---
title: 'BIG Buffs Incoming... And They Change NOTHING'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=2l5DZRDO7Ms'
video_id: '2l5DZRDO7Ms'
date: 2026-08-03
duration_sec: 852
---

# BIG Buffs Incoming... And They Change NOTHING

> Source: [BIG Buffs Incoming... And They Change NOTHING](https://youtube.com/watch?v=2l5DZRDO7Ms)

## Summary

This video discusses the latest round of class balance changes in World of Warcraft, focusing on buffs to underperforming specializations and hero talents. Despite the buffs, the video argues that many of these changes are insufficient to significantly alter the current meta, with some specs still lagging far behind their counterparts.

### Key Points

- **Introduction to Buffs** [00:05] — The video announces a series of buffs for underperforming specs, particularly targeting hero talents like Aldrachi Demon Hunter and Frostfire Mages.
- **Aldrachi Reaver Buffs** [01:04] — Havoc and Vengeance Demon Hunters receive buffs: Reverted Glaive damage +15%, Warblade's Hunger +55%, Wounded Quarry transfer increased from 25% to 30% of physical damage. Death Sweep also gets a 10% damage increase.
- **Aldrachi Performance Analysis** [02:45] — Preliminary testing shows Aldrachi will still be behind Fel's Scythe in AoE, but single target performance will be close. Overall, Fel's Scythe gains up to 2% boss damage, while Aldrachi gains up to 7%.
- **Vengeance Buffs** [03:15] — Vengeance gets Reverse Glaive damage +30% and +55%, Wounded Quarry transfer from 20% to 25%, resulting in approximately 6% overall damage buff.
- **Frost Death Knight Success Story** [03:28] — Frost DK went through similar tuning and became a top spec, suggesting these buffs might help Aldrachi in the long run.
- **Feral Druid Buffs** [03:43] — Feral Druids receive a 4% damage buff to all abilities. However, raid ferals are disappointed, feeling the buff is insufficient to fix their performance.
- **Arcane Mage Buffs** [04:54] — Arcane Mages get a 10% damage buff to Arcane Missiles and Sunfury buffs: Burden of Power increases Arcane Blast damage by 30% (up from 25%) and Arcane Pulse by 20% (up from 15%).
- **Sunfury vs Spellslinger Gap** [05:24] — Sunfury is more than 30% behind Spellslinger in general DPS. The 5% buff to Arcane Blast might only increase DPS by 1%, which is insufficient to close the gap.
- **Fire Mage Buffs** [05:52] — Fire Mages get an 8% damage increase to Power Blast and a 5% buff to Frostfire Bolt. However, Fire mages are rare due to poor performance, and the buffs are mostly single target, not helping in AoE raids.
- **Frostfire Mage Buffs** [07:15] — Frostfire Mages receive significant buffs: Frostfire Bolt +5%, Duality increases Power Blast by 25%, Dual Casting adept increases Shatter damage by 40% (up from 15%), Heat Sink buffs Flurry by 25% (up from 10%), Blast Radius increases Comet Storm damage bonus to 50% (up from 20%).
- **Frostfire Performance** [07:55] — Frostfire gets a 10% damage buff in single target and AoE, but still behind Spellslinger by about 7% in single target and 10% in AoE.
- **Retribution Paladin Buffs** [08:14] — Herald of the Sun: Wake of Ashes now applies Dawnlight to next three holy power spending abilities (up from two). Endless Gleam extends Dawnlight duration by 0.5 seconds (up from 0.3) when Divine Storm strikes.
- **Holy Priest Mana Changes** [09:22] — Mana cost of Flash Heal, Benediction, Prayer of Mending, and Prayer of Healing reduced by 8% to improve comfort in raid settings.
- **Deathstalker Rogue Buffs** [10:05] — Deathstalker's Mark damage +30%, Clear the Witnesses increases Shuriken Storm and Fan of Knives damage by 60% (up from 40%). Assassination gets further buffs: Hunt Them Down +25%, Corrupt the Blood increases Rupture damage by 20% (up from 10%), Darkest Night increases Envenom damage by 35% (up from 30%).
- **Elemental Shaman Buffs** [11:14] — Farseer's Ancestral Spirits now benefit from Elemental Fury, increasing critical damage. This brings Farseer single target up by 8%, and on Vanguard fight, buffed by 14%.
- **Restoration Shaman Mana Changes** [12:08] — 5% mana cost reduction to Chain Heal, Healing Wave, and Riptide. There's a mana bug with Water Shield returning more mana than intended, which may be addressed.
- **Warrior Buffs** [12:49] — Colossus: Practice Strikes buffs Mortal Strike, Slam, and Shield Slam by 25% (up from 15%). Mountain Thane increases Thunder Blast damage by 30% for Fury and Protection.
- **Warrior Performance** [13:18] — Colossus gains 3.5% single target and 1.5% AoE. Mountain Thane gets 2% single target and 3.5% AoE. Warriors might push up the meta ladder, but 12.0.7 is coming with new content.

