Last night Blizzard released the biggest set of hotfixes for 9.2 yet, including class balance, raid balance and a whole lot of Zereth Mortis fixes! Blizzard also released a cinematic that takes place at the end of the Anduin encounter in the new raid, they of course contain spoilers so watch at your own discretion!
WoW Hotfixes – March 1 2022
Quote from: Blizzard
March 1, 2022
Classes
- Druid
- Balance
- Fixed an issue where Celestial Pillar (2-piece Set Effect) would not be activated if triggered too quickly.
- Balance
- Monk
- Mistweaver
- Reverted a change in Eternity’s End to Fallen Order’s (Venthyr Ability) Crane Adept’s Enveloping Mist cooldown and cast variance that caused Enveloping Mist to only be cast once per summon.
- Developers’ notes: In 9.1, it was identified that the Crane Adept guardians summoned by the ability Fallen Order would cast an additional Enveloping Mist if players reached a certain amount of Haste. Generally, we try to avoid these “Haste Breakpoints” that introduce big jumps in power with arbitrary amounts of a particular stat. In 9.1.5, we shared that we intended to fix this problem in the player’s favor, by ensuring that the Adept’s always cast Enveloping Mist twice per summon. However, upon further review, we opted to not make this change due to balance concerns. For 9.2, we made a change early in development that caused Fallen Order Adepts to be limited to casting a single Enveloping Mist. We are reverting that change via hotfix so that Fallen Order will have the same functionality as it does in 9.1.5. In the future, we will be looking at Fallen Order’s tuning and might make adjustments, but we do not want to make such a large change to this ability before Season 3 starts.
- Reverted a change in Eternity’s End to Fallen Order’s (Venthyr Ability) Crane Adept’s Enveloping Mist cooldown and cast variance that caused Enveloping Mist to only be cast once per summon.
- Mistweaver
- Shaman
- Restoration
- The bonus damage from the Raging Vesper Vortex (Kyrian Runecarving Power) has been reduced by 35%.
- Restoration
- Warlock
- Affliction
- Fixed an issue where Malefic Rapture would consume a Soul Shard despite having Calamitous Crescendo (2-piece Set Effect).
- Affliction
- Warrior
- Protection
- Damage of all abilities increased by 6%.
- Protection
Creatures and NPCs
- The Ancient Translocators for the Sepulcher of the First Ones and Antecedent Isle will now appear on the Zereth Mortis zone map.
- Antros’ Dark Deterrence no longer persists after completing the encounter.
- Mounts are now disabled on top of the quest characters in the center of Haven.
- Fixed an issue where the vines to start the Gluttonous Overgrowth encounter would not respawn.
- The Engulfer’s health now increases as more players engage it in combat.
Cypher of the First Ones
- The “Sopranian Understanding” Cypher talent is now locked while being researched on an alternate character.
Dungeons and Raids
- Sepulcher of the First Ones
- Volatile Sentries will now correctly detect stealthed and invisible players.
- Vigilant Guardian
- Volatile Materium now activates more quickly after all currently activated Volatile Materium have been defeated.
- Pre-Fabricated Sentries now activates more quickly in an attempt to keep two Pre-Fabricated Sentries active.
- Artificer Xy’mox
- The visual of the Genesis Rings now better matches the effect.
- Reduced the damage of Hyperlight Sparknova by 30% on all difficulties except Mythic.
- Artificer Xy’mox now uses abilities at a slightly less frantic pace while below 30% health.
- Prototype Pantheon
- Fixed an issue where players were unable to loot The Prototype of Absolution upon completion of the encounter.
- Halondrus the Reclaimer
- Reduced the amount of damage absorption provided by Reclaim by 20% on Normal and Heroic difficulties.
- Reduced the amount of damage Reclaim gains periodically to 25% of its initial value on Normal and Heroic difficulties (was 50%).
- Reduced the base speed of Ephemeral Motes by 20% on Heroic difficulty.
- Anduin Wrynn
- The healing absorbed by Anduin’s Befouled Barrier has been reduced by 25% on Normal difficulty and reduced by 30% on Heroic difficulty.
- Plaguefall
- Fixed an issue that caused Ickor Bileflesh’s Ghost Step to spawn Margrave Stradama early.
- Mythic+
- Mythic+ Rating colors have updated rating requirements due to the addition of the two Tazavesh dungeons. Uncommon, Rare, Epic, and Legendary now require 25% more overall rating than they did before.
- Enemies that are part of a dungeon boss encounter are no longer affected by the Bolstering affix.
- Developers’ note: Bringing additional enemies into a boss fight is a common tactic at higher key levels, and the current interaction of Bolstering with bosses largely prevents players from using that tactic. We’ve discussed this interaction and feel that it’s not necessary to our goals for the affix, so we’re making an adjustment with the hope of opening up more strategic choice during Bolstering weeks.
- So’leah’s Gambit
- Timecap’n Hooktail
- Fixed an issue where Corsair Brute could trigger affixes.
- Timecap’n Hooktail
Items and Rewards
- The Dominance Key will no longer drop once you’ve opened the Domination Cache in the Endless Sands area of Zereth Mortis.
- Many Uncommon (green) quality items in Zereth Mortis will now correctly drop as Bind on Equip instead of Bind on Pickup.
- The upgrade cost of Aspirant and Gladiator equipment has been reduced.
- Fixed an issue which could cause Bell of the Endless Feast to stack much more quickly than intended.
- Fixed an issue which allowed the Cache of Sepulcher Treasures to drop the fist weapon, Domination’s Deliverance.
- Developer’s note: This week’s Timewalking cache is only intended to contain loot from the first 8 Sepulcher of the First Ones encounters. In the future, after all of the raid has been seen by players, it will be updated to include loot from all Sepulcher bosses.
While it was unintended that this weapon be available to anyone this week, we do not believe that its presence at a Normal Raid power level distorts competitive fairness, so we will not be removing it from characters who received it.
- Developer’s note: This week’s Timewalking cache is only intended to contain loot from the first 8 Sepulcher of the First Ones encounters. In the future, after all of the raid has been seen by players, it will be updated to include loot from all Sepulcher bosses.
Player versus Player
- A new weekly quest, “A New Deal” is now available from Zo’sorg in Oribos. Complete activities in Zereth Mortis with War Mode on to earn a selection of new PvP trinkets. Once all trinkets have been collected, additional Honor will be rewarded.
- Brawls
- Fixed an issue that caused Warsong Scramble to show up in the calendar twice in the normal rotation.
- “Something Different” weekly brawl quest is no longer completed when participating in Solo Shuffle.
Quests
- The Irresistible Goop quest item now returns to the player when they return to the quest area for “Feed the Annelids.”
- The damage done by Generated Shapesmith and Generated Oracle during the quest “Step Into the Ring” has been reduced.
WoW Classic Era and Season of Mastery
- Fixed an issue causing the Outhouse in the “Locked Away” quest to no longer be interactable until a server reset.