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Author: Mezzy

Host and author of WoW Weekly podcast, guides and website. I have played WoW since classic, enjoy MMORPG’s and game design in general.

Hotfixes: March 22, 2023

Quote from: Blizzard

March 22, 2023

Classes

  • Paladin
    • Retribution
      • Fixed an issue that caused Aura of Reckoning to not function with the Crusading Strikes talent.
  • Warlock
    • Fixed an issue where Demonic Inspiration’s pet bonus would be applied to the Warlock instead.
    • Fixed an issue where Wrathful Minion’s pet bonus would be applied to the Warlock instead.

Dungeons and Raids

  • Razorfen Kraul
    • Fixed an issue that caused Overlord Ramtusk to sometimes inflict excessive damage to players when Timewalking.
  • Temple of the Jade Serpent
    • Fixed an issue that caused Liu Flameheart to attack players after summoning Yu’lon.

Enemies and NPCs

  • Rare enemies in the Forbidden Reach have had their hit points increased.
  • Veltrax now gives appropriate loot.

Quests

  • Valdrakken
    • “Aiding the Accord: Zskera Vaults” will now auto-complete the objective to open a vault door if you’ve already opened all vault doors for the week.

Zskera Vaults

  • Players should no longer be able to enter the Zskera Vault while in a raid. Zskera Vault keys will not function on doors if you are in a raid.
  • If you opened every door in the Zskera Vaults and failed to get the “Every Door, Every Where, All At Once” achievement, please re-enter the vaults before the reset, and it should award you the achievement.

March 21, 2023

Classes

  • Druid
    • Guardian
      • Fixed an error causing Layered Mane and Reinvigoration to revert to previous values.

Enemies and NPCs

  • Fixed an issue that could cause Mad-Eye Carrey to retain his Captain’s Duty buff, even after his crew was killed.

Player versus Player

  • Warlock
    • Demonology
      • Demonfire damage from Demonic Tyrant is now increased by 25% in PvP Combat (was 75%).

Class Set Acquisition Retrospective & Changes in 10.1

Quote from: Blizzard

Hey everyone, with 10.1 on PTR & Raid Testing in full swing, we wanted to catch up and talk about some Rewards Updates coming to Embers of Neltharion. This will include changes we’re making to the Revival Catalyst, Class Set Acquisition, Raid Rewards, as well as some of the history behind how we’ve arrived to our current approach & how those philosophies are evolving over time. This post will already be pretty long already, so for now this is going to focus entirely on the Class Sets & the Catalyst – how we got here initially, how things are today, and what they’ll look like soon – and keep the Raid Talk to a different post coming soon.

First off, let’s talk about the Revival Catalyst (formerly the Creation Catalyst from Zereth Mortis), and how we got to where we are today. Early on in 10.0’s development, we knew we would keep the Catalyst unlock timing of 6 weeks after the season begins – which certainly wasn’t the most popular decision, but let’s talk about why. Generally speaking, when iterating on a system we try to be careful of not making too many changes at once so as to better discern & analyze the impact of those changes individually, and with something as big as the Catalyst, making too many changes at once could jeopardize our ability to balance its place in the gearing ecosystem in the future. If we’d made it unlock even one week earlier, and discovered that was a mistake or didn’t align with our goals, it would be even more disruptive to players to say ‘oops’ and rewind it back. So let’s talk about what did change – because coming from Shadowlands Season 3 where the Catalyst was introduced (and Class Sets reintroduced overall), there were a number of compounding issues that made the experience of assembling your Set as frustrating as it was. These complicating factors were:

  • Sepulcher of the First Ones, as a raid, was notoriously more difficult than intended- this meant that even very competent and committed guilds found it hard to take down Lihuvim, Halondrus, and especially Anduin in that very first week.
  • On top of this, Sepulcher released in segments – Lords of Dread and Rygelon, two other very challenging bosses sporting Class Set tokens, weren’t even available for people who did clear the first week.
  • Special Trading Requirements – in the world of personal loot in raid, you needed equal-or-better item level in a particular slot to trade an item. In 9.2 specifically, there was an even further restriction meaning you needed to have a high enough item level Set Piece. This meant that there were many cases where people who had normal set pieces couldn’t trade heroic ones that dropped for them right after, or players who had their set completed couldn’t trade items that would have finished the bonus for others.
  • Great Vault accessibility – while it was a benefit that the Great Vault allowed all players (even non-raiders) to get set pieces at all, the rates weren’t at all favorable compared to your chances of non-set items appearing.
  • Additionally, many of our tests and projections were expecting that a lot of players would meet the Raid Thresholds of 3/5/8 Bosses killed each week which, as mentioned above, didn’t happen regularly for quite a while given the high average difficulty of the raid (Anduin being a major gatekeeper here). This meant that from the very first week, the vast majority of players were behind our initial expectations for acquiring their Sets.

So that was the world of 9.2 We’re highlighting these factors alongside the 6-week release timing of the original Catalyst to hopefully show the snowball effect acquisition and rewards systems can have. Players weren’t killing as many bosses early, which meant they weren’t killing the rest of the Class Set bosses, which meant less people had them appear in their Great Vault, which all meant less trading across your raid group to fill out slots – furthermore, this delays the power spikes those bonuses would give, which makes it harder to progress past certain walls within the raid, and so the cycle continues. Even guilds choosing to clear Normal and Heroic bosses for extra chances at Set Tokens were still running afoul of the trading restrictions, which didn’t help much either. So what changed moving into Vault of the Incarnates & Dragonflight Season 1?

  • All trading restrictions for Raid items were removed – this means guilds clearing heroic and normal had much faster/easier access to Set tokens.
  • We greatly increased the appearance rate of Class Set items from your slots in the Great Vault across the board
  • Great Vault slots for the Raid moved to 2/4/6 – this combined with being a shorter raid (8 bosses instead of 11) overall meant less loot individual loot in your pools, so a higher chance of not only making it to Set Token bosses, but also a higher chance of maxing out your vault weeks earlier than in Season 3

Knowing the 6-week Catalyst unlock timing would still be controversial, we held fast due to the other incoming changes to get a look at how things would shake out – and as it happens, our data shows that these changes had an even bigger impact than anticipated. Without peering too much behind the curtain, we were able to see that the vast majority of players filling between 3 & 6 Great Vault slots (by far the most common bracket for players who engage with vault at all early in a season) either had their 4-piece Set Bonus before the Revival Catalyst opened, or were set up to complete it that very week. Players were killing more bosses on more difficulties than before, which led to more vault slots & more gear trading, which in turn led to progressing deeper into the raid earlier, which continues the positive loop of more players getting geared faster. That said, some readers will correctly identify that there’s groupings of players who still were left out of this bounty – these are players who engage only with Mythic+, and only with PvP, with zero raiding at all. These players still on-average had decent luck getting some Set pieces via the Great Vault change, but were extremely unlikely to complete their 4-piece bonus before the Catalyst arrived.

So, that’s the basics of Season 1 – but we still think we can do better for more players. So let’s talk about what’s changing in Dragonflight Season 2:

First, we’re reverting the Weekly Quest system to get Catalyst Charges in favor of how it worked in Shadowlands Season 3. For those unaware, this is very simple – every week, all characters on your account will get a charge, no action required. We wanted to experiment with making the acquisition of Charges require some more effort & investment on the player’s part in lieu of having a Currency Cost (9.2 had Cosmic Flux, which handled this previously) – but in so doing we ended up taking a step backwards on one of the founding goals of the Catalyst system itself: mid- or late-season catch-up for new or returning players.

Whereas 9.2’s system would greet fresh 60s with many Catalyst Charges ready to craft an entire Class Set for a hefty Cosmic Flux fee, level 70 players in Dragonflight Season 1 quickly found that if they were late to the party – that was it. It would always take 6 weeks to reach the Charge cap, and if you failed to turn in the quest for any reason, you couldn’t gain another. It’s not a total loss – this entirely-new truly account-wide quest is something we’ll be able to use in the future, but not allowing catch-up was a mistake we’re going to correct. The quick hits of how Dragonflight Season 2 will work are thus:

  • Upon the Catalyst opening, all players will receive a Charge for every one of their characters. These function the same as they always have – if your Main spends a few to convert items early in the season, it doesn’t impact your alt (or any alt characters you may make in the future).
  • unlike in Shadowlands Season 3, there will be no cost associated beyond the Charge spent. No Cosmic Flux, no Dragon Isles Supplies, no Apexis Crystals – if you’ve done the work of obtaining a convertible item, that’s enough for us.

Second, we’re adding a new Seasonal Achievement – tentatively titled Dragonflight Season 2 Master. You may be aware that in 9.2 & 10.0, we’ve had some achievements that would require you to clear the Mythic Raid, or obtain a very high Mythic+ or PvP threshold to obtain a reward – in Shadowlands S3 it was a special item to upgrade all of your conduits, and in Dragonflight Season 1, it was a cosmetic item that gave you access to the previously Mythic-Only Visual Effects for all colors of your Class Set appearances. We’re keeping that style of achievement & reward moving forward, but want to experiment with more seasonal milestones to hit as you progress towards your goals. Here’s how it’ll work:

  • Season 2 Master is awarded for clearing Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible on Heroic Difficulty, obtaining 2200 Mythic+ Rating, or 1800 rating in PvP
  • Doing so awards that character a Draconic Mark of Mastery – an item that can be turned in to a vendor for any Heroic-Level Class Set item of your choice
  • This can only be earned once per-character, but is available the day Dragonflight Season 2 begins
  • The item received from the Mark of Mastery is also fully upgradeable with Shadowflame Crests & Flightstones, like all items in the universal upgrade system coming with this patch

This achievement and its reward serve a few functions. We’re interested in adding a non-raid method of obtaining a guaranteed set item for those players we mentioned previously. Additionally, we’re interested in testing the waters to see how players feel about being able to earn relevant power rewards for their progress and performance within a given season. For the most skilled and coordinated players, this token will be something they could earn within a matter of days or even a week – for others, it’s a medium or even long-term goal to push for that could provide items otherwise out of their typical reach.

Lastly – and this is Raid-specific – Scalecommander Sarkareth, the final boss of the 10.1 Raid, will drop 1 ‘Omnitoken’ per defeat on all difficulties for your group, guaranteed. We’re still hammering out the specifics here, but like the Mark of Mastery above, any player in possession of it will be able to take it to a vendor and purchase a Class Set item of the level & upgrade band appropriate to the Raid Difficulty it came from.

Also worth noting before we talk about the Raid Rewards charges in full is that some time into the season – either with the re-opening of the Revival Catalyst, or shortly thereafter – we’ll be adjusting how often Set Tokens drop in raid as well. At present, Class Set tokens drop at a ratio of 1 per 10 players, scaling up to 2 per 20 and 3 per 30 guaranteed. We’ll be reducing this number as the season progresses, as we’ve heard feedback that players making late-season runs at mythic progression or AotC very often already have their Class Sets, and often at an item level that’s decently above or comparable to those dropping. This can make those bosses feel less exciting & rewarding at the end of a season, especially when hunting specific trinkets or weapons.

All in all it’s been about a year since Class Sets have returned, and we hope the above changes represent a shift towards making them more accessible for all players. We want to acknowledge the feedback that having raiding be the primary way all players obtain Class Sets doesn’t feel in-step with your expectations, given that they feel like something that should be universally available to all styles of play. We’re eager to see how Season 2 plays out, and will be looking for more ways to level the playing field in this regard as we continue to iterate. Thanks for all of your thoughts on this topic so far, and we’ll see you in 10.1!

