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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.

Dragonflight Beta 5 October 2022 Development Notes, Dragonriding Updates

This week’s beta build brings the tier sets on the Valdrakken realm, the first large set of class tuning changes and M0 dungeon difficulty for the Dragonflight dungeons on the leveling realms!

Quote from: Blizzard

Here are the changes you can find in this week’s Dragonflight Beta update:

CHARACTERS

  • Resolved an issue that caused Da Voodoo Shuffle (Troll Racial) to reduce the duration of roots by less than intended. Duration reduced by 20%, matching current Snare reduction amount.

CLASSES

  • NEW TALENT SYSTEM
    • DEATH KNIGHT
      • Blood
        • Heart Strike now generates 15 runic power (was 10).
      • Frost
        • Obliterate – Damage increased by 15%.
        • Howling Blast – Damage increased by 12%.
        • Breath of Sindragosa – Damage increased by 15%.
        • Remorseless Winter – Damage increased by 10%.
        • Frost Strike – Damage increased by 20%.
        • Unleashed Frenzy – Strength per stack increased to 2% (was 1%).
        • Pillar of Frost – Strength increased to 25% (was 20%) and Strength per rune spent increased to 2% (was 1%).
        • Frostscythe – Damage increased by 15%.
        • Frigid Executioner – Obliterate damage increased to 15% (was 10%) and chance to refund 2 runes increased to 15% (was 12%).
        • Piercing Chill – Damage taken per bounce of Chill Streak increased to 10% (was 5%).
        • Shattering Blade – Bonus Frost Strike damage increased to 100% (was 60%).
        • Enduring Strength – Strength increased to 10/20% per rank (was 5/10%).
      • Unholy
        • Superstrain – Now applies Frost Fever and Blood Plague at 80% effectiveness. This includes runic power generated from Frost Fever which is now 4 (was 5).
        • Summon Gargoyle – Damage of Gargoyle Strike increased by 25%. Now properly scales with Mastery.
        • Commander of the Dead – Damage buff for your Army of the Dead Ghouls and Gargoyle increased to 35% (was 30%). Commander of the Dead will now apply to ghouls who were still being summoned in by Army of the Dead when Dark Transformation was pressed.
        • Death Coil – Damage reduced by 15%.
        • Raise Dead – All Pet ghoul damage reduced by 10%.
        • Death Rot – Now applies to all enemies damaged by Epidemic or Death Coil (was only your primary target).
        • Scourge Strike – Damage reduced by 8%.
        • Clawing Shadows – Damage reduced by 8%.
        • Festering Wound – Damage reduced by 10%.
        • Magus of the Dead – Frostbolt and Shadowbolt damage increased by 100%.
        • Unholy Pact – No longer grants 5% Strength.
        • Rotten Touch – Increases Scourge Strike damage by 50% for 6 seconds (was 30%).
        • Ghoulish Frenzy – Attack Speed and Damage gained decreased to 5/10% (was 6/12%).
        • Coil of Devastation – Now deals 30% of Death Coil damage over 4 seconds (was 35%).
    • DEMON HUNTER
      • Class Tree
        • Sigil of Silence – Moved to the Vengeance tree as a choice node with Roaring Fire.
        • New Talent: Soul Sigils – Afflicting an enemy with one of your Sigils generates 1 Lesser Soul Fragment.
        • A few Demon Hunter Class talents have moved positions due to the above change.
    • DRUID
      • Class Tree
        • Furor has been removed.
        • New Talent: Protector of the Pack
          • Restoration: Store 10% of your effective healing, up to 120% spell power. Your next Moonfire consumes all stored healing to increase its damage dealt.
          • Feral/Guardian/Balance: Store 10% of your damage, up to 120% spell power. Your next Regrowth consumes all stored damage to increase its healing.
      • Balance
        • Lunar Shrapnel has been redesigned – Starfall’s stars have a chance to deal an additional 25% damage to nearby enemies when they damage an enemy afflicted by Moonfire. Deals reduced damage beyond 8 targets.
        • Umbral Intensity – Now additive and the tooltip has been changed to the following: Solar Eclipse increases the damage of Wrath by an additional 10/20%. Lunar Eclipse increases the critical strike chance of Starfire by an additional 10/20%.
        • Sundered Firmament – Astral Power generation is now correctly granting 25% of Fury of Elune’s Astral Power generation.
        • Stellar Flare – No longer generates Astral Power when granted by Stellar Inspiration.
        • The chance for Shooting Stars to occur has been reduced.
        • Wild Mushrooms no longer have nameplates.
      • Feral
        • Rip – Damage increased by 10%.
        • Ferocious Bite – Damage decreased by 10%.
        • Thrash – Damage increased by 25%.
        • Rake – Damage increased by 25%.
        • In addition to the above rebalancing, Shred, Swipe, Brutal Slash, Rake, Thrash, Ferocious Bite, Rip, Primal Wrath damage reduced by 10%.
        • Ferocious Bites during Convoke the Spirits hit as if 4 combo points were spent (was 5).
          • Developers’ note: Convoke the Spirits damage needs to be tuned down, and the vast majority of Convoke’s damage comes from the Ferocious Bites it casts. Reducing the likelihood for Convoke to cast Ferocious Bite would increase the variability in the damage a single Convoke does in a way that could increase the dissatisfaction of getting a “bad Convoke.” This change reduces Convoke’s damage by about 12% but leave its variance about the same.
        • Tireless Energy – Energy recovery bonus reduced to 8%/15% (was 10%/20%).
        • Sabertooth – Ferocious Bite damage bonus reduced to 15% (was 20%). Bleed damage buff per combo point increased to 5% (was 4%).
        • Dreadful Bleeding – Damage bonus increased to 20% (was 15%).
        • Frenzied Assault – Effect reduced to 125% (was 150%).
        • Tear Open Wounds – Effect reduced to 60% (was 75%).
        • Rip and Tear – Bleed duration changed to 8 seconds (was 6 seconds) and bleed damage no longer incorporates the effect of Sabertooth’s Rip damage bonus.
        • Rampant Ferocity – Effect reduced to 20% (was 25%).
        • Bloodtalons – Effect reduced to 25% (was 30%).
        • Fixed an issue causing damage dealt by Rampant Ferocity to be reduced by armor.
        • Fixed issues causing Double-Clawed Rake to not choose targets for second Rake intelligently.
      • Restoration
        • Nature’s Splendor – Now increases the effectiveness of Nature’s Swiftness’s healing bonus by 35% (was 50%).
        • Dreamstate – Increased cooldown reduction to 15 seconds (was 12 seconds).
        • Soul of the Forest – Healing bonus to Wild Growth decreased to 60% (was 75%).
        • Unstoppable Growth – Now decreases Wild Growth’s falloff by 15%/30% (was 20%/40%).
        • Verdancy – Healing increased by 125%.
        • Convoke the Spirits – Flourishes cast by Convoke the Spirits now last 4 seconds and extend healing over time effects by 4 seconds.
        • Embrace the Dream – Healing increased by 20%.
        • Nurturing Dormancy – Now extends Rejuvenation by 1 second (was 2 seconds), up to 3 seconds (was 6 seconds).
        • Invigorate – Lifeblooms and Rejuvenations affected by Invigorate now complete 200% faster (was 100%).
        • Power of the Archdruid – Now causes your next Rejuvenation or Regrowth to apply to 2 additional allies (was 3).
    • EVOKER
      • Devastation
        • The starter build has been updated to use more appropriate talents.
        • Fire Breath has been redesigned – Empowering Fire Breath now shifts the proportion of damage between the instant effect and the periodic effect. Damage coefficients have been reduced by 15%, but total damage dealt has been increased by ~15%.
        • Blast Furnace has been redesigned – Fire Breath damage over time lasts 2 seconds / 4 seconds longer.
        • Heat Wave – Now affects all damage, not just periodic damage.
        • Eternity Surge – Damage radius has been increased to 12 yards (was 8 yards).
      • Preservation
        • The starter build has been updated to use more appropriate talents.
        • Lifebind has swapped places with Call of Ysera in the tree.
        • Lifeforce Mender – Now a 2 point node (was 3).
    • MAGE
      • General
        • Teleport: Valdrakken and Portal: Valdrakken have been added. These can be learned from the Portal Trainer in Valdrakken at level 62 and level 68 respectively.
        • Frostbolt deals 50% additional damage in PvP combat (was 100%).
      • Arcane
        • Nether Precision moved to Impetus position
        • Impetus moved to Slipstream position
        • Slipstream now available directly after Crackling Energy and Nether Precision
        • Arcing Cleave and Resonance swapped positions in the tree.
