WoW Midnight: Subtlety rogues lose 8% damage on 27 October

Blizzard has listed the class tuning that arrives with weekly maintenance on 27 October in Europe. The headline change is for Subtlety rogues: all of their ability damage goes down by 8%. Blizzard says the buff Subtlety got alongside the changes in patch 12.1.5 "overshot expectations", so a significant portion of it is being rolled back. Because the patch helped Trickster more than Deathstalker, Trickster also loses a little more: Fazed now increases damage by 5% instead of 7%, which undoes the gain from the 6 October tuning.

Several specs gain damage. Feral druids and Fire mages get 5% on all damage done and Affliction warlocks get 20% on Unstable Affliction, all 3 of them outside PvP. Destruction warlocks get 20% on Rain of Fire, and Marksmanship hunters get help with area damage: Trick Shots now adds 85% to the ricochet damage of Aimed Shot and Rapid Fire instead of 75%, while Explosive Shot and Volley both go up by 10%.

Restoration druids are tuned for dungeons. Blizzard says they are behind other healers when it comes to burst damage in a 5-person group while doing well in raids, so Verdancy healing goes up by 60% and Regrowth by 10%, and Improved Swiftmend now increases Swiftmend healing by 40% instead of 30%. None of these apply in PvP.

The PvP list is longer. Unholy death knights playing San'layn see Vampiric Strike lose 20% in PvP combat, and Fire mages lose 5% of all damage there because they keep overperforming. Most other PvP changes are buffs, several of them for hero talent builds Blizzard says have not been competitive this season, such as Frostfire for mages and Conduit of the Celestials for Mistweaver monks; Chronowarden evokers and Archon priests gain too. Holy paladins get 5% more healing, and Divine Favor now cuts the mana cost of Holy Light by 50% instead of 30%.

The rogue cut follows weeks in which Subtlety became one of the highest-rated specs of the season in Mythic+, which also brought a suspected targeting problem with Diabolist warlocks back into view.