Another round of hotfixes has been shipped to live WoW Dragonflight servers, and in this update, plenty of struggling DPS classes have been given some much-needed attention by Blizzard.
Among them, Windwalker Monk—which has been the subject of much discussion among the playerbase—earned the most drastic wave of buffs. Today’s hotfixes give Windwalker Monk players damage buffs to specific abilities, with percentage-based increases coming to core spells such as Spinning Crane Kick, Blackout Kick, Rising Sun Kick, and Fists of Fury. Three passives—Blackout Reinforcement, Glory of the Dawn, and Dance of Chi-Ji—were all also buffed. Each active and passive is instrumental to Windwalkers’ damage, and should definitely help the spec, which has been struggling to keep up with other DPS options of late.
“We continue to keep an eye on Windwalker damage, and feel they need a second incremental improvement to their relative performance,” Blizzard wrote after releasing the Dec. 19 update. “This round of tuning focuses on payoff for successfully executing the bonus effects of the Mystic Heron’s Discipline tier set, as well as increasing the damage of rotational Chi spenders in Rising Sun Kick and Fists of Fury.”
Earlier in the month, on Dec. 5, Windwalker Monks had a flat buff applied to them that increased all ability damage by six percent. For the better part of the last few months, at least since the launch of Patch 10.1 in May, the WoW community at large has been calling for changes, buffs, and even a holistic rework to the Windwalker spec. Other melee DPS specs, including Havoc Demon Hunter, Feral Druid, and all three Rogue specializations, have been outperforming Windwalker Monks in PvE content as of late by a vast margin, according to WoW stats site Warcraftlogs. These tumbling numbers have prompted discussion for a new direction regarding the spec in the near future.
In addition to Windwalker Monks, another forgotten spec, Devastation Evokers, received a buff today that increased all damage by three percent, as well as a direct 15 percent buff to Pyre. Two other casters—Mages and Warlocks—had multiple specs buffed. Mages received increased damage ratios on all three specs, while Destruction and Affliction Warlocks both had core abilities, such as Seed of Corruption, Rain of Fire, and Immolate, all amplified.
These changes, in addition to several others, are currently live on WoW Dragonflight servers following the weekly reset earlier today.
