Recently, players observed that Vengeance Demon Hunters seemed to be receiving up to 15% less magic damage than expected. We have investigated and found the bug causing this.
When a specialization is overperforming in raid and dungeon content, we prefer to wait to rein them in until the next major patch that brings with it all-new challenges, different gear, and other changes that shake up balance. This is because even if we’re improving overall balance, mid-tier nerfs can cause entire groups to potentially struggle with raid or dungeon content they could previously complete without issue, and this is especially true for the tank role.
However, because of the magnitude of the bug, combined with extensive feedback about the current strength of Vengeance relative to other tank classes, we feel that we need to act quickly. We therefore plan to fix this bug during scheduled weekly maintenance next week (31 March in this region). To reduce the impact to Vengeance tanks and their groups, we plan to make an additional change to offset the bug fix. We also want to address feedback that we’ve heard about overall tank survivability in Shadowlands, especially in Mythic Keystone dungeons.
With the fix to the Vengeance Demon Hunter bug, we will increase the Vengeance Demon Hunter passive, Demonic Wards, by 5%. In most situations, Physical damage constitutes most of the damage suffered by tanks, so the result should be a manageable increase in the total damage taken by Vengeance tanks. We will also adjust all other tank specializations’ passives (such as Veteran of the Third War for Blood Death Knights) to add an effect that reduces overall damage taken by 10%. Our aim is to improve tank durability for all tanks.
We appreciate the community bringing this issue to our attention, and thank you in advance for your feedback on these changes.