Blizzard is making major combat changes in Dragonflight Patch 10.1

On April 18, Blizzard Entertainment dropped yet another round of PTR development notes for players to unpack. Although the sea of balancing changes made to classes, tier sets, and Mythic+ dungeons will definitely play a huge role in the future of PvE, the recent combat changes will shake up the meta to its core.

Starting Dragonflight Patch 10.1, players will have 25 percent more Stamina under their belt, but enemies will do 25 percent more damage with their melee attacks and spells. To compensate for the increase in Stamina, DPS classes and tanks will have stronger shields, absorb, and healing spells. 

In a nutshell, this is a straight nerf to healers in both raids and Mythic+ dungeons as they could top the entire party in a matter of seconds after the party or raid suffered unavoidable damage. In Embers of Neltharion, healing will become less effective, and thanks to Stamina buffs across the board, players should see far fewer one-shots. In addition to that, players’ HP bars won’t oscillate as much with it being in one moment below 20 percent and in the other above 90 percent. 

By introducing this change to healing and damage, Blizzard is most likely looking to shift away its design philosophy from anxiety-ridden healing and stressful moments for DPS classes as players desperately grasp Healthstones and health potions to survive. Besides that, healers will now be busier in PvE scenarios and they won’t have as much time to help out with DPS. With the impact of healing being reduced across the board, the burst damage should be reduced to the minimum in the next patch to give healers more space to catch up with the damage dealt and top the party off.

Looking at these changes, Liquid’s guild master and raid leader Max “Maximum” Smith has nothing but praise. On April 18, Maximum explained this is “very very good for the game” and healers have had too much agency in raids.

Dragonflight Patch 10.1 is coming out in exactly two weeks and the players can expect to see at least one more major PTR update before the patch hits the live servers. Hopefully, for players, these changes won’t be aggressive and they will have more time to ease into the new meta.