September 9th 2022 Dragonflight Beta Feedback: Demon Hunters, Shamans, Hunters, Death Knights, Warriors & Paladins

How do you do fellow Demon Hunters,

We wanted to tip you off to some changes that will be present in an upcoming build, as we’ve seen discussion around these topics, and want to provide additional context for continued discussion since it helps guide future iteration.

First up is the feedback we’ve heard surrounding Vengeance’s Mastery: Fel Blood, which increases the armor granted by Demon Spikes. While there are (very intentionally) talent options available that can increase Demon Spikes uptime and therefore influence the relative value of Mastery for a character, two problems remain:

1. The starting value of the Mastery stat is drastically lower than other secondary stats
2. Mastery has no value while Demon Spikes is not active, further reducing incentive to invest in it as it does not help survive the moments of greatest weakness, as where other stats would

As a result, we’ve decided to softly rework Vengeance’s Mastery

What does this mean? While Demon Spikes is active, Mastery: Fel Blood will provide the same bonus per Mastery as it did previously, but now with 50% of that value persisting while Demon Spikes is not active.

As always, we welcome discussion about this upcoming change, and will be on the lookout for that as well as gameplay feedback when the updated Mastery makes its way into player hands on the PTR and Beta.

Now, on to the topic of Metamorphosis, talents that affect it on the Demon Hunter class tree, and some spec-specific changes related to it all. Here are the most relevant notes:

• Metamorphosis base CD standardized at 4 min
• Rush of Chaos still reduces CD by 60 sec, to 3 min for both specs
• Havoc’s Metamorphosis duration reduced to 25 sec
• Demonic Origins now reduces CD by 60 sec (reaching 2 min CD for both specs), no longer reduces duration, and now causes Metamorphosis to grant 10% Versatility while active

We hope the above will result in the cooldowns and talent options available for Metamorphosis making a little more sense as to what circumstances players might consider picking them, regardless of what spec perspective it’s being viewed from.

Moving on to Havoc, there are two topics to discuss. First, the talent Fel Bombardment (which was previously not yet implemented) has been removed from the tree. While many former Legendary or conduit effects have been able to transition to forms you’ve seen as Dragonflight talents for many classes, we have decided we do not want the particulars of Fel Bombardment’s gameplay cemented as a more permanent talent and will be leaving it in the Shadowlands. Mo’arg Bionics will be moving into its place, with a new Throw Glaive-related talent appearing near the top of the tree:

Finally, as a brief follow-up to a previous topic, Demon’s Bite/Demon Blades will be returning as skills that can apply Burning Wound, alongside the previously-added Throw Glaive. Thank you to those who played the updated version and shared feedback about your experiences.

Cheers.

Enhancement Shaman,

Some minor changes coming in your next build:

• Feral Lunge has moved to a spot below Windfury Weapon.
• Windfury Totem is once again 20%.
• Swirling Maelstrom has been lowered from 2 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon, down to 1, however the tooltip has been clarified now grants 1 stack of Maelstrom Weapon per Fire Nova eruption.
• Crash Lightning has had some significant adjustments:
  • Crash Lightning cooldown increased from 9 to 12 seconds.
  • Crash Lightning’s buff from hitting 2 or more targets has increased from 10 to 12 seconds.
  • Ice Strike can now also cause the bonus damage from Crash Lightning.
  • The initial damage, as well as the bonus damage from Stormstrike, Lava Lash, and Ice Strike has been increased.
  • The initial damage as well as the bonus damage from Stormstrike, Lava Lash, and Ice Strike now deals reduced damage when you are fighting more than 6 targets.

Going to make a quick post addressing Binding Shot before making a follow-up post.

We still feel like a root that doesn’t break from damage is not a good thing to have in the game, because it’s not at all clear why it works differently than other roots. That said, Binding Shot is a powerful tool Hunters have to manage some situations where you want to both do high damage to a group of enemy targets, as well as have control over their ability to chase you.

We’re changing Binding Shot from a root that breaks on damage to a 3 second stun.

There are some other minor Hunter changes we wanted to discuss, but wanted to address Binding Shot specifically.

There’s some other minor Hunter changes coming in a future build, and we also wanted to talk about the new Lesser Dragonkin pet family.

Class Tree:

• Improved Traps and Rejuvenating Wind should actually have their places swapped. Really this time.
• Concussive Shot will now replace Wing Clip, and no longer requires a ranged weapon.
• Wing Clip Focus cost reduced by 10. This was a rank 2 upgrade that was incorrectly not baked into Wing Clip.
• Fortitude of the Bear should have all of its interactions properly setup now with Command Pet, tenacity pets, as well as Lone Wolf Marksmanship Hunters.
  • The Kindred Beasts PvP talent has also been updated to work with Fortitude of the Bear.

