The terrible “Fervent Strikes” in World of Warcraft are history. This makes melee players of all classes cheer.
Melee players in World of Warcraft don’t always have it easy. They often complain that certain mechanics affect them more than ranged players. And that’s sometimes true. Especially the “Fervent Strikes” hit melee players hard in mythic dungeons. That’s why Blizzard has now disabled them in almost all cases.
What are “Fervent Strikes” in World of Warcraft? “Fervent Strikes” refers to a special type of abilities that various mobs in World of Warcraft possess. These are abilities that usually target the player with the highest threat in melee range – that should be the tank. However, if the tank is not in range of the corresponding enemy for any reason, this attack instead targets the next best player in melee range – which is usually a significantly less sturdy DPS player, like a rogue.
The name “Fervent Strike” comes from an ability in Battle for Azeroth from the dungeon Atal’Dazar. The attack was notorious for instantly wiping melee players, simply because the tank was a few meters away.
Since then, this term has been used generally for all abilities that operate on the same principle: If the tank is out of range, the next best player is hit.
What has Blizzard changed? For all Shadowlands dungeons, Blizzard has disabled almost all of these “Fervent Strikes”. This means that if the primary target – the tank – is out of range, the attack simply does not happen or misses. The ability is either put on cooldown or only executed when the tank is back in range.
What was the problem? The problem with these “Fervent Strikes” is that they are not intuitive and lead to situations for DPS players where they simply get wiped “out of nowhere”. This happens especially when the tank has to kite the enemies to avoid taking massive damage or to make certain debuffs expire.
Kiting refers to the act of “pulling” enemies behind oneself without them ever reaching the player. This keeps the enemies busy and prevents them from attacking other players, while simultaneously causing no damage. Kiting is especially used when the damage from enemies would be so high that it could quickly kill even tanks or certain mechanics require enemies to be kited.
This problem is not a major issue at lower key levels up to about “Mythic+10” because generally mobs can just be tanked here. However, at +15 or even +20, kiting becomes a necessity if the tank doesn’t want to die immediately. This is further compounded by affixes such as “Necrotic”, “Bleeding”, or “Inspiring” that force tanks to maintain distance from the enemies at regular intervals.
What are the consequences of the change? Primarily, more relaxed gameplay for DPS characters in melee. They no longer have to worry about some attack they can’t see coming simply knocking them flat.
Dungeons and raids in World of Warcraft have often been criticized for being particularly “unfair” to melee players, and Shadowlands was no exception. At least one major aspect of this issue may now be in the past.
What do you think of this change? A sensible thing? Or does it make everything way too easy?
