Undocumented Monster Scaling Addressed, Hotfixes Deployed

Earlier today, we reported that players had discovered an undocumented addition to the v7.2 World of Warcraft update. Without prior testing on PTR or inclusion in the patch notes, it was found that monsters' health pools and damage were increasing according to player iLevel. As a result, the best geared players were unequipping items to mitigate the increase and many in the community were loudly protesting the change.

Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas has responded to player feedback with a range of big changes, the first two of which have already been hotfixed into WoW, the last will come later today:

• damage increases are being removed 
• the health pool scaling is being "significantly reduced" as a result of a player's iLevel. "Our tuning was far more aggressive than it needed to be, which could make it feel like your upgrades weren't actually helping." Hazzikostas wrote.
• unequipping items to artificially lower iLevel (a work around to the issue when it first became apparent) will no longer reduce an enemy health pool

According to Hazzikostas, the system found by players after the deployment of 7.2 was in place on PTR since January. The team assumed that, since they had not received significant feedback about it, it was a 'non-issue' and was primed for deployment.

"Clearly that was a false assumption, and we should have drawn attention to it later in the PTR cycle so that we could have caught these issues before Patch 7.2 went live." Hazzikostas said.

You can read the community response to these changes by visiting the World of Warcraft community site.