Quote from: Blizzard

Hey folks, gonna run through a bunch of quick-hit answers to specific questions people have had in this thread so far.

  • The item created by the Draconic Mark of Mastery does scale in PvP, similar to as though you looted it from the Great Vault. So it’s not a ‘raid piece’, it’s just an upgradeable item for all content.
  • The Catalyst Charge cap of 6 is returning. It’s definitely something that could be made more lenient, but we’re unlikely to return to a fully-uncapped Catalyst regarding the current season.
  • Something we’re working on is making it so once a new Season begins, items from previous Seasons (so currently Shadowlands s3+4/Dragonflight Season 1) have no currency or charge cost whatsoever. This is to help people interested in hunting appearances and such that they wouldn’t be able to get otherwise.
  • Some clarification on the Sarkareth Omnitoken – this is all still Work In Progress but:
  1. It’s intended to be Extra loot on kill, not something that takes away from the loot table as is.
  2. It’s possible it’s something that doesn’t scale with Group Size if it remains Bonus Loot, but in all cases it would be fully tradeable.
  3. The Omnitoken is dropped for your group, not per-player. Some seem to think you’d only have to kill Sarkareth 4x and complete your bonus, which isn’t correct.
  4. It is per kill however, and not a one-time bonus. It’s just an extra item that lives on his loot table.
  5. Just as Set Tokens don’t appear in the Great Vault, this wouldn’t either.
  • Lots of feedback on the M+ and PvP ratings for Season 2 Master being too high or too low. These are just initial values, and absolutely something that can change before launch – the idea is to make them feel at least somewhat comparable to the Heroic Raid in difficulty. As a reminder, these pieces are fully upgradeable with the new system, so even players who get them later have a great chance of upgrading them to a Mythic-Raid equivalent, or just beneath.
  • There’s some concerns about getting Class Set appearances (namely LFR ones) being a little too difficult. We don’t have anything to share here, just to say the availability of your set appearances does feel a little harder than intended and is something we’re interested in finding a solution for.
  • On that note, the Cosmetic Reward for CE / Top Mythic / Top PvP rating is not going away. We’re explicitly keeping it, and likely rebranding it to ‘Season 2 Hero’ alongside the Season 2 Master achievement.
  • Concerns surrounding the idea that reducing the amount of Set Tokens later on in the patch would adversely effect raiders that show up later. The idea here is that by the time a guild that primarily does normal let’s say moves towards attempting Heroic, the Revival Catalyst is fully online and handles their Class Set acquisition almost entirely. Similarly, if people are raiding normal they very likely have a lot of their Sets already.
  • The tuning down of Set Token frequency would not remove the Set Tokens from that boss, it would simply not make them guaranteed to be half of your raid’s loot on those particular bosses. A group of 20 killing Broodkeeper Diurna would still get 4 total pieces of loot just as before, it’s just more likely that 1 of those pieces is a token rather than being hard-locked at 2.
  • All Set Tokens still drop from the Raid, as they have in Sepulcher & Vault of the Incarnates, in addition to extra non-tier versions of every slot for you to convert (if it’s a higher base item level) or wear as off-pieces. Hands & Legs come from The Forgotten Creations & Rashok respectively, the two ‘wing’ bosses of the front half of the raid. Shoulders come from Zskarn, Boss 6. Helms drop from Magmorax, Boss 7, and Chest pieces drop from the Echo of Neltharion, Boss 8.

Slip on into the Turbulent Timeways Beginning March 28

Quote from: Blizzard

The Bronze Dragonflight has discovered growing disturbances in the timeways, with several rapidly intersecting our own!

Beginning the week of March 28, players can Timewalk through a previous expansion each week for six consecutive weeks. This grand tour through World of Warcraft’s past will start with Cataclysm and end with Wrath of the Lich King.

Also, for a limited time, the Timewalking quest in Valdrakken from Kazra will offer an increased reward—a Heroic level Cache of Vault Treasures with items level 402-411. The reward upgrade is only available for this special Timewalking event. After Turbulent Timewalking has run its course, the reward returns to ilvl 389 Cache of Vault Treasures.

Don’t Let Time Pass You By

Here’s the expansion timeline for Turbulent Timeways:

  • Week of March 28: Cataclysm
  • Week of April 4: Mists of Pandaria
  • Week of April 11: Warlords of Draenor
  • Week of April 18: Legion
  • Week of April 25: The Burning Crusade
  • Week of May 2: The Wrath of the Lich King

Mark your calendar, gather your allies, and prepare to take a Timewalking adventure!

Additional Class Tuning Incoming with 10.0.7, 22 March 2023

Quote from: Blizzard

Along with the launch of patch 10.0.7 next week, we’ll make adjustments to some classes that are underperforming or overperforming in endgame content.

Because of the timing of these changes, we intend to add all of the following to the 10.0.7 patch notes. Please note that some changes below affect talents that are new or redesigned in 10.0.7, and all should be testable on the 10.0.7 PTR soon.

CLASSES

PRIEST

  • Rhapsody now grants a stack every 2 seconds (down from every 5 seconds).
  • Holy
    • Burning Vehemence now causes Holy Fire to deal 30%/60% of its initial damage to all nearby enemies (was 15%/30%) .

SHAMAN

  • Elemental
    • Swirling Currents increases the healing done by Healing Stream Totem by 40%/80% for Elemental (was 20%/40%).
  • Enhancement
    • Swirling Currents increases the healing done by Healing Stream Totem by 40%/80% for Enhancement (was 20%/40%).

WARLOCK

  • Affliction
    • Dark Virtuosity now increases the damage of Shadow Bolt and Drain Soul by 5/10% (was 15/30%).
    • Kindled Malice now increases the damage of Malefic Rapture and Seed of Corruption by 4/8% (was 8/15%).
  • Demonology
    • Felguard auto-attack damage increased by 20%.
    • Wild Imp damage increased by 20%.
    • Vilefiend damage increased by 30%.
  • Destruction
    • All ability damage increased by 3%.

PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER

MAGE

  • Frost
    • Glacial Spike deals 15% less damage and its Mastery scaling is now 60% effective (was 75%) in PvP combat.
    • Frostbolt deals 100% increased damage in PvP combat (was 50%).

PALADIN

  • Retribution
    • Execution Sentence is now 65% effective in PvP combat.
    • Wake of Ashes now deals 20% less damage in PvP combat (was 32%).
  • Protection
    • Uther’s Counsel effectiveness reduced by 33% in PvP combat.
    • Righteous Protector effectiveness reduced by 50% in PvP combat.

PRIEST

  • Renew healing is now increased by 22% in PvP combat (was 15%).
  • Prayer of Mending healing is now increased by 6% in PvP combat.
  • Holy
    • Heal healing is now increased by 43% in PvP Combat (was 35%).
    • Flash Heal healing is now increased by an additional 6% in PvP combat for Holy only.
  • Developer’s notes: These are targeted buffs to Holy Priests’ overall throughput, which has continued to fall behind other healers.

ROGUE

  • Subtlety
    • Dark Shadow effectiveness reduced by 20% in PvP combat.
    • Danse Macabre effectiveness reduced by 33% in PvP combat.
    • Perforated Veins effectiveness reduced by 25% in PvP combat.
    • Gloomblade damage increased by 20% in PvP combat.
    • Backstab damage increased by 20% in PvP combat.

WARLOCK

  • Affliction
    • Darkglare from Summon Darkglare now has 80% more health.
    • Corruption damage increased by 10% in PvP combat.
    • Agony damage increased by 10% in PvP combat.
    • Siphon Life damage increased by 20% in PvP combat.
    • Focused Malignancy increases Malefic Rapture damage by 10%/20% in PvP combat (was 15%/30%).
  • Developers’ notes: These changes are targeted at improving Affliction Warlocks’ instant cast damage, while offsetting the potential burst from Malefic Rapture with the 10.0.7 talent changes.
  • Destruction
    • Bane of Havoc now has an 18 second internal cooldown with Mayhem talented.
    • Incinerate no longer deals increased damage in PvP combat (was increased by 13%).
    • Shadowburn damage is now increased by 25% in PvP combat (was increased by 30%).
  • Developer’s notes: We’re targeting a decrease to Havoc uptime and offsetting the PvE tuning changes with some reductions to Shadowburn and Incinerate. We want builds with instant casts to be viable, while preferring that the spec relies on Chaos Bolts for most kills.

WARRIOR

  • Arms
    • Fatality now stacks Fatal Mark up to a maximum of 8 times against enemy players (was 20).

Dragonflight: 10.0.7 Content Patch Notes

Quote from: Blizzard
Return to the Forbidden Reach, learn the Winterpelt Furbolg language, equip your Orc and Human Heritage armor, play the Monk class on any race, new class changes, and more is available in the Dragonflight 10.0.7 update on March 21.

RETURN TO THE FORBIDDEN REACH

Return to the Forbidden Reach to learn more of the story of the dracthyr Evoker awakening now that the defeat of Raszageth has been secured. This zone includes new content for max-level players delving into the troubles left behind by the meddling of the Primalists and the chaos they’ve left behind among the elements. Players will discover hidden treasure rooms with the Dragonscale Expedition, encounter new bosses and objectives, more storms, new loot to add to their arsenal, and more. [LEARN MORE]

THE MONK CLASS EXPANDS TO NEW RACES

Lightforged Draenei, Worgen, and Goblin races have learned how to harness their Chi and can now become Monks.

WINTERPELT FURBOLG FACTION

The Winterpelt furbolg speak a language no one seems to understand. Learn to understand, and eventually speak, the language of the Winterpelt furbolg as you help Sonova Snowden crack their peculiar dialect and earn their trust.

Begin your journey to learning the Winterpelt furbolg language by accepting the quest “Academic Assistance” in the Adventure Guide after completing the Winterpelt Hollow and Rustpine Den quest chains in the Azure Span. Language progress can be viewed in the Spellbook.

BAINE’S SEARCH

Mayla Highmountain is worried—Baine Bloodhoof has traveled to the Ohn’ahran Plains in search of an old friend who has gone missing but insisted on making the journey alone. Help Baine solve the mystery of the missing tauren — and come to terms with old hatreds — with the help of an unlikely ally. Speak to Mayla Highmountain in Valdrakken to begin your journey.

FACTION ENVOY

Represent a Dragon Isles Major Faction every day by visiting the envoys in the Forbidden Reach and earn a 10% reputation increase of the chosen Major Faction for the day. Envoys also occasionally offer quests for extra reputation and Elemental Overflow to spend at the Envoy traders for new rewards such as four new dragonriding customizations, the Buckie battle pet, and the Noble Bruffalon mount.

ORC AND HUMAN HERITAGE ARMOR

Embrace your legacy with two new Heritage Armor sets—one for orcs and one for humans. These new quests are available for players level 50 and up —who have reached Exalted with Orgrimmar or Stormwind— to undertake and gain several variations of the new Heritage Armor to add to their collection. Begin your journey by speaking to Master Matthias Shaw in Stormwind or Eitrigg in Orgrimmar with the release of the 10.0.7 content update. [LEARN MORE]

RECRUIT A FRIEND REWARDS UPDATE

All new rewards are arriving to the Recruit A Friend (RAF) program, letting you bring in new (and returning) friends to World of Warcraft. To learn more about the current RAF program, you can visit our previously published article here on the official site.

