Impact of Shadowlands DPS, Tank and Healer Class Tuning - Guide Writer Insights & Opinions

Live Posted 2020/12/12 at 1:01 PM by Anshlun

Blood Death Knight

Threat generation for all Tanks increased by 10%.

Blood Boil damage increased by 10%.

Heart Strike damage increased by 15%.

Marrowrend damage increased by 10%.

Death Strike damage increased by 5%.

The buffs to Heart Strike, Marrowrend, Blood Boil and Death Strike are a welcome change, albeit a small one. You can expect to see a ~4% change in damage done single-target and 5-6% on 5 targets (AoE) as a result, with Night Fae benefitting the most by a small margin due to a larger portion of their damage being the spells about to be buffed. Again, a welcome buff, but not necessarily enough to bring us close to the top tank performers on that front.

The threat multiplier change also should grease the wheels of Mythic+ a bit, although I remain unconvinced that this will fundamentally change anything; tanks as a whole, with the exception of Protection Paladins, are so far behind DPS on damage, that this will likely end up being one of the many such threat adjustments this expansion to artificially make tanks "keep up" with DPS players.

More worrying is the lack of defensive changes to the spec, and some of the other tanks as well. Tanks have not been this fragile since early Cataclysm; as a Blood Death Knight, this hits us twice due to our tuning being done with the aim of taking extra damage to heal it back up, which is both a strength and a weakness: when damage gets overwhelming, we are typically the quickest to fall.
Unholy Death Knight

Mastery: Dreadblade effectiveness reduced by 15%.

Nerfing our mastery is a choice I myself would've resorted to if I were to change anything. The initial mastery change moving into Shadowlands turned Unholy into a powerhouse, as such a large portion of the overall damage coming from Mastery made the specialization scale extremely well with secondary stats in general. I think this is a fair nerf that will prevent problems down the road, with the impact somewhere around a 5% nerf, that order of magnitude. I think we'll still be strong but not best.Havoc Demon Hunter

All damage abilities increased by 5%.

The 5% buff is nice, but unfortunately doesn't change the core issues of the spec. The single target sustained damage is still very low, damage in cleave and AoE is ok, somewhere around the middle of the pack which is fine... but as mentioned, the single target suffers a lot. Chaos Brand remains in play on the raiding side, but Vengeance is looking quite strong this tier so for the first time we might see Havoc out of the raid for world first guilds favoring Vengeance to bring the debuff instead. This won't be an issue for most players though, and the 5% buff brings Havoc more toward the end of the middle of the pack, which while not ideal, is at least not the worst either.
Assassination Rogue

All damage abilities increased by 5%.

There it is, a spec aura buff for Assassination. It was kinda expected and necessary; Assassination has been looking to be in the same (or worse) undertuned spot that Subtlety was in during late Battle for Azeroth, and initial parse numbers seem to be reflecting that. Unfortunately, I don't expect the 5% buff to be enough to change the situation much for Rogues. It is understandable that they are careful with the tuning this week and that they do not want to change what people are gearing for based on balance numbers. That said, the 5% buffs are rather low - they could buff the spec by 10 or even 15% and it would still be the third place Rogue spec.

While I do think that Assassination, due to its gameplay advantages for progress via pacing and DoT damage and the way everyone is gearing right now, should not be buffed to jump ahead of the other specs, it should certainly be much closer. The hotfix does not accomplish anything except making the last few brave remaining Assassination rogue mains feel a little less sad.
Restoration Shaman

All healing abilities reduced by 4%.

Healing Rain reduced by an additional 10%.

The Restoration Shaman nerfs were very expected and are warranted as the spec was far ahead in many aspects. In raids, you're looking at about a 6% nerf, depending on the boss and how much you were able to utilize Healing Rain in your group - in dungeons, its closer to 4-5%. These changes will bring us more in line with the throughput of the other healing specializations, without changing our viability.

The Healing Rain nerf won't change anything about how and when you're casting it - it is still our best button for stacked AoE healing by far, even without hitting the full 6 targets, and should be utilized whenever possible (including dungeons). These changes don't change the Restoration Shaman covenant or legendary item balance, and only affects 1 conduit: Heavy Rainfall, but again not enough to change rankings.Destruction Warlock

Chaos Bolt damage increased by 22%.

The 22% buff to Chaos Bolt is nice, but not game changing. The rotation remains the same, but now it will just feel a little bit better to cast Chaos Bolt, with the buff benefitting raiding Destruction the most, where much of your strength lies in single target and cleave. Also, this buff is a significant increase to the strength of Destruction in dungeons, more specifically on the boss and priority target damage you're able to put out.
Arms Warrior

Mortal Strike damage increased by 20%. Damage reduced by an equivalent amount in PvP.

