World of Warcraft Class Tuning Update Includes More Big Buffs and Nerfs

Blizzard announced that they’re making some changes to class strengths in World of Warcraft during the first week of May. Warlocks and Warriors will get some improvements, while Druids and Evokers will be slightly weakened. These changes will take effect after the weekly server reset.

Things haven’t been super smooth in World of Warcraft lately, and Blizzard knows it. After the 12.0.5 update dropped, we all started finding a ton of bugs – some were just annoying, but others really messed things up. Blizzard actually apologized, saying the launch wasn’t good enough, which is pretty rare. A lot of us are saying they’re pushing out patches too fast without testing them properly. It’s unclear if they’ll slow down and do more testing before future updates, but hopefully they learn from this 12.0.5 mess. They’re promising a tuning pass to help fix things, and we’re all hoping it makes a big difference.

World of Warcraft Reveals Class Tuning Pass Following Patch 12.0.5’s Launch

Players weren’t happy with the recent 12.0.5 patch for World of Warcraft, but Blizzard is responding with adjustments to several classes. The updates will go live on Tuesday, May 5th, after server maintenance. Holy Paladins and Protection Paladins will receive small improvements: Holy Paladins will see a 15% increase to the effectiveness of Word of Glory, Eternal Flame, and Light of Dawn, while Protection Paladins will get a 10% boost to their base armor. Affliction Warlocks, who specialize in damage-over-time spells, will also be getting stronger, with a 20% damage increase to Unstable Affliction and Corruption, and a 10% buff to Agony and Seed of Corruption.

The next update will bring improvements for several classes in World of Warcraft. Arms Warriors will see increased damage with Execute and Overpower, and their talents Reap the Storm and Slayer’s Strike will be significantly stronger. Fury Warriors will get a 5% damage boost across all attacks, including an enhancement to their Ground Current talent. Protection Warriors will also benefit from these changes. Both Outlaw and Subtlety Rogues will deal more damage – a 5% increase for Outlaw and 7% for Subtlety – with improvements to their Cloud Cover and No Scruples talents. Enhancement Shamans, Beast Mastery Hunters, and Marksmanship Hunters are also set to receive substantial buffs.

Some World of Warcraft Classes Are Due for Nerfs

While many classes in World of Warcraft are getting stronger, some popular ones will be slightly weakened in an upcoming update. Unholy Death Knights will be nerfed again, with damage from graveyards reduced by 15%, and specific abilities like Epidemic, Icy Fury, and Thrill of Blood will also be adjusted. Guardian Druids will see a decrease in single-target damage to be more consistent with other tanks, though their Thrash ability will receive a small damage boost to offset nerfs to other skills. Devourer Demon Hunters will experience a 3% overall damage reduction, along with adjustments to the Voidfall Meteor and Meteoric Rise talents. Augmentation Evokers will see a 5% reduction in the effectiveness of their abilities. Discipline Priests and Brewmaster Monks will also be slightly nerfed in the update arriving on May 5th.

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With a big update to class abilities coming soon and the new Patch 12.0.7 now available for testing, Blizzard is working hard to fix as many problems as possible. It remains to be seen how these changes will affect the game and how well they’ll be received by players.

World of Warcraft: Midnight Class Tuning (May 5, 2026)

CLASSES

Death Knight
- Frost
  - All damage increased by 5%. Does not affect PvP combat.
- Unholy
  - Developers’ notes: Unholy Death Knight is performing better than intended after recent bugfixes and the 12.0.5 changes.
  - Magus of the Dead Shadow Bolt damage reduced by 15%. Does not affect PvP combat.
  - Graveyard damage reduced by 15%. Does not affect PvP combat.
  - Rider of the Apocalypse: Whitemane’s Epidemic damage reduced by 25%. This does not affect PvP combat.
  - Rider of the Apocalypse: Trolbane’s Icy Fury damage reduced by 25%. Ddoes not affect PvP combat.
  - San’layn: Thrill of Blood now increases the damage of Dread Plague and Virulent Plague by 10% (was 5%).

Demon Hunter
- Devourer
  - All damage reduced by 3%.
  - Annihilator: Voidfall Meteor damage reduced by 12%.
  - Annihilator: Meteoric Rise damage bonus for Void Ray reduced to 10% (was 15%).
- Vengeance
  - Thick Skin now increases Armor by 185% (was 150%).

