With World of Warcraft: Shadowlands on the way, there’s plenty of changes still getting tossed around on the Beta. Recently, the developers over at Blizzard released a high volume of changes focused on the upcoming dungeon the Theatre of Pain.
Many of these changes fall under the polish that the game was recently delayed to apply. While fans are hopeful that we’ll be able to get our hands on the title before the year ends, the high quantity of changes still being applied make it seem like there’s quite a bit of work left to be done.
Either way, the newest changes are live on the Beta, affecting all of the dungeons. One dungeon, however, got hit hard with the nerf hammer, the Theatre of Pain now being drastically easier.
That isn’t to say that the dungeon will be easy mode – especially on mythic difficulty – but the list of changes certainly make it seem like it won’t pose as much of a challenge. Let’s jump into what Blizzard released.
The first is actually a buff, targetted towards the boss Dessia the Decapitator. Slam has had its range increased to ten yards, a significant increase given that it was originally a melee ability.
Gorechop, however, wasn’t so lucky, and has had his damage lowered considerably. Jagged Gash has had its damage reduced by 33%, a staggeringly high decrease for the damage-over-time ability. Hateful Strike has been lowered as well by 20%.
Kul’tharok has been hit with an even harder reduction to their damage than Gorechop, though. Chill of the Beyond has had its damage reduced by 40%, while Phantasmal Parasite has had its damage cut down by 20%.
Mordretha has at least one buff coming to counter the nerf. While Reaping Scythe’s damage has been reduced by 12.5%, the 25% increase to Echo of Battle’s damage may help counteract this.
The trash mobs of the dungeon weren’t safe either. The Bone Magus has had its Bone Spear cast time increased to 3.3s, while Grave Spike has been reduced to 1.5s. However, Grave Spike now does 83% less damage, as well as no longer knocking back and being single-target instead of AoE
There are plenty of other nerfs and buffs hitting the trash mobs as well. Rancid Gasbag has had its Disease Cloud damage slashed by 20%, Portal Guardian’s Shadow Vulnerability now does less damage both initially and over time, and several more.
All in all, it’s an incredibly high number of nerfs for the dungeon that serves to really highlight how much fine-tuning Blizzard still has on their plate. One thing’s for certain – the Theatre of Pain just became significantly less painful.
