Hi Blizzard,
I think a lot of players are frustrated by what seems like 2 months of no tuning despite some pretty clear and significant outliers that are making the game frustrating to play against. Here’s a template you can copy/paste to address some concerns:
Class changes
Demon Hunter:
Demonic wards nerfed by 75%
Demonic hide nerfed by 75%
Soulscar nerfed by 10%
Glimpse: reworked to only provide CC immunity and DR for 0.5 seconds.
Cleansed by flame: reworked to only remove one magic effect.
Developers note: we are seeing demon hunters overperform at all levels of play which is also edging out other classes and specializations. First we want to address their passive tankiness. Dh already has strong mobility options that allow them to weave in and out of combat. However, we are seeing them stay in combat more often than we would like and create more pressure than is fair.
Additionally, we are also targeting soulscar to reduce some of their overall consistent damage while keeping the lethality of their essence break windows.
Finally, we are nerfing some overperforming pvp talents that reduce counterplay from enemy teams, especially those that rely on cc and magic effects.
Rogue:
Effects that reduce cdr no longer effect evasion, vanish, and cloak of shadows.
Night elf shadowmeld racial no longer provides subterfuge
Developer’s note: currently we are seeing outlaw and subtlety rogue as some of the least-killed specs. While we want to maintain the identity of rogue as a control class with legitimate damage, they are currently serving more as brawlers and staying in more than is healthy. This should create more windows where the rogue is required to be defensive and also serve as a viable kill target.
Druid
Heart of the wild no longer effects cyclone cast speed
Wild attunement removed
Feral druid now has two charges of survival instincts in pvp combat
Drinking now cancels prowl
Cyclone duration reduced by 1 second
New pvp talent: Wary Traveller
When shifting from moonkin(balance)/cat(feral) form to travel form, gain 4 seconds of freedom. When shifting from travel form to moonkin (balance)/cat(feral) form, gain 20% dr for 4 seconds. These effects have a 30second cooldown.
developers note: When casted cc was normalized in patch 10.2, cyclone was indirectly buffed (i.e. went from 5 seconds to 6, whereas fear and polymorph were nerfed from 8s to 6s). As a result of this, balance and feral have been pidgeonheld into a playstyle where they have to consistenly cast cyclone to both survive and secure kills. This creates a frustrating playstyle both for and against druid players that leads them to be trained down in almost every matchup and moonkin and feral druids being the most killed specializations in the game. We are removing some of the more toxic interactions of fast-casted cyclones as well as nerfing its duration, but also giving druids a new survivability option that is more thematic with the theme of shapeshifting and doesn’t involve camping in bear form
Priest
4-set nerfed by 33%
Mindblast buffed by 10%
Mindgames initial damage buffed by 10%
Developer’s note: Shadowpriest damage overall feels like it’s in a good spot, but the tierset is contributing to some bursty kills from higher hp thresholds than we would like.
We are buffing some other lower priority casted spells on the shadow school to compensate
Warlock
Dimensional rift damage nerfed by 10%
Soul leech nerfed by 50% in pvp
Dark pact duration nerfed by 50% in pvp
Impish instincts nerfed by 50%
Hand of Gul’Dan damage buffed by 10%
Incinerate damage buffed by 10%
Developer’s note: We want warlock to be a tanky class, but it’s a little too survivable at the moment. Currently warlocks are outtrading most classes without having to commit cooldowns, so we’re making a pass at soul leech. Further, we’re also reducing the duration of dark pact to encourage swapping off and back to the warlock as well as reducing the effectiveness of impish instincts to create more windows where the warlock is vulnerable.
Finally, we’re distributing damage away from instant-cast and unavoidable damage in dimensional rifts and giving a small buff to casted damage to help compensate the durability nerfs.
Shaman
Static field totem is now enhance and ele only.
Healing surge buffed by 25% for Enhancement only.
Developers note: Resto shaman is currently outshining other healers at all levels of play due to its mana efficiency and significant amount of utility. While we like static totem as a whole, we believe resto shaman has a bit too much in its toolkit to justify this ability ad well.
We are also buffing enhancement shaman healing to help address their relative squishiness to other melee dps
Warrior
Bladestorm duration nerfed by 50% and damage buffed by 100%
Mortal strike damage buffed by 10%
Rend damage nerfed by 10%
Developer’s note: Warrior feels like it’s in an okay spot overall and excells in sticking power, but lacks kill pressure. We’re reducing the duration of bladestorm but buffing its damage and redistributing some damage from rend and into mortal strike. This change is roughly damage neutral, but should increase burst damage from the warrior while also allowing for a larger window of counterplay with the reduction in bladestorm duration.
Paladin
Word of glory healing buffed by 50%
Flash of light buffed by 50%
Blessing of sacrifice is now a 2 minute cooldown in pvp.
Blessing of sanctuary is now a 90 second cooldown in pvp.
Developer’s note: Currently retribution paladin feels less than a hybrid and more of an offensive utility bot. We want to tone down some of the utility to create longer windows of counterplay to punish ret paladin teams. We are buffing some of their healing to compensate
Item changes
Pvp Trinket 2-set stamina bonus reduced by 5%
Healer specialization trinket cooldown reverted to 2 minutes
Developer’s note: We wanted to reduce the amount of interactions where some classes died in instant-cast short CC chains. However, we believe we overshot this as games are going longer than we’d like into dampening. We’re reverting the stamine buff that we added, as the biggest offender at the time (subtlety rogue) was overperforming. We will continue to monitor trends of burst damage and target outliers accordingly
it is so weird that the spell costs two resources