Blizzard swings the nerf hammer in a big World of Warcraft Midnight class tuning patch

Blizzard has dropped some big World of Warcraft Midnight patch notes on our head for the start of Season 1. This latest round of class balancing is pretty significant, with community manager Randy 'Kaivax' Jordan stating, "The first few days of Midnight max-level play have given us the data and feedback needed to make our first tuning pass, with the goal of reducing outliers." Unholy Death Knights, Shadow Priests, and Guardian Druids will probably be sighing the loudest, but there's finally some salvation for the much-maligned Warriors, who have previously been bearing the brunt of the nerf hammer in recent months.

After some more tentative tweaks during beta, this new World of Warcraft Midnight update takes some much bolder swings, with double-digit buffs and nerfs across a wide range of classes. If you're still working your way through the MMORPG's new expansion, you'll probably get by just fine, but this will likely make a big difference to anyone looking to dive into endgame activities like Heroic and Mythic+ dungeons.

Starting out at the top of the list, Blood Death Knights get pretty big damage increases for Deathbringer, but it's bad news for Unholy DKs, who have had their output slashed by a whopping 20% across the board. Havoc and Vengeance Demon Hunters both see pretty significant potency boosts, with the Aldrachi Reaver spec in particular being dragged upwards. It might not be enough to stop Devourer being the go-to pick, however, despite it receiving a 4% nerf to all damage.

It's bad news for Guardian Druids, with a 10% damage reduction for Moonfire and 20% cut to all other abilities. Druid of the Claw also gets similarly significant nerfs. Both Balance and Feral Druids are looking a lot more in shape, by comparison, with the former getting a class-wide 20% damage increase and the latter going up by 6%. Restoration Druids have their total healing output lowered by 6%, which feels fair given their strength thus far.

Augmentation and Devastation Evokers get some slight nerfs, while Preservation Evokers benefit from a 20% healing boost on Dream Breath (and double the bonus with Merithra's Blessing), and a 25% increase to Reversion (although here the damage reversal effect of Merithra's Blessing has been halved). Rewind healing outside of raids now gets a 200% increase, but loses its bonus during PvP.

Only a small number of Survival and Beast Mastery Hunter changes are being made, but the numbers are significant, with the latter in particular getting a 35% boost to Barbed Shot, 100% to Cobra Shot, and 50% to Black Arrow from the Dark Ranger spec. Arcane Mages receive damage increases on Arcane Blast and Arcane Barrage, but with less AoE from the Arcing Cleave effect. Fire Mage, meanwhile, sees 15% buffs to Fireball and Frostfire Bolt and 25% to Fire Blast, but the effectiveness of Ignition and the Season 1 set bonuses have been lowered.

Brewmaster Monks' Master of Harmony has had the damage increase from Meditiative Focus halved, with a similar nerf to the effectiveness of Aspect of Harmony. Mistweaver Monks see slight buffs, with 30% more healing on Invigorating Mists and Sheilun's Gift now getting 60% more base healing at the cost of less increase from its cloud stacks. Way of the Crane now focuses all of its healing into a single ally, rather than spreading it across three.

Retribution Paladin gets a mixture of buffs and nerfs, with the general trend being in favor of more single-target damage but less AoE output. Shadow Priests are likely going to be rather sad despite a class-wide 10% damage increase, because of a massive nerf to Psychic Link that drops its effectiveness from 60% to 20%. That should even its output across more of its toolkit, however. Discipline Priests receive a 20% boost to Penance damage and healing.

Subtlety Rogues follow in Ret Pally's footsteps with more single-target potency but less damage against groups. Elemental Shaman sees 10% increases to the output of Chain Lightning and Earthquake, while Enhancement Shaman gets a class-wide 8% damage upgrade alongside further 10% buffs on Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, and Primordial Storm. Restoration Shaman's Healing Rain goes up 45%, and its Chain Heal by 20%.

Destruction Warlock's Hellcaller spec faces notable damage nerfs, with a slight buff to Through the Felvine's effect on Rain of Fire and Chaos bolt to compensate. Demonology Warlock sees huge damage reductions for a lot of Soul Harvester talents, and its Dominion of Argus summons have been rebalanced so that they all feel "competitive with one another, avoiding random chance having a large effect on damage output."

I always like to end on a high note, and fortunately there's some good news for Warriors at last. While Piercing Howl has had its cooldown tripled to 90 seconds (Blizzard explains that it "does not align with other similar effects" in its current form), there's a class-wide 15% damage buff for Arms Warriors and 10% boosts on both Fury and Protection Warriors. Get out there and hit stuff.

World of Warcraft Midnight Season 1 goes live with these balance changes on Tuesday March 17. That means you've got a couple of days to figure out what, if anything, this changes for your raid group before the new season kicks off.