Brann Bronzebeard had his favorites among the classes in the depths of World of Warcraft. Some he strongly supported – for others, he had no desire. A bug was to blame for this.
The depths are one of the new endgame features of World of Warcraft: The War Within. However, players have had very different experiences in the harder depths from level 8 and upwards. Some are bored because the depths seem to offer no challenge – others do not understand the world anymore, as they are repeatedly defeated by simple mob groups.
The bug in the depths was to blame. Because Brann simply preferred certain classes.
WoW: Brann Bronzebeard suffered from a bug in the depths
What was the problem? The fact that the depths are plagued by various bugs and that every hotfix brings new problems has likely been understood by most WoW players by now. Yet Brann was also intriguingly bugged after the last patches, leading Blizzard to implement another hotfix.
From Blizzard, it is stated in the US forum of WoW:
We recently identified a serious bug that caused Brann to receive all the HP and damage bonuses that were meant for the enemies under certain circumstances. When this bug occurred, Brann became stronger as the difficulty of the depth increased.
Therefore, we implemented a hotfix that fixes this issue. There should now be a consistent baseline strength for Brann that increases with your gear and his level.
Some specializations whose gameplay tends to stay in the background and leave Brann in the lead triggered this bug with a significantly increased probability. We understand that Brann will now feel significantly weaker to those players than before, especially in the depths of the highest level.
Everyone else can look forward to some improvements for Brann, as it continues:
We have also seen feedback that the “unbugged” Brann felt less effective than we had hoped. Therefore, along with the hotfix, there is an improvement for Brann that increases his health and damage by 125% at all levels.
In theory, Brann should now have a uniform strength for all classes in WoW, and the depths should feel consistently fairer and more similar for all classes and specializations.
Warriors, Hunters, and Rogues were too strong in the depths
The community discusses: That Brann had different strengths for different classes led to many exhausting discussions in the community. Because some – like warriors, hunters, or rogues – could walk through the depths unscathed in many cases, while Brann annihilated everything. Other classes, such as priests or mages, were killed within seconds in the higher depths, while Brann was hardly involved in the damage dealt.
This meant that some effortlessly defeated the season end boss Zekvir even on the “??” difficulty and could not understand why others had problems. Often there were comments like “Learn 2 Play” or “Play your class right, then it’s easy”. In hindsight, it is, of course, somewhat amusing when the real reason for this superiority was basically an unstoppable Brann Bronzebeard.
Even now, there is much discussion about the latest changes. The past week is often referred to as a “wild rollercoaster ride”; some find Blizzard’s entire handling of the situation embarrassing. The latest feedback, such as that on wowhead or in the WoW subreddit, however, seems to be that Brann is now significantly too weak for many, and the difficulty of the depths 8 and higher has increased once again.
The only thing one can say with certainty is: That was not the last hotfix the depths will receive. It remains exciting how the balance will look in the coming days. If your dwarven companion is still not as helpful after all these hotfixes, perhaps you have equipped Brann with the wrong gear.
