A World of Warcraft bug caused big nerfs to some classes in Fated raids

WoW Shadowlands
(Image credit: Blizzard)

Update: Blizzard has issued a fix for "abilities scaling improperly" in Castle Nathria, it wrote in a post on the WoW forums. It notes that "active" Castle Nathria instances, presumably meaning any raids that are still in-progress, will be reset as a result of the change.

Reports from players immediately following the post suggest the that the update either hasn't went through yet or didn't work. It's unclear how many people are experiencing underpowered abilities still though. We'll update this story when the issue seems fully resolved.


Original story: Shadowlands Season 4 has finally arrived in World of Warcraft. It's not unexpected to see a few bugs that need ironing out once a major patch goes live but it seems some classes and specializations aren't functioning as they should while inside Fated raids. As one of the main features of the new season, this is clearly less than ideal.

Special "Fated" affixes are meant to breathe life back into the older Shadowlands raids, adding a fun challenge and giving us a reason to revisit the previously outdated content. With scaling to bring those raids up to the current power level, and better gear rewards, Fated raids are a departure from the norm of previous seasons. 

Blizzard is aware of the situation but has stated in a blue post that closer inspection has "revealed a complicated problem that we do not expect to be able to fix quickly". It's not clear whether it's the new scaling of the older raids or the Fated affixes themselves that have caused the bug, but Blizzard has stated it is a "top priority" for them fix.

The classes and specs, along with the spells that aren't working correctly while inside Fated raids, are listed below (thanks, Wowhead): 

  • Feral Druid: Frenzyband
  • Fire Mage: Mastery: Ignite
  • Arcane Mage: Touch of the Magi, Harmonic Echo
  • Beast Mastery Hunter: Beast Cleave
  • Monk: Bonedust Brew
  • Brewmaster Monk: 4-piece tier set
  • Mistweaver Monk: Ancient Teachings of the Monastery
  • Outlaw Rogue: Blade Flurry
  • Subtlety Rogue: Shadow Blades
  • Discipline Priest: Atonement

It's not that the affected spells aren't working at all, but they are dealing a lot less damage and healing than they should be. This isn't great in any situation and it's more than a little awkward if you main one of the affected classes or specs.

The severity of the bug impacts the classes differently too. Discipline Priest, for example, relies on Atonement to passively heal while dealing damage so that's a big problem in a raid environment. Beast Mastery Hunter's Beast Cleave, on the other hand, is only used for AoE damage, so on single-target boss fights, they won't notice a difference.

Sarah James
Guides Writer

Sarah started as a freelance writer in 2018, writing for PCGamesN, TechRadar, GamingBible, Red Bull Gaming and more. In 2021, she was offered a full-time position on the PC Gamer team where she takes every possible opportunity to talk about World of Warcraft and Elden Ring. When not writing guides, most of her spare time is spent in Azeroth—though she's quite partial to JRPGs too. One of her fondest hopes is to one day play through the ending of Final Fantasy X without breaking down into a sobbing heap. She probably has more wolves in Valheim than you.