ACHIEVEMENTS

  • Flying in Battle for Azeroth zones no longer requires Battle for Azeroth Pathfinder.

CHARACTERS

  • New hair colors are available for orcs and humans.

CLASSES

  • DEATH KNIGHT
    • Frost
      • Developers’ note: Frost will be seeing a few updates to their tree in 10.0.7. Currently Frost feels 1 or 2 points off from being able to make more meaningful choices within their spec tree. To help ease some of this we are shifting a few talents to be auto-learned on level up and replacing them with a new or existing talent. The new version of the tree should offer a little more variety and feel less linear when allocating your talent points and give you more choice based on the content you are running.
      • Remorseless Winter has been removed from the talent tree and now learned at level 19.
      • Might of the Frozen Wastes has been removed from the talent tree and now learned at level 25.
      • Frostreaper has been removed from the talent tree and now learned at level 28.
      • New Talent: Fatal Fixation – Killing Machine can stack up to 1 additional time. Replaces Frostreaper on the talent tree.
      • Obliteration now causes Soul Reaper to also grant Killing Machine and have a chance to generate a Rune during Pillar of Frost.
      • Biting Cold has moved to Remorseless Winter’s old position in the Frost specialization tree.
      • Everfrost has moved to Biting Cold’s old position in the Frost specialization tree.
      • Breath of Sindragosa damage has been increased by 25% and Runic Power spent per second increased to 18 (was 16).
      • Frost Strike damage increased by 10% and Runic Power cost increased to 30 (was 25).
        • Developers’ note: Frost Death Knight currently has a surplus of Runic Power income which is leading to wasted Runic Power overflow in Obliteration builds and longer than intended durations in Breath of Sindragosa builds. In order to help address this we are increasing both the cost and damage of Frost Strike and Breath of Sindragosa. Maintaining a long breath can feel satisfying for many players but it can also feel disheartening when you lose it for reasons out of your control since so much of your damage becomes reliant on a very high uptime of Breath. The goal with this change is to bring the duration of Breath to a much more reasonable and compact window that allows you to deal the majority of your Breath damage in a shorter window.
    • Unholy
      • Rotten Touch duration increased to 10 seconds (was 6 seconds).
      • Runic Mastery now also increases Runic Corruption’s Rune regeneration rate by an additional 10/20%.
      • Commander of the Dead has been updated to always buff your Gargoyle (or Dark Arbiter) and Army of the Dead Ghouls for 30 seconds after using Dark Transformation.
        • Developers’ note: The previous implementation of Commander of the Dead had too many edge cases where it would not always buff your minions or the window was too tight and created less than ideal rotational impact. We have instead updated it to be an aura around the Death Knight for the duration that will always buff their Gargoyle or Army of the Dead ghoul regardless of when they were spawned in after Dark Transformation was used.
      • Harbinger of Doom now also increases the damage of your next Death Coil by 20% or Epidemic by 10%.
      • Ruptured Viscera now has a 25% chance to apply a Festering Wound to enemies struck by the explosion.
      • Ruptured Viscera damage increased by 10%.
      • Feasting Strike now also has a 15% chance to grant Runic Corruption.
      • Defile now works with the Pestilence talent.
      • Defile now has additional functionality – If an enemy is inside Defile, it grants 1% Mastery every second, stacking up to 8% Mastery.
      • Defile is no longer a choice node with Unholy Pact and has replaced Pestilent Pustules within the specialization tree.
      • Pestilent Pustules has been removed from the Unholy specialization tree.
      • Epidemic has swapped places with Unholy Blight within the talent tree.
      • Pestilence implementation has been updated to better reflect the functionality of the tooltip.
  • DEMON HUNTER
    • Developers’ note: Fodder to the Flame changes are intended to help with consistency of behavior for the spawned Demon and its Soul. Vengeance should consistently 1-shot its Demon with Throw Glaive, and needing to collect a Demon Soul 40 yards away will be a thing of the past.
    • Reduced the range that Fodder to the Flame demons can spawn by 20%.
    • The Demon Soul generated upon killing a Fodder to the Flame demon will now land in front it (towards the Demon Hunter), whenever possible.
    • Havoc
      • Blind Fury now increases Eye Beam damage and duration by 10%/20% (was duration only by 25%/50%).
        • Developers’ note: Blind Fury added an uncomfortably large amount of time to Eye Beam’s channel effect. It is a now a mix of damage and duration increases such that the point-for-point value of the talent remains very similar, but asks for 60% less additional time rooted in order to realize that value.
      • Improved Fel Rush and the choice node of Desperate Instincts/Netherwalk have swapped locations in the specialization tree. Furious Throws and Fel Eruption have swapped locations in the specialization tree.
        • Developers’ note: These talent positions swaps are intended to be a minor change and likely won’t significantly shake-up the current talent build meta, but talents before the first gate are generally less ‘expensive’ and this will make taking a defensive/utility option more reasonable for some builds, in content where it’s desired.
    • Vengeance
      • Reduced the health of Fodder to the Flame demons by 20%.
  • DRUID
    • Protector of the Pack’s cap now stores up to 400% of the Druid’s spell power for Balance, Feral, and Guardian, and 300% spell power for Restoration (was 240% for all specializations).
    • Balance
      • Stellar Flare now has an additional effect – If dispelled, causes a Star Burst to crash into the dispeller, dealing damage and knocking them back.
    • Feral
      • Merciless Claws now increases the damage of Swipe and Brutal Slash by 15% (was 10%)
      • Berserk: Frenzy now bleeds targets for 100% of damage dealt by combo point generators during Berserk (was 125%).
      • Shred, Swipe, Brutal Slash, and Thrash damage increased by 6%.
      • Developers’ note: Berserk: Frenzy consolidates a lot of the damage players deal with builders in their Berserk windows. This change is intended to spread more of builders’ damage to outside the Berserk window.
    • Guardian
      • Thorns of Iron has been redesigned – When you cast Ironfur, also deal Physical damage equal to 30% of your armor, split among enemies within 12 yards. Damage reduced above 4 applications.
        • Developers’ note: This talent was intended to be a compromise in those situations where it’s necessary to index heavily into survivability. In the original version, this unfortunately incentivized very high Ironfur stacks and excessive APM during cooldown windows. With this change we hope to maintain the intent of the original design while reducing the incentive to chase very high Ironfur stacks.
      • Thorns of Iron is now affected by the Guardian Druid specialization passive, and its damage values have been adjusted accordingly.
        • Developers’ note: This is a net neutral change to the Thorns of Iron ability.
      • Fixed an issue that was causing Bristling Fur’s global cooldown to not be reduced by Haste.
      • Fixed an issue that was causing Circle of Life and Death to incorrectly reduce Pulverize’s duration.
    • Restoration
      • Developer’s note: Our goals with Restoration changes are to increase the effectiveness of some underutilized talents and open new talent combinations that were previously difficult to reach.
      • New Talent: Tranquil Mind – Increases Omen of Clarity’s chance to activate Clearcasting to 5% and Clearcasting can stack 1 additional time.
      • New Talent: Deep Focus – When Moonfire, Rake, Rip, or Rejuvenation are active on a single target, their effects are increased 40%.
        • Developer’s note: We are bringing back the Deep Focus ability to offer a dps option that is particularly effective while attacking a single target and does not reduce the duration of your heal over time effects.
      • Embrace of the Dream now also triggers on targets with the Regrowth heal over time effect.
      • Regenerative Heartwood now also extends the duration of Ironbark by 4 seconds.
      • Improved Wild Growth has moved to a new location one slot to the right.
      • Cultivation has moved to Improved Wild Growth’s previous location.
      • Nourish has moved to Cultivation’s previous location.
        • Developer’s note: We are moving Nourish and its associated talents into a place within the talent tree that leads into other abilities with the goal of not impacting the pathing of other builds that would prefer to skip it.
      • Tranquil Mind occupies Nourish’s previous location.
      • The Forest’s Flow/Wild Synthesis choice node has moved to a new location directly below Nourish’s new location.
      • Embrace of the Dream and Budding Leaves have swapped locations.
      • Germination and Power of the Archdruid have swapped locations.
      • Invigorate is no longer on a choice node with Power of the Archdruid and has moved locations to directly beneath Overgrowth.
      • Power of the Archdruid is now on a choice node with Undergrowth.
      • Circle of Life and Death is now on a choice node with Deep Focus.
  • EVOKER
    • Developers’ notes: We’ve seen Devastation have difficulty recovering from burst damage. These changes are intended to primarily help in those scenarios, with direct increases to Verdant Embrace and Draconic Legacy, and improvements to talent options such as Foci of Life and Ancient Flame that have been relatively underutilized.  
    • Dracthyr’s racial ability Chosen Identity will now also cause Dracthyr to automatically assume their Visage form when they resurrect.
    • Dracthyr now know the Aerial Halt ability, like Dragonriding drakes, that allows them to significantly reduce their forward movement.
    • Draconic Legacy now increases Stamina by 3%/6% (was 2%/4%).
    • Foci of Life has been redesigned – Renewing Blaze restores you more quickly, causing damage you take to be healed back over 4 seconds.
    • Ancient Flame has been redesigned – Casting Emerald Blossom or Verdant Embrace reduces the cast time of your next Living Flame by 40%.
    • Ancient Flame has been moved to Roar of Exhilaration’s location in the talent tree.
    • Roar of Exhilaration has been removed.
    • Devastation
      • Verdant Embrace healing increased by 35%.
    • Preservation
      • Developers’ notes: In 10.0.7, we are trying to address the dominance of Temporal Anomaly and Resonating Sphere. Ideally, Emerald Blossom talents should be a good pick in situations where your allies are stacked together, but even in those cases we are seeing Temporal Anomaly focused builds winning. These changes are a step towards creating a variety of viable builds for Preservation, and we’re keeping an eye on feedback and continuing to makes changes here to keep gameplay and talent choices in a healthy place.
      • Ouroboros has been redesigned – Casting Echo increases the healing of your next Emerald Blossom by 30%, stacking up to 5 times (was Emerald Blossom and Dream Breath increase healing of Echo).
      • Fluttering Seedlings healing increased by 20%.
      • Temporal Anomaly absorption value reduced by 20%.
      • Resonating Sphere now applies Echo to the first 4 allies hit (was 6 allies).
      • Temporal Compression can now be gained from casting Tip the Scales.
      • Empowered spells cast with Tip the Scales no longer consume stacks of Temporal Compression.
      • When Lifebind is applied through a lower value Echo with Temporal Anomaly, its healing value is reduced to match the value of the Echo.
      • When Golden Hour is applied through a lower value Echo with Temporal Anomaly, its healing value is reduced to match the value of the Echo.
  • HUNTER
    • Developers’ note: Neltharax, Enemy of the Sky has been adjusted (see Items and Rewards section for details). The bow has a bonus effect on it that was intended to be a boost to the Hunter’s auto-shot damage when shooting a single target, and we still want to keep it that way. The special effect from the bow was not intended to also increase the melee auto-attack speed of any summoned pets. The power gain from this special Equip effect, in addition to its rarity, has made a pretty big divide between Hunters who have this bow, and Hunters who don’t. We’re changing the bow to have an equip effect that increases your auto-attack damage, rather than auto-attack speed. This auto-attack damage bonus will only affect you, the Hunter, and your own auto-shot damage – nothing from your pets will be increased from having this special bow. We recognize that the power gain of this bow was very large, and are tuning up some Hunter abilities to compensate for the changes made to the bow.
