New World of Warcraft Midnight patch notes are good news for Druids and Mages, but Rogues face nerfs

We're just over a week since Blizzard released World of Warcraft Midnight patch 12.1.5. Its narrative twists and turns have left the community deeply split over decisions to take some dramatic steps, and I find myself fascinated to see where we end up when the 12.2 update, Eclipse, arrives. Before we get there, however, the developer is readying a fresh round of class tuning, and has just boosted several specs with notable balance changes. If you're coming back to retail in the wake of the WoW Forever beta wrapping up, you'll want to take a look and make sure you're up to date.

World of Warcraft Community Manager Bethany Hudson shares the new Midnight patch notes, which will come into action with the weekly maintenance and reset on Tuesday October 27. A few small changes of note have already been made in a hotfix, however, so let's quickly touch on those first. Enhancement Shaman's Surging Elements will now correctly appear when using the Cooldown Manager, and certain Warlock summons should no longer erroneously target enemies outside of combat.

Looking ahead to next week's patch, it's a fairly straightforward week. We start with Feral Druids, who get a 5% buff to all their damage in PvE. Restoration Druids, meanwhile, are being given some help to deal with burst damage in dungeons specifically, where they've been falling behind other healers. The healing on Verdancy goes up a hefty 60%, Regrowth by 10%, and Improved Swiftmend is raised from a 30% bonus to a 40% one. Again, these are all PvE-only adjustments.

Marksmanship Hunters were struggling to deal enough area damage, so they get 10% boosts to both Explosive Shot and Volley. Additionally, the damage increase applied to Aimed Shot and Rapid Fire by Trick Shots has been lifted from 75% to 85%. Fire Mages join Feral Druids on the simple-but-effective table of gaining 5% damage across the board in PvE. Finally, Affliction Warlocks will deal 20% more damage with Unstable Affliction (but not in PvP), and Destruction Warlocks are handed 20% extra output for Rain of Fire.

Subtlety Rogues, however, are our sole PvE nerf for the week, and it's a pretty big one: all ability damage is reduced by 8%, and the increase from Trickster: Fazed is lowered from 7% to 5%. "The buff Subtlety received as compensation alongside changes in the 12.1.5 patch overshot expectations," Blizzard explains, "so we're rolling back a significant portion of that buff."

There are broader changes across PvP, so if you're looking to get involved in some competitive action you'll want to study the full list. For a quick rundown, the buffs go to Devourer Demon Hunters, Preservation Evokers, Marksmanship Hunters, Frost Mages, Mistweaver Monks, Holy Paladins, Holy Priests, Assassination Rogues, and Restoration Shamans, while nerfs hit Unholy Death Knights and Fire Mages.

These World of Warcraft Midnight class tuning changes for 12.1.5 will go live with the weekly maintenance on Tuesday October 27. That gives you a couple of days to decide if you need to plan out any changes for the week to come. It'll be fascinating to watch whether the population of the modern retail game shifts at all while we await the full launch of WoW Forever, which is now less than two weeks away.