Lesser Dragonkin
As some of you may have noticed, there’s a new pet family you can tame creatures from, the Lesser Dragonkin.

• Lesser Dragonkin are a Ferocity pet.
• Lesser Dragonkin have a new pet family ability, Shimmering Scales. This reduces your pet’s magic damage taken by 70% for 8 seconds, on a 90 second cooldown.
• Cloud Serpents have had their pet family changed from Serpents to Lesser Dragonkin, but the ability to tame Cloud Serpents has not been changed in any way.
• Lesser Dragonkin taming is currently planned to be a reward from the Valdrakken faction.
• Lesser Dragonkin includes creatures like the new Hornswogs from Dragonflight, or the Feathered Drakes in Ardenweald, or even some of the Faerie Dragons in places like Feralas.

Have a nice weekend everyone.

Hello Death Knights,

We want to share some of the upcoming changes we have planned for the Frost spec tree in the next Beta build. While we were generally happy with the Frost tree and what it had to offer, we also recognize that there were some improvements that could be made based on our learnings over Dragonflight’s Alpha development.

The existing Frost tree suffered a bit from a lack of choice once a player locked into a specific build (often choosing between Obliteration or BoS, then making 1 or 2 choices with what talent points remained). To help alleviate this issue, the upcoming tree has received new talents, reworked talents, existing talents moved to more accessible spaces, updated pathing connections, and lastly several selection node talents have been decoupled and moved elsewhere within the tree (most notably Icecap).

This is what it looks like:

Below, you can find the new and updated talents. This doesn’t cover all of the positional and pathing changes for talents, but it does highlight some of the more notable ones.

Unleashed Frenzy

• Now grants the strength buff when any Runic Power ability damages an enemiy

Improved Frost Strike and Runic Command

• Swapped positions on the tree

Glacial Advance

• Removed the cooldown
• Moved higher into the tree and is now unlocked after the 1st gate.

Frostscythe

• Moved higher into the tree and is now unlocked after the 1st gate.

Horn of Winter

• Now Frost only and placed directly after Improved Obliterate

Improved Killing Machine

• Renamed to Frostreaper

Enduring Strength

• Now available directly after Pillar of Frost
• New Icon

Frostwhelp’s Aid

• Now available directly after Pillar of Frost

Coldheart

• No longer a choice node with Inexorable Assault
• Moved to the right side of the tree below Improved Rime

Inexorable Assault

• No longer a choice node with Cold Heart
• Moved below Frostreaper on the left side of the tree

Icecap

• No longer a choice node with Obliteration
• Now available directly after Frostwhelp’s Aid or Enduring Strength

Empower Rune Weapon

• Now properly grants +1 charge if you already know the spell from the core tree

Everfrost

• Now directly available after Gathering Storm and should no longer be able to be taken without knowing Remorseless Winter
• Reduced to a 1 max rank, down from 2.

New Talent – Shattering Strike

• When Frost Strike damages an enemy with 5 stacks of Razorice it will consume them to deal an additional 60% damage.
• Available directly after Icecap

Avalanche

• This has been updated to also apply Razorice to your targets if Howling Blast is empowered by Rime.
• No longer a choice node with Frozen Pulse
• Now available directly after Icecap

Frozen Pulse

• Cut
• Developers’ notes: After reworking the tree and making room for the new talents we felt like Frozen Pulse didn’t offer anything unique to the Frost and rather than forcing it within the tree we decided it best to cut it for now to make room for what we hope are more interesting options.

New Talent – Icebreaker

• When empowered by Rime, Howling Blast deals 30/60% increased damage to your primary target.
• Available directly after Empowered Rune Weapon and Gathering Storm

Protection Warriors,

In an upcoming build, the functionality of your new Spell Block talent will be changed slightly. Details of how Spell Block will work have been listed in the Protection Paladin thread here:

Protection Paladin,

An upcoming build is going to have changes to how the Holy Shield talent and “Spell Block” works. The Holy Shield talent is not changing, but how Holy Shield interacts with magic damage is changing.

