase so quickly so soon after a stat squish.
I know for most people this sort of look back isn’t terribly interesting, but I thought some might be interested to see the numbers!