        • Nether Precision – Fixed an issue with this consuming a charge of the buff if a clearcasted Arcane Missiles was queued up after casting Arcane Blast.
      • Fire
        • Master of Flame swapped positions with Pyromaniac/Firefall choice node.
    • MONK
      • Mistweaver
        • Overflowing Mists – Now heals for 1%/2% of max health (was 1.5%/3%).
        • Invoker’s Delight – Now has an 8 second duration with Gift of the Celestials (was 7 seconds).
        • Enveloping Mist – Increased healing by 12.5%.
        • Rising Sun Kick – Increased damage by 25% for Mistweavers. Mana cost increased to 2.5% of base mana (was 1.5%).
        • Tiger Palm – Increased damage by 40% for Mistweavers.
        • Blackout Kick – Reduced damage by 20% for Mistweavers.
      • Windwalker
        • Strike of the Windlord damage has been adjusted.
        • Fixed an issue preventing Forbidden Touch from functioning.
        • Mark of the Crane – Now correctly grants its passive when talented.
        • Empowered Tiger Lightning – Now correctly grants its passive when talented.
    • PALADIN
      • Holy
        • Glimmer of Light – Healing and damage increased by 20%.
        • Divine Purpose and Awakening can no longer trigger from Second Sunrise.
    • PRIEST
      • Class Tree
        • Fade (Rank 2) – Removed. Functionality is now a part of base Fade.
        • Focused Will (Rank 2) – Removed. Discipline and Holy passively have the rank 2 effect.
      • Discipline
        • Mind Blast – Damage increased by 38%.
      • Shadow
        • Talent tree has been rearranged.
        • Dark Void – Cooldown no longer affected by Haste.
        • Shadow Crash – Cooldown no longer affected by Haste.
        • Mind Blast – Generates 6 Insanity (was 8). Damage reduced by 20%.
        • Mind Spike – Generates 4 Insanity (was 6). Damaged reduced by 50%.
        • Auspicious Spirits – Generates 1 Insanity (was 2).
        • Vampiric Touch – Generates 4 Insanity (was 5).
        • Shadow Word: Pain – Generates 3 Insanity (was 4).
        • Mind Flay: Insanity – Generates 4 Insanity per tick (was 6).
        • Idol of C’Thun – Mind Flay from Void Tendril generates 2 Insanity per tick (was 3). Mind Sear from Void Lasher now generates 2 Insanity per tick (was 1), and no longer generates additional Insanity based on number of targets hit.
        • Mind Flay – Generates 2 Insanity per tick (was 3).
        • Mindbender – Generates 3 Insanity per melee attack (was 5).
        • Hallucinations – Generates 4 Insanity (was 6).
        • Dark Void – Generates 15 Insanity (was 20). Applies Shadow Word: Pain to 15 additional targets (was 8).
        • Echoing Void – Damage reduced by 50%.
        • Idol of Yogg-Saron – Requires 100 Shadowy Apparitions (was 200). Damage of Void Spike increased by 1100%.
        • Surge of Darkness – Increases the damage of Mind Spike by 200% (was 50%).
        • Mind Sear – Damage increased by 115%.
        • Devouring Plague – Damage increased by 30%.
        • Void Bolt – Damage increased by 80%.
        • Coalescing Shadows – Increases the damage of Mind Spike and Mind Blast by 10% (was 20%).
        • Mind Melt – Increases the critical strike chance of Mind Blast by 25% (was 50%).
    • ROGUE
      • General
        • Instant Poison – Damage reduced by 21%.
      • Outlaw
        • Restless Crew – Removed.
        • New Talent: Improved Adrenaline Rush – Generate full combo points when you gain Adrenaline Rush, and again when it ends.
        • Between the Eyes – Now baseline (was talented).
        • New Talent: Improved Between the Eyes – Critical hits with Between the Eyes deal four times normal damage.
        • Some Outlaw talents have changed positions to account for the above change.
        • Keep it Rolling – Cooldown increased to 7 minutes (was 5 minutes).
        • Dreadblades – Cooldown increased to 2 minutes (was 1.5 minutes).
      • Subtlety
        • Improved Shadow Dance – Increases duration of Shadow Dance by 1/2 seconds (was 2/4 seconds).
    • SHAMAN
      • Enhancement
        • Windfury Totem functionality has been adjusted:
          • Main-hand auto attack interaction is unchanged.
          • Off-hand attacks can trigger an off-hand Windfury attack. This is an actual real “auto attack”, which means things like Flametongue Weapon, or whatever other effects may activate from off-hand attacks, can now potentially happen from this bonus attack.
          • Windfury Totem extra attacks can no longer miss. Targets can still dodge or parry these attacks, they are just no longer able to miss.
          • Enhancement Shaman who are under the effects of Ascendance can now benefit from Windfury Totem if they are auto-attacking from outside of melee range range with Windlash.
    • WARLOCK
      • Affliction
        • Nightfall – Now causes Drain Soul to channel 50% faster.
    • WARRIOR
      • Class Developer Notes
        • Our focus continues to be on bug fixing and tuning, things are progressing well here, and many small fixes have not been mentioned in the update notes.
        • We’ve also been working on the Rage economy across the Warrior class and have been taking small steps to reduce Rage generation throughout the Beta.
        • We’re purposely taking a measured approach here as we feel all three specializations are in fun places to play and part of that is due to the availability of Rage.
        • In turn, all three specializations should feel their Rage economy reduced a small amount in this update.
        • We’ve removed Wrenching Impact. We’d like to provide a different choice node for Heroic Leap but will not be looking to do this for the launch of Dragonflight as our priorities are currently on stability and tuning.
      • Class Tree
        • Avatar now appears on the personal resource bar when on cooldown
        • Seismic Reverberation (Arms / Fury) – The extra hit from Whirlwind now deals 30% of Whirlwind’s damage (was 50%).
        • Barbaric Training (Arms) – Slam and Whirlwind’s damage bonus reduced to 30% (was 40%) and now increases the Rage cost by 10 (was 5).
        • Thunderous Words – Damage bonus for Bleed effects reduced to 15% (was 20%).
        • Avatar – Generates 10 Rage (was 15).
        • Heroic Throw (Protection) – Now has a cooldown of 1 second.
        • Titanic Throw – Now has a cooldown of 3 seconds for Protection and 8 seconds for Arms and Fury.
        • Wrenching Impact has been removed.
        • Sidearm – Tooltip now matches the chance to trigger correctly.
        • Shockwave (Protection) – Base damage increased by 50%.
      • Arms
        • Storm of Swords – Damage bonus granted to Whirlwind reduced to 175% (was 200%).
        • Seasoned Soldier – Grants 20% bonus Rage from crits (was 30%).
        • Improved Overpower – Overpower deals 10% increased damage (was 5%).
        • Critical Thinking – Now refunds 5% of the Rage spent on Execute per rank (was 10%).
        • Skullsplitter – Cooldown is no longer modified by Haste.
        • Bloodsurge – Chance to grant Rage reduced to 15% (was 20%).
        • Deft Experience – Grants 0.45% increase to Tactician (was 0.5%).
      • Fury
        • Slaughtering Strikes – Auras now apply correctly and will no longer duplicate.
        • Improved Whirlwind – Multi target proc charges now appear in the personal resource bar.
        • Meat Cleaver – Whirlwind damage bonus reduced to 20% (was 25%).
        • Storm of Swords – Damage bonus of Whirlwind reduced to 70% (was 100%) and Whirlwind’s cooldown increased to 7 seconds (was 6 seconds).
        • Odyn’s Fury – Generates 15 Rage (was 20).
        • Raging Blow damage has been increased by 8%.
        • Crushing Blow damage has been increased by 3%.
      • Protection
        • Unbreakable Will – Now correctly applies to party members.
        • Revenge – Damage reduced to 45% (was 53%).
        • Thunderlord – Each enemy hit by Thunderclap reduces the remaining cooldown of Demoralizing Shout by 1 second up to 3 seconds (was up to 4 seconds).
        • Booming Voice – Generates 30 Rage (was 40).
        • Champion’s Bulwark – Grants 20 bonus Rage (was 30).
        • Violent Outburst – Now causes Shield Slam and Thunderclap to generate 50% additional Rage, rather than 30 and 10 additional Rage.
        • Impenetrable Wall – Now grants Shield Slam 3 extra Rage (was 5).
        • Heavy Repercussions – Now grants Shield Slam 2 extra Rage (was 3).
        • Champion’s Bulwark – No longer consumes a Charge of Shield Block or resets Shield Blocks cooldown.
        • Dance of Death – Now applies to your current Ravager and any future Ravager casts within the next 2 minutes.
        • Bloodsurge – Chance to grant Rage reduced to 15% (was 20%).
        • Bloodborne – Damage bonus granted to Bleeds now 10% (was 15%).

