[Update]: The balance update has gone live alongside a few more changes.
Castle Nathria, Shadowlands' very first raid, has only just recently been unleashed, but already we're getting pretty good information about how the various classes and specializations are stacking up against each other. As is to be expected from the first raid tier, the results are all over the place, with some specializations like Unholy Death Knights overperforming by a large margin.
In order to sort this out, as well as buff up some of the weaker classes, Blizzard has announced that a brand new balance update will be coming in on December 15th. As for what exactly is being changed, that you can find out below:
Tank Specializations
• Threat generation for all Tanks increased by 10%.
Death Knight
• Unholy
- Mastery: Dreadblade effectiveness reduced by 15%.
• Blood
- Blood Boil damage increased by 10%.
- Heart Strike damage increased by 15%.
- Marrowrend damage increased by 10%.
- Death Strike damage increased by 5%.Demon Hunter
• Havoc
- All damage abilities increased by 5%.
Rogue
• Assassination
- All damage abilities increased by 5%.
Shaman
• Restoration
- All healing abilities reduced by 4%.
- Healing Rain reduced by an additional 10%.Warlock
• Destruction
- Chaos Bolt damage increased by 22%.
Warrior
• Arms
- Mortal Strike damage increased by 20%. Damage reduced by an equivalent amount in PvP.
- Slam (Rank 3) now increases Slam’s damage by 50% (was 25%).• Fury
- All damage abilities increased by 5%.
While these changes are certainly a nice start, I do hope we'll see some more significant tweaks added onto the patch once it finally launches. Both Warriors and Demon Hunters are in dire need of buffs, far more than the ~5% they are getting, while Ice and Arcane Mages also need some help to rise from the very bottom of the DPS list.
Whatever the future may bring, I'll make sure to let you know once the update goes live. Until then, you can learn a little bit more about the patch, as well as keep an eye on any changes, over at the WoW forums.