Holy Shield is themed as being Spell Block, however in Shadowlands, it isn’t actually a real blocked attack under the hood. This has been changed to work similar to how standard physical blocking works, and there are some changes as a result of this:

• You will actually have to have a shield equipped to benefit from Holy Shield (This is very minor, but noting for posterity)
• You can no longer Spell Block attacks from behind, while stunned, or while casting/channeling a spell.
• Holy Shield will no longer allow you to block periodic spell damage.
• Holy Shield will now allow you to block creatures that deal non-physical auto attack damage, such as if a Fire Elemental melee attacks you as Fire damage.
• Holy Shield will work against attacks that deal combinations of physical + (some other element) of damage, such as a Fire+Physical spell or attack.
• The combat log will properly report Spell Blocks from Holy Shield as blocked damage, rather than absorbed damage.

Holy Shield will continue to use your character’s actual block chance, and your character’s armor value for purposes of how much block value you have.

These changes will also apply to the new Protection Warrior Spell Block talent.

Greetings Holy Paladins!

In the next beta build we will have an updated tree ready for testing This update will include major pathing changes, new spells, and node cost reduction. We would like to give you our thoughts on our design direction for this tree moving forward.

Pathing Improvements

We’re excited at the prospect of offering tools for a casting focused Holy Paladin build existing in this tree. Our intention is for this to not overpower the melee playstyle, but we want to find room for both to exist simultaneously without impeding each other. At the same time however, we do not think separating the tree into two distinct “caster” and “melee” paths is compelling tree structure in this case. Our goal is to intermingle spells and abilities in such a way that players are encouraged to path throughout the tree, but not feel like they must pick up undesirable talents for their build along the way.

Spells Changes

We felt the overall nodes in this tree were in a solid spot and that most of the issues in this tree were pathing related. That said, we’ve added several new or returning spells in support of both the melee and caster styles. Hopefully this mixes gameplay up a bit more and offers further compelling choice, particularly in the bottom section of the tree. We’ve also removed a few nodes that we felt were not playing well including Liadrin’s Fury Unleashed and Tyr’s Munificence. Tyr’s Munificence’s effect will be added baseline to Tyr’s Deliverance.

Lay on Hands in rated PvP

We’ve decided to enable Lay on Hands in rated PvP with a 25% PvP multiplier healing reduction. This change was influenced by several factors. Modern PvP realities are that a powerful heal such as this does not have the same level of impact that it did in previous versions of the game. It is likely that if we were to go back in time with the current tools we have, our solution would have been to apply a PvP multiplier to such a strong ability without outright disabling. Given that Lay on Hands applies Forbearance, its cooldown is quite significant, and with Dampening and PvP multipliers to leverage, we feel comfortable enabling this iconic Paladin ability in rated PvP. This change will be applied soon and won’t apply to the upcoming beta build.

Here’s a preview of what you can expect to see next build:

New Talent Additions

Infusion of Light: Now learned baseline.

Divine Insight. New Talent, row 3. Holy Shock’s healing and damage is increased by 5%.

Tirion’s Devotion. New Talent, row 4. Lay on Hand’s cooldown is reduced by 1 second per Holy Power spent.

Resplendent Light. New Talent, row 4. Holy Light heals up to 5 targets within 8 yards for 8% of its healing.

Imbued Infusions. New Talent, row 5. Consuming Infusion of Light reduces the cooldown of Holy Shock by 1.0 seconds.

Unwavering Spirit. New Talent, row 5. The cooldown of Aura Mastery is reduced by 30 seconds.

Boundless Salvation. New Talent, row 10. Casting Flash of Light on targets affected by Tyr’s Deliverance extends the duration of your Tyr’s Deliverance by 0.5 seconds. Casting Holy Light on targets affected by Tyr’s Deliverance extends the duration of your Tyr’s Deliverance by 1 second.

Divine Favor. New Talent, row 5. The healing of your next Holy Light or Flash of Light is increased by 60% and its cast time is reduced by 30%. 45 second cooldown.

Veneration. New Talent, row 8. Flash of Light, Holy Light, and Judgment critical strikes reset the cooldown of Hammer of Wrath and make it usable on any target, regardless of their health.

Relentless Inquisitor. New Talent, row 9. Spending Holy Power grants you 1% haste per finisher for 12 sec, stacking up to 3/5 times.

Empyrean Endowment. New Talent, row 10. Judgment empowers your next Word of Glory to automatically activate Light of Dawn with 25% increased effectiveness. The effect can only occur every 30 seconds.

Inflorescence of the Sunwell. New Talent, row 10. Infusion of Light has 1 additional charge, reduces the cost of Flash of Light by an additional 30%, and has a 30% chance to generate an additional Holy Power from Holy Light.

Thank you all for your continued feedback!