#1 - Nov. 1, 2016, 12:34 a.m.
Now that Patch 7.1 has been available for a little while, we’ve been able to identify several changes to PvP tuning we’d like to make. We’d like to share those changes with you in advance, along with some developer insight. All of the following changes will only apply in PvP, and while some of them are still being tested, our goal is for all of them to go live with scheduled weekly maintenance.
Death Knight
- (Frost) Strength in PvP has been reduced by 10%.
- (Unholy) Apocalypse damage is no longer reduced in PvP (was reduced by 75%).
Developer Notes: Frost Death Knights have recently received a number of bug fixes and class tuning adjustments that have pushed their damage out of line in PvP. For Unholy, Apocalypse’s damage was reduced during beta due to its burst potential, but due to other changes, we no longer feel that reduction is necessary.
Demon Hunter
- (Havoc) Agility increased by 5%.
- (Havoc) Stamina increased by 10%.
Developer Notes: As players have become more accustomed to Demon Hunters and how to counter them, we feel their damage and general survivability has ended up a little low, so we’re giving them a little tuning to help them compete.
Hunter
- (Survival) Stamina has been increased by 15%.
Developer Notes: As a melee DPS, Survival Hunters have been a bit too squishy in PvP, so we’re increasing their Stamina.
Mage
- (Frost) Intellect has been reduced by 10%
Developer Notes: Frost Mages recently received some damage increases that we feel need to be counter-tuned in PvP.
Monk
- (Windwalker) Agility has been reduced by 10%.
- (Windwalker) Serenity now increases damage by 25% with the Spiritual Focus artifact trait (was +30%).
Developer Notes: Windwalkers are able to maintain an extremely high uptime against their targets in PvP, and their raw damage capability was just too high for a spec that’s so difficult to get away from.
Shaman
- Lava Burst now deals full damage in PvP (was doing 80% of normal damage).
- (Elemental) Control of Lava increases Lava Burst damage by 100% (was 150%).
Developer Notes: We’ve received a lot of feedback that Elemental Shaman feel good in PvP once they have access to the Honor Talent Control of Lava, but felt too weak without it. We’ve decided to remove the PvP reduction on the base Lava Burst spell and reduce the benefit from Control of Lava to compensate. This results in effectively the same damage for players who still wish to use Control of Lava, but an increase to Lava Burst without it.
Warrior
- Hamstring damage has been increased considerably, and now lasts for 12 seconds in PvP.
- (Arms) Strength and Stamina increased by 10%.
- (Fury) Strength and Stamina increased by 10%.
Developer Notes: Patch 7.1 put Hamstring back on the global cooldown, and while we still feel that that’s the correct choice for that ability, we understand that this change had a major impact on PvP Warriors’ damage rotation, as well as Hamstring’s overall uptime. To compensate, we’ve increased Hamstring’s duration so that it needs to be applied less frequently, and massively increased its damage to help make it feel worthwhile to use. Additionally, we felt that Warriors weren't feeling quite tough enough in PvP, so we’ve increased Strength and Stamina for Arms and Fury.
Warlock
- (Destruction) Entrenched in Flame duration reduced to 3 seconds (was 4 seconds).
- (Destruction) Focused Chaos now increases Chaos Bolt damage by an additional 100% (was 150%).
- (Destruction) Shadowburn now deals 20% less damage in PvP.
Developer Notes: 7.1 introduced some new talents to Destruction Warlocks to increase their control and incentivize the use of cast time spells like Chaos Bolt. These talents were overtuned initially, but we want to keep Chaos Bolt as the best damage value for a Soul Shard.