    • Death Chakram damage increased by 100%.
    • Serpent Sting damage increased by 25%.
    • Rejuvenating Winds now also increases maximum health by 4% per rank.
    • Beast Mastery
      • Cobra Shot damage increased by 50%. Does not apply to PvP combat.
      • Kill Command damage increased by 10%.
      • Barbed Shot damage increased by 12%. Does not apply to PvP combat.
      • Stomp damage increased by 25%.
      • Kill Cleave now transfers 60% of Kill Command’s damage (was 50%).
    • Marksmanship
      • Multi-Shot damage increased by 15%.
      • Arcane Shot damage increased by 25%. Does not apply to PvP combat.
      • Chimaera Shot damage increased by 25%. Does not apply to PvP combat.
      • A few talent connections have been adjusted.
      • Steady Focus and Tactical Reload have swapped spots back to their pre-10.0.5 spots.
  • MONK
    • Mistweaver
      • Developers’ note: We are making a few quality-of-life Mistweaver Monk updates in 10.0.7 focused on the availability of instant-cast healing, Sheilun’s Gift and its associated modifiers becoming more predictable, and making the global cooldown attached to Invoking Chi-Ji or Yu’lon have an immediate impact.
      • New Talent: Legacy of Wisdom – Sheilun’s Gift heals 2 additional allies and its cast time is reduced by 0.5 seconds.
      • Sheilun’s Gift healing increased by 20% and now triggers Mastery: Gust of Mist exclusively onto its primary target.
      • Sheilun’s Gift’s clouds now reset upon raid boss encounters end and Mythic+ start.
      • Shaohao’s Lessons: Lesson of Fear now increases Haste by 20% (was 25%).
        • Developers’ note: We are decreasing the high-roll potential of Lesson of Fear to disincentivize aggressive “fishing” for a favored buff. Moving forward, we plan to monitor the gameplay and community feedback around this talent change closely to ensure the outcome of adding a tracking buff is in-line with our goals.
      • Shaohao’s Lessons now displays a tracking buff indicating which Lesson will be learned on the next Sheilun’s Gift cast.
      • Thunder Focus Tea now causes Enveloping Mist to become instant cast in addition to its current effect.
      • Zen Pulse no longer requires an enemy to be present to be cast.
      • Fixed an issue that caused Zen Pulse to not function with in-game mouseover settings.
      • Enveloping Breath has been renamed to Celestial Harmony.
      • Celestial Harmony now has an additional effect: When activated, Yu’lon and Chi’Ji apply Chi Cocoons to 5 targets within 40 yards, absorbing damage for 10 seconds.
      • Enveloping Breath’s heal over time effect is now visible on raid frames.
      • Enveloping Mist healing increased by 10%.
      • Enveloping Mists applied by Misty Peaks may now be extended by Rising Mist up to 2 additional seconds (was 6).
    • Windwalker
      • Developers’ note: Several Windwalker Monk talents have been adjusted to allow players to focus on specializing in single target damage.
      • Inner Peace’s maximum Energy Bonus increased to 30 (was 10).
      • Inner Peace now also increases Tiger Palm damage by 10%.
      • Rising Star now increases Rising Sun Kick damage by 3/6% (was 5/10%) and critical strike damage by 6/12%.
      • Faeline Harmony’s damage and healing bonus increased to 10% (was 8%).
      • New Talent: Skytouch – Tiger Palm applies an effect which increases your critical strike chance by 50% for 6 seconds on the target. This effect cannot be applied more than once every 1 minute per target.
        • Developers’ note: This has been added as a choice node on Skyreach for players that still want the benefit additional critical strike benefit but do not want to dash to their target.
  • PALADIN
    • Retribution Aura has been redesigned – When any party or raid member within 40 yards takes more than 30% of their health in damage in a single hit, each member gains 5% increased damage and healing, decaying over 30 seconds. This cannot occur within 30 seconds of the aura being applied.
      • Developers’ note: The previous version of Retribution Aura was a more selfish design, impacting only the paladin. This version is intended to be group oriented while still fulfilling the spirit of Retribution.
    • Of Dusk and Dawn has been redesigned – When you cast 3 Holy power generating ability, you gain Blessing of Dawn. When you consume Blessing of Dawn, you gain Blessing of Dust.
      • Blessing of Dawn has been redesigned – Your next Holy Power spending ability deals 20% additional increased damage or healing (10% for Retribution specialization). This effect stacks 2 times.
      • Blessing of Dusk has been redesigned – Damage taken reduced by 5% for 10 seconds.
      • Developers’ note: The previous version of this talent demanded a high degree of discipline in managing Holy Power and maintaining its buffs, which caused some frustrating situations with procs disrupting its cadence. Our intent is that this new version will occur more naturally and offer more rotational flexibility.
    • New Talent: Justification – Judgment damage increased by 10%.
    • New Talent: Punishment – Successfully interrupting an enemy with Rebuke casts an extra Crusader Strike.
    • New Talent: Lightforged Blessing – Retribution: Divine Storm heals you and up to 4 nearby allies for 3% of maximum health. Holy/Protection: Shield of the Righteous heals you and up to 4 nearby allies for 3% of maximum health.
    • New Talent: Crusader’s Reprieve – Your Crusader Strike, Rebuke, Hammer of the Righteous, and auto-attack range is increased by 3 yards. Using Hammer of the Righteous, and Crusader Strike heals you for 1% of your maximum health.
    • New Talent: Faith’s Armor – Word of Glory grants 20% bonus armor for 4.5 seconds.
    • New Talent: Sanctified Plates – Armor increased by 10%, Stamina increased by 5%, and damage taken from area of effects attacks reduced by 5% per rank. 2 Ranks.
    • New Talent: Strength of Conviction – While in your Consecration, your Shield of the Righteous and Word of Glory have 10% per rank increased damage and healing. 2 Ranks.
    • New Talent: Fading Light – Blessing of Dawn increases the damage and healing of your next Holy Power spending ability by an additional 10%, healing cap of 30% maximum health. Blessing of Dusk causes your Holy Power generating abilities to also grant and absorb shield for 20% of damage or healing dealt.
    • New Talent: Vengeful Wrath – Hammer of Wrath always critically strikes. This talent is located on the Class tree for Retribution specialization only.
    • Divine Toll and Divine Resonance have been added to the class tree.
    • Seal of Might has been adjusted – Mastery increased by 2% per rank and Strength/Intellect increased by 2% per rank.
    • Seal of Alacrity has been adjusted – Haste increased by 2% per rank and Judgment cooldown reduced by 0.5 seconds per rank. 2 Ranks.
    • Seal of the Crusader has been redesigned – Your auto attacks now deal additional Holy damage (was your attacks have a chance to cause your target to take 3% increased Holy damage for 5 seconds).
    • Quickened Invocations has been adjusted – Divine Toll’s cooldown is reduced by 15 seconds.
    • Judgment of Light has been adjusted – Judgment causes the next 5 successful attacks against the target to heal the attacker.
    • Divine Steed has been adjusted – No longer on the global cooldown and now lasts an additional second.
    • Seal of Order has been redesigned – Blessing of Dawn increases the damage and healing of your next Holy Power spending ability by an additional 10%. Blessing of Dusk increases your armor by 10% and your Holy Power generating abilities cool down 10% faster.
    • Recompense can no longer critically strike.
    • Seasoned Warhorse duration increased to 2 seconds (was 1 second).
    • Righteous Protector is now a 1 rank talent, granting 3 seconds of cooldown reduction.
    • Divine Shield now also prevents movement forces (such as pushbacks) from affecting you.
    • Divine Purpose no longer interacts with Execution Sentence as Execution Sentence no longer costs Holy Power.
    • Divine Purpose proc chance reduced to 10% (was 15%) and bonus damage reduced to 10% for Retribution Paladin only (was 15%).
    • Blinding Light will now be removed from the target if they suffer Holy damage. Consecration damage will continue to not break Blinding Light. Tooltip will be updated at a later time.
    • Seal of Mercy is now a 1 rank talent (was 2).
    • Holy Avenger, Sanctified Wrath, Seraphim, Seal of Reprisal, Aspiration of Divinity, Hallowed Ground, Seal of the Templar, and Seal of Clarity have been removed from the talent tree.
    • Unbound Freedom is now located on the class tree for Retribution and Protection specializations only.
    • Healing Hands is now a shared node with Afterimage for Retribution specialization only.
    • Zealot’s Paragon has been removed from the talent tree for Retribution specialization only.
    • Eye of Tyr moved to Row 9.
    • Inmost Light moved to Row 10.
    • Switched positions of Fist of Justice and Repentance/Blinding Light nodes on the talent tree.
    • Moved Cleanse up to row 2.
    • Moved Obduracy up to row 2.
    • Rebuke and Greater Judgment moved up a row.
    • Fist of Justice moved to row 4.
    • Turn Evil moved up to row 2.
    • Seal of Might moved up to row 8.
    • Seal of Alacrity moved up to row 8.
    • Judgment of Light moved below 20-point gate.
    • Holy
      • Aura Mastery’s Retribution Aura interaction has been redesigned – Now increases healing by 15% while Retribution Aura’s effect is active.
      • Afterimage’s Holy Power tracking now has a cap of 39 Holy Power.
      • Divine Toll and Divine Resonance have been moved from the specialization tree to the class tree.
      • Sanctified Wrath now occupies Divine Toll’s previous location.
      • Added a connection between Sanctified Wrath and Glimmer.
    • Protection
      • Developers’ note: The Protection tree has been adjusted in part to account for Paladin class tree changes, and additionally to help resolve some issues with low-value talents and talent groupings.
      • New Talent: Seal of Charity – When you cast Word of Glory on anyone not yourself, you also heal yourself for 50% of the healing done.
      • New Talent: Inmost Light – Eye of Tyr deals 300% increased damage and has 15% reduced cooldown.
      • Faith in the Light’s block chance increased to 15/30% (was 5/10%).
      • Righteous Protector is now a 1 rank talent, granting 3 seconds of cooldown reduction.
      • Focused Enmity has been redesigned – When Avenger’s Shield strikes a single enemy, it deals additional Holy damage.
      • Sanctified Wrath and Seal of Reprisal have been moved to the Protection talent tree (was in the Paladin class tree).
      • Seal of Reprisal damage bonus increased to 20%.
      • Replaced Improved Lay on Hands with Tirion’s Devotion.
      • Blessed Hammer and Hammer of the Righteous have switched places with Holy Shield.
      • Fixed an issue with Final Stand causing a delay between Divine Shield activating and the taunt effect being applied.
      • Fixed an issue with Incandescence causing it to incorrectly damage Explosive orbs.
      • Corrected a tooltip error with Light of the Titan’s heal over time effect.
      • Resolute Defender is now a 2-rank talent (1/2 seconds of cooldown reduction on Ardent Defender and Divine Shield).
      • Talents positioned around the 20 point gate have been adjusted.
      • Uther’s Counsel moved below 20-point gate and is now a 2-rank talent.
      • Faith’s Armor and Strength of Conviction have moved to the Paladin class tree (was in the Protection talent tree).
      • Fixed an issue that caused Divine Resonance to sometimes interrupt players’ casts.
      • Fixed an issue that was causing the Consecration debuff to fade from targets prematurely.
    • Retribution
      • Developers’ note: Retribution Paladin’s have received a substantial rework in patch 10.0.7. We’ve rebuilt the Retribution talent tree from the ground up, so there are a large amount of changes to the talent tree, abilities, survivability and maneuverability. As a part of this we’ve tried to provide a broad set of talents that allow you to heavily invest in abilities that you personally enjoy, so that you can customize how you want to play and change your talents to meet the demand of the different types of content you want to engage with. We’re excited to see how this plays out and we hope you enjoy our new take on Retribution Paladins!
        The goals for the rework have been as follows:

        • Buttons: Retribution Paladins had a fairly large number of abilities, some of which we believe felt unnecessary and inefficient. We’ve worked to tone this down and have tried to provide Retribution Paladin’s with a more focused set of abilities and cooldowns.
        • Stacking modifiers: There were many several talents and abilities that provided small stacking bonuses, which we believe made for a confusing and unpredictable playstyle. This led to periods of extreme burst damage, that in return would leave your core abilities feeling unsatisfying and under-tuned. We’ve significantly changed this and hope that your core abilities feel good and are powerful when used in all situations. This doesn’t mean we’ve reduced all elements of burst damage, but we hope to have provided more purposeful and deliberate periods of burst damage, while also allowing options that provide excellent sustained damage.
        • Survivability: Retribution Paladins have had one of the highest death rates across various forms of content. For a plate wearing class with hybrid healing, this hasn’t felt feel right. We’ve strengthened Retribution Paladins significantly through a mixture of passive bonus and improvements to active abilities and cooldowns that should make them much more survivable.
        • Maneuverability: We recognize that there has been as issue here and we have made some improvements to allow make Retribution Paladins more mobile. We’ve also made some changes to allow Retribution Paladins to engage in combat more effectively from a distance that we feel helps compensate for a lack of mobility compared to some other classes.
      • Mastery: Hand of Light now provides less Holy damage bonus per point in Mastery.
        • Developers’ note: Retribution Paladin’s damage is made up of both Physical and Holy damage, this leaves their Physical damage in a fairly bad place due to their mastery, so we’re toning down the bonus you gain in order to give Retribution Paladins a more even damage profile across their abilities.
      • Divine Protection and Improved Crusader Strike are now granted when choosing Retribution specialization.
      • Retribution specialization gains Blessing of Freedom as a starting talent.
      • New Talent: Swift Justice – Reduces the cooldown of Judgement by 2 seconds and Crusader Strike by 2 seconds.
      • New Talent: Light of Justice – Reduces the cooldown of Blade of Justice by 2 seconds.
      • New Talent: Improved Blade of Justice – Blade of Justice now has 2 charges.
      • New Talent: Light’s Celerity – Flash of Light casts instantly, its healing done is increased by 50%, but it now has a 6 second cooldown.
      • New Talent: Guided Prayer – When your health is brought below 25%, you instantly cast a free Word of Glory at 100% effectiveness on yourself. Cannot occur more than once every 60 seconds.
      • New Talent: Unbound Freedom – Blessing of Freedom increases movement speed by 30%, and you gain Blessing of Freedom when cast on a friendly target. Also causes Blessing of Freedom’s cooldown to be reduced by 6 seconds if dispelled.
      • New Talent: Righteous Cause – Templar’s Verdict, Final Verdict, and Justicar’s Vengeance have a 20% chance to reset the cooldown of Blade of Justice.
      • New Talent: Jurisdiction – Final Verdict and Blade of Justice deal 10% increased damage. The range of Final Verdict and Blade of Justice is increased to 20 yards.
      • New Talent: Judgment of Justice – Judgment deals 10% increased damage, increases your movement speed by 10% for 5 seconds, and slows enemies by 30% for 15 seconds.
      • New Talent: Zealot’s Fervor – Auto-attack speed increased by 20%.
      • New Talent: Improved Judgment – Judgment now has 2 charges.
      • New Talent: Boundless Judgment – Judgment generates 1 additional Holy Power.
      • New Talent: Inquisitor’s Ire – Every 2 seconds, gain 5% increased damage to your next Divine Storm, stacking up to 10 times.
      • New Talent: Blade of Vengeance – Blade of Justice now hits nearby enemies for damage. Deals reduced damage beyond 5 targets.
      • New Talent: Crusading Strike – Crusader Strike replaces your auto-attacks and generates 1 Holy Power every 2 attacks.
      • New Talent: Heart of the Crusader – Crusader Strike and auto-attacks deal 10% increased damage and have a 10% increased critical strike damage.
      • New Talent: Blessed Champion – Crusader Strike and Judgment hit an additional 2 targets for 60% damage. 2 ranks.
      • New Talent: Divine Hammer – Divine Hammers spin around you damaging enemies within 8 yards for Holy damage over 12 seconds. Generates 1 Holy Power. Replaces Consecration. Deals reduced damage beyond 8 targets.
      • New Talent: Adjudication – Critical Strike damage of your abilities increased by 5% and Hammer of Wrath critical strikes cause a Blessed Hammer to spiral around you dealing (30% of Attack power) Holystrike damage to enemies.
      • New Talent: Aegis of Protection – Divine Protection reduces damage you take by an additional 10% and Shield of Vengeance protects you from 20% more damage.
      • New Talent: Blades of Light – Crusader Strike, Judgment, Templar’s Verdict, Final Verdict, Justicar’s Vengeance, and Hammer of Wrath now deal Holystrike damage.
      • New Talent: Highlord’s Judgment – Judgment’s duration is increased by 3 seconds. If you have Greater Judgment, targets take 20% increased damage from your next 2 Holy Power abilities. 2 ranks.
      • New Talent: Burning Crusade – Divine Storm, Divine Hammer, and Consecration now deal Radiant damage and your abilities that deal Radiant damage deal 10% increased damage.
      • New Talent: Penitence – Increases the damage of your periodic effects by 15%.
      • New Talent: Divine Auxiliary – Final Reckoning and Execution Sentence grant 3 Holy Power.
      • New Talent: Seething Flames – Wake of Ashes deals significantly reduced damage to secondary targets, but now causes you to lash out 2 extra times for Radiant damage.
      • New Talent: Divine Arbiter – Abilities that deal Holystrike damage deal 10% increased damage and your abilities that deal Holystrike damage grant you a stack of Divine Arbiter. At 25 stacks your next damaging single target Holy Power ability causes Holystrike damage to your primary target and Holystrike damage to enemies within 6 yards.
      • New Talent: Searing Light – Your Radiant abilities have a chance to call down an explosion of Holy Fire dealing Radiant damage to all nearby enemies and leaving Consecration in its wake. Deals reduced damage beyond 8 targets.
      • New Talent: Vanguard of Justice – Your damaging Holy Power abilities cost 1 additional Holy Power and deal 25% increased damage.
      • New Talent: Divine Wrath – Avenging Wrath/Crusade duration increased by 3 seconds.
      • New Talent: Rush of Light – The critical strikes of your damaging single target Holy Power abilities grant 5% Haste for 10 seconds.
      • New Talent: Divine Wrath – Avenging Wrath / Crusade duration increased by 3 seconds.
      • New Talent: Judge, Jury and Executioner – Increases the critical strike chance of Judgment by 10%.
      • New Talent: Templar Strikes – A 2 part combo that deals increased damage with each strike. If you successfully cast the second part of the combo within the time limit the second strike has a 100% increased critical strike chance.
        • Templar Strike slashes an enemy for Radiant damage. You have 3 seconds to continue the combo with Templar Slash.
        • Templar Slash strikes an enemy for Radiant damage and has a 100% increased chance to critically strike.
      • Expurgation has been adjusted – Your Blade of Justice causes the target to burn for damage over 6 seconds.
      • Art of War has been adjusted – Your auto-attacks have a 20% chance to reset the cooldown of Blade of Justice.
      • Consecrated Blade has been adjusted – Blade of Justice has a 100% chance to cast Consecration at the target’s location. This effect can only occur once every 10 seconds. Replaces Consecration.
      • Final Verdict now has a 15% chance to reset the cooldown of Hammer of Wrath and make it useable regardless of the target’s health (was 10%).
      • Avenging Wrath: Might cooldown reduced to 60 seconds (was 120 seconds).
      • Crusade duration increased to 35 seconds (was 25 seconds).
      • Sanctify damage bonus reduced to 25% (was 100%).
      • Vanguard’s Momentum has been adjusted – Hammer of Wrath has 1 extra charge and on enemies below 20% health generates 1 additional Holy Power.
      • Wake of Ashes damage reduced by 18% and its cooldown reduced to 30 seconds (was 45 seconds).
      • Truth’s Wake now also causes Wake of Ashes to burn targets for additional Radiant damage over 10 seconds.
      • The old functionality of Executioner’s Will has been removed and now simply increases the duration of Execution Sentence and Final Reckoning by 4 seconds.
      • Justicar’s Vengeance now has a default range of 8 yards.
      • Justicar’s Vengeance now heals for 6% of your maximum health instead of healing based off damage dealt.
      • Justicar’s Vengeance now deals 25% increased damage to stunned targets (was 50%).
      • Virtuous Silver Cataphract (Set Bonus) now works with Justicar’s Vengeance.
      • Final Reckoning now lasts 10 seconds (was 9 seconds) and now causes your target to take 30% bonus damage from your next Holy Power ability.
      • Final Reckoning damage reduced by 4.5%.
      • Empyrean Legacy lockout period now 20 seconds (was 30 seconds).
      • Hammer of Wrath damage increased by 16%.
      • Execution Sentence now causes 20% of the damage you deal to be added to Execution Sentence (was 10%).
      • Tempest of the Lightbringer no longer consumes a stack of Judgment.
      • Empyrean Power now causes Crusading Strikes to have a 5% chance to make your next Divine Storm free. Divine Storm damage bonus reduced to 15% (was 25%).
  • PRIEST
    • Fixed an issue causing Protective Light to trigger when casting Flash Heal on allies without Binding Heals talented.
    • Discipline
      • Dispel Magic now costs 2% of base Mana (was 1.6%).
      • Fixed an issue causing Divine Star and Halo healing to not be increased from Shadow Covenant.
    • Holy
      • Lightwell healing increased by 40%.
      • The cooldown of Lightwell is now 2 minutes (was 3 minutes).
      • Lightwell is now instant cast (was 0.5 seconds).
      • Divine Image now triggers off all Holy Word casts instead of having a chance to trigger.
        • Developers’ note: Divine Image was previously unreliable by having a chance to trigger. Our adjustments to the talent are aimed putting the Priest in control of the summon timing for a more interesting gameplay experience.
      • Divine Image duration reduced to 9 seconds (was 15 seconds).
      • The Divine Image buff on the Priest now has a stack count representing the number of active Divine Images.
      • The Divine Image buff on the Priest has been added to the Personal Resource Display.
      • Afterlife and Divine Ascension now increase the radius of Divine Hymn, Cosmic Ripple, and Symbol of Hope.
      • Fixed an issue with Divine Image causing some healing or damaging Priest spells to not have a similar spell cast from the Naaru.
      • Fixed an issue causing Spirit of Redemption with Afterlife talented to not increase the range of some spells.
      • Fixed an issue causing Afterlife to not increase the range of any spells during Spirit of Redemption with Spirit of the Redeemer talented.
    • Shadow
      • Fixed an issue causing Void Eruption to fire 4 missiles instead of 2.
      • Fixed an issue causing the Echoing Void debuff to be exclusive to one Priest.
      • Fixed an issue causing Insanity generation from Shadowy Apparitions to trigger on spawn instead of when the apparition deals damage.
  • SHAMAN
