Survival Hunter Wildfire Bomb Buff: The 20% Hotfix

The October 1 hotfix increased Wildfire Bomb's periodic damage by 20% for Survival Hunters. It corrects the September 22 tuning pass, which did not properly increase the periodic damage of an untalented variant of Wildfire Bomb. So the survival hunter wildfire bomb buff lands on the damage-over-time component of the ability, not on its impact hit.

What exactly changed on October 1

The hotfix raised Wildfire Bomb's periodic damage by 20%. The developers' notes state that the tuning hotfix from the week of September 22 did not properly increase the periodic damage of an untalented variant of Wildfire Bomb, and that this hotfix corrects that issue. Nothing else in the Survival kit was touched in that batch, which also carried a Feral Rampant Ferocity fix and a change to Ula'tek in The Venomous Abyss.

How this differs from the September 22 pass

The September 22 class tuning pass increased Wildfire Bomb damage by 20% and changed the ability so it only hits the primary target for 50% additional damage, down from 80% additional. The stated intent was a neutral change against a single target and an increase to area damage when fighting more than one enemy. That pass also cut Takedown Hunter damage by 10% and Takedown pet damage by 15% in PvP combat, targeting Survival's burst window. The October 1 hotfix is narrower: it applies to the periodic damage of the untalented variant that the earlier pass missed.

Where the damage shows up

The buff is on periodic damage, so it pays out over the bomb's damage-over-time duration rather than in the initial hit. Its overall performance is average across the board, with solid AoE and single-target damage that is only solid, and it trails Marksmanship without trailing enough to drop a tier.

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