World of Warcraft's September 1 weekly reset carried a class tuning pass Blizzard announced on August 28, further tuning to Nymrissa Wavecaller, the Mythic Twin Fangs and the Mythic Coiled Altar, and a restriction on Bonus Rolls.
Blizzard said it had continued to examine Mythic+, raid and PvP data and identified specializations underperforming in raiding and Mythic+ after the previous week's tuning. The PvE side was almost entirely buffs.
- Frost Death Knight: Howling Blast main-target damage up 15%, Obliterate up 15%, Frost Strike up 20% and melee damage up 10%
- Feral Druid: all ability damage up 5%, auto-attack damage up 10% and Ferocious Bite up 10%, with Balance ability damage and Restoration healing each up 4%
- Mistweaver Monk: all healing up 5%, and the Venomous Abyss four-piece set bonus activation chance raised to 25% from 20%
- Protection Paladin: Blaze of Glory damage up 150%, with Consecration and Divine Guidance up 30%
- Beast Mastery and Survival Hunter: all player and pet damage up 7%, cut to 3% for Survival in PvP combat
- Vengeance Demon Hunter: Demonic Wards mitigation to 15% from 12%, Frailty from Void Reaver to 6% from 5%, and Fel Devastation healing up 25%
Smaller increases went to Havoc Demon Hunter and Windwalker Monk at 4%, Fire Mage at 3% and Frost Mage at 6%, alongside a 10% buff to Druid Shred and a 20% cut to Discipline Priest's Shadow Mend mana cost. In PvP, Blizzard said its aim was to reduce defensiveness and healing while lifting weaker specializations, and it cut the Gladiator's Distinction set bonus to 5% primary stat for every healing specialization, from 10%. Mage barrier absorbs fell 25%, Restoration Druid's Swiftmend healing fell 20%, and the Safeguard PvP talent added 20 seconds to Intervene's cooldown for Arms and Fury Warriors.
Raid tuning at the reset
Nymrissa Wavecaller was nerfed on all difficulties, with the Frost Orb damage-over-time effect shortened to 12 seconds from 16 and its damage reduced by up to 33% on Normal and Heroic and up to 17% on Mythic, weighted toward smaller raid sizes. Wowhead said the encounter remains very difficult on Mythic even after two rounds of nerfs, because guilds still walk an immune player through the orbs to take no damage at all.
On Mythic Twin Fangs, Eternal Venom now kills at 10 stacks rather than 9, and Ravenous Feast requires at least four players in each soak. Wowhead said the second change ends a strategy in which the raid soaked the first hit together before a single player took the remaining two under Blessing of Protection. Wowhead said the Mythic Coiled Altar hotfixes that were pushed and then reverted a reset earlier, after going out unevenly across North American and European servers, now appear to have been applied again: a 20% cut to the Defilement healing absorb, a 15% cut to Coalesced Venom area damage, a 10% cut to Venom Rupture's periodic damage, and the removal of damage variance from Coalesced Venom and Retaliatory Malice.
Bonus rolls
The reset also changed how Bonus Rolls work. Blizzard said they can now only be used on encounters where the player is still eligible to receive loot, so killing a boss a second time on the same difficulty in the same week no longer offers a roll. Wowhead noted Heroic Ula'tek as one of the encounters players had most often spent coins on.
While this is a change in loot behavior from Season 1, we feel that it more closely aligns with how loot works in general, and will be healthier for the acquisition of loot overall.