### Conclusion

The buffs are numerous but largely insufficient to change the current meta, with many specs still lagging behind. The video suggests that while some specs like Frost DK have succeeded after similar tuning, most of these changes won't dramatically alter performance, and players should wait for the upcoming 12.0.7 patch.

## Transcript

This just in, we need more buffs. What? More buffs? Yeah, more buffs. Can we even seen what people are doing in the Argentinian now that the season is getting boring? What?
Don't you want your spec to be like Frost Death Knight, climbing to S tier Frost Death Knight, climbing to S tier from the bottom of the barrel? I guess. In any case, this week we are reporting from Silvermoon on a lot of
buffs for underperforming specs, especially when it comes to their under-tuned hero talents. Have you been waiting to play some Aldrachi Demon Hunter? How about Frostfire Mages? Hold on to your keyboards because with this
reset we are getting juiced. Back to you, HQ. No, no, no, no, scroll back, scroll back. In the corner, man. Yeah.
recently announced buffs? Huh? Oh, are they buffing COLLAPSING STAR AGAIN? [ __ ] I'M DOWN FOR THAT. NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, SIR. You must be misunderstanding me. The buffs are for Aldrachi Reaver.
What's an Aldrachi Reaver? Reaver, sir. Aldrachi Reaver is a hero talent. What do you mean? We have Annihilator and Fel Those are for Devourer. Aldrachi is for Havoc and Vengeance.
I don't understand. Sir, you are aware that Demon Hunter has other specializations than Devourer, correct? Other specs? You mean as in not play Devourer? That is correct. But why? As you can see, dear folks at
home, the community is not devouring these Havoc buffs with the enthusiasm >> Havoc is getting the Reverted Glaive damage increased by 15% and warblade's hunger by 55%. Additionally, wounded quarry, previously
the main appeal and niche of the aldrachi play style, will now deal 30% of the physical damage you do to the target of your reverse mark. Previously, this was 25%. In a world where priority damage has been nerfed, yet priority
target seems to be more important than ever, this change is a welcome one. On paper. Also, there was a bug with death sweep that was supposed to receive a buff a while ago and it did not. So, with the recent changes, its damage will
also be increased by 10% outside of the announced aldrachi changes. Despite all of this, from preliminary testing made by the fell hammer community, aldrachi will still be behind fell's scythe and AOE and dungeons in
general, where the priority damage would have had a chance to set havoc apart from the other specs. But, the single target performance will be close to fell's scythe at least. With overall fell's scythe gaining up to 2% damage
boss from the death sweep changes, while aldrachi will go for as high as 7%. Vengeance will have reverse glaive buffed to increase its damage by 30% and 55%. Wounded quarry will go for 25% physical
damage transfer from the previously 20%. Getting aldrachi an approximately 6% damage buff overall. It doesn't seem like these changes will be enough, but frost death knight went through similar tuning before it became probably the
tuning before it became probably the best success story of this season. to all of their damage across the board. Ferals have been a very weird spec where
in dungeons they are leading the physical comps with crazy overall and generally high AOE damage potential, while the raid situation is more lackluster, we interviewed two feral druid players that have given us very uh
mixed reviews to these particular buffs. Hell yeah, MAN. Hell yeah, MAN. LET'S GO. WE'RE ALMOST THERE. AH, I can smell it. I can smell the cheese at the TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN. LET'S GO, BABY.
TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN. LET'S GO, BABY. MEANWHILE, No more feral flops. We want bigger buffs. No more feral flops. We want bigger buffs. Hey, man, give me that. Listen, devs. IN WHAT WORLD IS 4% GOING
TO fix this atrocity? LOOK AT OUR LOWER PERFORMANCE, MAN. WE DON'T have this quickly jiggly thing. Give us this quickly thing. We want to be a king. Give us this quickly thing. WE WANT TO be a king. There you have it, folks. The