PROFESSIONS

  • Crafting Recipes now have a more representative Quality difficulty. Feedback on the difficulty of achieving a certain quality for any given piece of crafted gear is very welcome.
  • MINING
    • In this week’s build, we’ve updated a large majority of Mining nodes that were previously inaccessible. If you’re an avid Miner, please let us know how the current state of node density and placement feels!
  • Known Issue: Minimap tracking of Ore, Fish & Herbs can sometimes not display properly. If this is happening, please disable and enable tracking to resolve this.

USER INTERFACE AND ACCESSIBILITY

  • NEW HUD UI
    • Unit frame art updated
      • Target of Target
      • Minor Mobs
      • Boss Frames
    • EDIT MODE
      • Added a slider to adjust the sizes of Unit Frames of player, target, and party.
  • Added Dragonflight credits

Feedback: Dragonriding

Quote from: Blizzard

Hello Dragonriders!

With the next build, we wanted to note a few things:

  • Players who unlock new customizations can now see them marked with a “NEW” tag when visiting the Rostrum of Transformation
  • We’ve made improvements to the Vigor bar to better indicate when the player is charging
  • Additional Winds of the Isles have been added to Thaldraszus for smoother navigation to Tyrhold
  • Winds of the Isles now provides a slight boost forward to better enable travel post-boost
  • Drake and Rider Training has swapped places with Redirection on the Dragonriding Skill Track
    • This provides players with an additional point of maximum Vigor as part of the tutorial

Dragonflight Feedback 4 October 2022: Season 1 Class Sets

Quote from: Blizzard

Thank you all for your feedback on and discussion around the new Class Set bonuses. It’s helpful to read your concerns as we continue to work on them, and we want to take a moment to share some clarifications and updates. The updates in this post aren’t everything we’re working on – we’ll share more as we make progress.

We’d like to start with a note on tuning. Class tuning is ongoing, and some bonuses are farther along in the tuning process than others. That said, feedback on tuning is still valuable, especially around how bonuses affect your rotation or how often they’ll be active.

Next, some corrections:

  • The Preservation Evoker (2) Set Bonus will increase the critical heal chance of Reversion by 25%, not 5%.
  • The Protection Paladin (4) Set Bonus was missing some values. It should read “Casting Hammer of the Righteous / Blessed Hammer increases your Parry by 4% for 10 seconds and extends the duration of Versatility of Light by 1.0 seconds.”
  • The Elemental Shaman (2) Set Bonus should be 2.5%, not 2-3%.
  • The Elemental Shaman (4) Set Bonus should include Elemental Blast. This has been corrected. In general set bonuses will affect talented abilities that replace other abilities.

