Delves, World of Warcraft's latest end-game pillar, are seeing a bit of a philosophical shift in the 11.1 PTR (Public Test Realm). Delves were created to offer more casual and solo players a game-mode with both progression and challenge in The War Within and beyond. However, delves were perhaps too challenging for that subset of players, particularly regarding pure numbers and gear level. WoW recommends for the penultimate challenge, Zekvir, a 623 item level (ilvl), which is itself only obtainable outside delve content.

Along with the standard, exciting features of a major patch, the incoming Undermined update will also bring with it a rebalancing of delve content. Blizzard will be changing them so that they can be completed by players who only engage with delves, as opposed to restricting their biggest challenges to players with an ilvl only obtainable in higher end Mythic+ and raiding. This change shows that Blizzard is re-evaluating the role that delves had in Season 1, and is making it a priority to ensure that delves present a thorough piece of content for the players it was created for.

World Of Warcraft Tuning Down Delves Is Perfect

Delve Balancing Should Be Focused On Delve Players

Blizzard outlined this balancing shift in a recent post on the official Blizzard forums for the Undermined PTR. Currently, the way that delves work is that the gear reward maxes out at level eight. Any increase in difficulty past level eight is purely meant as a challenge. For Season 1, Blizzard wanted that challenge to be felt by every player of WoW, including those engaging with high end M+ and raiding. Unfortunately, this created an imbalance where players who are primarily interested in delves did not receive good enough gear to engage with those upper levels of challenge.

Tuning down delves, then, is a perfect solution to this problem. At the end of the day, M+ players and raiders already have challenging content to push for, and with the exciting, trend-breaking raid releasing in Undermined, those players will certainly have their hands full of content soon. Players who primarily play delves, on the other hand, found themselves not reaching an ilvl high enough to actually play through the content being offered. Rebalancing the final challenges of delves to be aimed at delve players is a fantastic choice that re-aligns delves with their original, targeted audience.

Delves Should Still Be Accessible To Everyone

Delves Are A Break From The More Pressure-Filled End-Game Pillars

As seen with the recent introduction of a tanking Brann, delves were designed to be accessible to everyone, regardless of class, spec, or role. WoW's other end-game pillars often bring with them a level of pressure and expectations. M+ requires tight coordination to meet the timer, while raiding is dependent on large groups of players, with one mistake potentially sending the whole party spiraling into a wipe. Delves offered WoW a perfect solution to the sometimes overwhelming pressure of the more standard, challenging group end-game.

Maintaining this accessibility should be the biggest priority for delves, as it's the unique factor that sets them apart from other forms of content. A core part of this is ensuring that the penultimate challenges of delves remain achievable by those solo players. There is no purpose in creating challenging delve content, and then making it impossible to complete for players who primarily engage with delves. Every difficulty level of delves should be accessible to everyone, at least in regard to the ilvl necessary to complete them.

Delves Will Still Be Challenging In WoW

Keeping The Challenge But Reducing The Entry Point

One of the promising elements of this balance change is that it's primarily targeted at reducing the ilvl requirement for completing higher difficulties and the boss challenge. Ultimately, this content is meant to be difficult. As mentioned, the gear rewards offered beyond level eight delves do not increase in ilvl; players engage with these delve levels for the challenge and sense of accomplishment.

Rebalancing delves to an ilvl that can be achieved within the delve ecosystem is a major step in the right direction. It promises the same complexity and challenge, but makes it mathematically possible for delve-only players. While raiders and M+ players may now eclipse the recommended ilvl, delves are the exact form of content that should not be balanced around offering that small subset of players a challenge. Delve players have a lot to look forward to in 11.1, with this tweak in philosophy hinting towards a more stable place for delves in World of Warcraft.

Source: Blizzard Forums