1. The datamining checks out
datamined vs officialThe strongest reason to trust this build: where it overlaps the official Week 3 notes, the datamined tooltip coefficients reproduce Blizzard’s stated percentages exactly. Frost Death Knight is the clearest case - the raw attack-power coefficients in the files compute to the same numbers Blizzard published.
| Spec | Ability | Datamined coefficient | Computed change | Official Week 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frost DK | Icy Death Torrent | 215.424% → 140.026% AP | -35% | -35% |
| Frost DK | Remorseless Winter | 18.066% → 12.6462% AP | -30% | -30% |
| Frost DK | Obliterate | 88.8308% → 79.9477% AP | -10% | -10% |
When the files and the notes agree to three decimal places, the datamining method is sound - so the datamined-only findings below are worth reading, with the caveat that they have not been written into official notes.
2. Headline datamined findings
not yet in official notesThe biggest structural changes in build 68569 are design edits, not just number tweaks:
Scalecommander Wingleader reworked
The hero talent that reduces Breath-spell cooldowns was heavily cut. Devastation’s Bombardments now reduce Deep Breath by 0.5 sec per target struck, capped at 1.5 sec; Preservation / Augmentation’s Mass Eruption reduces Breath of Eons by 1.0 sec per target, capped at 3.0 sec. Previously uncapped - a large nerf to Breath uptime.
Protection talent tree reorganized
The Protection Paladin talent tree layout was rearranged in this build. A structural change to talent positioning rather than a raw damage number, so no single percentage - but it changes what builds are reachable.
A big wave of tier-set tuning
This build touched many Season 2 class sets - values, redesigns, and a fully rebuilt Blood DK set. The confirmed designs are on the tier sets page; the datamined numeric tuning is in section 4 below.
3. Datamined spec-wide damage tuning
class aura old → newSeveral specs have a single “Modifies Damage/Healing Done” class aura that scales all their damage. Build 68569
shifts these. The effective change is the ratio of the new multiplier to the old one - e.g. a +41% aura going to +46% is
1.46 / 1.41 = +3.5% to everything the aura touches. These are datamined and may not match the final official notes.
| Spec | Class-aura value | Effective all-damage change |
|---|---|---|
| Devourer Demon Hunter | +10% → +21% | +10% |
| Balance Druid | +41% → +46% | +3.5% |
| Havoc Demon Hunter | +22% → +16% | -4.9% |
| Unholy Death Knight | -20% → -26% | -7.5% |
| Frost Death Knight | -2% → -12% | -10.2% |
Two single-ability buffs sit outside the table because they hit one spell, not the whole kit: Marksmanship Hunter’s Black Arrow (direct damage +20% → +50%, +25% effective; damage-over-time +50% → +87%, +24.7% effective), and Mistweaver Monk’s Spinning Crane Kick aura (+166% → +193%, +10.2% effective - a small change in practice, since Mistweaver is a healer and SCK is a minor part of its output).
4. Datamined tier-set tuning
values changed in this buildA sample of the Season 2 class-set numbers that moved in build 68569. The full confirmed set designs are on the tier sets page; these are the datamined value edits.
| Set | Piece | Change | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Protection Warrior | 4-piece | Ravager / free-Revenge bleed 152.372% → 304.745% AP (+100%) | Buff |
| Holy Paladin | 2-piece | Infusion of Light bonus to Flash of Light and Greater Judgment 75% → 100% | Buff |
| Balance Druid | 2-piece | Starfall instant Astral damage 26.4% → 30.4% SP | Buff |
| Beast Mastery Hunter | 4-piece | Stomp’s Cobra Shot extra damage 30% → 15% per stack | Nerf |
| Frost Mage | 4-piece | Shatter damage bonus 15% → 10% (plus a Glacial Spike rework) | Nerf |
| Restoration Druid | 2-piece | Genesis heal-over-time bonus 25% → 15% | Nerf |
| Affliction Warlock | 4-piece | Seed of Corruption applies Unstable Affliction at 50% → 20% effectiveness | Nerf |
| Blood Death Knight | 2 & 4-piece | Set fully redesigned around a new “Blood Debt” Strength-stacking mechanic | Rework |
5. Why datamined is not final
read before quoting theseDatamined values are a snapshot of a build in progress: internal test values, placeholders, and numbers that get re-tuned before release. Unholy Death Knight shows exactly how much a number can move - and it is a change Blizzard has already documented, so we can compare directly:
Unholy DK. Unholy is nerfed hard in Blizzard’s official Week 3 notes - a spec-wide “all damage” cut plus a stack of individual ability nerfs. Blizzard first posted that spec-wide cut at -8%, then hotfixed it to -3% after a bug had skewed the tuning. This datamined build shows its own spec-wide damage aura (the -20% → -26% line in section 3) and a new -25% Death Coil modifier - values that do not line up with that final -3%. Same direction (Unholy is getting nerfed), very different magnitude.
That is the whole point: even Blizzard’s official number moved five points via hotfix, so a raw datamined value is a work-in-progress reading, not final tuning. Rule of thumb: trust this page most where it agrees with the official notes (section 1), treat datamined-only numbers (sections 2-4) as strong signal, not gospel, and expect specifics to move before 12.1 ships.