raid ferals are not pouncing at the 4% damage prospect. You could say these changes are far from perfect. >> [clears throat]
damage buff to all ability damage and an additional arcane missiles damage buff by 10%. While that is great on paper, we are seeing some sunfury buffs as well to burden of power. With the upcoming reset, burden of power will increase the
damage of arcane blast by 30% up from 25% and arcane pulse by 20% up from 15. It's no surprise that sunfury is behind, but we went ahead and looked at some of the statistics and noticed most fights sunfury is more than 30%
behind spellslinger in general DPS. 30% is a very large gap to close with a measly 5% buff to arcane blast, which from the looks of things might see its DPS increase in the 1% range, at least
from the napkin math that we did. That could be wrong. And if it ends up being so, it would seem that we would be just as bad at mathematics as the devs are in this case. Good luck out there, Sunfury Arcane mages. Don't apply to our groups,
please. Moving on to Fire mage and I almost forgot the spec even existed. Fire mage is getting an 8% damage increase to Power Blast, but also a increase to Power Blast, but also a Frostfire Bolt buff of about 5% as well.
other specs in terms of performance to the point where the respective players have disabled chat and whispers due to abnormal levels of toxicity aimed at their spec choice, the 8% Power Blast
buff could be good in theory. Power Blast has a few scaling synergies that might make the buff be better than it seems in the way that it interacts with Ignite for one thing, but it's very hard to quantify so far since it would be
primarily a single target buff while the raid is AoE from top to bottom. Fire mages cannot simply swap targets to adds and maintain a competitive performance and would have to rely on their tanks to keep adds in close proximity to the boss
so that their niche can actually be exploited for a significant damage decrease compared to what Frost mage can accomplish. With all of these changes, we expect Fire mages to receive an overall 5% damage buff across the board
at least in single target. We tried interviewing Fire mages, but as it may not surprise you to hear, there aren't any because playing Fire subscription seems to be a bad build for this season. Meanwhile, Frost mages are
getting massive buffs to Frostfire. We took massive liberties with the word massive. Frostfire Bolt will have its damage increased by 5%. Duality will increase Power Blast damage by 25%. Dual Casting adept will increase Shatter's
Casting adept will increase Shatter's damage by 40% up from 15%. Heat Sink will buff the damage of Flurry by 25% up from the previous 10% and Blast Radius will increase the damage bonus of Comet Storm to 50% up from the
previous 20%. With all of these, Frostfire seems to be getting a 10% damage buff in single target and AoE respectively and still be behind Spellslinger by about 7% in single target and 10% in AoE, judging by the
sims done by the mage community. Don't get too heated up, Frostfire mages. It's not yet your alter time. Chill out for a few more weeks and maybe then you can ignite the meters once more.
retribution is the only paladin spec to be addressed this week. Herald of the Sun has been hit by two buffs with Wake of Ashes now causing the next three holy power spending abilities to apply a Dawnlight to their target. Previously,
this was the next two abilities. Additionally, Endless Gleam now extends Dawnlight's duration by an additional 0.5 seconds when Divine Storm strikes to 0.5 seconds when Divine Storm strikes to Dawnlight. Previously, this being a 0.3
seconds extension. We couldn't exactly understand how good these buffs were, so we tried finding a red paladin in action. Sir. Sir. Sir, can you give us a couple of thoughts on the new changes to Herald
Huh? Buffs, sir. You have BEEN BUFFED. OH, Buffs, sir. You have BEEN BUFFED. OH, COOL. COOL.
UM, YEAH. SO, red paladins seem to be vibing as always. The verdict? Templar. vibing as always. The verdict? Templar. Hey yo, that was [ __ ]
