Our Class Writers have given us a rough approximation of expected throughput changes with the weekly reset, along with additional comments on the specs. These are based on the September 1st class tuning that was posted last week. These estimates may vary based on the exact spells that Blizzard buffs.
September 1st Class Tuning
Estimated Class Tuning for September 1st
We asked our class writers what the impact of upcoming changes will be for their spec, and here are their estimates! Please click the notes column to see additional information explaining the changes.
For DPS these are DPS Throughput increases or decreases on both Single Target and AoE.
For Healers, these are HPS Throughput numbers.
For Tanks, these are DPS Throughput numbers.
Estimated ChangesNotes
SpecSingleAoE
Frost DK7%7%
The damage increase could be higher in AoE, but it is highly target-dependent. Deathbringer is probably now firmly ahead everywhere with the Howling Blast buff interacting with Northwinds, Bind in Darkness, and Cryogenic Chamber.
Havoc DH3.8%3.8%
Havoc Demon Hunter is starting to be in a powerful position due to consecutive buffs and getting important gear. Havoc is starting to edge out Devourer in raid and is seeing play in the Race to World First prior to this buff due to its excellent cleave and burst single-target for Ula'tek in particular.
Vengeance DH0%0%Defensively, it's a flat ~5.55% less damage taken, which is a nice passive boost to durability.
Balance Druid4.1%4.1%Moonkin is already a decent specialization for Season 2 raid encounters, doing good damage on most of the bosses. This buff will help it be a bit better for the parts where it has been underperforming. For Mythic+, Moonkin was hyped up for a large part of PTR, but has not delivered on the hype after the season released. It's hard to say whether this buff gives them a spot within the meta for the absolute highest keys.
Feral Druid8-10%6%It's a little confusing why Feral was overlooked in the earlier rounds of tuning considering it should have been obvious it wasn't going to be a good tier for the spec. These buffs are fairly hefty, but the spec in raid is poor enough that it's probably only enough to move the spec into the mediocre to bad tier of specs, instead of the absolute dumps it currently exists in.
For Mythic+, these buffs are purely an upside. As per the last few tiers, the spec has been very solid in M+, particularly combined with specs that bring its favourite buffs. It's unlikely to make it into the standard meta, but if you're playing the "Phys comp" you're going to be very happy with this!
It's been several tiers now that have gone largely the same for Feral - undertuned at the start, mechanically poor for the design of the raid, and requiring several rounds of buffs to be mediocre. Hopefully one day Blizzard gets the message and gives it a tier of reasonable tuning.
Restoration Druid4%When played well, Resto Druid should feel quite strong in raid now. In Mythic+, you should have no trouble with most key levels, though it remains to be seen whether Resto Druid can compete at the top.
Beast Mastery Hunter6.5%6.5%While buffing the overall damage of Beast Mastery is certainly welcome, it does little to alleviate the problems the spec has with its damage profile on the final 3 encounters of this raid. At the same time, it is now a very strong spec on several of the earlier encounters in the raid.
Survival Hunter6.4%6.8%The buff is much appreciated as it will help us escape F tier in raids for sure, but it doesn't change some of the fundamental problems our spec has in raids, notably Wildfire Bomb not cleaving large targets and lacking any specific niche.
Fire Mage2.9%2.9%Fire is the least effective of the Mage specs in Raid and Mythic+. Fire has no spread cleave like Frost Mage, and you either do AoE or single-target with your spender, while Arcane is able to do both at the same time. The lack of priority damage, worse defensives, and low tuning make it a bad fit for Mythic+. The lack of meaningful cleave makes it a bad fit for Raid. Pure single-target is the only metric Fire could be considered competitive on, and this assumes that you don't lose damage to movement, which is now a bit of a problem for Fire with the new tier set. Sszorak is the only single-target encounter in the raid, and it is a middle-tier boss with heavy movement. It's unlikely you would gear towards Fire just for this encounter when Arcane or Frost can also get the job done and are far better on the encounters that are more challenging.
A 3% buff to Fire is a nice little boost but unlikely to solve the issues the spec is currently facing.
Frost Mage6%6%This is a welcome buff since Frost has been underperforming and there isn't much point to play it in competitive content instead of Arcane right now. That said, Frost's AoE rotation is still in a disappointing place, with Blizzard not having enough useful interactions with the rest of the spec. At this point, there is even a Frostfire build that generally just doesn't press Blizzard at all in AoE situations.
Mistweaver Monk3.9%1.5%Roughly 75% of healing done in raids is buffed by healing increases, while only about 30% is buffed by them in Mythic+.
The 4-piece set change is about a 0.1% buff due to hard GCD locks and still keeps Mistweaver Monk wearing 2/2 set in raids, swapping off entirely at full BIS gear. This is slightly more of a buff for Mythic+, likely around 0.5%, depending on total globals spent on damage conversion.
Windwalker Monk~2%~2%The 4% Aura buff is nowhere near 4% more damage due to the increase in damage from sources like auto attacks and other things that aren’t included in the aura. From an AoE perspective, it’s adding a small layer of icing on top of an already very good cake. Windwalker’s AoE damage is already very strong, so adding more of it just makes it better. From a single-target perspective, it is a small layer of icing on top of a hole in the ground; it doesn’t fix the problem, and you’re concerned about anyone who thought that it would.
For raiding that relies much more heavily on single-target, even in Venomous Abyss, this doesn’t really do anything to help Windwalker’s struggles. A much larger damage increase is still needed if Windwalker is going to move up from the bottom of the boss damage charts, especially to Rising Sun Kick through buffing the spell itself or the bonus it gets from the tier set. Rising Sun Kick needs help as it’s already getting dropped in ST at times. Buffing Rising Sun Kick’s bonus from the tier set is just one of the easiest and best ways since it’s half as strong for Rising Sun Kick as it is for Spinning Crane Kick, which is pushing Spinning Crane Kick ahead even in single target. It was likely tuned assuming that several bonuses to Rising Sun Kick would also apply to the tier set, but they do not.
For Mythic+, it’s a small gain that won’t really be noticeable, but a gain wasn’t really needed, except in single-target to help with boss damage.
There are completely legitimate concerns about buffing Windwalker for raids and it becoming too strong in Mythic+, because it already is strong. However, there are clear and simple ways to increase Windwalker’s single-target damage without rippling outwards into AoE.
Protection Paladin2%~3.5%This is a very minor buff, and it may make us lean slightly more into Consecrate talents now, but overall it's a rather negligible increase.
Discipline Priest0%This is a quality-of-life increase for Mythic+ (no impact in raid) to help the struggling mana economy for the spec. Still struggles in higher keys due to weaker Atonement in dungeons.