Druid
- Guardian
  - Developers’ notes: Guardian Druids have continued to overperform in single target contexts, while experiencing difficulties with threat and sustained damage outside of cooldowns. With these changes, we’re aiming to reduce burst potential and transfer some of that power into more reliable and consistent abilities to aid in generating and maintaining threat.
  - Wild Guardian echo effectiveness reduced to 200% (was 300%).
  - Red Moon damage reduced by 20%.
  - Maul damage reduced by 15%.
  - Raze damage reduced by 15%.
  - Ravage damage reduced by 15%.
  - Thrash direct damage increased by 200%.
  - Thrash bleed damage increased by 100%.
- Restoration
  - All healing reduced by 3%. Does not apply to PvP combat.
  - Everbloom heals for 20/40% of Lifebloom’s final heal (was 25/50%). Does not apply to PvP combat.
Evoker
- Augmentation
  - All ability damage and pet damage reduced by 5%.
  - Fixed an issue where Inferno’s Blessing damage was not properly modified by the specialization baseline passive. Inferno’s Blessing’s spell damage coefficient has been adjusted to compensate, so its effective damage will only be changed per the above adjustment.
  - Scalecommander: Fixed an issue where Bombardment damage was not properly modified by the specialization’s baseline passives. Bombardment’s damage calculations have been adjusted to compensate.
    - Developers’ notes: Effective damage will be unchanged for Devastation and only reduced by 5% for Augmentation with the above adjustment.
Hunter
- Beast Mastery
  - All damage dealt by you and your pets increased by 4%. Does not apply to PvP combat.
- Marksmanship
  - Rapid Fire damage increased by 20%. Does not affect PvP combat.
  - Explosive Shot damage increased by 100%.
  - Arcane Shot and Multi-Shot damage increased by 30%.
  - Steady Shot damage increased by 100%.
Mage
- Frost
  - Shatter damage to the primary target reduced by 6%.
    - Developers’ notes: Bug fixes last week to Hand of Frost and Flurry provided a meaningful damage increase to Frost. This change is primarily intended to offset the boost from those fixes.
Monk
- Brewmaster
  - High Tolerance refunds 2/4 seconds of Purifying Brew’s cooldown when cast at Elevated Stagger (was 3/6 seconds).
  - Zen State increases stagger effectiveness by 15%, based on missing health (was 20%).
Paladin
- Holy
  - Eternal Flame healing increased by 15%.
  - Word of Glory healing increased by 15%.
  - Light of Dawn healing increased by 15%.
- Protection
  - Base armor increased by 10%.
Priest
- Discipline
  - Developers’ notes: Our goal here is to slightly rein in Atonement’s healing contribution in raid environments while keeping its effectiveness in smaller group content.
  - Atonement damage transfer has been increased to 30% (was 28%). Not applied to PvP combat.
  - Atonement healing now decays more rapidly beyond 5 targets.
    - Developers’ notes: For example, when healing 20 injured allies with Atonement, it would previously be reduced by 50%. With the new scaling, it will be reduced by 60%.
- Holy
  - All healing increased by 6%. Not applied to PvP combat.
Rogue
- Outlaw
  - All damage increased by 5%. Does not affect PvP combat.
  - Trickster: Cloud Cover primary and secondary duration reduced to 6 seconds (was 10 seconds).
  - Trickster: Cloud Cover now causes Fazed to stack 1 additional time (was 2).
  - Trickster: No Scruples crit chance bonus increased to 12% (was 10%).
  - Trickster: Additional stacks of Fazed granted by Cloud Cover no longer increase the magnitude of secondary effects, such as the damage reduction from the Smoke talent.
- Subtlety
  - All damage increased by 7%. Does not affect PvP combat.
  - Trickster: Cloud Cover primary and secondary duration reduced to 6 seconds (was 10 seconds).
  - Trickster: No Scruples crit chance bonus increased to 12% (was 10%).
  - Trickster: Additional stacks of Fazed granted by Cloud Cover no longer increase the magnitude of secondary effects, such as the damage reduction from the Smoke talent.
Shaman
- Enhancement
  - Developers’ notes: Enhancement Shaman has been underperforming in both Raid and M+ content. With these changes, we’re aiming to increase throughput and help Stormbringer catch up to Totemic. We’re also resolving a bug, which would have a negative impact on performance, so we’re watching the results carefully.
  - All ability damage increased by 5%.
  - Auto attack damage increased by 10%.
  - Resolved an issue causing Thorim’s Invocation to cast Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning and Tempest at with more effectiveness than intended when cast below 10 Maelstrom Weapon.
  - Stormbringer: Natural Gift now increases Nature damage of abilities by 6% (was 2%).
  - Stormbringer: Voltaic Surge now increases the damage of Crash Lightning and Chain Lightning by 20% (was 10%).
Warlock
- Affliction
  - Unstable Affliction damage increased by 20%.
  - Seed of Corruption damage increased by 10%.
  - Corruption damage increased by 20%.
    - Developers’ notes: This change does not affect Wither.
  - Agony damage increased by 10%.
Warrior
- Developers’ notes: These tuning changes are aimed at improving Warrior performance overall as well as compensating for damage lost due to the Deep Wounds bug fix last week. We will continue to monitor Warrior performance and make further adjustments as needed.
- Arms
  - Execute damage increased by 20%.
  - Overpower damage increased by 20%.
  - Slayer: Slayer’s Strike damage increased by 40%.
  - Slayer: Reap the Storm damage increased by 30%.
- Fury
  - All damage increased by 5%.
  - Execute damage increased by 20%.
  - Raging Blow damage increased by 20%.
  - Slayer: Slayer’s Strike damage increased by 40%.
  - Slayer: Reap the Storm damage increased by 30%.
  - Mountain Thane: Ground Current damage increased by 50%.
- Protection
  - Execute damage increased by 20%.
  - Mountain Thane: Thunder Blast damage increased by 30%.
  - Mountain Thane: Ground Current damage increased by 50%.