Here are some more details about how some bonuses work:

  • The Enhancement Shaman (4) Set Bonus only affects abilities that are on cooldown.
  • We’re aware that Fire Blast does not benefit from the Fire Mage (4) Set Bonus critical strike bonus – we formatted it that way for brevity. We may revise it to separate the bonuses.
  • The Affliction Warlock (4) Set Piece grants 40% increased damage to one cast for each charge of Cruel Epiphany – the damage bonus does not stack. We’ll try to revise the description to make this clearer.
  • The Vengeance Demon Hunter (4) Set Bonus activates at the same rate whether you are using Spirit Bomb or Soul Cleave. You will not have to talent into Spirit Bomb to maximize its value.
  • The Mistweaver Monk (4) Set Bonus only extends the duration of Renewing Mist once for each Essence Font bolt – it does not trigger from Essence Font healing over time. There is currently a bug preventing Essence Font bolts from Faeline Stomp from activating the bonus, but we’ll fix that.

One of the things we’re keeping an eye on is: bonuses that have too much influence on your talent choices or build. For instance, we’re changing the Frost Mage bonus to not empower Frost Bolt so specifically:

  • (2) Set Bonus: Ice Lance and Frozen Orb damage increased by 10%.
  • (4) Set Bonus: Consuming Fingers of Frost increases spell damage by 8% for 6 seconds.

We’re looking forward to sharing more as we continue refining these bonuses. Thank you so much!

Hotfixes: 3 October 2022

A small hotfix was released last night to add the season 4 pvp gear cache to the heirloom broker in Oribos, next to the flightmaster.

Quote from: Blizzard

OCTOBER 3, 2022

Items and Rewards

  • Dara the Heirloom Broker located in Oribos sells the following bind-on-account item:
    • Eternal Equipment Chest – Contains one piece of item level 275 unranked PvP gear. The chest can only be purchased with Conquest by a character with a 1400 or higher rating in any PvP bracket.

Dragonflight Beta 30 September 2022: Season 1 Tier Sets, Vault of the Incarnates Raid Testing Cancelled, Druid & Shaman Updates

Last night Blizzard posted the tier set bonuses for all 38 specs which will be testable on the Valdrakken realm with the next beta build! They also announced that the raid testing for Normal and LFR difficulty has been postponed and they posted updates for Druids and Shamans.

Quote from: Blizzard

We’re excited to share the bonuses you’ll discover on Class Sets in Dragonflight. To add to the excitement, these bonuses will be playable in the next beta build!

Dragonflight Class Set Armor Design

We set a few goals for this round of Class Sets. First and foremost, these Class Set bonuses are not as complex as the effects on 9.2 Class Sets. The new talent trees have resulted in a lot of changes to classes in Dragonflight, and we want you all to be able to play those classes without Class Sets that significantly change your rotations or resource economies. This is not to say that we won’t make more complex or rotationally impactful Class Sets in the future. But you’ll find that these bonuses generally take a light touch on features like resource generation and cooldown manipulation.

Another goal that came from wanting you all to have a chance to get familiar with Dragonflight’s new classes is that we want these Class Sets to have minimal impact on your talent choices. We want you to be able to play the way you choose in whatever content you prefer. As a result, they generally modify core class abilities or talents that are learned near the top of the tree. They may have synergies with talents further down the tree, but they shouldn’t make you feel like specific builds or capstone talents are “required.”

Acquiring Set Armor in Dragonflight

When Sets returned as a major endgame feature in 9.2, we debuted the Creation Catalyst as a tool for players to access and complete their sets, with the following goals:

Players of all types should have access to powerful bonuses and fun appearances even if raiding is not their preferred method of engagement.

New and returning players “catching up” should not have a monumental task to become ready to fight alongside friends.

WoW can confidently carry the system forward as an evergreen feature for players to learn and understand intuitively.

We think those goals were met. And while there’s room for improvement (both in understanding the means by which charges accrue, as well tuning prohibitive currency costs for alts), we’re happy to say that the Catalyst (which will be known as the Inspiration Catalyst in Dragonflight, and just the ‘Catalyst’ moving forward) will return to the Isles as a companion system to Class Sets for the foreseeable future.

We’ll have more details to share on everything Catalyst-related in a future update, but for now it’s worth mentioning that we’re planning on keeping the unlock cadence the same to start – that is to say, the 6th week after the Mythic Raid becomes available in Dragonflight Season 1.

Playing with These Bonuses and Providing Feedback

To try these set bonuses in the Beta, log into an endgame realm and look for Setzertauren near the current PvP and professions vendors in Orgrimmar and Stormwind City. Please share bugs you find via the in-game bug reporting tool and your feedback about the bonuses in this thread.

Set Bonuses

Death Knight

  • Blood
    • (2) Set Bonus: When a Bone Shield charge is consumed you have a 20% chance to generate one rune.
    • (4) Set Bonus: After 10 Bone Shield charges are consumed gain 10% damage and Haste for 10 seconds.
  • Frost
    • (2) Set Bonus: Obliterate and Frostscythe critical strike damage is increased by 15%.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Obliterate and Frostscythe have a 15% chance not to consume Killing Machine.
  • Unholy
    • (2) Set Bonus: Bursting a festering wound grants your ghoul Vile Infusion, increasing their damage and attack speed by 10% for 5 seconds.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Your primary ghoul’s attacks have a 15% chance to increase your damage and Haste by 10% for 8 seconds. This chance is increased during Vile Infusion.

Demon Hunter

  • Havoc
    • (2) Set Bonus: Chaos Strike and Blade Dance chance to critically strike is increased by 5% and their critical strike damage is increased by 10%.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Chaos Strike and Blade Dance have a 20% chance to increase damage you deal by 8% for 6 seconds. Your critical strikes increase this chance.
  • Vengeance
    • (2) Set Bonus: Shear / Fracture deals 20% more damage, generates 20% more Fury, and have a 15% chance to generate an additional Soul Fragment.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Spirit Bomb and Soul Cleave have a 12% chance to deal 50% more damage and cause targets they hit to deal 15% less damage to you for 8 seconds.

