Blizzard hotfixes WoW’s Castle Nathria raid, nerfs overtuned bosses

Blizzard has nerfed Castle Nathria a day after the raid’s worldwide release in World of Warcraft’s Shadowlands expansion.

Players have been struggling with the Heroic version of the raid, failing to make progress and wiping on what would usually be considered easy bosses at this early stage of the expansion.

Even the front-running guilds, like Europe’s Echo and Australia’s Honestly, have hit a brick wall with all but North America’s Complexity Limit failing to push past Sludgefist, the seventh boss of the raid.

Ahead of the Mythic Castle Nathria, which is scheduled to release next week, Blizzard has done some fine-tuning, fixed bugs, and nerfed overtuned bosses. Huntsman Altimor, Hungering Destroyer, Lady Inerva Darkvein, Sun King’s Salvation, Artificer Xy’Mox, and Sludgefist have each received changes in one form or another.

Here’s the full list of changes for Castle Nathria.

Huntsman Altimor

• Resolved an issue that caused Sinseeker’s damage over time to scale too aggressively with raid size on all difficulties
• Sinseeker’s cast time increased to 5.5 seconds on all difficulties (was 4 seconds)
• Devour Soul buff reduced to 100 percent on Normal difficulty and 150 percent on Heroic difficulty (was 200 percent)
• Devour Soul duration decreased to 30 seconds in Normal and Heroic difficulties (was 60 seconds)

Hungering Destroyer

• Hungering Destroyer will now target up to one fewer player when casting Gluttonous Miasma on Normal and Heroic difficulties
• The cast time of Hungering Destroyer’s Volatile Ejection has been increased to 4.5 seconds on Normal difficulty (was four seconds)

Lady Inerva Darkvein

• Hungering Destroyer will now target up to one fewer player when Harnessed Specters should be less prone to using Condemn while a tank is engaged with them

Sun King’s Salvation

• Soul Pedestal healing substantially increased on all difficulties
• Enemies in this encounter now berserk after 14 minutes on Normal and Heroic difficulties
• Rockbound Vanquisher’s Concussive Smash damage reduced by 15 percent on Normal and Heroic difficulties
• Bleakwing Assassin’s Crimson Flurry initial damage and damage over time reduced by 15 percent on Normal and Heroic difficulties
• Shade of Kael’thas’s Ember Blast reduced by 20 percent on Normal and Heroic difficulties
• Fixed an issue where the Shade of Kael’thas could fail to disappear when defeated

Artificer Xy’Mox

• Glyph of Destruction periodic damage over time reduced by 50 percent on Normal difficulty
• Rift Blast cast time increased to 3.75 seconds on Normal difficulty (was three seconds)
• Rift Blast damage reduced by 18 percent on Normal difficulty.
• Fleeting Spirit now summons two spirits in a 10 person raid, scaling with raid size to up to six spirits on all difficulties
• Limited the number of healing specialized players that can be targeted by Fleeting Spirits on all difficulties
• Seeds of Extinction cast time of Extinction increased by two seconds on Normal difficulty

Sludgefist

• Fixed an issue where Hateful Gaze would sometimes not cast immediately when Sludgefist hits 100 rage