    • Developers’ note: The changes to the Shaman class tree are focused on cutting back on talents that feel mandatory and improving balance between available talents.
    • Starter builds have been updated for all 3 specializations.
    • Earth Elemental and Primal Earth Elemental no longer taunt or pulse threat to enemies the Shaman is not in combat with.
    • Astral Shift duration increased to 12 seconds (was 8 seconds).
    • Planes Traveler no longer increases the duration of Astral Shift.
    • Astral Bulwark now reduces damage taken by an additional 20% (was 15%).
    • Lightning Bolt damage increased by 20% for all specializations.
    • Earth Shield healing increased by 60%.
    • Fixed an issue causing the self-cast version of Earth Shield from Elemental Orbit to not increase the healing done by Healing Stream Totem or Healing Tide Totem.
    • Earth Shield is no longer removed any time the Shaman or the Shaman’s target changes talents.
    • Go With the Flow now reduces the cooldown of Spirit Walk by 10/20 seconds (was 7.5/15 seconds).
    • Thunderous Paws can now trigger once every 20 seconds (was 60 seconds).
    • Poison Cleansing Totem now removes all Poisons effects from the target (was 1).
    • Enfeeblement now applies during Hex and lasts for 6 seconds after Hex ends.
    • Swirling Currents has been redesigned – Increases the healing done by Healing Stream Totem and Cloudburst Totem by 10%/20% for Restoration and 20%/40% for Elemental and Enhancement.
    • Fixed an issue causing Totemic Projection to sometimes fail to move totems.
    • Several talents have moved positions in the class tree.
    • Earthgrab Totem now replaces Earthbind Totem. Earthgrab Totem is now the left-most option.
    • Ancestral Wolf Affinity has moved to the class tree and removed from all specialization trees.
    • Focused Insight has moved to the Enhancement and Elemental specialization trees in place of Ancestral Wolf Affinity.
    • Improved Lightning Bolt has been removed.
    • Thunderstorm has been moved to Improved Lightning Bolt’s position in the talent tree.
    • The following abilities now show on the Personal Resource Display: Spiritwalker’s Grace, Spiritwalker’s Aegis, Ancestral Guidance, and Astral Shift.
    • Elemental
      • Electrified Shocks duration increased to 9 seconds (was 6 seconds).
      • Fixed an issue that sometimes prevented Electrified Shocks from applying to the primary target.
      • Ghost Wolf no longer removes the Shaman’s Maelstrom bar while active.
      • Fixed an issue causing Fire and Ice to not increase the overload damage of multiple spells.
      • Fixed an issue causing Primordial Surge to incorrectly increase the damage of multiple overload spells.
      • The following abilities now show on the Personal Resource Display: Echoes of the Great Sundering, Primordial Wave, and Ascendance.
      • Shamans that are in Ghost Wolf now display the Maelstrom resource on their Personal Resource Display instead of mana if they are Elemental specialization.
    • Enhancement
      • The following abilities now show on the Personal Resource Display: Doom Winds, Primordial Wave, Ascendance, and Ethereal Form.
    • Restoration
      • Developers’ note: We have a few goals with our changes to Restoration Shaman. One is to reduce the number of modifiers to abilities that are used in preparation for a large burst of healing and instead increase overall healing so that the additional modifiers are not needed. This should allow for a more reactive healing experience. A second goal is to cut back on less exciting talents and the overall number of talents that improve DPS so that more points can be spent focused on a particular healing style. A third goal is to improve build diversity by adding new talents and balancing existing talents.
      • New Talent: Current Control – Reduces the cooldown of Healing Tide Totem by 30 seconds.
      • New Talent: Tide Turner – The lowest health target of Healing Tide Totem is healed for 30% more and receives 15% more healing from you for 4 seconds.
      • New Talent: Resonant Waters – Increases the duration of Mana Tide Totem by 4 seconds and increases its radius by 20 yards.
      • New Talent: Spiritwalker’s Tidal Totem – After using Mana Tide Totem, the cast time of Healing Wave and Chain Heal is reduced by 50% and the mana cost of Healing Wave and Chain Heal are reduced by 50% for 10 seconds.
      • All healing done increased by 8%.
      • Acid Rain damage reduced by 20%.
      • Ancestral Awakening heals for 15%/30% of the amount healed (was 10%/20%).
      • Earthen Harmony has been redesigned – Earth Shield reduces damage taken by 3%/6% and its healing is increased by 50%/100% on targets below 75% health.
      • Cloudburst Totem healing no longer contributes to Ancestral Guidance.
      • Ancestral Awakening and Ancestral Guidance now contribute to Cloudburst Totem healing.
      • Lightning Bolt damage has been increased by 35%.
      • Chain Lightning damage increased by 35%.
      • Wellspring healing reduced by 30%.
      • Water Shield has been removed from the talent tree and is now learned at level 12.
      • Flow of the Tides now grants an additional bounce of Chain Heal in addition to its current effect.
      • Unleash Life now converts 40% of Wellspring overhealing to an absorb shield (was 25%).
      • Improved Primordial Wave increases the healing done by Healing Wave by 13%/25% (was 8%/15%).
      • Improved Earthliving Weapon increases the healing of Earthliving by 20%/40% (was 15%/30%) and always triggers on targets below 18%/35% health (was 13%/25%).
      • Earthliving Weapon’s proc sound effect has been lowered in volume.
      • Fixed an issue causing Ancestral Awakening to double dip into healing reduction effects.
      • Chain Heal’s tooltip has been updated to indicate its jump distance to give more context to the Tidebringer talent.
      • The PvP Talent Tidebringer has moved to Nature’s Focus’ position as a 2-point talent.
      • Ever-Rising Tide, Nature’s Focus, and Call of Thunder have been removed.
      • Downpour has been moved to Ever-Rising Tide’s position in the talent tree.
      • Resurgence has moved to Water Shield’s position in the talent tree.
      • A connection has been added between Tidebringer and Primal Tide Core/High Tide.
      • Acid Rain and Overflowing Shores are no longer on a choice node together. Acid Rain remains in its position and Overflowing Shores is directly below Healing Rain.
      • The following abilities now show on the Personal Resource Display: Primordial Wave, Tidebringer, Spiritwalker’s Tidal Totem, and Ascendance.
  • WARLOCK
    • New Talent: Sargerei Technique – Shadow Bolt/Drain Soul/Incinerate damage increased by [8/15%][5/10%].
    • New Talent: Socrethar’s Guile – Agony/Wild Imp/Immolate damage increased by [8/15%][10/20%][10/20%].
    • New Talent: Horrify – Your Fear causes the target to tremble in place instead of fleeing in fear.
    • Demonic Inspiration has been redesigned – Increases the attack speed of your primary pet by 5%. Increases Grimoire of Sacrifice damage by 15%.
    • Wrathful Minion has been redesigned – Increases the damage done by your primary pet by 5%. Increases Grimoire of Sacrifice damage by 15%.
    • Summon Soulkeeper damage increased 100%.
    • Summon Soulkeeper can no longer be used if you have a Soulkeeper already active.
    • Inquisitor’s Gaze damage increased by 270%.
    • Gorefiend’s Resolve, Desperate Pact, and Greater Banish have been removed from the class tree.
    • Lifeblood has moved to Nightmare’s previous location.
    • Accrued Vitality has moved to Desperate Pact’s previous location.
    • Nightmare has been moved to Gorefiend’s Resolve previous location and is now a 1 rank talent.
      • Developers’ note: We are readjusting the tuning of Inquisitor’s Gaze and Summon Soulkeeper once more so that they are more attractive and exciting capstone options for players to path towards as they descend their class tree. In addition, we are removing some defensive talents that felt a bit niche and replacing them with basic throughput talents to avoid adding complexity to each specialization’s rotational gameplay. 
    • Affliction
      • Developers’ note: Looking at talents early in the Affliction tree, Xavian Teachings feels overly mandatory to smooth out Affliction’s gameplay. Additionally, Harvester of Souls is difficult to tune to be competitive with other options on Affliction’s tree due to how it affects survivability. Due to this, we are making Xavian Teachings baseline and removing Harvester of Souls and in their place adding basic throughput increase talents, to avoid additional complexity. 
      • New Talent: Dark Virtuosity – Increases Shadow Bolt/Drain Soul damage by 15/30%.
      • New Talent: Kindled Malice – Increases Malefic Rapture and Seed of Corruption damage by 8/15%.
      • Dread Touch now lasts 8 seconds (was 6 seconds).
      • Darkglare has been redesigned – Summons a Darkglare from the Twisting Nether that extends the duration of your damage over time effects on all enemies by 8 seconds. The Darkglare will serve you for 20 seconds, blasting its target for Shadow damage, increased by 25% for every damage over time effect you have active on their current target.
        • Developers’ note: Darkglare has been increasingly difficult to tune due to how they scale in multi-target situations. To remedy this, we are changing how Darkglare scales so that they contribute more in single-target encounters. This should also increase the effectiveness of Grim Reach, emphasizing Darkglare as a powerful AOE option when talented. 
      • Xavian Teachings has been removed from the talent tree and is now baseline.
      • Harvester of Souls has been removed.
      • Writhe in Agony has been moved to row 3 and is now a 1 rank talent.
    • Demonology
      • New Talent: Immutable Hatred – When your primary Felguard’s Legion Strike damages only 1 target, its damage is increased by 120%. Your primary Felguard deals Physical damage after auto-attacking the same enemy 3 consecutive times.
      • New Talent: Umbral Blaze – Hand of Gul’dan has a 8/15% chance to burn its target for additional Shadowflame damage every 2 seconds for 6 seconds.
        • Developers’ note: Hounds of War has little room for further tuning due to it hooking onto rotational, frequently used spells in the Demonology toolkit. To replace it, we are bringing back Umbral Blaze as a choice to further improve Hand of Gul’dan.  
      • Reign of Tyranny now increases the damage of Demonic Tyrant by 50% in addition to its original effect.
        • Developers’ note: Reign of Tyranny has continued to underperform. However, rather than put additional emphasis on the ramp up required, we are wanting to bring up its ‘floor’ value while retaining the skill expression aspect of the talent. Ideally, this makes Reign of Tyranny the more passive, friendly option compared to the frequent skill checks that Grand Warlock’s Design demands. 
      • Pact of the Imp Mother now has an 8/15% chance (was 5/10%) to cast Hand of Gul’dan a second time.
      • Guillotine damage increased by 200% and now lasts 6 seconds (was 8 seconds).
        • Developers’ note: Guillotine has been underperforming. To rectify this, we are increasing its overall throughput and decreasing its duration to make it a more competitive choice. In addition, we are adding a new capstone to the right side of the tree that focuses on improving Demonology’s contribution to single target encounters without adding complexity to their rotational gameplay.
      • Stolen Power now triggers after 75 applications (was 100).
      • Hounds of War has been removed.
    • Destruction
      • Burn to Ashes now stacks up to 6 times.
      • Mayhem is now tracked under the Personal Resource Display.