Druid

  • Balance
    • (2) Set Bonus: Starsurge and Starfall increase the damage of your next Wrath or Starfire by 50%, stacking up to 3 times.
    • (4) Set Bonus: When you enter Eclipse, your next Starsurge or Starfall costs no Astral Power and deals 50% increased damage.
  • Feral
    • (2) Set Bonus: Rip & Ferocious Bite damage increased by 5%.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Finishing moves grant 1% crit for each combo point spent for 5 seconds.
  • Guardian
    • (2) Set Bonus: Gore has a 5% increased chance to trigger. Gore also increases Mangle’s damage by 10%.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Mangle and Thrash deal 5% increased damage. Mangle heals you for 100% of the damage it deals.
  • Restoration
    • (2) Set Bonus: Rejuvenation, Lifebloom, Wild Growth, Efflorescence, and Tranquility chance to critically heal is increased by 10%.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Efflorescence critical heals increase the healing of your next Wild Growth by 10%, stacking up to 5 times. Lifebloom critical heals reduce the cooldown of Nature’s Swiftness by 2 seconds.

Evoker

  • Devastation
    • (2) Set Bonus: Increases Empower spells’ chance to critically strike by 5% and Empower spells increase your chance to critically strike by 5% for 6 seconds.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Empower spells have a 25% chance to grant you 6 seconds of Fury of the Aspects without causing Sated.
  • Preservation
    • (2) Set Bonus: Empower spells increase Reversion’s chance to critically heal by 5% for 6 seconds.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Reversion healing has a chance to cause your next Living Flame to cast instantly and deal 20% increased damage or healing. Stacks up to 2 times.

Hunter

  • Beast Mastery
    • (2) Set Bonus: Kill Command damage increased by 10% and it has a 10% chance to reset the cooldown on Barbed Shot.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Barbed Shot has a 50% chance to make your next Cobra Shot or Multi-Shot consume no focus.
  • Marksmanship
    • (2) Set Bonus: Arcane Shot & Multi Shot critical hits cause your next Aimed Shot to cast 50% faster and cause the target to bleed for 20% of damage dealt over 6 seconds.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Ranged auto-attacks have a 10% chance to give your next Arcane Shot or Multi Shot 100% chance to critically hit.
  • Survival
    • (2) Set Bonus: Raptor Strike / Mongoose Strike, Carve, and Butchery damage increased by 10%.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Raptor Strike, Mongoose Bite, Carve, and Butchery have a 10% chance to make your next Raptor Strike, Mongoose Bite, Carve, or Butchery cost no Focus.

Mage

  • Arcane
    • (2) Set Bonus: For each Arcane Charge, Arcane Blast critical strike chance is increased by 5% and Arcane Explosion critical strike chance is increased by 3%.
    • (4) Set Bonus: When Arcane Blast or Arcane Explosion critically strikes at least one target, the critical strike chance of your next Arcane Barrage is increased by 10%, up to 4 stacks.
  • Fire
    • (2) Set Bonus: Pyroblasts and Flamestrikes cast with Hot Streak deal 10% increased damage.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Fire Blast, Phoenix Flames, and Fireball deal 10% increased damage and their chance to critically strike is increased by 10%.
  • Frost
    • (2) Set Bonus: Ice Lance and Frozen Orb damage increased by 10%.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Consuming Fingers of Frost increases Blizzard damage by 25% and Frostbolt damage by 50% for 6 seconds.

Monk

  • Brewmaster
    • (2) Set Bonus: Hitting an enemy with Tiger Palm or Spinning Crane Kick grants Brewmaster’s Rhythm, increasing damage dealt and reducing damage taken by 1% for 10 seconds, stacking up to 4 times.
    • (4) Set Bonus: For each stack of Brewmaster’s Rhythm, Purifying Brew clears 3% more of your damage delayed with stagger.
  • Mistweaver
    • (2) Set Bonus: Healing from your Enveloping Mist, Essence Font, and Vivify is increased by 15% on targets with your Renewing Mist.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Essence Font and Vivify healing are increased by 10% and your Renewing Mists on targets healed by Essence Font are extended by 1 seconds for each heal.
  • Windwalker
    • (2) Set Bonus: Fists of Fury increases the damage dealt by your next 2 Rising Sun Kicks or Spinning Crane Kicks by 30%.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Fists of Fury now enhances your next 3 Rising Sun Kicks or Spinning Crane Kicks and enhanced kicks increase your Versatility during your next Fists of Fury by 5%, stacking up to 3 times.

Paladin

  • Holy
    • (2) Set Bonus: Holy Shock increases the critical hit chance of your next heal within 10 seconds by 10%.
    • (4) Set Bonus: When your direct healing spells critically strike, your next Holy Shock deals 30% increased damage or healing.
  • Protection
    • (2) Set Bonus: Avenger’s Shield grants you Versatility of Light, increasing the Versatility of you and your closest ally by 4% for 4 seconds.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Casting Hammer of the Righteous / Blessed Hammer increases your Parry by X% for Y seconds and extends the duration of Versatility of Light by 1.0 seconds.
  • Retribution
    • (2) Set Bonus: Blade of Justice and Judgment grant Crusader’s Strength, increasing the damage of your next Crusader’s Strike or Consecreate by 100%, stacking up to 2.
    • (4) Set Bonus: When you consume Crusader’s Strength, the damage of your next Blade of Justice is increased by 50% for each stack of Crusader’s Strength consumed.

Priest

  • Discipline
    • (2) Set Bonus: Casting Power Word: Shield increases the effectiveness of your next direct damage or healing spell by 10%.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Penance increases the strength of your next Power Word: Shield by 100% of its damage or 30% of its healing.
  • Holy
    • (2) Set Bonus: Casting Prayer of Mending reduces the cast time of your next Heal or Prayer of Healing by 1.0 seconds and increases their Holy Word cooldown reduction effect by 2.0 seconds.
    • (4) Set Bonus: When Holy Word: Serenity or Holy Word: Sanctify finish their cooldown, you gain 15% critical strike chance for 8 seconds.
  • Shadow
    • (2) Set Bonus: Mind Blast increases the damage of your next Devouring Plague or Mind Sear by 20%, stacking up to 3 times.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Devouring Plague and Mind Sear increase your haste by 5% for 8 seconds.

Rogue

  • Assassination
    • (2) Set Bonus: Envenom also increases your weapon poisons’ damage by 10%.
    • (4) Set Bonus: When your weapon poisons deal direct damage, you have a 50% chance to gain Septic Wounds, increasing your Bleed damage by 2% for 8 seconds, stacking up to 5 times.
  • Outlaw
    • (2) Set Bonus: Dispatch increases the damage of your next Sinister Strike or Ambush by 20% per combo point spent.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Half-cost uses of Pistol Shot granted by Sinister Strike increase the damage of your next Dispatch by 50%.
  • Subtlety
    • (2) Set Bonus: Eviscerate and Black Powder increase the damage and critical strike chance of your next Backstab, Shadowstrike, or Shuriken Storm by 2% per combo point spent.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Backstab, Shadowstrike, and Shuriken Storm critical strikes increase the damage of Eviscerate and Rupture by 15% and the damage of Black Powder by 8% for 6 seconds.

