Blizzard has released a new World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth patch that nerfs various healing specs in PvP settings.
The new hotfix significantly reduces healer mana regeneration in PvP engagements for all Druid specs, Holy and Disc priests, Holy paladins, Elemental & Resto Shamans, and Mistweaver Monks. In addition, the new patch nerfs neurotoxins for Assassination Rogues in PvP.
According to Blizzard, the nerf to healers was rolled out to make mana more important in PvP.
“We’ve taken a careful look at healer mana during longer PvP engagements in both Arenas and battlegrounds, and the changes above are intended to address several concerns”, Blizzard writes. “In PvP, we want mana to feel like a more critical resource, and we want mana efficiency to be an important part of PvP healing. At the beginning of Battle for Azeroth, mana regeneration from all healer specs was reduced by 15-30% (depending on the class), and after reviewing the current state of the game, we feel like further reductions are necessary to both healer specs and a few hybrid specs.”
The official release notes for the update have been included below:
Player versus Player
Restoration Druid mana regeneration is now reduced by 55% in PvP.Holy Priest, Holy Paladin, Restoration Shaman, and Mistweaver Monk mana regeneration is now reduced by 50% in PvP.Discipline Priest mana regeneration is now reduced by 45% in PvP.Balance Druid, Feral Druid, and Elemental Shaman mana regeneration is reduced by 35% in PvP.Druid
Restoration
Nourish (PvP Talent) mana cost increased by 30%
Rogue
Assassination
Neurotoxin now increases the cooldown of affected spells by 1 sec, down from 3 sec.Neurotoxin now has a 45 second cooldown, up from 25 sec.Neurotoxin now has a 3 sec duration, down from 10 sec.Developers note: Unfortunately, we are unable to fix a number of technical issues with this spell at this time. We’re working on a fix for it that we hope to include in 8.1.5.
World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth is available globally now.