A new World of Warcraft Midnight update buffs survivability for squishies, but nerfs Death Knights again

Blizzard is buffing survivability for some of the most fragile classes in its next World of Warcraft Midnight update, but it's got more bad news for Unholy Death Knights. The latest round of class tuning for the MMORPG has just been detailed, with Mages, Monks, and Priests all seeing some additional protection. The full release of WoW Midnight creeps ever closer, and a smaller round of changes compared to last week's overhaul suggests the developer is feeling more confident in how its beta balance is stacking up right now.

Compared to the major round of balance tweaks we saw rolled out at the start of this week, today's World of Warcraft patch notes look much smaller. There are only nine days remaining until we hit the Midnight release date on Monday March 2, meaning there isn't much time left to get things right. Community manager Randy 'Kaivax' Jordan delivers a simple list of planned changes "aimed at adjusting defensives for a few classes".

For Mages, who are still notoriously fragile, Arcane Warding's reduction to magic damage taken has been boosted from 2/4% up to 4/8%. All of the Mage's barrier spells will also absorb an additional 5% of your maximum health value. Windwalker Monks get love as well; Calming Presence has been doubled in effectiveness from 3% damage reduction up to 6%, and Martial Instincts now increases Avoidance by 3/6% (previously 2/4%).

Priests get three big buffs to help survival. Angelic Bulwark, the absorption shield that triggers at low health, has been boosted in size from 15% up to 25% of your maximum health. The magic damage reduction from Spell Warding gets an increase from 2/4% up to 3/6%, and the stamina increase given by Strength of Soul rises from 4% to 6%. Note that these latter two upgrades won't apply in PvP combat.

I'm sorry to strike Unholy Paladins with yet another nerf just as they're getting back up from last week, but you're going to be feeling the pain a little more. The Famine effect from your raised ghoul, which previously reduced damage its target dealt to you by 5%, has now been sliced back to a mere 1% reduction. That's quite the hit.

This latest round of World of Warcraft Midnight class tuning goes live with the weekly maintenance on Tuesday February 24. The full WoW Midnight expansion launches on Monday March 2.

There's also reportedly one more key change in the works, although it may not arrive until the full release. Wowhead reports that it has datamined new values for the crest costs of gear upgrades in World of Warcraft Midnight. It claims that such upgrades will now require a flat 20 crests per level, rather than gradually scaling in ten-point increments from 10-50, and that crafted pieces will now require 80 crests instead of 60 to improve.

While this is still an increase over the 15-point upgrade costs in The War Within, Wowhead also notes that the weekly cap on earning crests has been raised from 90 to 100 to compensate. You can expect gearing to still feel a touch slower than last expansion if Blizzard goes ahead with these reported changes, but not as drastically so as it would have with the old plan for scaling costs.