Stat Squish Status

Those in our Beta will immediately notice that the stats on your gear, as well as your base health, have been scaled down as part of our broad "stat squish" that we have previously discussed.

All content in Draenor is currently suited to these new values, and Siege of Orgrimmar has actually been converted to use the new raid structure (since I know that the absolute first thing everyone will want to do upon getting access to our Beta is to go run Siege). But if you find yourself in any other locations in the old world, beware that while creature health and melee damage has been "squished," the damage values of their abilities/spells has not yet been. So a yaungol's Fireball that used to hit you for 50,000 still hits you for 50,000. (But you of course have far less health now.)

We're making sure that we're completely happy with the state of numbers before taking the final step of locking in those values for all old content, since it's a lot of data to touch. So in the meantime, if you decide to do something like visit Timeless Isle, or Throne of Thunder, or other pre-Warlords content, it will not go well for you. But please don't be alarmed or concerned that you'll be unable to do older content as a result of the squish. The current state of affairs is temporary, and we'll let you know once Azeroth has been fully updated to reflect the new stat values.

Just a quick update here: all old world content should now be properly scaled.

If you want, go on some transmog runs, go do old content like you do on live, etc. In general, everything should be similar or easier than it used to be. Please report any issues you encounter here.

Known problems:

• Damage reflect effects like Reliquary's Aura of Desire will cause excessive backlash damage.
• Boss fights that rely on healing NPCs (e.g. Valithria, Sinestra) will be very difficult to complete due to the bonus vs. lower-level targets not applying to healing.

These two problems should both be fixed next build.

Thanks, lots of great feedback and bugs here.

Vehicle scaling is definitely something we need to look at and adjust. The fact that you seem to be seeing a damage bonus as a level 5 against level 1s is also a bug that will be corrected.

Just some clarification about the nature and purpose of the damage done/taken scaling: The intent is to offset the combat effectiveness lost when we converted an exponential growth curve in item power from ilvl ~60 through ~463 or so, into linear growth. Changing the underlying health and damage of creatures corrects the balance for same-level combat while leveling, and that part is simple. But to use the Lich King as an example, he is still tuned for multiple level 80 players, and has many times the health and damage output of a normal Northrend creature. On live in 5.4 today, a player in Mists gear is perhaps 10x as powerful (or more, in endgame gear) as a level 80 in Wrath gear. Because of the squish, a fresh 90 might now only be 40% more powerful than a level 80 in Wrath gear (numbers definitely not exact, just being used for the sake of argument). Thus, while a level 80 vs. a level 80 would still feel fine, and a level 90 vs. a level 90 would be unchanged, a post-squish level 90 fighting a level 80 mob would have gotten about 86% weaker in relative terms if we had stopped there and changed nothing else. The point of the combat bonuses when fighting lower-level enemies from a previous expansion is to offset that 86% change. Thus, if we let a level 90 player deal ~700% more damage against the Lich King in 6.0, your combat effectiveness against him in 6.0 should be very similar to what it was in 5.4.

That's how it should work, anyway. Obviously with such a sweeping game-wide change there are some things that we missed in the first pass, but we'll find and fix them - and that process is greatly aided by excellent feedback like the above. Thanks again!