Slam (Rank 3) now increases Slam's damage by 50% (was 25%).

Buffing Mortal Strike was commonly requested, and combined with the buff to Slam would amount to a substantial change, but given that most competitive players are Venthyr (which means they're spending more than half the fight using Condemn over Mortal Strike or Slam), it's not as effective a change as it looks, coming out to roughly +4% for a spec which is borderline bottom of the barrel. Interestingly, it contributes a greater buff to other covenants single target performance, bringing them closer in line with Venthyr, although they were already very well balanced in the first place, and again does virtually nothing for the top end of Arms performance, which still ranks among the worst melee specs single target capability. The only real consolation is that it's not as bad as Fury, which really isn't saying much.Fury Warrior

All damage abilities increased by 5%.

Fury's single target DPS is at the complete bottom of the charts and needs a lot more than 5% to have any noticeable impact, a completely ineffective change that does nothing to actually equalize the class balance, much less bring Fury out of the gutter. In truth, it's nothing more than the illusion of balance - a token buff to make players feel better about their favorite spec getting changes, while hoping those players don't actually look closely enough to realize it has no impact whatsoever. Consider that Fury is ~15-20% behind the top performing specs (Unholy, Windwalker, Outlaw, etc), and only one of them (Unholy) was nerfed by ~5%, while Fury was buffed by about the same - the result is still at least a 10% gap for no discernable reason other than to maintain the egregiously imbalanced status quo.

Comment by Luthxnerf sub rogue what charts is blizzard looking at, wtfComment by Olympus3129nerf sub rogue what charts is blizzard looking at, wtfComment by KuroohigeeGiff frost mages some love please :(Comment by Wrynn1Thank's For Nothing. (C) Fury Warrior.Comment by vancthey're prob looking at warcraft logs where sub rogues are definitely not anywhere near the top on any fightComment by CrashB111nerf sub rogue what charts is blizzard looking at, wtfComment by mremaknu*sobs in feral*Comment by GuiltyasFeral is performing really well in the raid currently? It's arguably one of the best meleeComment by LappeA52Good idea for a type of post. This will get a good basis of information out there with actual mythic-experienced players doing the talking.Comment by ValrenarTLDR: Nerfs were expected, buffs were not enoughComment by AshirayaCool move to make the other arms covenants more competitive with Venthyr. Wouldn't hurt to see a spec aura buff as well though.Comment by Adi91What about frost mages?Comment by FrozenBoladonerf sub rogue what charts is blizzard looking at, wtfComment by NaerriResto nerf was expected. That said, it is still sad that Blizzard are so quick and willing to put resto throughput in line with other healers, at the same time they do not want to do the same with resto utility (still the only healer with no tank cd) or ability to do damage, or resto ability to heal spread fights. So I am afraid that "put in line" in reality will mean "put below the line" since good throuput was the only thing that allowed resto to be good in keys compared to other healers. Now we are going back to bfa.Comment by seijulalashadow, balance and hunters should be nerfed hard. Though I would prefer many buffs to other specs instead of nerfing the top onesComment by stx42Bicepspump said:
I think we'll still be strong but not best.Comment by couchpotato2013nerf sub rogue what charts is blizzard looking at, wtfComment by PandreI am still an assassination rogue main and yes, this buff is not what we have expected. The spec has almost nishes only; no burst st, no burst or sustain aoe at all. Plus, the slowest opener of all times! xD No real streangths. It should be at least be good in st and excell a bit in council-type- of fights. Right now, worst DD spec in nhc and hc raid, as well as in m+. Worst dd spec of ALL. ^^

Slice'n'dice wasn't a good unpruner for assassination. Tbh I don't want a bigger buff than this 5%, but additionally a new passive, maybe we get s'n'd out of stealth or it's duration is prolonged by rupture or really ANYTHING, that helps smoothe out the rotation again and makes it a BIT LESS feel like a maintaincebuff put into a spec. ^^ It was SO good in bfa imo!

But we just have to wait and see, I guess... only good thing is, it was very nice to pull out some 100er logs in nhc and hc the past days, because, well.... I guess I was better that the other 4 sin-rogues =P

I HOPE blizzard adresses this, there is not much to be done to make this spec cool again!Comment by Hulkamusnerf sub rogue what charts is blizzard looking at, wtf*sobs in feral*shadow, balance and hunters should be nerfed hard. Though I would prefer many buffs to other specs instead of nerfing the top onesComment by ocramWhen Archimtiros says Fury is 15-20% behind the top specs, what metric is he looking at?