Shaman

  • Elemental
    • (2) Set Bonus: Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, and Lava Burst increase the damage of your next Earth Shock or Earthquake by 2-3%, stacking 10 times.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Casting Earth Shock or Elemental Blast or Earthquake increases your Mastery by 10% for 10 seconds.
  • Enhancement
    • (2) Set Bonus: Stormstrike increases the damage of your next Lava Lash by 10% and causes it to generate 1 additional stack of Maelstrom Weapon.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Consuming Maelstrom Weapon stacks reduces the cooldown of Stormstrike, Lava Lash, Crash Lightning, Flame Shock, or Frost Shock by 0.5 seconds per stack, chosen randomly.
  • Restoration
    • (2) Set Bonus: While Healing Stream Totem/Cloudburst Totem is active, your chance to critically strike is increased by 10%.
    • (4) Set Bonus: When Healing Stream Totem/Cloudburst Totem expires or dies, you gain 10% Haste for 10 seconds.

Warlock

  • Affliction
    • (2) Set Bonus: When Agony grants you a Soul Shard, you have a chance to gain Cruel Inspiration, increasing your haste by 12% for 6 seconds.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Cruel Inspiration also grants 2 charges of Cruel Epiphany, up to 5 charges. Each charge of Cruel Epiphany increases the damage of your next Malefic Rapture or Seed of Corruption by 40%.
  • Demonology
    • (2) Set Bonus: Demon Bolt and Felstorm damage increased by 20%.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Demon Bolt has a chance to make your next Hand of Gul’dan instant and deal 50% increased damage.
  • Destruction
    • (2) Set Bonus: Consuming Soul Shards has a chance to grant you Chaos Maelstrom, increasing your critical strike chance by 10% for 10 seconds.
    • (4) Set Bonus: During Chaos Maelstrom, your Chaos Bolt, Conflagrate, and Incinerate critical strikes explode on the target, dealing 2-10% of damage dealt to enemies within 8 yds. Damage reduced beyond 5 targets.

Warrior

  • Arms
    • (2) Set Bonus: Mortal Strike and Cleave damage and chance to critically strike increased by 10%.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Mortal Strike, Cleave, & Execute critical strikes increase your damage and critical strike chance by 5% for 6 seconds.
  • Fury
    • (2) Set Bonus: Execute’s chance to critically strike increased by 10%.
    • (4) Set Bonus: Sudden Death’s chance to reset the cooldown of Execute and make it usable on any target, regardless of health, is greatly increased.
  • Protection
    • (2) Set Bonus: Revenge grants you Vanguard’s Determination, increasing your damage done and reducing damage you take by 4% for 5 seconds.
    • (4) Set Bonus: During Vanguard’s Determination, gain Ignore Pain equal to 10% of damage you deal.

Vault of the Incarnates Raid Testing Schedule

Quote from: Blizzard

Greetings raiders,

The team has been working diligently on the full Vault of the Incarnates raid experience, but unfortunately it won’t be ready in time for the currently scheduled Normal and Raid Finder weekend play tests. We’ll be postponing Normal and Raid Finder tests at this time. Please keep an eye out on this thread for further updates and when they have been rescheduled.

We hope that you’re enjoying the Vault of the Incarnates raid experience so far and we look forward to seeing you on the Beta for the second raid test at 22:00 CEST!

Feedback: Druids

Quote from: Blizzard

Greetings, Balance Druids.

After reviewing the performance of Balance Druids during yesterday’s raid testing, we developed a number of changes we’re implementing for today’s raid testing. If you encounter issues with your Talent Tree, please relog. Here are the changes:

  • Lunar Shrapnel has been redesigned:
    • Starfall’s stars have a chance to deal an additional 25% damage to nearby enemies when they damage an enemy afflicted by Moonfire. Deals reduced damage beyond 8 targets.
  • Sundered Firmament’s Astral Power generation now correctly grants 25% of Fury of Elune’s Astral Power generation.
  • Stellar Flare no longer generates Astral Power when granted by Stellar Inspiration.
  • The chance for Shooting Stars to occur has been reduced.
  • Wild Mushrooms no longer have nameplates and are now untargetable.
  • Furor has been redesigned:
    • Protector of the Pack [Feral/Balance/Guardian] – Store 10% of your damage, up to a specific amount. Your next Regrowth consumes all stored damage to increase its healing.
    • Protector of the Pack [Restoration] – Store 10% of your effective healing, up to a specific amount. Your next Regrowth consumes all stored healing to increase its healing.
    • Note: The tooltip of Protector of the Pack will appear broken in-game. We hope to have this fixed soon.

Our main goal with these changes is to rein in the amount of Astral Power that Balance Druids are generating passively, as well as how much Astral Power is being credited to passives such as Primordial Arcanic Pulsar.

Thank you for your continued feedback and suggestions! We’ll continue to watch class performance across the board and adjust whenever the need arises.

Feedback: Shamans

Quote from: Blizzard

Hi Enhancement Shaman,

A change is coming next week to how Windfury Totem works. These changes have no impact on the Windfury Weapon imbue, nothing is changing with how that works.

For some quick context, in Shadowlands, Windfury Totem can only activate from main-hand auto-attacks, and causes a main-hand auto-attack swing when it activates.

The next build you receive should have Windfury Totem changed to work this way:

  • Main-hand auto attack interaction is unchanged, except for the miss note below.
  • Off-hand attacks can proc an off-hand Windfury attack. This is an actual real “auto attack”, which means things like Flametongue Weapon, or whatever other effects may activate from off-hand attacks, can now potentially happen from this bonus attack.
  • Windfury Totem extra attacks can no longer miss. This has very little impact on 2h users, as an Arms Warrior or Retribution Paladin almost never see a miss in their combat log, however dual-wield users have a high miss chance. In Shadowlands, this miss chance both applies to the chance to get the Windfury Totem’s extra attack, and the extra attack itself can then miss. Targets can still dodge or parry these attacks, they are just no longer able to miss.
  • Bonus bug fix: Enhancement Shaman who are under the effects of Ascendance can now benefit from Windfury Totem if they are auto-attacking from outside of melee range range with Windlash.

We will be monitoring any unintended side effects from this change, but this should help make Windfury Totem more valuable to more specs within the game.