Player vs Player

Developers’ notes: The pace of PvP combat is a little too fast right now, resulting in quick kills from burst damage. We’re increasing player health in PvP combat to slow this down slightly and give players more time to react.
Gladiator’s Distinction (PvP trinket set bonus) now increases player Stamina by an additional 5%.
Voidstone Shielding Array absorption is reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
Demon Hunter
- Devourer
  - Developers’ notes: Devourer’s ability to burst enemies down is a little too high.
  - Void-Scarred: Voidsurge damage reduced by 20% in PvP combat.
Druid
- Balance
  - Developers’ notes: Balance Druid is overall performing reasonably well, with the notable exception of Starsurge feeling underwhelming. We’re increasing Starsurge damage to give Balance more opportunities to contribute single-target burst.
  - Starsurge damage increased by 18% in PvP combat.
Hunter
- Beast Mastery
  - All damage dealt by you and your pets reduced by 3% in PvP combat.
- Marksmanship
  - Developers’ notes: We reduced Marksmanship damage in a recent hotfix, but those changes were too aggressive. We’re pulling back on some of the reductions to Black Arrow and overall damage to bring Marksmanship back up to a reasonable spot.
  - Black Arrow damage increased by 11% in PvP combat.
  - All damage increased by 5% in PvP combat.
Mage
- Arcane
  - Developers’ notes: Arcane is behind the other Mage specializations, so we’re increasing the damage of some of their core spells. These are the more difficult spells to fully channel, so we’d like them to feel more rewarding when you do cast them.
  - Arcane Blast damage increased by 15% in PvP combat.
  - Arcane Missile damage increased by 15% in PvP combat.
- Fire
  - Developers’ notes: Fire, particularly Sunfury, is able to deal significant burst during their Combustion windows. We’d like to reduce that with that caveat that casting Fireball should still feel rewarding.
  - Pyroblast damage reduced by 6% in PvP combat.
  - Fireball damage increased by 80% in PvP combat.
  - Sunfury: Codex of the Sunstriders now increases spell damage during Combustion by 1% for each Spellfire Sphere consumed in PvP combat (was 2%).
- Frost
  - Ray of Frost damage reduced by 10% in PvP combat.
Monk
- Brewmaster
  - All damage reduced by 15% in PvP combat.
Paladin
- Holy
  - Mana regeneration is now reduced by 35% in PvP combat (was 45%).
- Protection
  - Templar: Divine Exaction now causes Divine Toll to cast 2 additional times at 75% effectiveness in PvP combat (was 150%).
Priest
- Shadow
  - Developers’ notes: Shadow’s consistent damage over time is quite effective, but their single target spells are lower than intended. We’re increasing Shadow Word: Madness and Mind Blast damage to help them contribute single target burst a bit more effectively.
  - Shadow Word: Madness damage increased by 25% in PvP combat.
  - Mind Blast and Void Blast damage increased by 20% in PvP combat.
Rogue
- Outlaw
  - Developers’ notes: Outlaw’s damage ended up being quite high after recent adjustments, particularly Between the Eyes with patch 12.0.5. We’re reducing that along with some reductions to Cloud Cover for both PvE and PvP.
  - Between the Eyes damage reduced by 15% in PvP combat.
  - All ability damage reduced by 5%.
Shaman
- Restoration
  - Healing Wave healing increased by 10% in PvP combat.
  - Riptide healing increased by 15% in PvP combat.
Warlock
- Destruction
  - All damage increased by 5% in PvP combat.

2026-05-03 22:17