Biggest Nerfs and Buffs in Mythic Week

After a week of normal and heroic mode raiding with mythic zero dungeons, the time to hit season 1 full steam ahead is right around the corner just a couple days away. Blizzard generally doesn't like making class changes in the middle of mythic progression, so these are likely the last class changes for at least a few weeks.

World of Warcraft: The War Within has seen its new raid Nerub'Ar Palace go live this week and many players have been hard at work in their progression of the new bosses. Blizzard has also been hard at work behind the scenes making adjustments to the balancing and tuning of various classes/specs for the upcoming release of season 1.

Of course, class changes are never permanent and all the positive and negative changes made in this update could easily be undone in a few months. Blizzard does generally dislike making class changes in the middle of progression, though, so unfortunately if you're unhappy about the changes or lack of changes to a particular spec, you'll probably have to wait a decent amount of time before anything else happens.

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Winners

First things first let's take a look at the classes/specs that have been buffed these changes.

The winners are:

• Druid
• Protection Warrior/Vengeance Demon Hunter
• Death Knight

1. Druid

Druid tops the list because basically nothing bad happened to it. As the only class with 4 specs, it has the highest chance of something bad happening to it with every instance of class changing. They dodged it this time.

Guardian is one of the strongest tanks in the entire game. It's currently excelling in both raid and mythic plus environments. Guardian did not receive a single change. It didn't receive one buff or one nerf. A powerful spec not receiving any changes whatsoever is always a win.

The other three specs all received buffs. Balance got a flat 6% damage increase to all of its abilities plus some other buffs, feral got a flat 4% damage buff to all its abilities plus some other buffs, and Restoration got a flat 8% healing buff on top of some damage increases (which every healer got).

Overall, balance and Feral may still be a bit behind the other DPS options, but they've at the very least closed the gap a bit. Restoration closes the gap with the other healers a little bit.

With how powerful Mark of the Wild is, every raid composition is going to want 1 druid and most mythic plus groups are going to want one as well, so with druid balancing a lot of the time it just comes down to which druid spec is the best option for bringing Mark of the Wild. Currently, it's still definitely Guardian, but these buffs to the other three definitely make them more viable options to bring the buff.

2. Protection Warrior

Protection warrior is on the list for the same logic as mentioned above with guardian druid. When a spec is already very strong and it doesn't get nerfed in a round of class tuning, that is a massive win. Good specs not getting nerfed can be just as impactful as bad specs getting buffed or insanely overpowered specs getting nerfed.

Vengeance demon hunter could also be slotted into this place as well. That's another tank spec, arguably stronger, that also received no nerfs whatsoever. It seems Blizzard is content with the current tank balancing for better or for worse (we'll discuss the worse down below).

3. Death Knight

All three death knight specs entered The War Within in strong positions. Unholy and frost are outputting strong damage and blood is one of the best tank options. Blood is reasonably powerful in M+ and arguably the best tank in the game in raid.

Death knight walks away as a winner from these changes because it received no nerfs and even some buffs. San'layn has been underpowered and just not picked by either blood or unholy and it received some buffs here to make it more viable. It's unlikely San'layn will see play in the meta game, but these changes may make it strong enough for more casual players to justify picking it.

Blood San'layn was also specifically buffed with Vampiric Strike damage being increased by 20% and Infliction of Sorrow dealing 15% of the remaining DoT damage instead of 10%.

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Losers

Now let's take a look at the classes/specs that are getting nerfed before the season really gets going

The losers are:

• Protection Paladin
• Arms/Fury Warrior
• Shadow Priest

4. Protection Paladin

Pain and sorrow. That is what every protection paladin player is feeling in The War Within. Protection paladin is the worst tank spec in M+ and the worst tank spec in raid. How did Blizzard address the worst spec in the entire game at its role?

They did literally nothing. There was not one singular change to protection paladin. As mentioned above, Blizzard seems to be content with the current tank balancing because other than some San'layn buffs for blood death knight, none of the tank specs were touched at all. It would appear protection paladins are just going to have to accept taking a massive L for this season.

5. Arms/Fury Warrior

This entry, admittedly, comes with a bit of an asterisk. Arms and fury warrior were and are still going to be two of the strongest DPS options in the entire game at the moment. However, they were two of the specs most heavily nerfed in these patch notes.

Colossus received extremely minor buffs since no one was playing it. It's probably still not going to be played. Mountain Thane received a slight damage increase which is great for protection warriors. Arms warrior bladestorm damage was reduced by 10% and fury had a few more nerfs with its bladestorm damage also being reduced by 10% and Odyn's Fury damage reduced by 15% with its Mountain Thane damage being slightly buffed to compensate.

Overall, these two specs are not massive losers and are still sitting in a good spot. The main reason they're here is because most specs were just kind of ignored or weren't really changed all that much. These are the only two specs that will be noticeably impacted negatively by these changes.

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6. Shadow Priest

Shadow priest has been one of the worst DPS specs in the game so far in The War Within and that is seemingly not going to change any time soon. They actually received a flat 6% damage buff in these patch notes, however, for some reason they also received a nerf to Psychic Link.

This results in a net nerf for shadow as while their raw damage was increased, the main reason they'd be brought in any scenario was nerfed. Ultimately, priest as a whole is in a horrible spot with holy and discipline being the two worst healers.