Hotfixes 29 September 2022, The Winds of Wisdom 50% Experience Buff Returns!, Frostbrood Proto-Wyrm No Longer Earnable At Dragonflight Release

On the live retail side of things we also had a couple of bits of news. A new hotfix was deployed, the 50% experience buff is returning next week and the Frostbrood Proto-Wyrm will no longer be earnable after Dragonflight goes live!

Hotfixes 29 September 2022

Quote from: Blizzard

SEPTEMBER 29, 2022

Items and Rewards

  • The Forgotten Proto-Vault in Zereth Mortis no longer requires the World Quest “Frog’it” to appear.

The Winds of Wisdom 50% Experience Buff Returns!

Quote from: Blizzard

If you’re just returning after a hiatus from World of Warcraft, leveling another character (or two), or preparing to get ready for the Dragonflight expansion then this is the perfect time to jump into the game. Beginning the week of October 4 with each region’s local weekly reset, all World of Warcraft* players level 10-59 will gain the experience buff called “Winds of Wisdom,” which will increase experience gains by 50%!

Don’t delay. The winds will shift once more when the new dracthyr Evoker becomes playable during the Dragonflight pre-expansion patch, and the experience buff will no longer be available.

 

* Experience boost not available in World of Warcraft Classic titles.

Frostbrood Proto-Wyrm No Longer Earnable At Dragonflight Release

Quote from: Blizzard
Complete the Death Knight starting experience in Wrath of the Lich King Classic before the release of Dragonflight on November 28 and get a Frostbrood Proto-Wyrm mount in World of Warcraft.

Dragonflight Group Loot Clarifications, Dragonriding Changes

After last night’s DF release announcement and Season 1 details players expressed some concerns surrounding the way they were implementing Group Loot in Season 1, so Scariizard took to the forums to elaborate further on how it will work. The blues also highlighted some changes that were added to Dragonriding in this week’s beta build.

Dragonflight Group Loot Clarifications

Quote from: Blizzard

Hey folks, going to respond to add some clarity that might alleviate some concerns, or at the very least better communicate how things will be.

As the title says, these would be for Dragonflight Season 1 – which means the Group Loot being always on is not just for beta. That said, we’ve improved Group Loot a lot from when it was last shown in 2016, and are continuing to work to remove other edge cases. For example:

  • In the past, Need/Greed only knew if something was equippable or the right armor type, not if it was meant for your spec or not. This is now changed.
  • First off, you can never Need for anything your class cannot wear. No warriors sniping cloth robes with a need roll and giving it away or trolling.
  • We also have mainspec and offspec functionality built-in, which changes based on the current loot spec you set.
  • Main spec takes priority, then Off spec, then greed. So while a Ret paladin can’t off-spec loot a shield away from a main-spec roll from the Tank, anyone rolling greed could never win it over them. This also means that if you swap specs for a specific fight, like going Holy, you can still main spec roll for your desired items if they come from that boss without having to worry about hurting yourself by being flexible to your group.
  • Players won’t be able to win multiples of the same item – say that 2 sets of Shoulders drop. While you can roll Need on both of them, winning one will ‘remove’ your roll from the other.
  • Additionally, players can’t Need on a piece of loot if they’re wearing the exact piece at the exact item level, though in the event where this occurs but the dropped piece has a Tertiary stat or Socket, that roll would be possible (as those are upgrades).
  • Lastly, even after winning the roll, items remain fully tradeable without restrictions to any player that was eligible as a looter – as-in, if you weren’t locked to that boss previously. Inversely, this means that players who have already killed Boss 1 on Normal for the week can’t join for that boss and have loot traded to them (similarly, the need/greed pane won’t appear for that player).

As many in this thread have speculated, all players in Personal Loot were constantly ‘rolling’ behind the scenes, whether you wanted to or not. It’s not as simple as ‘with group loot you’re rolling against everyone, but in personal loot you’re rolling against fewer’. Changing to Group Loot for raids makes the process of loot acquisition and distribution more transparent and gives players more freedom to trade loot around and allocate it socially if they choose to do so.

Additionally, the current plan is for Group Loot to be active in Looking for Raid, though we’re open to taking action such as increasing the quantity of loot from LFR if the friction proves to be too much there.

On the Topic of BoEs:

Based on feedback and some further consideration, we’re likely not moving forward with Weapons as part of a BoE table just yet. It’s very possible that introducing that level of volatility would make it hard to us to verify how the other BoE changes are working (and if we’d like to support them). It’s on the table for future iteration, but might cause too much unintended chaos at the start of a period of so much systemic change for WoW as a whole.

Thanks for all your feedback thus far, and we hope this at least better clarifies how we envision this working in the near future.

Quote from: Blizzard
That’s correct, dual wielding classes are exempt from this as far as weapons are concerned (assuming the weapon itself is not unique-equipped).
Quote from: Blizzard

We’re working on this, but ideally:

  • If you control a 398 ‘Cool Dragon Ring’ with any tertiary, you cannot roll need on another 398 ‘Cool Dragon Ring’ without a tertiary. It only works one way.
  • This is a little under the hood, but we’re working towards it being so that not all tertiaries are considered equal – it’s valid for a healer to want to roll for an item with leech or some players to roll on an item with a socket, even if they have that exact item and level but it has say, Speed or Indestructible. We’ll see how this works long-term but some version of that is the idea.

And yes, Loot Spec will be set via the character pane under ‘Loot Options’ as it is currently.

Beta Dragonriding Changes

Quote from: Blizzard

Hello Dragonriders!

With the latest build, we wanted to call out a few things:

  • We’ve adjusted the default sensitivity of the pitch up/down keys while Dragonriding.
    • For those wanting to customize this further, you can now adjust the sensitivity of the pitch keys during Dragonriding by typing “/console dragonRidingPitchSensitivity 1” in the chat window. DragonRidingPitchSensitivity scales from 1 to 10 and supports decimals
  • When uncollected, glyphs shine much more brightly
  • You can now shift click dragonriding mounts in the Mount Journal and share your dragon with customizations via chat link.
Quote from: Blizzard

Hello again Dragonriders!

Another dragon glyph improvement worth mentioning:

  • When near an uncollected dragon glyph and on a Dragon Isles drake, you’ll gain a buff called “Dragon Glyph Resonance”, displaying the distance to the relevant uncollected dragon glyph

Dragonflight launching November 28th 2022! Season 1 Timetable Announced

Blizzard just officially announced the Dragonflight release date! And it is November 28th as that potentially leaked document had got the community speculating! Blizzard also posted the Season 1 schedule. Season 1 will start 2 weeks after launch! Check all the details out below:

Mark Your Calendars: The Journey to the Dragon Isles Begins November 28

Quote from: Blizzard

Gather your friends and allies and make ready to soar into new adventures when the World of Warcraft: Dragonflight expansion goes live on November 28.

