Ever since World of Warcraft Dragonflight Patch 10.1.5, five specs have been reigning supreme in Mythic+ dungeons. Blizzard Entertainment shipped a hotfix nerf on Aug. 7, but that wasn’t enough, so with this weekly reset, three out of five of those specs are getting hit with the nerf hammer.
This weekly reset will go live on Aug. 22 for North American players and on Aug. 23 for European players and it will tune down the power of the “Exodia” comp. This includes nerfs to Guardian Druids, Holy Paladins, and Fire Mages. Here are the changes going live:
Druid
Guardian
- Absorb granted by Ursoc’s Fury reduced to 45 percent of damage dealt (was 50 percent).
- Innate Resolve’s bonus to Frenzied Regeneration reduced to 120 percent (was 150 percent).
Related: What item level gear do Mythic+ dungeons drop in WoW Dragonflight?
Fire
- Flamestrike damage reduced by six percent.
- Flame Patch damage reduced by eight percent.
- Incendiary Flames can now only proc once every 10 seconds (was eight seconds).
- Conflagration damage reduced by 10 percent
Paladin
Holy
- All damage decreased by 10 percent.
- Blessing of Summer now causes attacks to deal 20 percent additional damage as Holy (was 25 percent). Blessing of Summer remains at 30 percent in PvP.
When we take these nerfs into consideration with the nerfs from Aug. 7, I think we’ll finally start seeing different teamcomps in Mythic+ dungeons and you’ll have more freedom when running higher keys.
On top of this, Blizzard is tuning down the power of Mass Dispel in Mythic+ dungeons and the first step here is by increasing Infinite Timereaver’s Stolen Time cooldown from four to eight seconds. Although this change will be welcomed, this won’t do much, especially when you have to deal with Incorporeal and Afflicted affixes.
Finally, 20+ and above Mythic+ dungeons will now be far easier to time because enemy health and damage which scales with level will now be eight percent rather than 10 percent. This means it should still pose a challenge, but be less demanding and tedious to burn through enemies’ health pools.
This is definitely a step in the right direction, but I’d say plenty of specs, like Survival Hunters and Affliction Warlocks, need attention before we can say that the meta is perfectly balanced. Patch 10.1.7 is quite humble when it comes to balancing changes, but I’m staying hopeful season three will be the best Dragonflight season so far.
