Damage and healing will be a bit more random in the next WoW expansion. The lost variance in abilities is back.
Currently, abilities in World of Warcraft deal a fixed amount of healing or damage. However, this is likely to change soon. The developers have announced that with Shadowlands, variance will return. The exact effects of abilities will then differ with each use of an ability.
What has been said? Blizzard has announced that a variance of around 5% will be reintroduced for all abilities and spells with Shadowlands. This is a mechanic that has been used for ages in RPGs and was lost in World of Warcraft due to some changes. This is intended to ensure that players do not always see the exact same damage or healing values when repeatedly using abilities.
What does this mean in plain terms? All abilities in Shadowlands now have a certain range in which they cause damage or healing. If a fireball currently deals exactly 1,000 damage, then this value will range between 950 and 1,050 with Shadowlands and will change with each cast. As a result, players will not always see the exact same numbers.
This variance is actually a typical RPG element and was already present in pen & paper role-playing games, so abilities had slightly different effects each time.
On average, this variance will even out, and will change a player’s actual performance only minimally.
Was there variance before? Yes. The variance in the effects of abilities has been a fixed part of World of Warcraft since WoW Classic, but was deactivated during the last expansions. This was not intentional, but a bug that occurred during the overhaul of some mechanics in Legion. This was also confirmed by Game Director Ion Hazzikostas on Twitter.
Hazzikostas recently explained in an interview that WoW with Shadowlands is a modern MMORPG in 2020.
Is everything much more random now? Not really. The actual performance of a player will hardly change over the duration of a long fight. Only particularly strong spells with long cooldowns might deviate if they hit particularly hard or particularly weak, reaching the outer limits of the 5% variance. However, this should have minimal to no impact on a character’s overall performance, but simply provide a bit more variety in the numbers.
Do you think it’s good that the 5% more randomness is returning? Or did you prefer it when the numbers were always fixed?