The ancestral home of dragonkind—the Dragon Isles are awakening, and many long-forgotten secrets are waiting to be uncovered. Heed the call of the dragons as their ancient homelands are revealed once more, beckoning adventurers and treasure seekers alike to unravel the many mysteries waiting for them.

Discover the Dragon Isles

Discover the Dragon Isles and explore four new zones—the Waking Shores, roiling with elemental power; the vast expanse of the Ohn’ahran Plains; the frosty peaks of the Azure Span; and the majestic spires and temples of Thaldraszus—each themed around and revealing more about the ancient dragon aspects.

Meet the Dracthyr Evoker

Players will menace their foes (or empower their allies) as the new dracthyr Evoker, World of Warcraft’s first-ever race and class combination. Able to switch between a humanoid visage and a fearsome draconic form, the dracthyr are highly mobile, and their unique Evoker class can specialize in ranged damage-dealing or in aiding their allies as a healer by harnessing the mystical gifts of dragonkind.  They’ll awake from their slumber in the Forbidden Reach, where they’ll take up their training to join the forces of dragonkind in the defense of the isles.

Ascend to New Heights

Dragonflight introduces Dragonriding, an all-new skill-based method of aerial movement that allows players to take to the skies on the back of their personal Dragon Isles Drake. Players will customize their drake as they progress through the expansion, collecting more appearance options and enabling them to fly farther and faster.

New Talent System

Dragonflight contains major updates to World of Warcraft classes, centering on the re-introduction of talent trees. The new talent system empowers players to make creative and meaningful talent choices without compromising their effectiveness—and most importantly, it gives them meaningful options at every level.

Updated Professions

Express yourself with the updated profession system with new features and tools to fuel the ambitions of crafters of any skill level.

Customize Your User Interface

Customize your User Interface (UI) and experience an updated Heads-Up Display (HUD) as you take on the challenges before you. [LEARN MORE]

New Dungeons

On November 28, Dragonflight will release with eight dungeons—four level-up dungeons, which can be taken on with friends as you work toward the new level cap of 70— and four maximum-level dungeons.

Dragonflight Season 1 and Raid Schedule

Dragonflight Season 1 goes live starting the week of December 12, bringing a new raid—Vault of the Incarnates— an updated rotation of challenging Mythic+ dungeons and a new PvP Season. Mark your calendars for the road ahead, and get ready to take on all new challenges. [LEARN MORE]

The Winds of Wisdom 50% Experience Buff Returns!

It’s a great time to return to World of Warcraft, level a new character, or prepare for the Dragonflight expansion as the Winds of Wisdom buff blows into Azeroth once more. [LEARN MORE]

Pre-Purchase Dragonflight Today!

World of Warcraft: Dragonflight is now available for pre-purchase in-game and through the Blizzard Shop! Pre-purchase World of Warcraft: Dragonflight or the Complete Collection now to unlock a trove of items to aid you in your coming adventures.

The expansion is also available for pre-purchase as a boxed Collector’s Set: in addition to an Epic edition digital key, players can explore Dragonflight’s visual development with the Art of Dragonflight hardcover book, upgrade their set-up with the powerful visage of an Alexstrasza mousepad, and add iconic representations of Azeroth’s five primary dragon flights in a five-pin collector’s set. [LEARN MORE]

Visit the official site to learn more about the Dragonflight expansion and get ready to take on new adventures in Azeroth!

Dragonflight Season 1 and Raid Schedule

Quote from: Blizzard

Dragonflight Season 1 goes live starting the week of December 12, bringing a new raid, an updated rotation of challenging Mythic+ dungeons, and a new PvP Season. Mark your calendars for the road ahead and get ready to take on all new challenges.

New Raid: Vault of the Incarnates

Operation Mechagon
Unravel the mysteries of the Vault of the Incarnates

Vault of the Incarnates is the first raid players will experience in Dragonflight, featuring eight all-new boss encounters.

The Primalists breached the Titan prison used to hold the Incarnates for millennia. Within, Raszageth performs a foul ritual to unleash her siblings so together they can purge the world of the Titans’ influence. The champions of Azeroth must assault this impregnable fortress and break their defenses to end this threat. While many could fall, defeat condemns all the realms to the Incarnates’ reign of fire and blood.

Raid Release Schedule:
  • Week of December 12: Normal, Heroic, and Mythic Vault of the Incarnates will open with the weekly maintenance for each region
  • Week of December 19: Vault of the Incarnates Raid Finder Wing 1 opens
  • Week of January 2: Vault of the Incarnates Raid Finder Wing 2 opens
  • Week of January 16: Vault of the Incarnates Raid Finder Wing 3 opens
Cross-Faction Mythic and Hall of Fame Eligibility

Cross-faction Mythic Vault of the Incarnates will be available from the start. Hall of Fame entries will require at least 16 out of 20 raiders to be from the same guild and faction to be eligible for rewards.  See this support article for more information.

New Dungeon Rotation

Dragonflight Season 1 will feature a new dungeon rotation for Mythic+. Four dungeons from Dragonflight are included, and four returning dungeons from previous expansions. Here’s the full lineup:

  • Ruby Life Pools
  • The Nokhud Offensive
  • The Azure Vault
  • Algeth’ar Academy
  • Halls of Valor (from the Legion™ expansion)
  • Court of Stars (from the Legion™ expansion)
  • Shadowmoon Burial Grounds (from the Warlords of Draenor™ expansion)
  • Temple of the Jade Serpent (from the Mists of Pandaria™ expansion)
Court of Stars
Court of Stars, one of the dungeons returning in Dragonflight Season 1

M+ and PvP Season 1 will also begin the week of December 12 with regional maintenance. For Dragonflight, there will be no loot caps for Mythic+ on the first week, as Mythic Vault of the Incarnates will open at the same time.

Mythic+ Dungeon Affixes

For Season 1, we’re introducing a new affix, but the Necrotic and Inspiring affixes won’t be making an appearance. More information on this new affix will be released at a later date.

A Rewarding New Season Ahead

Dragonflight Season 1 will feature familiar exclusive rewards such as the Ahead of the Curve and Cutting Edge achievements for raids, Keystone Master achievements, rewards for Mythic+, and Gladiator rewards for PvP. Closer to the start of Season 1, we’ll share more information on seasonal rewards and how to obtain them.

Hic Sunt Dracones—”Here be dragons.”

The journey to the Dragon Isles is about to begin. We look forward to joining you in a new age of adventure in Dragonflight. See you in Azeroth!