holy priests are leading the front with mana management being addressed. The cost of a few spells has been reduced by 8% with abilities affected such as Flash Heal, Benediction, Prayer of Mending, and Prayer of Healing. The developers
have clarified their intention with this in their patch notes. We're reducing the mana cost of some core spells cast so holy priest can feel more comfortable casting prayer of healing and flash heal, particularly in raid settings. It
seems that now holy priest have one less thing to pray for. Hey yo, that was thing to pray for. Hey yo, that was [ __ ] Deathstalker address for both subtlety and assassination.
Deathstalker's Mark has had its damage increased by 30% and Clear the Witnesses will increase Shuriken Storm and Fan of Knives damage by 60% from the previous 40%. Assassination has received further Deathstalker buffs with Hunt Them Down
Deathstalker buffs with Hunt Them Down having its damage increased by 25%. Corrupt the Blood increasing Rupture damage by 20% from the previous 10% and Darkest Night effect will further increase In Venom's damage by 35% from
the previous 30%. With all of these being said, Deathstalker is still behind Fatebound for assassination while for subtlety, it remains the ideal single target choice but not getting close as far as AoE is [music] concerned.
Are you excited about the recent Deathstalker changes? Hey man, you know why we're here. So stop playing. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not again. Let go, fool.
No. [screaming] Haha, jokes on you. My bank account can only be accessed by my FINGERPRINTS AND THE LOOKS LIKE THE ROGUES MANAGED to sneak one on the field team once again. Such
are the ways of murder row. Hey yo, that was week. Elementals Ancestral Spirits from the Farseer hero talent will now also
benefit from the Elemental Fury talent that increases their critical damage. This brings the Farseer single target up by 8% and also very close to its Stormbringer counterpart. On the Vanguard fight, elementals have been
playing Farseer already and that particular fight profile has been buffed by 14%. Although that sounds like an incredible number, the Vanguard top DPSers led by augmentation Evokers are seeing upwards to 260,000
DPS output while elementals are barely reaching the 180k, more than 80,000 DPS whatever percent ends up being will hardly bridge that gap. We are
definitely not going to see elementals blast next week. Moving on to restoration, we are seeing a 5% mana cost reduction to a few spells in chain heal, healing wave, and riptide. There seems to be a mana bug with
restoration's water shield in that it is returning more mana than intended and once this bug is addressed, if it gets addressed, the added mana cost changes are said to be a welcome tide for restoration.
It might not surge their healing, but it will definitely chain into some higher will definitely chain into some higher throughput.
have received buffs for all specs involved. Practice strikes from Colossus will buff the respective abilities by 25% up from the previous 15% that applies to mortal strike and slam for arms and shield slam for protection.
Mountain Thane will also increase the Thunder Blast damage by 30% for both fury and protection. The Skyhold community has done some initial testing and ended up with a 3.5 single target damage gain overall for Colossus and
1.5% for AoE. The single target is not definitely enough to compete with its respective counterparts while the AoE buff will set it even further apart in terms of output. Mountain Thane gets an overall 2% single target buff and a 3.5%
Although the gap between the hero talents might not shorten, it will definitely push warriors up on the meta ladder and considering arms is looking like the second best success story after Frost DK this season, warriors might be
seeing better days now that the season is moving into relevancy. Or maybe not quite yet. 12.0.7 is just around the corner and it comes with a around the corner and it comes with a new mini raid and a new solo boss that
will boost the loot and strength of everyone even further. We made a video about it that you can check which will surely put the test on the buffs that we are set to receive with the following reset.