DRAGONRIDING

  • Discover new Dragonriding Glyphs in the Forbidden Reach to unlock 2 new Dragonriding traits:
    • Aerial Halt – Flap back, reducing forward movement.
    • Airborne Recovery – Activating Aerial Halt while affected by Thrill of the Skies generates 1 Vigor.
  • 16 new customization manuscripts have been added.
  • Put your dragonriding skills to the test in 6 new races.
  • Dragonriding racing world quests have a new icon.
  • Dragonriding traits can now be refunded by using right click.
  • Dragonriding traits no longer require a confirmation to unlock.
  • Fixed an issue where player spell visual effects such as Shadowform and Glyph of the Stars Moonkin Form were being applied on the dragons while customizing in the Rostrum of Transformation.

ELEMENTAL STORMS

  • With the Primalist focus on the Forbidden Reach they are concentrating their attacks around the Dragon Isles reducing the storm count to 1 (was 2).
  • The Dragonbane Keep will no longer be an Elemental Storm.
  • Additional primalists have been recruited from around Azeroth and are reinforcing the forces in Elemental Storms. This includes increasing the power granted to the primalists allies making these areas a bit more dangerous.
  • The storm bosses have had their respawn timers shortened and will not scale up their health as fast when more people engage them.
  • These areas will reward more Elemental Overflow and also have a chance for some of the new bind on account gear tokens similar to the Forbidden Reach.
  • The tooltips for the Elemental Storms have also been updated to give more information including potential weekly drops that can be gained in the areas.

ENEMIES AND NPCS

  • Orc, Tauren, and Highmountain Tauren Priest NPCs are now located in Orgrimmar, and Thunder Bluff has welcomed their first Highmountain Tauren and Tauren Priest NPCs.
  • A new item upgrade NPC has been added to the Sapphire Enclave in Valdrakken.
  • Added Ancient Bats and Ancient Tigers to Zul’Gurub as a new source of Primal Bat and Tiger leather.

ITEMS AND REWARDS

  • Neltharax, Enemy of the Sky’s equip effect has been redesigned – Auto-attacking an enemy grants you 10% auto-attack damage, stacking 5 times. This bonus resets upon auto-attacking a different target.
  • The Balance of Power questline artifact appearance rewards are now account-wide. After unlocking the base appearance, the criteria for additional color variants (such as the Glory of the Legion Hero and Unleashed Monstrosities achievements) may be completed on any character to earn the appearances. For example, completing the requirements for certain color variants on your hunter, will also be unlocked on your priest that’s on the same account.
  • Vendors have found a use for Dragonflight enchanting materials and are now interested in purchasing them:
    • Chromatic Dust: 1 gold, 50 silver
    • Vibrant Shard: 7 gold, 50 silver
    • Resonant Crystal: 20 gold
  • Stolen Breath of Ohn’ahra now also drops from The Nokhud Offensive on Mythic+ difficulty.
  • Vile Fumigator’s Mask can now be transmogged.
  • Item levels on legacy raids in the Dungeon Journal should now properly reflect the dropped items once more.
  • The Divine Kiss of Ohn’ahra mount has been updated to its correct visual in the mount journal.

PET BATTLES

  • Collect new pets, pet achievements, and challenge new pet battle masters in the Forbidden Reach.

PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER

  • End of Season PvP rewards will no longer be tied to a specific faction. Additionally, the end of season title will no longer require a specific number of games played on your faction but instead will be that number of games played within the season. For example, for Crimson Gladiator, a player will need 150 games played in Dragonflight Season 1 and ending at .1% of the ladder to earn the title.
  • RATED SOLO SHUFFLE
    • The duration of Solo Shuffle’s “No-Show” leaver penalty can now be increased if any character on your account leaves a game.
    • Players can now queue for Solo Shuffle while queued for other Rated PvP modes or participating in Group Finder.
      • Developers’ note:  We’ve heard the feedback that players would like to be able to search for and participate in multiple rated PvP activities and Group Finder while they are in a Solo Shuffle queue. We understand that Solo Shuffle can have long queues for DPS players and would like for players to have more agency in their time, so we are making this change.
  • CLASSES
    • DEMON HUNTER
      • Reverse Magic (PvP Talent) now triggers the backlash effects from dispelled debuffs.
    • DRUID
      • Restoration
        • Tranquility healing is now increased by 100% while in arena combat with 5 or less allied players.
        • Keeper of the Grove (PvP Talent) now increases the healing of Tranquility by 20% (was 100%).
    • EVOKER
      • Preservation
        • Rewind healing is now increased by 100% while in arena combat with 5 or less allied players.
        • Chrono Loop’s cooldown has been reduced to 1 minute (was 1.5 minutes) and can no longer reduce an enemy below 20% health.
    • HUNTER
      • Beast Mastery
        • Piercing Fangs now has 40% reduced effectiveness in PvP combat.
    • MONK
      • Mistweaver
        • Revival healing is now increased by 100% while in arena combat with 5 or less allied players.
        • Restoral healing is now increased by 100% while in arena combat with 5 or less allied players.
        • Enveloping Mist now heals for an additional 20% in PvP combat (was 25%).
        • Healing Sphere (PvP Talent) spell visual has been updated to be more noticeable.
    • PALADIN
      • Divine Protection no longer reduces damage by an additional 10% in PvP combat.
      • Protection
        • Flash of Light no longer deals increased healing in PvP combat (was 15%).
        • Unbound Freedom (PvP Talent) has been removed.
      • Retribution
        • Flash of Light no longer deals increased healing in PvP combat (was 15%).
        • Final Verdict no longer deals increased damage in PvP combat (was 10%).
        • Templar’s Verdict no longer deals increased damage in PvP combat (was 10%).
        • Blade of Justice no longer deals increased damage in PvP combat (was 20%).
        • Crusader Strike no longer deals increased damage in PvP combat (was 80%).
        • Healing Hands effectiveness reduced by 50% in PvP combat (was 30%).
        • Unbound Freedom (PvP Talent) has been removed.
        • Law and Order (PvP Talent) has been removed.
    • PRIEST
      • Shadow Word: Pain and Purge the Wicked now have a spell highlight when Catharsis is above 80% of its maximum stored damage.
      • Holy
        • Divine Hymn healing is now increased by 100% when in arena combat with 5 or less allied players.
    • SHAMAN
      • Tidebringer (PVP Talent) has been removed.
      • Restoration
        • Healing Tide Totem healing is now increased by 100% while in arena combat with 5 or less allied players.
        • Living Tide reduces the cooldown of Healing Tide Totem by 60 seconds (was 90 seconds) and it heals for 25% more each time it pulses (was 100%).

PROFESSIONS

  • The professions pane has been reduced in size.
  • The currently selected recipe will now stay selected when switching to and from the Specializations tab.
  • Added a new Profession Specialization summary screen which can be viewed for any unlocked profession specializations.
  • Legion Rank 3 Shoulder recipes originally sourced from Rated Battlegrounds can now be purchased from PvP quartermasters in your faction’s hub in Dalaran at a cost of 3 Marks of Honor.
  • Fixed an issue that caused incorrect difficulty for recrafting order with changed optional reagents.
  • CRAFTING ORDERS
    • Public Orders no longer require the customer to provide non-soulbound reagents.
    • A button has been added next to the customer or crafter’s name to whisper or ignore them.
    • The layout for reagents has been rearranged.
    • Due to the layout changes, Optional Reagent labels (e.g. “Add Embellishment”) have been moved into a tooltip and Optional Reagents provided by the customer no longer have a checkmark next to them.
    • Search for customers now shows the range of possible item levels for each item.
    • Added text log output when filling Crafting Orders.
  • ENGINEERING
    • Zapthrottle Soul Inhaler has received several quality of life improvements:
      • The device can now be used while moving.
      • The channel time of the device has been reduced to 4 seconds (was 12 seconds)
      • Channeling the device for its full duration now marks the target elemental for 30 seconds. Slaying it during this window will also grant its soul.
      • The cooldown for a successful soul capture has been reduced to 5 minutes (was 15 minutes).
    • Bomb success chance now only scales off of Specialization nodes (was specialization nodes and item quality). The contribution from quality is now baseline.
    • Increased the chances to discover EZ-Thro variants of bombs.
    • Fixed an issue that caused regular bombs to have a higher baseline chance to backfire than intended.
  • SKINNING
    • Skinning enemies has a new animation.

QUESTS

  • Big Kinook’s Community Feast has attracted culinarians from far and wide. Many have made the pilgrimage to Iskaara with new ingredients for the soup.

USER INTERFACE AND ACCESSIBILITY

  • The Revival Catalyst now displays how many charges you have stored.
  • The following cursors have been updated with high resolution art: Buy, Cast, Cogwheel, Loot All, Lock, Mail, and Trainer.
  • Added a tag in the Chat typing bar to tell players what language they are typing in if they are not typing in Common or Orcish.
  • The chat command button now has arrows for menu items that have flyouts.
  • Fixed an issue where the Raid Self Highlight setting didn’t work.
  • Fixed an issue where calendar invites were still displaying after the player removed or reported it.
  • Fixed issues with inaccurately displayed Rogue combo points and Arcane Mage charges.

WOW COMPANION APP

  • Requirements for using an item are now listed in its tooltip.

More Frequently Asked Questions about the New Upgrade System

Quote from: Blizzard

Q: This seems awfully complicated. Why can’t you just give us more Valor?

A: One of the philosophical underpinnings of this system is that we want to encourage players to challenge themselves when they want to improve their character’s power. Farming low-level keys is not challenging for most players who routinely time keys in the teens or higher. There are a lot of moving pieces to this system because it’s been engineered to handle all kinds of situations in an effort to more closely align “doing the optimal thing” with “doing the fun thing” while still keeping the base player experience simple. And some of the complication is there specifically to minimize the losses for making mistakes; we don’t want people punished for upgrading the “wrong” thing.

Kill stuff, get Flightstones. Kill hard stuff, get Crests too. Take Flightstones and Crests to item upgrade vendor. Item upgrade vendor tells you how much it’ll cost and upgrade the gear as long as you can afford it.

If you didn’t read the big post from last week at all, but you took an item to an upgrade vendor and read the tooltips for Crests and Flightstones, you’d get enough of the gist to use the system just fine.

Q: The article you wrote talks about how gear from Mythic raid bosses can be upgraded in the intro. Then it goes on to detail how gear can’t be upgraded once you get to Mythic raid level.

A: Yep. Sure does. That should have said “or a Heroic raid boss”. Oops.

Q: Does this system and its hardcaps mean that I have to get the same item again from every upgrade track? I need to farm my BiS trinket at Veteran, then again at Champion, then again at Hero?

A: While that’s certainly an option, it’s not required, no. Getting an item on the Veteran upgrade track means that item can be upgraded to Veteran 8/8, which is the same ilevel as Champion 4/8, which is only 4 item levels lower than Hero 1/5. If you upgrade your gear to Veteran 8/8, you’ll be more than ready to do content that drops Hero-track gear.

