To reiterate what was said recently, updates are our friends. Especially when it comes to video games. Sure, they can be inconvenient when you really want to play the game but you have to wait for it to update, and that’s okay. They are here to help. That inconvenience, as odd as this may sound, shows that the developer cares about us, the players. They want to provide gamers with the best possible version of their game as they can. The latest game to bring the heat with an update is Blizzard’s World of Warcraft.

In a post on the Battle.net World of Warcraft forums, community manager Lore posted the details of an upcoming tuning of sorts. “As we prepare for the opening of Mythic Nighthold, we’re planning another round of balance tuning for a few specs. These will be applied with the next weekly maintenance,” is what they said. Then, they immediately went into the list of everything that is coming to World of Warcraft this week. January 24, to be exact. You can check out the entire list below:

Druid

• Feral
  • Increased the damage of most Feral spells and abilities by 8%. (Ashamane’s Frenzy, Brutal Slash, Ferocious Bite, Maim, Moonfire, Rake, Shred, Swipe, Thrash, Rip)
    • Designer Notes: Feral’s playstyle feels good, but isn’t putting up the numbers that it should be, so we’re giving them an across-the-board damage buff.

Hunter

• Combat Experience (Pet Passive) now increases the damage of primary pets by 60% (up from 50%).
  • Designer Notes: This is primarily a damage buff to Beast Mastery, but will have a tiny benefit to Survival and occasionally Marksmanship as well.
• Marksmanship
  • Arcane Shot now generates 8 Focus (up from 5).
  • Multi-Shot now generates 3 Focus per target hit (up from 2).
  • Sidewinders damage increased by 33%.
    • Designer Notes: Marksmanship has given a lot of feedback that the rotation often winds up casting too many consecutive Focus generators. We are making two changes: first, helping avoid that problem by increasing the Focus generation of Arcane Shot and Multi-Shot. Second, making it more attractive to use Sidewinders in more situations, for players who prefer the pacing of the rotation with that talent.

Mage

• Arcane
  • Increased the damage of most Arcane spells and abilities by 5%. (Arcane Barrage, Arcane Blast, Arcane Explosion, Arcane Missiles, Arcane Orb, Nether Tempest, Supernova)
  • Overpowered now increases the damage and mana cost bonuses of Arcane Power to 60% (down from 70%).
  • Amplification now increases Arcane Missiles damage by 12% (down from 15%).
    • Designer Notes: Arcane has been doing well in 7.1.5, but its numbers are lacking a bit. We’re giving them an across-the-board damage buff, but tempering that with small reductions to a couple new talents that are proving to be too strong.
• Fire
  • Pyroblast mana cost reduced by 20%.
  • Flamestrike mana cost reduced by 17%.
    • Designer Notes: Under certain circumstances, it was possible for Fire to run out of mana. It’s only intended that mana is a constraint on Fire’s utility, not its damage.
• Frost
  • Comet Storm damage increased by 24%.
  • Flurry now fires its missiles faster.
    • Designer Notes: Comet Storm is failing to live up to expectations, so we’re buffing its damage. The Flurry change will help Flurry feel more responsive, while simultaneously solving a potential issue where Winter’s Chill could apply to two Ice Lances (instead of just one, as intended) at extremely high Haste levels.

Monk

• Brewmaster
  • Keg Smash damage increased by 10%, and it no longer deals reduced damage to 6+ targets.
  • Breath of Fire damage increased 11%.
    • Designer Notes: Brewmasters could use a bit of help on damage, especially in AoE.

Paladin

• Retribution
  • Crusade now increases damage and Haste by 3% per stack (down from 3.5%).
  • Blade of Justice damage increased by 20%, unchanged in PvP.
    • Designer Notes: Retribution’s total damage is looking quite strong in 7.1.5, which is fine on its own. However, how that damage is delivered matters quite a bit as well. We’ve been seeing more and more that Paladins find that the optimal way to maximize their performance is to focus everything they can on boosting their damage during Crusade. This creates a number of problems, including: Crusade feels mandatory, your damage feels very unrewarding outside of Crusade, trinkets and artifact traits are viewed as either amazing or terrible based on whether they synergize with Crusade, and others.As such, we’re going to tone down Crusade, and compensate with a buff to Blade of Justice. For those that had maximized Crusade to an extreme degree, this may result in a small overall nerf – this is intended. This change also helps prevent Divine Hammer from being too dominant in single-target situations.

Warlock

• Destruction
  • Chaos Bolt damage increased by 9%.
  • Rain of Fire damage increased by 30%.
  • Cataclysm damage increased by 29%.
    • Designer Notes: Destruction’s damage isn’t as high as it should be. In particular, some of its spells that should feel the most rewarding aren’t hitting hard enough, especially in AoE situations. We’re buffing the damage of those spells.

The replies to Lore’s message are alive and well on the forum, which can be found here. Many were appreciative of the upcoming changes in World of Warcraft, while others found that more could have been done. This usually happens with any update, though. However, players seemed to get a kick out of the Designer Notes for Feral, or rather, a reply to them:

Are any of you avid players of World of Warcraft? What do you think of the upcoming class tuning changes? Do you believe them to be fair, or do you think more could have been done? Let us know in the comments section below! Also, have you had the chance to check this out? A modder created Minesweeper inside of Amnesia: Dark Descent and it is kind of terrifying. If you get scared, you can always follow DFTG on Twitter. We’ll protect you from that which lurks in the shadows.