That said, this is a known concern and we’re looking at options. I can’t promise any specific results, because there are a lot of moving parts going on here, but this is under active investigation. We won’t be making any changes to address this concern in the very early weeks of the patch, but if it turns out that the data bear out this concern, we will step in. Thanks to player feedback, we have developed a contingency plan.

Is this “Chimes says don’t delete your trinkets from +2 keys!”? If you like. We’re being careful here with the rollout of this new system. It might mean that those items will still be useful later and it might not. This is not a promise at all, but if I were still a player on the other side of blue posts like this, reading those words a blue poster just typed, I would keep mine around just in case.

Q: Okay, but we don’t know where exactly Hero-track gear comes from. For that matter, we don’t know where each level of Shadowflame Crests will come from either. Can you clear that up?

A: Sure thing. In retrospect, that would have been good to include in the initial blog post. I omitted it because it seemed like the post was already longer than most players would want to read and I wanted to focus on the system itself. But yes, how players will get the items to interact with the system is worth specific inclusion, so here goes. Please keep in mind that these details, like just about everything else on the PTR, is subject to change. As a reminder: 15 fragments combine into a full Crest.

  • Whelpling’s Shadowflame Crests:
    • Outdoor content will have Whelpling’s Shadowflame Crest Fragments all over. World quests, random treasures, non-elite unique creatures, etc. And some sources that haven’t been revealed quite yet. There shouldn’t be any shortage of these Crests for folks who want to go collect them and this is the most likely situation in which players will hit the Crest acquisition cap.
    • Mythic Keystones up to +5 will drop Whelpling’s Shadowflame Crest Fragments. There’s a significant bonus for timing the key; you get 5 fragments for completing, but 12 if you complete in time.
    • In Aberrus, Raid Finder will drop Whelpling’s Shadowflame Crest Fragments. Most bosses will drop 10 fragments, but end bosses will drop 15 (which can be made into a full crest immediately!).
  • Drake’s Shadowflame Crests:
    • Outdoor content will have a limited quantity of Drake’s Shadowflame Crest Fragments. Elite unique creatures in the outdoor world will be the most common source, but the weekly wrapper and some scheduled content (somewhat analogous to Dragonflight launch’s Community Feast or Siege at Dragonbane Keep) will offer a healthy amount of them. These will be more limited in outdoor content than Whelpling’s Shadowflame Crests, but dedicated players will be able to collect multiple Drake crests per week.
    • Mythic Keystones from +6 up to +10 will drop Drake’s Shadowflame Crest Fragments. There’s still that significant bonus for timing the key; you get 5 fragments for completing, but 12 if you complete in time.
    • Normal Aberrus will drop Drake’s Shadowflame Crest Fragments. Most bosses will drop 10 fragments, but end bosses will drop 15.
  • Wyrm’s Shadowflame Crests:
    • Mythic Keystones from +11 to +15 will drop Wyrm’s Shadowflame Crest Fragments. Unsurprisingly for those people who read the earlier sections: there’s a significant bonus for timing the key; you get 5 fragments for completing, but 12 if you complete in time.
    • Heroic Aberrus will drop Drake’s Shadowflame Crest Fragments. Most bosses will drop 10 fragments, but end bosses will drop 15.
  • Aspect’s Shadowflame Crests
    • Mythic Keystones from +16 on up will drop Wyrm’s Shadowflame Crest Fragments. And yes, there’s a significant bonus for timing the key; you get 5 fragments for completing, but 12 if you complete in time.
    • Mythic Aberrus will drop Drake’s Shadowflame Crest Fragments. Most bosses will drop 10 fragments, but end bosses will drop 15.

For clarity on all of the above: these crests do not have a chance of dropping. They will drop every time. Crests acquisition is purely deterministic. (In some outdoor-content situations, there is quantity variance, but even in those circumstances they will always show up as long as you’re not at the acquisition cap.)

Please note that Shadowflame Crests are intentionally available at some key levels below the gear that would require them for early upgrades. For example, a +11 Mythic Keystone dungeon provides Wyrm’s Shadowflame Crest fragments. This allows players at this level of play to upgrade their Champion-level gear (also earned from +11 Mythic Keystone dungeons) above the 4/8 level, and creates a reason to run this more challenging content above the +9 keys that also drop Champion-track gear.

  • Veteran-track gear
    • Available in limited quantity in outdoor content. Suffusion Camps and the weekly wrapper quest will offer gear on this track.
    • Gear on this track will drop from the end-of-run chest in Mythic Keystone dungeons up to +8.
    • Raid Finder Aberrus will drop gear on this track.
  • Champion-track gear
    • The new World Boss will drop gear on this track. Under limited circumstances, players will be able to get this level of gear from Suffusion Camp activities.
    • Gear on this track will drop from the end-of-run chest in Mythic Keystone dungeons from +9 up to +16.
    • The Great Vault will award gear on this track for Mythic Keystone dungeons up to +7.
    • Normal Aberrus will drop gear on this track. Very rare items from Raid Finder Aberrus end bosses will also be on this track.
  • Hero-track gear
    • Gear on this track will drop from the end-of-run chest in Mythic Keystone dungeons from +17 and up.
    • The Great Vault will award gear on this track for Mythic Keystone dungeons from +8 up to +15.
    • Heroic Aberrus will drop gear on this track. Very rare items from Normal Aberrus end bosses will also be on this track.
  • Mythic gear
    • The Great Vault will award gear above the upgrade system’s range for Mythic Keystone dungeons of +16 and higher.
    • Mythic Aberrus will drop gear above the upgrade system’s range. Very rare items from Heroic Aberrus end bosses will also be above that range.

Q: Why cap item upgrades at all?

A: Because this is a (nearly) universal system, it includes things like outdoor gear. We’re going from a world where the Valor system only lets people who play a lot of M+ upgrade their gear to a world where everyone gets to upgrade their gear, even folks who are focused on outdoor play. The challenge here is that we’re still creating specific gear ecosystems for competitive players. We don’t want to create a world in which players need to run off-season M0s to get their BiS gear. We don’t want players feeling like they need to watch world quests to find the trinket that they need for raiding. And we don’t want to create incentives for players optimizing for Mythic raids to spend extra time to do Normal raids in order to get their best items. We want players to get their best rewards when they’re challenging themselves, and we want to minimize the amount of farming easy-to-them content that you need to do.

Q: These item names–Flightstones, Shadowflame Crests–are really specific to Dragonflight. Why not give them names that would work for a more evergreen system?

A: Well, for starters, this system isn’t evergreen. This is a system specifically for 10.1 and Season Two. It’s certainly designed with the potential for it to be evergreen, but it’ll be evaluated over the course of the season. We can’t tell you whether it’ll be here in Season Three because we don’t know yet.

There is a tentative plan for naming these upgrade components going forward, though. If the system continues in Season Three, we’ll swap out “Shadowflame” for an adjective more appropriate to the theming of that season. So in Season Three you’d collect a Season Three version of Flightstones, plus Whelpling’s [NEW ADJECTIVE HERE] Crests, Drake’s [NEW ADJECTIVE HERE] Crests, etc. Each season would change the adjective on the crest. Each expansion would change the name of the levels of crest to something more appropriate to that expansion’s theme. And the name “Flightstone” would probably change to something thematically appropriate as well.

I want to stress that this is a tentative plan and could easily change. And that’s assuming we keep the system. Right now, speaking only for myself and not the rest of the development team, I think it’s very likely we keep it and make small iterative improvements. But I can also see a world where it’s not quite the improvement to gearing that we’re looking for and we either return to the previous system or try something new for Season Three. The simple truth is that none of us can see the future, but this is what we’re trying for Season Two.

Q: For Shadowflame Crests, are we limited to how many times we can get them or how many times we can use them?

A: The cap is on acquisition. Every time you would get a crest fragment, the game tracks how close you are to cap and only gives you enough to reach the cap. So if you’ve already earned 140 whelpling crest fragments in the first week, and you would get another 12 crest fragments for finishing a +2 Mythic Keystone in time. Because you’re 10 fragments away from the cap, you’ll only get those 10 fragments.

Once you have crest fragments, you can combine them into Crests freely. And once you have the Crests, you can spend them freely at item upgrade vendors. The cap increases by 150 fragments (10 crests) weekly.

The cap does not apply to rewards from one-time quests (you’ll always be able to get those, and they won’t count against future earnings either) or from downgrading your Crests with Vaskarn in Loamm.

It’s great to see so much discussion about this system and hearing what people are looking forward to and worried about. I’ve been watching a lot of videos and reading forum threads and commentary on a bunch of different websites. And I encourage y’all to keep discussing it. Thoughtful, critical, and constructive player feedback is catnip for game developers.

-Chimes

Dragonflight Twitch Drops: Earn the D.I.S.C.O. Toy

Quote from: Blizzard

The latest Dragonflight update launches next week and takes you back to the Forbidden Reach. Celebrate the occasion with a new Twitch Drop! Watch any Dragonflight stream on Twitch.tv from March 21, 10:00 GMT until April 3, 06:59 GMT, to earn the D.I.S.C.O. (also known as a Dancer’s Integrated Sonic Celebration Oscillator) toy and conjure up a dazzling spectacle that will light up the dance floor.

 

Eligibility

To participate, you must link your Twitch account by visiting https://account.battle.net/connections. If you have changed your password or made any changes to your Twitch or Battle.net account, you will have to relink your accounts. When you relink, there will be a 7-day cooldown before you can relink a new Twitch account. After you’ve claimed your rewards on Twitch, please make sure you’re logging into the Battle.net region you’d like to receive the drop(s) on, as the first region you log into will be where your items will be delivered. It can take up to 24 hours to receive your reward(s) in game after claiming. Read our Frequently Asked Questions section for more information.

How do I Earn Twitch Drops?

Start Time: March 21st, 10:00 GMT

End Time: April 3rd, 06:59 GMT

Watch at least four hours of WoW: Dragonflight content while this Twitch Drop is active on any channel to earn the dazzling D.I.S.C.O. toy.

A female undead forsaken dances near the D.I.S.C.O., a crystal disco ball popping out of a wooden box.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. How do I link my battle.net and Twitch account?

A. Sign into your Battle.net account at https://account.battle.net/connections and click the Connect link for Twitch, then follow the instructions to sign-in and link your Twitch account to Battle.net.

Q. What devices can I use to earn and claim drops?

A. You can earn and claim drops using your PC/Mac web browser or on the Twitch app for Android or iOS. Twitch apps on game consoles, smart TVs, and other TV apps do not support drops.

Q. Do I need to watch the same channel the entire time to earn my drops?

A. You can earn progress towards a drop on any eligible channel in the World of Warcraft category on Twitch. You can, for example, watch half an hour on one channel and then switch to another channel without losing your progress. You cannot earn progress faster by watching more than one channel at a time.

Q. Will I receive my drop rewards in-game automatically?

A. To receive your rewards, you must claim the drop on the channel you’re watching or in the Drops Inventory menu on Twitch.

Q. Do Twitch Drop rewards expire?

A. Earned Twitch Drop rewards will expire 7 days after they’ve been claimed if a Battle.net account has not been linked.

Q. As a streamer, how do I get Twitch Drops on my channel?

A. All you need to do is make sure your Twitch and Battle.net accounts are linked, and that you’re opted into Drops (see Drops Streamer Home).

Q. What regions are eligible for these Twitch Drops?

A. Participating regions include North America, Latin America, Europe, The Middle East, Africa, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.